Chatter

February Chatter Article

First I just have to say, “WOW!” What a huge turnout we had for our PTA Family Fun night! Our gym was packed with Churchill families having fun together. Everyone was entertained with a night of magic, laughs, songs, and even some dancing. We all enjoyed seeing some of our students assist in the show, a few of our dads perform, and the kids anxiously waited to see Mrs. Hopkins get all tied up. A big thank you to our PTA who provided this family fun evening to our community free of charge! Thanks also to the PTA clean up crew, who certainly made quick work of putting back all of those chairs!

Our PTA works very hard to support our school. With their time and support they are able to provide nights like Tim Hannig – The Pro-Kids
Show!, fun food days, hot lunch days, field day, yearbook, school pictures, book fairs, and much more. This is a good time for us to remind you to join the PTA. A portion of our membership goes directly to events like those mentioned above. If paying for a membership is not what you wish to do, we also ask that you consider giving the gift of time to the PTA. When we share the responsibility to support our students the load lightens.  Even 60 minutes makes a difference!  Call any PTA representative to ask; “What can I do?”

Not only does our PTA work hard, so do our students. It is evident, from the many students who met their mid-year MAP goals that you and your families are finding time in your busy days to read with your children, ask them about books, and check their homework. We are very proud of the progress your students are making here at Churchill! We thank you for your continued support in your child’s education.

You are a very important person for your child’s reading and language development. You are your child’s first teacher and mentor. Children of all ages love to be read to and have people listen to them read. Encourage your children to pick books out of the library they are interested in and share them together. You could promote effective reading strategies by suggesting the following techniques when your child struggles with an unknown word.

(suggestions adapted from Attempting Unknown Words: Suggestions for Parents , by Katie DeSotell)

SKIP AND READ ON
When faced with an unknown word, your child should continue to the end of the sentence or paragraph. At that point go back to the unknown word and have them make a meaningful substitution and then reread the sentence with the substitution. Always encourage children to monitor their own comprehension by asking, “Does that make sense?” Often time, children will provide the correct word by utilizing the context clues.

PICTURE CLUES
Ask you child, “What do you see in the picture that may help you?” Attending to details in the picture may support your child’s attempts at unknown words. In addition to illustrations, encourage your child to use maps, photographs, charts, and diagrams to support their reading. All readers should be gaining meaning from the pictures as well as the words.

VOCABULARY CUES
Often times, a student’s oral vocabulary is greater than their written. Children are exposed to language so much more than they are exposed to print. Many times children will already know the unknown word and use the word appropriately in their own vocabulary, but may have never seen it in print to make the connection. You could say to your child, “Oh! You know this word. This is the word you use if you are very, very scared.” The unknown word in this case could be frightened. This helps students connect what they already know to the print in the
textbook. 

SOUND IT OUT or “CHUNK IT”
Beginning readers should look at the letters in the word. Ask your child, “What sounds do you expect to hear?” Children can also think about word families that are familiar to them (such as cat, hat, sat). Ask your child, “Does this look like a word family you know? Does it rhyme with another word that you know?” Older readers should look for word parts they recognize‐‐base words/root, words within a word, suffixes and prefixes.

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. Lindblade

Letter from Mrs. Hopkins

First I want to thank all of you for coming to our very first Leo’s Learning Night. This evening was created by you! Last year many parents expressed interest in learning strategies they could implement at home to support their child’s learning. Questions such as those below prompted us to create the evenings we held last week.

- How do I “Buddy Read” with my child?
- How do I help my child pick out a “just right” book?
- What websites can I allow my child on to practice their facts or support their reading?
- What is an I-message?
- What strategies should my child use when he/she comes to a work they do not know?

Some other feedback given to us was that it was difficult to attend a parent evening where children were not welcome. So we also tried to make your child the teacher at Leo’s Learning Night. As we visited all of the classroom events it was wonderful to watch the students teach their parents about buddy reading, I-messages, our voice scale, Leo’s Laws, Raz Kids, vocabulary games, questions to ask while I read, math websites, MAP goal setting questions, and so much more. Some parents even asked for several voice scales to display at home! It was a great evening!

We truly hope this evening fit your needs and that you were able to walk away with a better understanding of some academic and/or social strategies you could use at home with your children.

Mrs. Lindblade and I had several parents offer their feedback already at each of the evenings and so far the consensus was please offer this again next year! We thank you for your ideas and would like to extend the invitation for you to write back to us in a very simple format. We call this format here at our school a “keep” and “tweak”. A “keep” is something that you feel went well and wish that it would not change the next time we have these evenings. A “tweak” is a suggestion for improvement on what was done or a sharing of a new idea that could possibly be added to the
event. Please take some time to share your thoughts with us either through e-mail, phone call, or a written note. (NO FORMAL FORM NEEDED!)

Next week students, parents, and teachers will meet for our annual parent/teacher student led conferences. One way we hope to reach
our goal of 95% is to involve you and your child in goal setting. It is most important that the child has a sense of how things are going and is involved in the goal-setting process. Since the first week of school, teachers at all grade levels have also been assessing student performance levels in reading and math through our own building assessments. The results form last spring’s ISAT testing will also be available to share with fourth through sixth grade students. This data includes the MAP Test (Measure of Academic Progress Testing). Over the past few weeks our teachers have been working with your students to prepare them for their participation. During conferences, your child will have the opportunity to share their learning goals with you. If you have something you would like to discuss with the teacher without your child present, please make an appointment for another time. These conferences are designed to focus on the child and the child’s goals and accomplishments. The children enjoy sharing their world with their parents

Upon the completion of MAP testing, all of our classes have been working on setting individual and class goals. This practice is designed to help students understand more about how they learn and what work needs to be done to reach the next level of academic progress. Students who regularly practice the life skill of goal setting learn to be realistic about their responsibility for their own learning. When students learn to set goals and reflect on their progress, we find that they are surprisingly aware of what they need to do to learn and grow. We want our students to be increasingly aware of how they are performing and to know what they need to do to improve their achievement.

You are your child’s first teacher and an important part of your child’s success at school. It is important for you to take the time to ask your child about their day, check their homework, and read with your child every night. If teachers and parents hold this expectation for each and every student, we will truly be working toward making Churchill School one of the top performing schools in District 54.

We look forward to celebrating our success with all of you!

Lastly, we just need to ask your help and support in keeping our children safe during arrival and dismissal. Please do not double park on Jones Road. This causes a big traffic delay and forces passing cars to cross over the line into oncoming traffic to pass these cars. Another practice that needs to be changed is allowing children to go between parked cars to get into the building. The “drop” zone inlets on Jones road were designed to be utilized to drop and go. Our goal is to keep all children safe and we do need our parent community to be the role mode in this goal.

As always, thank you so very much for your help and support!

Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. Lindblade

We are off to a great start!

Welcome to the 2011-2012 school year!  On behalf of our wonderful PTA and staff, we want to take this opportunity to officially welcome you and your students back to another terrific year of learning and growth at Churchill!  The school year is upon us and we are excited to start a new year with your children. The hallways and classrooms are freshly painted, our new playground equipment has been waiting for our students to come back to play, and our elevator should be ready for its ups and downs! Three of our teachers received a District grant to pilot the new technology to use in their classrooms. They will be integrating the use of promethean boards in their instructional day, and all of our 3-6 grade classrooms received new projectors and document cameras to enhance their instruction as well. Yes, we have had a busy summer! Who says teachers are off over the summer? We also hosted a Quantum learning workshop in June that was attended by over 2/3 of our staff. We spent the week learning various strategies to increase engagement in our classrooms and enhance our lessons. Our summer school students spent August with us getting ready for the new year!  No…learning does not stop here over the summer!

We were thrilled to have an approximate 90% turn out on our new “Back to School Night”. We hope this format will help you and your child get off to a successful year. It is our hope that you were able to informally meet your child’s teacher and get some questions answered about expectations, curriculum, and procedures before we even begin. As always, your feedback is welcome. Thank you for taking the time to join us!

Our PTA is always very appreciative of all who stop by their table to sign up to give some of their time to support our students. The partnership between school and parents is critical to the development of your child and our PTA is the vehicle we use to build this partnership. Through their gifts of time and talent, our PTA volunteers demonstrate the community’s commitment to the education of our young people.  PTA Volunteers play an important role in the educational process.  They provide assemblies, hot lunches, supplies, pictures, yearbook and so much for our students. We realize that everyone has different schedules and time constraints, however, volunteers can work at school or at home.  Any time you can give is greatly appreciated whether it is an hour a day, an hour a week, or an hour a month! Please contact any one of our PTA officers to find out what you can do to help.

On our first two in-service days our staff had a chance to celebrate their accomplishment and reflect on our mission and commitments to your students. We are proud to say we are closer and closer to reaching our 95-95 goal! This year we went from 84.3% of our 3-6^th graders meeting our exceeding on the reading portion of the ISAT in 2010, to 89.9% of our students! That is a 5.6% jump in one year! Incredible! In the Math, we went from 93.5% (2010) of our 3-6^th grade students meeting or exceeding on ISAT to 94.2%. We are only .8% away from 95%! Amazing! We could not do this with out your support and encouragement to your student at home. We also had the highest % of all of our students meet their MAP growth targets!. Just two years ago a little more than half of our students met this goal and now almost three fourths of our students have met their target growth. This is the sixth highest percent in all of our 27 schools in the District. That is a phenomenal accomplishment! Our students know their job is to learn and to show what they know so they can meet their goals. Please continue to encourage them at home!

Our focus as a staff will be to continue to build upon the excellent academic opportunities that are provided atChurchillSchool. We will continue to focus on meeting the individual learning needs of all our students.  Again this year, every child will have an uninterrupted literacy and math block.  We will also continue to support the children’s individual reading needs with an intervention block. We will be implementing a guided math approach during our math block to support reteaching, enrichment, and interventions for Math. Our grade level teams work very closely with our support staff and parents to ensure every child learns the essential skills necessary to be successful students.  This year we have also added a 30 minute instructional re-teaching block for teams to use to ensure that essential skills in literacy and math have been mastered. We will again begin the year focusing on ensuring that our students understand our Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) expectations.  By ensuring that all of our students are taught the “Leo’s Laws”, we are able to improve student behavior to maximize learning.  We have had tremendous success with PBIS and we will work diligently to continue to improve our PBIS systems. We will review our PBIS expectations with your children during the first week of school. Please ask them about these three laws, our paw path to pride, and how to live “above the line”.

We are also going to try something new! This year we will be offering two evenings designed to help answer those tough questions that come up throughout the year. For example:

• What is an I-message?
• What is this lattice multiplication stuff?
• What does it mean for my child to get a picture in their head when they read?

Mark your calendars!

September 19: Leo’s Learning Night (Grades 3-6)

September 21: Leo’s Learning Night (Grades K-2)

We are looking forward to an exciting year filled with pure potential for all students!

Sincerely,

Lisa Hopkins, Principal                                     Jessica Lindblade, Assistant Principal

What a great year!

It’s hard to imagine that our school year has come to a close. It seems like just yesterday that I was welcoming my second group of Churchill’s new kindergarten students to our school. I can remember sharing in their excitement as they listened to our presentation at Kindergarten round up. I just wanted to tell them enjoy every minute because they go by so fast! The beginning of elementary school marks a major milestone in a child’s life and a parent’s heart. I can still remember putting both of my own children on the bus for their first day of Kindergarten and thinking how fast time had gone. This past year, I sent my oldest off to her first year of college and my youngest to his sophomore year in High School. I thought it would get easier to send them out the door each year, but I still take that first day photo and use that Kleenex.

The year has flown by, but we had numerous things to celebrate. Our students collected over 17,585 lion’s roar tickets, we had 4 school wide celebrations for meeting our monthly PBIS goal. (This is to be below the number of behavior documentation forms each month that we had the same month last year.) Churchill staff sponsored 11 different clubs this year offering a plethora of opportunities for our students. We offered additional leadership opportunities for our fifth and sixth graders as broadcasters, patrols, student service team members, and peer mediators.  We also had great musical performances from our first-sixth grade students! Our Drama Presentation gave some or our students a chance to shine on stage and our variety show proved that Churchill has talent. Our BOB competitors made it to the District finals and gave the winners very tough competition. They MacArthur team just past us by a few points. Our PTA hosted many wonderful family fun nights at school. We participated in collecting a two-year grand total of 535 pairs that translated into over $300 which has enabled students to get an education in Mbwewe, Tanzania. Our students worked hard to earn approximately 3,700 dollars in our Churchill Spelling Challenge. (This will help us make much needed additions to our guided reading library!) We also had the highest % of students meet their MAP growth targets than in the past three years. Just two years ago a little more than half of our students met this goal and now almost three fourths of our students have met their target growth. This is the sixth highest percent in all of our 27 schools in the District. That is a phenomenal accomplishment! The list goes on and on, but that was a small snapshot of what we were able to do as a school this past year.

We are very proud of the progress we have made, the pride our students show, and the efforts they put into meeting their goals. Thanks also to your support at home with reading, math, homework, encouragement, and time. With the help and support of our families, students, and staff we will certainly meet our goal of joining the other 16 schools in our District to achieve 90-90 status.  (This means that 90% of their students meet or exceed on the Illinois State Achievement Test in reading and math.)

The Churchill staff has been busy planning for the 2011-2012 school year.  An important consideration in preparing for a successful year is the preparation of class lists.  We are very fortunate to continue to offer a full multi-age environment for our students. Ideally your students in grades 1, 3, and 5 will loop up with their current teacher. This is a great advantage of a multi-age classroom. However, for the 11-12 school year, we will be creating an additional 5/6 classroom. Therefore we will need to reconfigure students in grade 5 throughout the 6 sections instead of the 5 we currently have. Our fifth graders will most likely not have the same teacher that they currently have. Students in grades 1 and 3 will loop with their current classmates into grades 2 and 4. Teacher assignments for each grade level are listed below along with a mini bio on our new staff members that have been hired.

STAFF ROSTER:

Miss McVay is still a member of the Churchill teaching staff, but will be joining our student support team to focus on providing additional time and support to our struggling students. This team is made up of specialists in literacy, bilingual education, and special education. They are an integral part of Churchill School who work across the grade levels to support the success of all learners.

Hello Churchill Lions!

My name is Laura Gray.  I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the Churchill staff as a 5/6 teacher next year.  I am new to Churchill, but I have had the wonderful opportunity to work as a long term substitute in the building. That experience allowed me to work across all grade levels and really get a sense of just how wonderful the Churchill community is.  Along with being a former SD54 student, I have also had the great privilege to work as a SD54 substitute for the last 2 years while finishing up my Masters Degree in Education from Roosevelt University.  My training and education has given me the resources and skills to implement creative, exciting, and rich ways to make learning in the classroom memorable and meaningful.  I am looking forward to the 2011-2012 school year!

Hello Churchill Community!

My name is Carmela Scaravalle. I have taught in District 54 for six years at Armstrong Elementary School. I taught straight 4th and 3/4 Multiage. In order to meet the needs of all learners, I have continued my professional development in a variety of areas such as Math, Science, and Reading. I look forward to joining the Churchill Community among the staff, students, and families. I am ready to continue my journey as a LION!  

I also want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Huffman and Miss Daley for being a part of the Churchill team. Your “Churchill Family” wish you the best in your new buildings. Mr. Huffman will join the Dooley 5/6 team and Miss Daley will join Aldrin as the full time PE teacher.

With summer approaching you would think it is quiet around the building. Not really! Each year the District uses these few short months to maintain our buildings structurally and aesthetically. This summer, we will be getting an elevator, new playground equipment, cabinets in some of our classrooms for much needed storage space, and a fresh coat of paint! I know Mrs. Lindblade and I will not be lonely over the summer!

As always, it has been a true pleasure working with the Churchill Community.  You have shared your most precious gift with us, your child.  We will miss them over the summer and look forward to the 2011/12 school year.  I have no doubt it will be the BEST yet! Be safe and enjoy the precious memories you create during the “Summer of 2011”!

Mrs. Hopkins

Principal’s Message – April 1, 2011

The Churchill staff has already begun our planning for the 2011-2012 school year.  An important consideration in preparing for a successful year is the preparation of class lists.  We are very fortunate to continue to offer a full multi-age environment for our students. Ideally your students in grades 1, 3, and 5 will loop up with their current teacher. This is a great advantage of a multi-age classroom. However, for the 11-12 school year, we will be creating an additional 5/6 classroom. Therefore we will need to reconfigure students in grade 5 throughout the 6 sections instead of the 5 we currently have. Students in grades 1 and 3 will loop with their current classmates into grades 2 and 4.  When placing all of our other students, a great deal of hard work goes into this process.  Our placement decisions involve team input and are completed with great care.  As we finalize assignments we consider a wide variety of factors including individual learning styles, personalities, behaviors, peer relations, and balancing class size and gender.

Our classroom teachers and support staff work together very closely to ensure that we have not overlooked any aspect of appropriate placement.  In addition, we would like to offer you the opportunity to provide input into this process.  You can find this input form in the Chatter or you call our office and request that one be sent home with your child.  Please use this form to describe your perceptions of any unique characteristics your child may have in the areas listed above.  Be as specific as you can but do not request specific teachers.  You should include information such as your child’s academic strengths and weaknesses, their individual learning style, and any behavioral, peer relation or other needs. These factors reflect the type of information teachers also consider when placing students in next year’s classes. If you do not wish to offer input, no further action is necessary.

Our goal is to place each child in a class that we feel will provide the best opportunity for continued growth.  IN ORDER FOR YOUR INPUT TO BE CONSIDERED, IT MUST BE RECEIVED BY THE PRINCIPAL BY Friday, April 8, 2011.

Once classes have been formed, any change is extremely difficult.  This is a team decision, and changes are not at the discretion of any one individual, including the principal.  NOW is the time for input.  We appreciate your support.

Mrs. Hopkins, 

Principal

Principal’s Message 3-1-11

Congratulations to all of our third through sixth graders on a job well done! They put forth outstanding effort this past ISAT week to show what they know and made their teachers very proud!

We have had a very exciting week last week here at Churchill. This past Friday we had another community assembly to celebrate our success, spotlight some of our 5^th and 6^th grade poetry readers, revisit how to solve problems peacefully, introduce our peer mediators, celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday and give some last minute tips for ISAT success. Our first and second graders spent some time making our 3-6 graders cards and inspirational posters.  They also encouraged them by reciting the ISAT pledge!  It has been so great to see such a building wide effort for success!

At our assembly we also had the opportunity to meet another group of leaders here at Churchill…..our peer mediators! So what and who are peer mediators you ask?

Peer Mediators are students who, with adult supervision, help solve problems between fellow students. As a result of training, Peer Mediators are known to be fair, reliable, and good communicators. Trained Peer Mediators do not take sides and they keep all information confidential. They become the “Peacemakers” of Churchill School. 

Conflicts between students are a part of daily life in schools.  Common problems include name-calling, rumors, threats, and friendships gone sour.  Mediation is a conflict resolution approach in which students have the chance to sit face-to-face and talk, uninterrupted, so each side is heard.  After the problem is out in the open, solutions are created.

Another new leadership position here at Churchill is the Student Service Team. This team is made up of our 5^th and 6^th graders who work with Mrs. Battaglia, Ms. Gaddini, Mrs. Schaller and sometimes Mrs. Johnson too.

 This team is busy all year helping our PBIS team with the following:

• We help plan, organize, and make posters for our upcoming Spirit Week.
• We are writing updates for the Chatter.
• We count Lion’s Roar tickets to help collect accurate data to set our school’s PBIS goals.
• We created a bulletin board to display the number of positive Lion’s Roar tickets and the “ALL” school rewards.
• We are going to help with announcing the winner of the randomly picked tickets at our next all school assembly.
• We also role play Leo’s Laws for everyone to learn Churchill expectations.

Our goal is to continue to provide leadership opportunities for your children so they may not only be learners here, but leaders as well!

Principal’s Message 2-17-11

ISAT COUNT DOWN…only 5 more days to go!

From February 28 through March 11th your students will be taking the Illinois Standard Achievement Tests.  The tests are a part of the Illinois Standards Achievement tests and Illinois Goal Assessment program, and are being given to all students in Illinois at this time.  These tests will provide us with information about your child’s achievement compared to those students of similar age elsewhere in the state.  Throughout the tests, students are involved in thinking critically and creatively, solving problems, and constructing meaning when they read.  You will receive information about your child’s performance on the state tests he/she took in the fall.  We will review these results along with information from local assessments to help improve our school program. Know that this test is one snapshot of your child’s development.  It must be combined with other information to make a complete picture.

Your support in this testing is essential.  Below are a few points to assist us in this process:

You can help your child do his/her best by:

•  making sure that your child attends school on the testing days;
•  making sure your child gets a good night’s sleep the night before testing;
• make sure your child is here on time (We start testing first thing each morning.)
• providing a healthy breakfast;
• reminding your child to ask the teacher questions if he/she does not understand the test directions;
• letting your child know that you have confidence in his/her ability to do his/her best; and
• advise your child not to worry about the test – just do the BEST he/she can.
• we will be following the schedule outlined below.

 These tests help us monitor the progress we have made with your children.  Our building has continued to make Adequate Yearly Progress as defined by the state of Illinois. The staff here is committed to excellence, creating systems to support all students, and to ensure that each student can learn and succeed. We continue to work towards our goal of being one of the 90-90 schools in District #54. We are well on our way!

Our building will be following the schedule outlined below. We will concentrate on using the first week of testing as our ISAT testing week. Our entire building will be working together to maintain a positive, quiet, and supportive testing environment.

 As always, thank you for your support.

Mrs. Hopkins

Mrs. Lindblade

Classroom teachers from grades 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th.

I Hate Reading, It’s Boring

As I was talking to my niece a while back, I heard her say those few words that made my inner teacher cringe…”Auntie, I hate reading.  It’s boring.”  After talking with her and demanding to know how she could possibly hate reading coming from a family of educators, she led me down her path of reason.  It was hard for her, took a lot of energy, and therefore was boring.

On the drive to Chicago from Minnesota (where she lives) I introduced her to books on CD.  I’d like to say it was completely intentional, but it wasn’t.  I didn’t have a TV in my car, I thought it would occupy her for several hours and I could not possibly drive and read to her at the same time.  She had a copy of the book and followed along as I drove.  What I noticed was the more I started talking to her about the book the more excited she became.  This “time filler” ended up being the jump-start she needed to prove that reading wasn’t boring or as difficult as she thought and all it took was a little conversation, a little guidance, and a little bit of “auntie time.”

Taking a few minutes to read with your child, listen to them read, or simply talk to them about what they are reading can go a long way in helping to develop a good reader.

Discuss a book or story before you begin reading. Talk about what you know or about the book’s title and author. Ask your child what she/he thinks the title tells you about the book, or ask if she/he has read any books or stories by this author before. Talk about questions you might think about while reading, like if the book is similar to something they have already read, or if the book was anything like what they first thought it would be.

Ask your child to tell you the story’s events and ideas as they are reading along. Retelling a story in their own words can help children find out how well they understood the book. Summarizing can also help children remember what they have read. Encourage your child to pause after pages, chapters (for higher readers), important events or confusing parts and ask your child to summarize what has happened. Help her/him come up with a summary if they have trouble.

Ask specific questions to check that your child has been following the story’s events, and ask questions that require their opinion. For example, ask why they think a character might have done something or acted in a certain way.

Help your child identify clues in the text that can help them identify what might happen next. Ask your child to tell you what they think will happen next in the story based on these clues.

Ask your child to visualize the setting and the characters in a story. Have her/him describe what she/he thinks a certain scene looks like.  They can draw this out or describe it in words.

Discuss the story after they finish reading it. Ask your child whether the story’s events surprised her/him or unfolded as she/he expected they would. Ask questions about what might happen next in the story if it continued, or ask questions such as whether or not the child liked the story’s characters or its ending.

Ask your child to circle or point out any words she/he does not understand. You could help them sound out words or look for “chunks” of words they know already to help them figure out unfamiliar words.  Explain those words for the child or have her/him look them up in a dictionary.

Continue reading aloud to children even after they have learned to read themselves. Reading aloud to children allows them to practice reading-comprehension strategies without having to worry about how fast they are reading.

Adapted from: “How to Help Kids With Reading Strategies,” www.livestrong.com

Mrs. Hopkins and I are proud to be able to say that wonderful things are going on in your students’ classrooms at Churchill School everyday. Our Winter MAP data tells us that we are close to meeting our 90-90 goal. With parent support at home we will continue to soar above and beyond our goals!  We are excited to celebrate your students’ progress with you. We look forward to seeing you during student-led conferences on February 3^rd and 4^th.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Lindblade & Mrs. Hopkins

Principal’s Message – Dec. 17, 2010

Churchill Families,

The PTA’s wonderful craft fair was a great way to get into the Holiday spirit! Mrs. Lindblade and I really enjoyed greeting all of our families at the door. It was fun to see our students parade around the treasures they made for their family and friends. Many of them came back around to our table to show off a painted ornament, a reindeer candy cane, a mosaic candle holder, and even a light up potpourri jar. (This student was gracious enough to show us how it lit up when she plugged it in!) Many of our families were sure to share with us what a wonderful time they had and how nice it was to do something together. A special thanks to our PTA for continuing to focus our parent evenings on family time.

Long ago, schools were the center of a community. They were a place where friends and neighbors met to share stories and enjoy each others company. This back to neighborhood feeling can be found on these special nights we share together. I do get to “look in” and watch our students introduce their parents to a classmate, teacher, lunch mom, or room mom.  So much of what we do in our school does take our whole community to be involved in order to be successful. We are always appreciative of anything you do to be involved in our Churchill community. We know your time is valuable and we were glad you valued spending some time with us last week.

As for us here during the day, we have been very busy with our second round of MAP testing. Our students have been very excited to share their success. When a student has made great progress our teachers do a wonderful job of letting them shout it out to all who will listen. Over the past two weeks we have had the privilege to have many visitors in our office. These visitors were our students who exceeded their MAP goals this testing window. They not only came to see all of our office staff but their teacher also walked them around to visit other teachers on their team, past teachers, specials teachers, and who ever they found to share their celebration. I have come to call these little tours, the “Pride Walk”. I have also come to LOVE these celebrations with our students. What could be better than a seeing the joy and pride on the face of a child!

I consider myself a very lucky principal. I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, passionate, and reflective teachers. At times the look of pride and tears of joy from the teacher touches my heart more than the kids. Our teachers are truly invested in the education of your child.

I wish for you some time to reflect on the year past, enjoy the moments together, and set some goals for the New Year!  As for me, I am looking forward to losing at Ping-Pong against my son, having my daughter home from school, watching our favorite holiday movies, and working on my photo albums.

 Mrs. Lindblade and I wish you and your families a wonderful holiday and Happy New Year! See you in 2011!