"Every miracle that has ever occurred began with a problem!"
Last year brought many challenges to Erwin Elementary. We had to more with less. We had many new faces and I know it was challenging for them to learn how to do things the unwritten "Erwin Way". But, we survived and not only that we thrived! We grew from 38% to 48% proficiency. We tackled Read to Achieve and as the year progressed, more and more students showed proficiency in reading.
This summer has been FULL of changes and challenges. But if you look at our challenges like the quote at the top of the page...a miracle year is on the way! I wanted to update you and keep you informed to help ease some of the anxiety that comes with beginning a new school year.
In the last post, I shared the teaching assignments. Last Thursday, I learned that Mrs. Busch was moved to HPS and we are now sharing enhancement staff with Buies Creek. I'd like to welcome Ms. Milton (music) and Mr. Grieder (music). They share this position so for 1 day Ms. Milton will be with us and the other 1.5 Mr. Grieder will be with us. Welcome to Shannon Smith (PE) and Joseph Felice (Art). We also got a very late addition...a 20% technology facilitator. We will be sharing Jennifer Ennis with Buies Creek and we could afford her enough to do 11 enhancement classes for us. It is definitely not as good as having Ms. Dunkins full time but we can now have quality instruction in the area of technology and give classroom teachers an additional planning period!
I am currently working on our enhancement/ daily schedules and will have that available for viewing and comments on Goggle after the Planning Retreat next week.
Speaking of the retreat, I am attaching to the update email a copy of the retreat schedule. Please view the agenda and sign up for any day(s) you can come out and help us solidify plans for the 2014-2015 school year. Please click on the link below to sign up or edit your response from June. I need to know numbers to pay for lunch and have handouts so please try to do so by noon on Tuesday, July 22nd.
RETREAT (Page 3)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Db-YSr4lrgtUj9LFApER2TJQoYyajM1E0eE0T3kNRyM/edit?usp=sharing
Also, do not forget about our staff yard sale. All money raised will go straight back to you. We will be holding it Saturday, July 26 in our gym from 7-10 AM. If you are interested in selling some of your old items to make money to buy more stuff, you will need to email me by Tuesday, July 22nd to reserve a table (or 2) and please let me know what you are planning to sell. Right now I have the following people down to participate:
Johnson
Dunkins
Hill
Riley
Lemon
Gaines
The last important item of interest is...our students are reading. The post cards are coming in and books going out on a daily basis. Right now, our rising 4th graders are in the lead, followed by our rising 5th graders, and then our rising 6th graders. I do need help creating a database of these students and how many postcards they have sent back in with the dates postmarked on it. I am planning to use this data for a future research project on the effects of reading on summer slide and am way too busy right now to calculate. It will only take probably 1 hour to do but between the staff assignments, scheduling, and county meetings...I am not finding time to create this. I also want us to be able to type in their F&P level in fall and use this in our conversations with parents in the fall. If you'd like to earn comp time and have an hour to spare, please email me and we'll set something up.
I think that's it. Miss y'all bunches and when I say stay away from your room it doesn't mean stay away from us. Riley, Ms. Parker, Ms. Tammy, and I are up here Monday-Thursday 7 AM-5:30 PM and we'd love to have some company :)
See you soon!
Angela
