AM Announcements - May 24

AM Announcements
May 24, 2010

1. Today is Day 167.

2. It is the mission of Speas Elementary School to provide its students with the tools necessary to successfully meet the challenges they will face in a diverse world.

3. Calendar items for this week:

Monday: May 24
EOG Retest Remediation - All students and remediation teachers meet in the gym at 8:15 with Ms. Powell
Interim Reports go home

Tuesday: May 25
EOG Retest Remediation
Web Page Migration to School Wires - Workshop - 2:45-4:00

Wednesday: May 26
EOG Retest Remediation
Web Page Migration to School Wires - Workshop - 2:45-4:00
SolEd Meeting - 3:30-5:00

Thursday: May 27
EOG Retest Remediation

Friday: May 28
EOG Retest Remediation
Dollar Dress Down Day
Box Tops for Education collected

3. Upcoming Calendar Items:

a. 05/31 - Memorial Day - No School

b. 06/01-06/04 - EOG Retest
c. 06/04 - Class Picnics
d. 06/08 - Fifth Grade Celebration - 9:00 - 10:00 AM
e. 06/08 - Fifth Grade Social - 11:30AM -1:30 PM
f. 06/10 - K-4 Honor Roll Assembly - 9:00 AM
g. 06/18 - Report Cards mailed or available for pick-up in the office

4. Remediation begins today and lasts through Friday. All students who did not pass will meet in the gym at 8:15. Ms. Powell will address the students and then the teachers will divide them for remediation.

5. The NCWISE web site has been down all weekend for maintenance so I have been unable to secure the pool of names of students who were enrolled at Speas for 140 days. Once I have done that I can get a picture of our performance regarding AYP in Math and Reading. I did a review of our scores last year and our proficiency numbers for the first administration. Last year, after the 2nd administration, we were 69.9% proficient in Math and 54% proficient in Reading. Currently, after the first administration, we are 63% proficient in Math and 45% proficient in Reading. This 45% does not include the 9 students in grades 3 and 5 who were 1 standard error from Level III. A couple more correct answers on the retest and they will be proficient as well. It appears that we are positioned well to make AYP in reading since we have already reached the 45% level in proficiency. While we have to remove those students who were not enrolled for 140 days, we also have the results of the second administration to add. Math will require diligence but we have 17 students who were 1SE and need only another correct answer or two to be proficient. Getting out of school improvement is within our grasp. We have got to make our students understand this and give their all June 1-4.

7. The address of the blog for staff comment on the information presented to SIT last Tuesday is:

http://2010-11organizationstructureb.blogspot.com/2010/05/2010-2011-structure-organization-and.html

8. Thanks to Ms. Marston and the 3-5 grade teachers for doing such a wonderful job in preparing our testing materials from scanning. We were one of twelve schools with completely clean data. Thanks also to all of you who administered, proctored, or worked alone without your right hands so we could use assistants for testing. It was a long week and we get to do it on a  slightly smalled scale June 1-4.

9. There is no doubt that the first requirement for a composer is to be dead.
Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955)

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.
Tom Lehrer (1928 - )

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
Claud Cockburn (1904 - 1981)

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007), Mother Night