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