Feb

25

Former Teacher Sentenced Today

February 25, 2008 | 7 Comments

It’s all over the local news by now, but one of our former teachers and advisors was sentenced today for grand larceny. The former teacher advised several student activities and coached during his years at GCS. During that time he managed to short our student activity accounts to the tune of at least $81,000. This [...]

Feb

18

Sharing Learning

February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment

This past Friday, our Thoughtful Classroom group at GCS met with teachers from three other school districts in our HS Library. They came to our district to carry on with our learning about Thoughtful Classroom strategies. I’ve written previously about Thoughtful Classroom, Harvey Silver and Susan Morris.
I join three high school teachers, a middle school teacher, [...]

Feb

14

St. Valentine Brings It

February 14, 2008 | 2 Comments

Valentine’s Day is an interesting day in a school. There’s just too much pressure. We have kids who have been dating and who sometimes have differing expectations and therefore end up arguing. We have students who decide this is the perfect day to show how much they like someone. We have students who feel ignored [...]

Feb

13

DABA?

February 13, 2008 | 3 Comments

DABA: deserves a bigger audience.
Well, I had actually developed an audience of readers when I was writing regularly, so this post by Dr. Scott McLeod at dangerously irrelevant should motivate me to include blogging as a regular practice again. This is perhaps the nicest welcome (back) I’ve ever received.
I am thrilled to announce the next recipient of [...]

Feb

8

Blogging for Clarification

February 8, 2008 | 1 Comment

For any school administrator who has ever had something come back to her which wasn’t anything like what actually was said or happened, blogging is a solid communication tool. On my last two posts, readers can see where I received a comment from Nancy, a reader who was clearly ticked off about a change to [...]

Feb

6

Some Clarification of Summer Reading

February 6, 2008 | 1 Comment

In a comment to my last blog post Nancy writes,
Nancy Says:
February 6th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
So let me get this straight. You will finally have a comprehensive reading program in grades K-6 AND this week a decision was made to discontinue the mandatory summer reading program – making it optional for students. They won’t be [...]

Feb

6

What Do I Know For Sure?

February 6, 2008 | 3 Comments

We need a consistent, coordinated K-6 reading program. That’s what headed us down the path of piloting four different series/approaches in our district this year. And that’s what we heard over and over again from our reading pilot teachers today. Our decision making group of eight invited our pilot teachers to talk about what they absolutely need [...]

Feb

5

Age As An Advantage

February 5, 2008 | 1 Comment

I don’t know how anyone reads the fine print on a pill bottle or a CD insert or our budget sheets. I know how I read them a year ago, but they are suddenly making the print much smaller. I finally broke down and purchased a $17.99 pair of reading glasses at Rite Aid. Actually, they were [...]

Feb

3

Dial-Up Only Access

February 3, 2008 | 4 Comments

Believe it or not, a significant portion of our school community accesses the Internet through dial-up. This includes our house and it’s not necessarily through choice but through a total lack of options. We can’t even get cable where I live and when I call the company to ask “when”, they’ve gone from laughing when [...]

Feb

3

A Little Perspective Gained

February 3, 2008 | 3 Comments

Our son, Tallon, plays hockey for a 15-18 year old league in Fredonia, New York. This weekend his team hosted a tournament, the Aaron Gibb tournament, named after a player on the team who was tragically killed in a car accident last April. The team played really well, with 12 of the players on our [...]

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