Weekly Blog 9-7-15

Good evening!

I hope everyone had an outstanding Labor Day Weekend! This special holiday is the holiday that we show gratitude to the working class, and remind each other to work to live, and not to live to work. We know work is vital to helping support our families, making sure they have a roof over their heads and food on their table. However, we cannot overlook the importance of instilling strong family values and enjoying each day of our life.

As we enter into the second week of September, we are incredibly thankful to have your children back at Columbia Elementary.  During the first couple of weeks, our students are involved in diagnostic/baseline tests in Reading and Math.  These tests help us better understand where your child is academically and allows us to better serve each of them.  While it might seem worthless and a waste of time to some, please understand the instructional value of our instructional team knowing exactly where each student is verses purely guessing...

We believe that the only way we get better at serving our children is by constantly looking at and taking extra strides to serve each of them better. One extra stride we are taking to serve children better is we have created an Intervention Time once a week for our students on Fridays. Much like in a hospital setting, we have created an Intervention Team of Teachers that travels from grade level to grade level throughout the day to both enrich and intervene with our students.  During this time, we get our student ratios down as low as 1 teacher for every 3 students.  Each grade level rotates in and out of both Intervention and Library Time during two 25 minute periods.  Students do not travel based on their Homeroom Class but based on the student's academic needs.  All students receive either enrichment or intervention during this time period.  Of course, these students' needs may vary week to week.  We are hopeful that these extra strides will create positive student academic results.

This coming week we are going to continue our journey towards excellence:  On Tuesday, our District Leadership Team is meeting to continue to focus and refine our district's academic goals that directly impact each building's path towards excellence.  On Wednesday, our Instructional Team will be meeting on during a 2 Hour Delay to improve the implementation of our new English Language Arts Series called Journeys and refining and focusing how we teach technology skills to our elementary students.  On Thursday, our Second Graders are going to a "Yes Concert" with The Columbus Children's Theater, while on Friday, we will be having our Individual Student Picture Day.  Among all of these activities throughout the week, our students will be working hard in our classrooms.

Below please mark your calendars for our important upcoming dates:


Important Upcoming Dates:

a) 2hr Delay for ALL MVCSD Schools for Professional Development-9/9

b) YES Concert-2nd Grade-9/10 at 10am

c) Fall Individual Pictures at Columbia-9/11

d) Columbia Elementary PTO-9/14-7pm in our Library

e) YES Concert-5th Grade-9/16 at 10am

f) Tiger Up Time at Columbia-9/18-9-11am

September's Topic: Good Character (Parents are invited to 10am Schoolwide Assembly)

Monthly Focus: To improve the Character, Leadership, and Decision Making Skills of our students for both the short and long term.

Monthly Process:

-Once a month the building’s master schedule will be placed on a 2 hour delay schedule (except for February and April(during state testing)).

-One hour will be devoted to Classroom Instruction/Mentorship

-The other hour will be an assembly format with students in Grade 2-5 or specific grade levels together for more information related to the topic being discussed.

-Most presenters will be from the MV Community while others will be consider to be outside experts on that specific topic.

-Students will be assigned to a “Mentor” another person other than their classroom for a cyclical two years in a row.  

-The Mentor would be a Columbia Elementary Team Member

-Lessons are encouraged to be taught by teachers with students actively participating in the lessons.  

g) Schoolwide Team Banner Picture-9/18

-All students need to wear orange and/or black

h) K-2 Disney MTV Arts-9/25 at 10am

Thank you for your continued support of our students!


Remember to Tiger Up!
Matt