Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Weekly Blog 1/14

Dear Wines Families,

Despite the cold, it does look like we are going to have a full week of school this week. This week was not without some unexpected drama, however. Your child may have come home Monday talking about the “flood” in the computer lab. Fortunately, it was not a flood, but we did have a coil burst in our HVAC unit causing steam to blow into the room over the course of two or three days last weekend. As a result, our lab resembled a steam room on Monday morning more than a classroom. While things were quite wet, our Technical Assistant, Cheryl Wonders along with Sally Evaldson and our wonderful custodian Jamil Jackson sprung into action and cleared the room and dried everything off. Yesterday a technician from Apple checked our computers and iPads and everything appears to be in working order. We are waiting another day to ensure that the keyboards have had time to sufficiently dry, but we anticipate our lab being operational on Thursday. So disaster avoided!

With the snow days and the “flood”, our NWEA schedule has been changed significantly. We will resume our assessments tomorrow and we will eventually complete this round of assessments this month. Just a quick note on NWEA. The purpose of NWEA is to provide our teachers with another piece of data in order to best meet the needs of our students. NWEA is part of a larger picture of student performance to help us know each child as a learner. It is by no means a “high stakes” test and we know as professionals that while the data may be very helpful for some students, the NWEA does not always accurately reflect how a student learns and we never rely on a single piece of data. Again, it is just part of our work to ensure we are meeting students’ needs at their personal level.

In other news, I want to highlight the three attachments to today's email:

Important Science Olympiad News
Attached to the email is a letter that addresses a change in the tournament set up resulting in a situation where Wines may not be able to send every participant to participate because our team is too large. We are working hard at trying to find solutions to this so that any interested WESO participant can participate. Please read the attached letter if your child participates in Science Olympiad.

Social Media Safety Presentation at our PTO Meeting Next Tuesday
Our PTO meeting next Tuesday evening will feature a presentation from the Washtenaw Council for Children on Social Media safety. I urge parents to attend this meeting. We begin at 6:30 and childcare is available. A flyer is attached to today’s email and a paper copy comes home today as well.

International Night
Attached again today is the sign up to participate in International Night. If you would like to share your family culture or traditions, please fill out the form. We would like all forms back by this Friday.

Stay Warm,

David



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