Happy Friday!
Today's update is a long one - sorry. Please read carefully!
No Toot Your Horn Thursday receipents this week - if you want to nominate someone, please complete the nominaton form.
Staffing Update:
Another staffing update.. Steph Hager has accepted our Kindergarten position for next year. Steph is not new to Owatonna or McKinley - she is an Owatonna graduate and is student teaching with Paige Larson. Please join me in welcoming (as a full-time staff) Steph to her team!
Statewide Tornado Drill - Thursday:
This Thursday, April 16 is the MN Statewide Tornado Drill. We will be doing our McKinley drill at 10:30am on this day (please note - we will not be doing the statewide drill time at 1:45pm although the sirens will still sound). Please check the Virtual Office to see where your area/class goes for a tornado drill.
Class List Process:
We are entering the time of creating class lists for next year. This is a quite intense process in which teams look to the best placement/environment for our students to grow and thrive. Click here to see details regarding the class list process.
Please remember - all families need to complete the Classroom Environment form to request a placement. If a family reaches out to you, please refer them to this step. There are no "side deals" where parents are asking teachers to have students placed into seperate rooms. We put a lot of time, energy, and thought into these placements and need the process followed.
Breakfast - Pilot Program in May:
Starting May 4, we are piloting breakfast in the lunchroom before school. This pilot will do two things - move breakfast to before school to create additional learning time AND provide our students warm breakfast choices each day. This will be something we are piloting in May to see if we continue into the 26-27 school year.
What is the plan to provide breakfast? When students arrive, they will have the choice to go into the lunchroom to eat or stay outside. Breakfast will be served and kids will eat in the lunchroom from 7:45-8:10am each day. After 8:10, breakfast will become a grab and go (students will get the food and return to their classroom). We will be mindful of late arrivals and buses and still provide students with breakfast. Additionally, we will be shifting some supervision from outside into the lunchroom with our AM arrival teams (I will share directly with those impacated).
Summer Maintenance List:
Linked is the request for summer maintenance work. This form is for items in your classroom/work area that need attention - fixing things, replacing broken, repainting chips or damage, etc. Please complete this by April 22. After that, we will notify you if your project is being addressed.
Illustrative Math (IM):
Next year, our district will be switching our math resource to Illustrative Math (often called "IM") in grades K-5 (Kindergarten and 5th Grade are currently piloting this). This change will be a great thing - we have been long overdue for a new math resource. As we get closer to next year, we are providing teacher teams some opportunties to learn more about IM. Our Kindergarten and 5th Grade teams graciously completed an interview on their experience with math this year. I have taken all of their responses and put into Chatgpt to help us understand the new resource a little more (from our internal experts). For this week's blog, our teams will share their thinking around this week's question - "What are celebrations when you think of math and IM implementation?"
A big celebration is how students are thinking about math. They’re not just giving answers—they’re explaining their reasoning, trying different strategies, and learning from mistakes. Classrooms are becoming more student-centered, with rich conversations and collaboration happening regularly. Best of all, students are starting to see themselves as mathematicians and are building a more positive mindset about math overall.
Building Weekly Newsletter:
Have a great weekend!
-Justin
