E-News 9.04.2014

Call for Education Grants

From JoNell Melody: This is a Call for Innovative Grants from the Education Foundation. The grant deadline is October 3rd - midnight. The grant application must be submitted from Eduphoria by midnight on October 3rd, the principals will need to approve by end of day the followingTuesday, 10/7. The grant application is available on the RCISD website intranet - Eduphoria - FormSpace - submit new - Education Foundation. Please complete the form and submit by the deadline if you have an idea for a grant.

For anyone new to Grant writing we will hold Grant Writing Workshops on September 10th at 3:45 PM & September 24th at 4:15 PM The workshops last about 45 minutes and will be in the Epps ESC - admin building, 810 Old Greenville Road.

Reminders
Payroll Contribution for Education Foundation sign ups need to be turned in September 17th for a September 25th start date. If you miss the deadline - no problem the contributions will just begin in October. Payroll contributions must be monthly, a one-time donation can be cash, check or through our website at www.RCISDFoundation.org - donate.

Also, be sure to pay your $1.00 for Jeans on Fridays to Martha... and if you want 20 Jean Passes for the school year, be sure to contribute $20.00 to the campus Sunshine Committee... See Martha for details.

Fun Resources

Great open-ended question stems you can use with your small groups of students

Staar4ward Pinterest Board - great ideas for using the Staar4ward information

Faculty Meeting

Just a reminder of our staff meeting Monday, September 8th @ 3:30pm in the library. All staff members will be present since Mr. Worthy will be here to share some information with us. Be sure to clear your schedule until 5:00pm that day.

PDAS & Teacher-Self Reports

The Teacher-Self Report will be due Friday, September 12th. Be sure to include your focus readiness/processing TEKS for this school year (here's directions if you need them). We'll be focusing on Reading/Writing/Math TEKS for all grade levels, content areas, and PDAS teachers. If you need help identifying these TEKS, please let me know (specials teachers...come visit with me during conference time and we'll talk about this). 

Also, the state of Texas does not allow waivers for PDAS Evaluations for campuses in "Improvement Required". Dr. Bright and I will be determining appraisers for this school year by next week and we'll be scheduling 45-minute observations earlier this school year... more details coming soon.

Improvement Planning

Our campus is moving into another phase of the improvement planning process with the state this year. This phase requires us to develop a Reconstitution Plan and give considerations to 10 areas about the instructional program for Scott Elementary. Here's a link our plan for this school year. These are only the BIG ideas we'll be engaging into this school year and we'll be including other pieces to the plan at the year continues. 

We must address each of the areas in this Reconstitution Plan during the school year. A school improvement "data day" has been scheduled for Wednesday, September 17th where we'll review our progress this past year and determine measurement goals for this year. Also four teachers will be attending the Advancing Improvement in Education (AIE) Conference with Julie, Kenny Kaye, and myself. One of the many goals this year is to keep everyone informed about the information being shared in this process. So you will see me post more information this year about our improvement efforts. 

Ladies and Gentlemen... Please know that I believe we can do this! We can meet state expectations and regain the trust of this community. We can do this work and do it well.  But it's going to require everyone to join together, divide up the work, and take on NEW challenges head-on. So let's help each other...support one another... if you must, call on others to help us... if you don't know what else you can do, come on over and look for solutions together. ALL hands must be in this together. 

Sandy Hook Letter

Judy Caskey (our campus PSP) sent me this letter: it was posted by a mother of a Sandy Hook victim ( a six year old child)! It is actually addressed to all teachers and school people. I thought it was so very meaningful, and I wanted to share it with you. Remember, you are doing a very special job, preparing students for their life's future! Therefore, you are VERY SPECIAL people! Sandy Hook Letter

(finally...if you are viewing this on your phone or mobile device... you may not be able to see the calendar I have listed below this message... it's from our Scott Activity Calendar. Be sure to view this section from a computer or Chromebook to see... Thanks)