27 Days left to influence, motivate, and educate.  Can you believe this?  This year has gone so incredibly fast.   And, even though 27 days doesn't sound like much, it really is...

3,240 minutes of a reading block in K-3
2,430 minutes of a reading block in 4-5
1,890 minutes of a math block

Let's take advantage of each of these minutes to finish the year strong!


School Board Presentation- Monday
McKinley is presenting at the School Board Meeting this Monday, 4/27 at 6:30pm.  Amanda Gislason, Tom Meagher, Jayne Jacobson, and I will be presenting.  We'd love to have all of you present to support McKinley! 

Formative Assessment Ideas
Below are the formative assessment strategies from our book study meeting.  The document has a lot of strong, effective ways to formatively assess students.  Click here to see the link

Staff Meeting- Monday (4/27)
We will continue our learning work with the book study.  For those of you who haven't been joining our book study, you are still required to attend this staff meeting.  At our meeting, we will go through some building updates and then dig into our work with universal screeners/benchmarking, common assessments, and tracking data.  Woo hoo! 

MCA's
What a crazy week with MCAs!  Thank you to everyone who has been flexible throughout this whole testing season.  It's extremely frustrating to find out you aren't testing and have to quickly adjust plans.  I understand that.  I appreciate everyone who has been flexible and made this a positive experience for our students.  A special thank you to Denise for all her extra hours and work making this work. 

Valet Parking of the Week
My Valet Parking for the Week goes to Amanda Gislason.  Amanda is a stellar art teacher who does whatever it takes to make learning meaningful, purposeful, and connected to our students' lives.  Additionally, Amanda does so much "behind the scenes" at McKinley- organizing the Perpich grant, putting together "The Scoop", Site Team, etc, etc, etc.  There are two things that continually impress me about Amanda- her dedication to all kids and her creative, forward-thinking mind.  Amanda is always looking for ways to make McKinley a great place to learn.  Thank you for all you, Amanda!  


I want to end up my weekly update with a recent phone conversation I had with a parent.  I called the parent regarding a discipline issue.  During our conversation, I explained all the interventions and assistance her child is receiving to help keep the child focused and successful.  At the end of our conversation, she said "I just love that school.  I hope everyone in your school knows how important they are to families." That has resonated with me all day.  The great work you are doing for kids is being appreciated. 

I get more impressed with McKinley each and every day. 

Have a great weekend!
-Justin  

Principal's Update- April 16, 2015

Happy Friday!  It's a beautiful morning and life is good around McKinley!  It's fun to see some of our students start to observe and explore the outside world.  I can't even count the number of worms I've had students bring me each morning.

32 days left to motivate, inspire, and educate....

STEM Hours
Just a reminder, Amy has graciously given us 2 days of STEM planning to do some work with math.  We will talk through expectations at our June 2nd staff meeting.  For now, decide on 2 days you and your team will commit to for June (6 hours a day).  Please let me know the dates/times you will be meeting. 

Also, June 5th is our PLC day (for those who participated in PLC's, you do not report).  Because this is an actual staff day, your team cannot be compensated for STEM hours to work this day (you can still meet, however, you can't be compensated through the STEM hours). 

School Board Presentation
McKinley is presenting to the School Board on Monday, April 27th @ 6:30pm.   We'd love to have you in the audience to help show support and answer questions regarding McKinley.

Book Study & Scheduling
After we met, I had an email (from a group I follow) about creative scheduling in an elementary.  This connects directly with the discussions and work we did at our last meeting.  Below is the link to the article- it's a great read.    

http://www.allthingsplc.info/blog/view/291/strategic-school-schedules-support-interventions

Translations
Please remember Sylvia and Nura need time to do translations.  They are getting more and more requests asking for the translation to be done in a day or two.  Because they have full schedules in classrooms, they need around 3-4 days to translate the documents. 

Student Council (Next Year)
If you are interested in serving as the Student Council Advisor next year, please let me know.  This position can also be shared between two staff members. 

Hettinga Fundraiser
As many of you know, Don Hettinga's cancer has returned.  Don and his wife, Chris, are both teachers in the district.  Their daughter, Lauren, is a kindergartener in Jen Koziolek's class.  To raise money for the family, there is a Spaghetti Dinner & Silent Auction on Friday, May 15th from 5-8pm at the Eagles.  We have tickets in the office for sale ($8, kids 5 and under are free).  Also, we are gathering items for a basket (see Jayne Jacobson with questions).    To visit their Go Fund site, click here:  http://www.gofundme.com/p21ekw

Valet Parking of the Week
Our Valet Parking for the Week goes to Karen Thurnau.  Karen is an amazing teacher and team member here at McKinley.  The thing that continually impresses me about Karen is her desire to advocate for every student in our building.  Not only does she intervene with students academically, but Karen understands how much the emotional and social pieces can impact student learning.  We are so fortunate to have Karen on staff.    Thank you for all you do, Karen! 

Have a great weekend!  Those of you on the Chocolate Run, have fun! 
-Justin

Principal's Update- Friday, April 10, 2015

37 days left to inspire, teach, and motivate our students....

A couple updates-

MCA's- Week 1
Reading MCAs started this week.  Thank you to everyone for being flexible and quiet during this testing season.  Also, a huge thank you to Denise Carlson for all her work on this.  We will continue testing through the rest of the month- reading, math, and then science. 

Book Study Learning Work
Thank you for the great discussion at our staff meeting on new structures and systems.  I appreciate your honesty and critical thinking as we move forward examining core instruction and our system of supports.  Click here to see our notes from Chapters 1, 2, and 3.  If you have questions, concerns, or want to discuss any of the work we have done, please come see me. 

Update on PBIS
As I stated last week, we have a team who is looking at core behavioral expectations through a PBIS model.  One of the items we are currently working on is a student discipline referral.  This referral has many purposes- helping us communicate (what happened and what the outcome is), helping create follow through with a consequence/outcome/communication home, and allowing us to track data and ultimately begin to be proactive with certain students.  This data will help us see exactly where, when, and why behavioral issues are occurring. 

To see a draft of our office referral, click here.  If you have feedback on the form, please let me know. 
 
Severe Weather Awareness
Next Thursday, we will participate in the Statewide Tornado Drill.  Please take some time to review the procedures (your colorful flipbook) and maps (we are still updating, so use your current maps for locations).   Tom Sager sent out an email from the city on some guidelines with tornado drills.  Click here to see it.  I'm attaching it as an FYI only. 

PTO Teacher Rep-
PTO is looking for 1-2 Teacher Reps for the remainder of this year and into next year.  It's a great group of parents who plan so many things around McKinley (World Passport, Carnival, Lunch with a Loved One, Book Fair, etc.).  If you are interested or want further information, come see me.

Valet Parking for the Week
Our Valet Parking spot goes to Annette Kleinschrodt.  Annette is truly a class act in the world of social workers.  Annette wears a lot of "hats" around here- a resource to staff, a lifeline for a student crisis, a liaison for families, or a firefighter helping put out "fires" around here (to name a few)!  Annette is always extremely professional, positive, and focused on students and families.  Thank you for all you do for McKinley, Annette. 


To close, I found a quote last year that resonates with me still today- "Try not to become a man of success but a man of value" (Albert Einstein).  In all honesty, I think this illustrates our staff here at McKinley.  It's amazing to see how much of a team approach we use here at McKinley- we aren't here to shine alone, but make our kids shine.  It's an amazing thing.

I'll get back into the routine of taking pictures- I've been slacking lately! 

Enjoy the weekend- I heard the sun will be making a reappearance!  :)
-Justin