Beginning A New Year with Great Students!

January 19, 2015

Good afternoon!

I cannot express to you how grateful we are to have our students back in our classrooms. We missed seeing their smiling faces and academic efforts.  There is no doubt we have the Best and the Brightest students in the land!

Last week, I had the great pleasure of having a pizza party with our December Students of the Month. These students were: Colton Stagg (KDG), Kenny Harden (KDG), Summer Hall (1st), Bryce Kreager (1st), Tyler Ing (2nd), Ethan Garrett (2nd), Callie Ackley (3rd), Alexis Cook (3rd), Hanna Humphrey (4th), Jake Fanning (4th), Ethan Temple (5th), and Jordan Smith (5th).  These students were nominated by their teachers for their outstanding efforts in our classrooms.  We are very proud of these students and their accomplishments!

Every first Monday of each month, we have an enjoyable Parent Teachers Organization Meeting in our Library at 7pm.  During this meeting, we discuss current events of the school, along with different ways that our PTO helps support our students.  Some PTO Projects include and have included: purchasing a mobile computer for our students, Secret Santa Shop, Book Fair, and organizing a 5k Run Partnered with The Ariel Corporation.  Babysitting is provided during these meetings.  Since this is a partnership between Columbia Elementary and The PTO, it is very important to us at Columbia Elementary, that our parents understand how we are using technology in our classrooms.  For this reason, I am offering a monthly Google Drive and Documents Training to our parents from 6-7pm before each PTO Meeting.  This training is called "Google Talk." The only requirement is that each parent that attends has created a Google/Gmail Account.   I am a firm believe in giving people a "one stop shopping approach" to get additional help beyond these trainings.  For this reason, I have created the following website for our parents and community to better understand Google Drive and Documents.  The website address is http://tinyurl.com/ptogoogletalk .These tools created by Google have a great potential for drastically improving the communication between our school and each of our student's parents.  These are the some of the same tools that we are using to help support instruction in our classrooms. Even if you are unable to attend these training opportunities, I encourage you to explore this website and explore the training materials as I gradually post them for your review.

This coming week we are excited to start the second round of our Reading and Math Intervention After School Program for students in Grades 3-5.  This program is designed for students that are either struggling or need an extra boost in these subject areas.  All of these decisions were based on both student data and teacher input.  As Reading and Math play a vital role in a student's success in life, we find it very important that these students attend and are active participants in this extended learning opportunity.  Our district finds this program so important that there is bus transportation provided for those students that normally ride the school bus to and from school.  The Reading and Math After School Program will be every Tuesday and Thursday that we are in school between now and April 16, 2015.  The program will conclude at 4:45pm on these days.  Each student during this time will be attending two thirty minute classes each day (Reading, Phonics, or Math).  Meaning that within one week the students will be enriching all three of these academic areas. We have improved the design of this program to better accommodate our students' academic needs.Permission Slips were mailed to each student's home that is to be involved in the program.  These permission slips need to be returned by tomorrow, January 20th.  If you would like your child to participate and you did not receive a permission slip, please contact me at 1-740-393-5975 or mdill@mvcsd.us.

Some Additional Important Notes:

a) If your child is involved in The South Vernon Methodist Church After School Program, it is no long on Thursdays but it is now on Wednesdays (starting this week).  
b)The Faith Baptist Church After School Program will continue to be on Wednesday nights.
c)The Second Nine Weeks Award Assemblies are THIS FRIDAY (1/23/15):  9:15am-10am (KDG-2nd Grades); 10-10:45am (Grades 3-5)
d)Yearbook Sales-Week of 1/26/15
e) PTO Google Talk Training-2/2/15 @6pm
f)PTO Meeting-2/2/15@7pm
g)If your child is interested in signing up for MVBA Baseball (Ages 9-15), be sure that he/she picks up an application in front of our office on the community table.

Thank you for allowing us to serve your children!

Go Tigers!
Matt