September / October 2014

Calendar
• Monday -12:15- CITE 6 Meeting @ Hope Center
• Tuesday -8-12- GRE Video Taping
• Wednesday - 8:15 - School Math Committee Meeting
• Thursday - 4th Grade Field Trip & Admin Meeting - Jenny
• Friday - Digger Dash (See the Calendar Below)

Reminders

• We will be shooting a video about Gold Rush on Tuesday morning that will highlight what makes our school unique.  Help us show school spirit that day by wearing GRE colors or a GRE t-shirt.  We will be stopping in classrooms to film our curricula and school activities in action.
• The flu shot clinic will be in the Gold Mine room at 1:00. Please remember to bring your insurance card.
• Jenny is putting together a math committee to examine our current math program and available math resources.  If you are interested in serving as your grade level representative please let her know.  The first meeting with be held this Wednesday at 8:15.

• If you are interesting in helping Ashley Gray with her Math Night, please let her know.

• Please see the letter below for information regarding our new Employee Information and Management software called Workday.

Opportunities

• Douglas County and Argosy University are providing a unique opportunity for teachers who have a MA to earn an EdS degree in Education Administration. If you are aspiring to become a principal and are interested in this opportunity, please attend a meeting on October 8^th or 9^th for more information. If you have any questions, please see Libby.

• Amber Hayes and Bev Holtzer are coordinating a service project called “Be the Gift” which helps single moms and children living at Shannon’s Hope. She is hoping to get a group of GRE friends to volunteer their time and efforts on November 1 to make home improvements in order for residents to have a safe place to live. If you would like to volunteer, or need more information, please see Bev Holtzer.

Digger Dash Schedule – Friday, October 3

9:20-9:35 Stretching (Preschool and Kindergarten)

9:35-9:50 Race Begins (Preschool and Kindergarten)

9:40-9:55 Stretching (1st and 2nd grades)

9:55-10:25 Race starts (1st and 2nd grades)

10:15-10:30 Stretching (3rd & 4th grades)

10:30-11:15 Race begins (3rd and 4th grades)

11:05-11:20 Stretching (5th grade)                                                     

11:20-12:05 Race starts (5th grade)

Go For the Gold

• Thank you for an amazing PLC day! We truly appreciate your collaboration thoughtfulness, and all you do for our students every day!

• Thank you Megan Fleet, Stacie Martino, Stephanie Brown, and Jamie Marchese for sharing your expertise on Friday!

• Thank you teachers for all of your hard work with conferences.

• Thank you Stephanie Braden for covering morning supervision!

Happy Birthday

Kim Gopsill – October 3

Christi Dismang – October 4

Golden Nuggets

Lounge Duty:             Gray/Kramer                         Friday Treats:  Fifth/Childcare

Morning Announcements:  Rayens

Morning Supervision:  Steckler, Graham, Murray-Close, Simpson, Wilson, Hawk

Information on New Employee Information & Management Software - Workday

On or before April 1st Douglas County School District will be going live on our new Employee Information and Management software - Workday.  Our school has appointed Janis Panico to act as our Workday Implementation Leader.  She will be attending monthly meetings until go-live and will be your “go-to” person for questions regarding Workday.

On Wednesday, September 17th, Janis attended the first kick off meeting and learned that by implementing Workday the District will be saving money that will direct more dollars to the classroom.  In addition, Workday will house multiple processes in the same location so staff won’t need to log into different applications to see and update personal information and to view and print check stubs.

Workday is designed to help us streamline processes and eliminate outdated, obsolete software.Each month after attending the Workday update meetings, Janis will provide us with the details of the project rollout during staff meetings. The Workday Implementation Team is interested in your concerns and feedback so please feel free to contact Janis who will provide that information to the project team.  

September / October 2014

September 23 - Parent Teacher Conferences

September 25 - New Teacher Mtg: CITE

September 26 - PLC Day

PLC Day Agenda

8:30-9:00	Breakfast
9:00-9:30	Opening Activity @ Gym
9:30-10:30	Review Stages 1-3 of Backward Planning @ Gold Mine Room
10:30-12:00	Team Time: Complete stage 3 of You Narrative backward plan
12:00-1:15	Lunch On Your Own
1:15-3:15	Integrating Thinking Strategies into Content Areas

* Please come with all narrative bends read.

Reminders

• Please have all Lucy Narrative bends read by our PLC day on September 26.

• The Gold Rush Math Olympiad Club will be meeting on Tuesday mornings from 8:15 - 9:00 starting on October 7.  This club meets every Tuesday morning until Spring Break.  The Math Olympiad Club is for 4th and 5th graders who love math and love to think their way through tricky problems.  Our students compete against teams from all over the country.  Flyers with more information about this club will be coming home in Thursday folders next week.

• If you need to have your picture taken, Lifetouch will be here on September 24 from 8:30-1:40.

• Due to conferences, we will not have staff development this week.

• Please complete this survey created by the Parker Personal Financial Literacy (PFL) Cadre between September 15-26th.  PFL is working with Great West Financial to implement and enhance PFL across the district.  Their first step is to determine the need for Financial Literacy in the Parker area and they would like to do so by asking teachers to complete the survey to can gain more information about the need for PFL in our schools. Megan will work with students to complete the student survey during technology time.

• Please sign up for your goal setting conference if you have not done so yet.

Go For the Gold

• Thank you teachers for a great first night of conferences! Your preparation and thoughtful feedback to parents is truly appreciated!

Happy Birthday

Jenny Brown – September 24

Mary Rossi – September 26

Golden Nuggets

Lounge Duty:             Nolan/Shepperd                   Friday Treats:  No Treats

Morning Announcements:  Dalcerri

Morning Supervision:  M. Lewis, Pearne, Castro, Evans, Gray, Lautenbach

September 2014

Announcements/ Reminders
* Jenny is interested in having a math committee evaluate our current math program and other available programs.  It would be great to have a representative from each grade level serve on this committee.  Please let Jenny know by Friday if you are interested in participating.
* Please complete this survey created by the Parker Personal Financial Literacy (PFL) Cadre between September 15-26th.  PFL is working with Great West Financial to implement and enhance PFL across the district.  Their first step is to determine the need for Financial Literacy in the Parker area and they would like to do so by asking teachers  to complete the survey to can gain more information about the need for PFL in our schools. Megan will work with students to complete the student survey during technology time.

• Due to conferences, we will not have staff development this week or next.

• Please sign up for your goal setting conference if you have not done so yet.

• Shannon Wilde formed a team for Race for the Cure called Gold Rush Elementary. The 5K is on Sunday, September 28 at 8:00 am. The cost is $35 for adults and $25 for kids and $25 for ‘Sleep in for the Cure.’ All include a t-shirt. If you would like to be a part of this team, click here to register. Click ‘Join an existing team,’ and choose our name. If you have any questions, please see Shannon Wilde.

• Please let Jenny or Libby know if you would like them to join any of your conferences.
• Please limit all Digger Dash banner and flair contributions to $3 or less and stress that this amount is optional for families.  

Congratulations
Megan Steckler! She is expecting her first child in February!

Go For the Gold

• Welcome Jen VanderVeen! We are so happy to have you here after your maternity leave!

• Thank you Cindy Bell for all of your hard work completing Aims Web!

• Thank you Misti Wilson and Ashley Gray for coordinating the Student Council assembly!

• Thank you Megan Fleet and Ashley Gray for offering to supervise the band/orchestra students!

• Teachers, thank you for your great conversations about student data. It is obvious you know your students and you had great ideas about what do for them individually!

• Thank you to everyone who volunteered to serve on the CITE 6 and RtI committees!

Happy Birthday

Lara Castro – September 17

Brenna Musser – September 20

Tobey Vogt – September 20

Golden Nuggets

Lounge Duty:             Cieply/Meredith                               Friday Treats:  Third/Fourth

Morning Announcements:  Hawk

Morning Supervision:  Shepperd, Marchese, Meredith, Braden, Kramer, Dalcerri

September 2014

Reminders

•  If you are interested in serving on our RtI committee, please let Libby or Stephanie Brown know by Tuesday. RtI meetings are held Friday mornings.

•  Please let Jenny know who your grade level representative is for CITE 6 by Tuesday.

•  Please remember to set up your goal setting conference. If you received an email from Jenny, please sign up with Janis. If you received an email from Libby, please schedule directly with her.

•  Please block out your times for conferences. It will open for parents on September 8.

•  Parent conferences will now be on Thursday, September 18 and Tuesday, September 23.

•  Collaborative writing times for this week are as follows:

            Monday – 10:30-11:15 First grade

                               2:15-3:00 Fifth grade

            Friday – 10:30-11:15 Kindergarten

                            2:15-3:00 Fourth grade

•  Please see Student Council reminders below.

Staff Development

The purpose for staff development this week is to have meaningful conversations about our students’ data and brainstorm best instructional practices for them moving forward. This will also give you the opportunity to develop talking points for parent conferences. In order to utilize our short time together, please come with your data sheets complete.

Go For the Gold

• Thank you for your participation in the Digger Dash assembly!

Happy Birthday

Margaret Cieply – September 10

Golden Nuggets

Lounge Duty:             Woolums/Castro                               Friday Treats:  First and Second

Morning Announcements:  Holtzer

Morning Supervision:  Rossi, McMillan, Nolan, Isberg/Nelson, A. Lewis, Rayens

Guess who:

Which staff member got her arm stuck in a McDonald’s garbage can when she tried to get her daughter’s toy? Answer:  Anita Rudman!

Student Council Reminders

*Only 4th and 5th graders are running next week (8th-12th)

*Representatives from all classrooms will be elected the following week (15th-19th)

*Look for general guidelines for classroom representative elections in the Barker

*The link to the prezi that we shared with students is at the end of this email - in case you need more information, or students who weren't able to attend are curious.

****Students will be bringing their applications back to you on Monday, September 8th.  Please collect these and put them in either Mrs. Wilson or Mrs. Gray's boxes.  

****Please remind students who are running for officer positions next week that they may come at 8:45 am on Monday (waiting for us to come let them into the building) to put up their posters in the cafeteria only.

Thank you for all of your help and support in getting our student council up and running!  Please let us know if you have any questions.

http://prezi.com/hmk8bhtafnrz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

September 2014

Reminders

•  On your library day, please have a student helper return the books in the crate to be checked back in first thing in the morning.

•  Please remember to send a red note to the office if your class is going to be in any location other than your identified specials or lunch.

•  If you have supervision duty and have an IEP meeting or you have a sub that day, please make sure you arrange coverage for your duties.

•  Please allow travel time when going out to supervision duties or picking up your class after lunch.

•  If you are interested in facilitating a before or after student activity (Math Olympiad, Student council) please submit the name of the activity and the number of student contact hours to Jenny by Tuesday. We need this information to figure out the teacher rate for this school year.

•  Please see information regarding Student Council below.

•  Parent conferences will now be on Thursday, September 18 and Tuesday, September 23.

Digger Dash Assemblies: Friday September 5th

• K-2 assembly 2:40-3:00

• 3-5 assembly 3:05-3:25

If anyone has a kiddie pool, we need a couple for the Digger Dash assembly next Friday. Let us know!

Don’t forget to wear your 80’s workout gear! We will need some audience participation to run a lap!

Staff Development

At staff development this week, we heard how helpful it would be to have some collaborative scoring time with our narrative formative assessments.  Especially with new teams and teachers, it is valuable to work together in creating like ideas about this scoring, so....

We have created some time blocks over the next couple weeks in which you will be able to have 45 minutes specifically for scoring these pieces.  During this 45 minutes, your students will rotate between 3 stations and will participate in activities geared to social-emotional health.  More specifics about places for these activities will come later.

Time blocks:

Thursday, September 4 - 2:00 - 2:45 (Grade 4)

Friday, September 5 - 10:30 - 11:15  (Grade 2)

Monday, September 8 - 10:30 - 11:15 (Grade 1)

                                      2:00 - 2:45 (Grade 3)

Friday, September 12 - 10:30 - 11:15 (Kindie)

                                     2:00 - 2:45 (Grade 5)

Go For the Gold

• Thank you Karen Petty and Karen Warner for braving the rain and doing extra duties.

•  Thank you everyone for you help and patience during our delayed dismissal.

Happy Birthday

Rochelle Evans – September 3

Janis Panico – September 3

Megan Fleet – September 4

Jamie Marchese – September 7

Carolyn Alvey – September 7

Golden Nuggets

Lounge Duty:             Pearne/Steckler                                Friday Treats:  Kindie/Preschool

Morning Announcements:  Lautenbach

Morning Supervision:  Martino, Woolums, Cieply, Hurley, Vanderveen, Holtzer

Guess who:

Which staff member got her arm stuck in a McDonald’s garbage can when she tried to get her daughter’s toy?

Student Council Lowdown:

            ★  GRE Student Council members need to be responsible role models that can lead students. We will be deciding on and participating in spirit days, fundraisers, and other activities throughout the year.

            ★  Officer elections will be held Sept. 12th. Please announce this in 4th/5th classrooms!! (President and Secretary will be 5th graders, Vice President and Treasurer will be 4th graders)

            ★  4th/5th grade teachers ­ please send home the informational meeting reminder for those students interested in Thursday folders!!!

            ★  There will be an informational meeting for those students interested in running for officer positions on Friday, September 5th, at 8:30 am, in Mrs. Wilson’s room. This is mandatory unless students talk to either Mrs. Gray or Mrs. Wilson prior. (This is where they will get an application and permission form)

            ★  There will be an election assembly (for 4th/5th grades) for students to give speeches on September 12th in the afternoon time to be decided. 

            ★  All GRE students will vote using a google form that will be shared with teachers.

            ★  All classrooms in grades 2-­5 will then elect one representative by September 19th. This can be run and decided by individual classroom teachers based on the needs of their students. We recommend having students give brief speeches to classes and voting.

            ★  Our first student council meeting will be on October 3rd, at 8:30 am, in Mrs. Wilson’s classroom.

            ★  Any questions should be directed to either Mrs. Gray or Mrs. Wilson