The 2015-2016 School Year is Here!

Welcome back Stoneridge teachers!  I am so excited for this school year.  We have so many great things going on and I know we will continue to work together to grow, learn, and be the best we can for our students!

This has been a great summer of learning for me.  I had so much fun going to NAESP down in Long Beach and then even more fun going to CUE Rock Star with eight of our teachers.  I also read Growth Mindset and Rethinking Homework as well as the Math Frameworks (not done with all grade levels yet but getting there).

New Blog I am trying something new with this blog.  If it doesn't work we can change formats but I think this will be a great way for me to share information with you instead of a weekly email.  I can add videos and links.  Also allows you to comment.  If this format doesn't work we can try something else but I really want to give this a try.

A few over summer updates.  We have newly painted backpack racks and a new gym floor.  In your room there are now two small trash cans with one large trash can in the center pod.  I had nothing to do with this but this is the way it will be going forward.  The custodians have worked hard so please thank them. We also have two amazing new teachers, Jake Blake and Christi Robertson joining our staff this year!  Kim is taking over our new TK class and we are waiting to see if we can hire a 3rd grade teacher.  We are so close on numbers.

As for Technology we have a few updates:
-We can now officially share outside of our district with our google docs.  This is a huge win for us! If you make a google form parents can now access it.  Please make sure to never share student data outside of rcsdk8 email addresses.
-Bring Your Own Chromebook won't be happening this year but the new tech director has said everything should be set and ready to go by the end of this school year and ready to roll out to parents so that we are starting it next year (grade level we are rolling it out to TBD at the end of this school year).
-Also you are able to email the rcsdkids accounts and from your rcsdk8 account.  This should be helpful for teachers using the rcsdkids accounts.
-No online gradebook this year but looking like there will be one next year
-Blocked sites, you should be able to log in to bypass this as a teacher now

Class Lists We are posting on Friday 8/14 at 4:30.  Diane and I are working on if we are able to have you easily get your class emails to send your parents an email before class lists go out.  Should have an answer soon.  If you are not able to (since you aren't working yet) no big deal just let us know and we can send it out.  Once we know for sure that we can, I will send out a generic template of what an email could look like.  Obviously you can send whatever you want.

BTSN This year PTC would like a PTC liason for each class.  I know this was done in the past.  It does not have to be the room parent.  If you do sign ups for positions like Art Docent please add that position to your list.

Speaking of Art Docent, we still need a head Art Docent.  If you have anyone that you think may be interested let me know and I can give them a call.

I will be going into each room at BTSN.  It will be super quick if I want to get to all rooms.  Some things I will be going over with parents at BTSN when I come to each room:
-Things we accomplished last year like PLTW schoolwide
-Getting involved with our school, volunteer, PTC, Watch DOGS, ect
-How to connect with us using Twitter and Remind
-Things to look forward to this year.  More science labs, PLTW continuting, music in Kinder, grades 3-5 using their Google kids accounts.

Here is what we sent parents for our BTSN letter and schedule.  If you have any questions please let me know.


August 17, 18 and 19.  I do not know the location yet for the 17th.  I know it will not be here and that it is math PD.  Here are the two agendas for August 18th and August 19th.  Obviously this can change but it gives you a pretty good idea of what we will be going over.

Please share a photo from summer in the shared folder.  To get there go to your drive, then Stoneridge folder, then pictures, then 2015 Summer Staff photos.  Have it done by the morning of the 18th to share what fun you had this summer.

There is obviously a lot to go over before the start of the school year.  To make sure we are using our time the best we can at staff meetings I sometimes will be giving you articles to read or videos to watch ahead of time.

An example of this is I would like for you to read the Blog post titled Let's Talk Homework on this blog.  By reading this ahead of time we will be able to have better conversation at our staff meeting.  There might be things that you disagree with in the post and that is ok.  This is just to get the conversation started.  You may have heard of flipping your classroom, having you read an article or a blog post before the staff meeting is an example of flipping the staff meeting.

I would also like for you to read this article about Growth Mindset.  We will be using this article in our meeting on 8/19.

I feel so lucky to have such a dedicated group of teachers and be the principal of Stoneridge.  It is the best job ever.  We just keep building on what we have here and I can't wait to see what we do this year.  Here is to the best year ever!