Potsdam Central School

Transcription

1 U P C O M I N G D A T E S January 12th Early Dismissal Staff Development Day January 15th NO School Martin Luther King, Jr. Day January 16th Board of Education Meeting 6:30 PM AAK LGIR January 20th Snowflake Garage Sale January 22nd No High School Classes Regents Exams January 26th End of 2nd Marking Period February 5th Student Safety Forum 6:30 P.M. AAK LGIR February 7th 4th Grade Band and Orchestra Concert 7:00 P.M. February 13th Public Forum on the Budget 6:00 P.M. AAK LGIR Board of Education Meeting Potsdam Central School District Board of Education Rachel Wallace President rwallace@potsdam.k12.ny.us Dr. J. Patrick Turbett Vice President pturbett@potsdam.k12.ny.us Jared Carey jcarey@potsdam.k12.ny.us Christopher Cowen ccowen@potsdam.k12.ny.us Ralph Fuller rfuller@potsdam.k12.ny.us Danielle Gray dgray@potsdam.k12.ny.us James Hubbard jhubbard@potsdam.k12.ny.us Keith Sapp ksapp@potsdam.k12.ny.us Deborah Shipp dshipp@potsdam.k12.ny.us Potsdam Central School V O L U M E 3, I S S U E 2 One of our district s Core Values and Beliefs reads: We treat all with fairness and equity. Because we sometimes hear from students or parents that we do not honor this value when it comes to student discipline, the District Strategic Planning Team adopted the following as one of our four priority strategies for the school year: Implement a fair, consistent, developmentally appropriate student code of conduct. As part of this strategy, a shared decisionmaking committee was formed last spring to review the Code of Conduct. The group also developed a set of definitions for infractions so that staff, parents, and students would have a common frame of reference. Finally, they developed a Discipline Schedule that outlined the expected consequences for each offense. The group felt this would help ensure our approach was fair and consistent. The group also agreed to include the following caveat, however: The list of offenses is by no means allinclusive. For those situations that arise and are not listed, the administration will have the complete authority to deal with the problem as deemed necessary. Violations beyond the number of instances stated will result in further, more severe disciplinary action. The administration also reserves the right to amend the penalties for any of the offenses based on a review of the circumstances. The code/schedule of responses here are advisory only. We recognize that there will always be unique circumstances to consider and we wanted to make sure our building administrators have the ability to exercise their professional judgement. To monitor the use of the discipline O C T O B E R Code of Conduct Update schedule, I have been conducting a monthly audit of all student discipline referrals. That is, I look at each incident and determine whether or not the recommended consequence was imposed. I then present this information each month to the Board of Education for their review. Since the beginning of the school year, our adherence to the Discipline Schedule has been around 90%. When the administration did not adhere strictly to the schedule, we talked about the reasons why. The reasons have always been sound. For example, sometimes it was a matter of degree. One instance of vandalism involved bending a spoon in the cafeteria, while another first instance of vandalism entailed a student spraying fabric paint in the locker room. The consequences were appropriately different. Other times, there were other factors that came into play such as multiple infractions reported for the same incident. In these cases, two or more infractions might be linked with a single consequence. We remain committed to fairness and equity when it comes to enforcing the Code of Conduct. If parents feel a consequence is not fair, I would encourage them to reach out to the building administrator for resolution. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if there is ever anything I can do to enhance your child s experience at PCS. My is jchambers@potsdam.k12.ny.us and I can be reached by phone at ext Joann Chambers Superintendent of Schools

2 P A G E 2 SNOW DAYS If we need to cancel or delay school due to weather, we will continue to publicize that information via local television and radio stations (News 10 Now, WWNY TV; ABC 50/TV Watertown). We will also post the information on the building and district Facebook pages and on our website as well. Finally, we will continue to communicate with parents and staff via One Call Now. As long as your contact information is current in schooltool, you will receive an , voice call, and, if you opted in, a text message. To opt in for text messages, you must text the word ALERT to from your cell phone. You will receive a notification message from OneCallNow and should receive any text message the school sends out. By opting-in to text messages, you will receive a text instead of a phone call when the school sends out notifications. Community Forum: School Safety Thank you to all parents who have provided feedback regarding the Board of Education s proposal to add a School Resource Officer. All comments will be shared with the Board to help inform their decision-making. No decision has been made about this proposal at this time. On Monday, February 5th at 6:30 P.M. in the A.A. Kingston Middle School L.G.I.R., the PTSA will sponsor a Community Forum on School Safety. At this meeting, the school administration will provide information about our District and Building-Level School Safety Plans, discuss our safety drills, and share details about the security systems we currently have in place. We will also talk about the steps we take to make sure students are receiving the help and support they need. Finally, we will talk about the role of a School Resource Officer, based on information from other schools and on the experiences of some members of our administrative team. There will be an opportunity for parents to ask questions and provide feedback to the Board of Education and administration. We will share the presentation via and will also put together a Question and Answer document on the School Resource Officer proposal after the meeting so that parents who aren t able to attend the meeting can be informed. P O T S D A M C E N T R A L S C H O OL

3 P A G E 3 The Positivity Project in Action Caption describing picture or graph- To catch the reader's attention, place an interesting sentence or quote from the story here. One of our four priority strategies, as identified by the District Strategic Plan, reads: Implement strategies including the Positivity Project that nurture the social and emotional development of all students. P2 entails our explicitly teaching and talking about 24 different character strengths over the course of the school year. Though it looks a little different in each school, we are excited to be embarking on this PreK-12 initiative. It s exciting to see how our teachers are finding unique and engaging ways to integrate the character strengths into their curriculum. Below are just a few examples I have seen in the past weeks. First, I was in the halls of Lawrence Avenue when I saw that elementary P.E. teachers Danielle Grant and Sean Scordo had a class standing in front of a giant calendar on the bulletin board outside the gym. The class was deciding what they could add as an activity for the Self-Control Calendar. Later Sean explained that students in each class were adding a star to the date if they engaged in the activities listed for that day. Caption describing picture or graphic. The same day, I had the opportunity to visit a high school health class. It was the first day of a unit on nutrition, and teacher Lisa Bradley seamlessly incorporated the topic of selfcontrol. Then, I saw an come through from high school French teacher, Patty Moosbrugger. While we were focusing on the character strength of kindness, her students made Christmas cards to be distributed to the homeless in Paris. Finally, high school science teacher, Kim Hill shared a photo of her Greenhouse students and the beautiful holiday arrangements they had made for St. Lawrence Valley Hospice patients.

4 P A G E 4 Potsdam Educational Opportunity Funds (P.E.O.F.) We are so grateful to the Potsdam Educational Opportunity Fund, which was begun in 2012 by a group of parents associated with Clarkson University. They saw the negative impact the recession was having on our school budget and set out to create a mechanism for teachers to fund creative ideas and programming for our students. Since that time, PEOF has awarded thousands of dollars in grants. This year, PEOF received 13 applications and were able to award 12 grants totaling over $10,000! Thanks to all of our staff and students who took the time to apply for funding and congratulations to this year s recipients. It is a wonderfully diverse collection of ideas, and a testament to the creativity and dedication of our staff (and the initiative of our students!). Judy Butler-Daggett - $1176 for the 4 th Grade Ropes Course Field Trip To catch the reader's attention, place an Beth Chambers-Barney - $1800 for trip to NYC Teachers College interesting sentence or quote from the story here. April Barnes, Val Chiarenzelli, and Phil Foisy - $1125 for the Globally-Enlightened Citizen Project. Val Chiarenzelli and Jennifer Zhang (student) - $420 for Model G20 Summit at Harvard University Pam Dumas - $500 for guest speaker, Spencer Thew Lisa Dunkelberg - $650 for the 7 th Grade Science Fair Lisa Dunkelberg - $618 for Enchroma Glasses for Colorblind Students Danielle Grant - $ for Beginning Biking with Confidence Project Joanne McCormick - $495 for thetour New York Project Rebecca Pentalow - $750 for AIS Family Nights/Field Trips Jordan Tishberg (student ) - $2000 for inspirational speaker, David Flood Caption Sarah describing Towler - $ for Hands-On Learning through the Piano picture or graphic. If you are interested in learning more about PEOF or making a donation to the foundation, please visit their website at:

5 P A G E 5 Staff Learning From One Another We are very excited to be building systems in our district for our instructional staff to learn from one another. The Director of the Potsdam Teacher Center, Corey Flynn, is overseeing a plan whereby teachers who attend state and national conferences then provide afterschool workshops for their colleagues. We believe this helps us get the most return on our investment in professional development and also strengthens the collegial bonds within our school buildings. In addition, for the first time this year, teachers are opening up their classrooms to visits by other teachers. Staff may sign up to see a colleague teaching a particular lesson, implementing a new strategy, or incorporating technology into their instruction in an innovative way. In some cases, teachers will offer the afterschool workshop followed by an opportunity to see the strategy or approach in action during a classroom observation. We are thrilled that our staff have demonstrated this willingness to work together to improve their professional practice as our students will be the ones to most benefit from their efforts. PCS administrators, supervisors, and school counselors recently volunteered to deliver food baskets for the Potsdam Holiday Fund. N E W S L E T T E R T I T L E