On the Calendar this week........

Lunchroom Appreciation Week - We do have the VERY BEST!

Mon: Fire Drill

Tues: K and 1 AIMSWeb Testing

Thurs: PaceSetters Recognized

Friday: Team Member of Month named

This Week's Quote is from the country singer and actress, Dolly Parton. "If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours." 

Walker Pass Colors

Mon: Yellow

Tues: Pink

Wed: Green

Thurs: Blue

Fri: White

We will continue to follow Rotation #1 

Our Pledge Helpers this week 

Mon: Jones

Tues: Bamberg

Wed: Fortenberry

Thurs: Cates

Fri: D Ray

Duty This Week

AM

Kindergarten: Bamberg

First Grade: Patterson

Cafeteria: Killmeyer and Vincent

2nd Grade: Odom

3rd/4th: Johnson

5th Grade: Wilson

Car Line: Garrett and Ellis

PM

Radio: Prickett

Monitor Car Line Students: Young and Wilkerson

Intersection of the Front Hall: Franklin/Meredith

I would encourage you to start, if you haven't already, offering Friday incentives for behavior. Please let me know if you  need ideas.  I have a few!

You have a few more days to nominate a Specialist or Special Education Teacher for our Team Member of the Month honor.  

If you have any interest is changing grades and/or looping with your class, let me know.  It helps when we are interviewing if I have these things already in mind.

If you park in the large staff parking lot beside the office and you are crossing the car line when it is full of cars, PLEASE use the crosswalk.  We want to keep everyone safe. 

Thank you for turning in unused walker passes. 

Please keep Tara Vincent in your prayers.  Her father passed away this morning.

Leadership Team Meeting – 4/ 22

Your Leadership Team discussed each question at length and offered great insight. 

Can we shorten the intros of the Pledge Helpers?  Students want to have some time to talk with each other, and talk to the teacher.  This is also a great time for teachers to get some intervention/reteaching in for the day.  We feel that this recognition is very important to the students and their parents. The teachers should be able to submit whatever they would like read and posted without feeling limited. Mrs. Tyner will remain very aware of the time announcements take and try to limit that as much as possible.  The time for students to visit and for any incidental intervention, is before 8:00.

Is there any talk of changing the requirements for Wall of Fame?  Our kindergartners have such a hard time achieving the PS score, even our smartest kids.  It’s pitiful to watch them work so hard and be disappointed over and over again. They don’t stand a chance of becoming a millionaire, so their options are so limited.  Kids boo hoo about it.  1^st graders have a really hard time becoming a millionaire, too.  I get that is celebrates academic success, but it’s not truly attainable for K students. YES, some things will change with the Wall of Fame next year.  We’ve heard that DreamBox is going away, so we know that will change. The WOF was created to celebrate students who show academic talents AND students who choose to go above and beyond expectations (AR and DB).  It was never intended to be something that ALL students could achieve.  Just like trying out for the HS baseball team, very few make it as underclassmen.  However, as a Junior and Senior (4^th and 5^th grader) your chances are much better. We suggest that the teachers make a big deal about other recognitions. It was mentioned that you may want to think of something that only K and 1 could earn.  Like the Blow Pops Mrs. Tyner is doing now for K students and the AR Charts for Popcorn that First Graders do. WOF is about dreaming big and showing everyone that academic achievement and hard work are a huge priority for CES.  CES recognizes students in MANY ways**  everyone can earn something.

**https://www.trussvillecityschools.com//cms/lib/AL50000063/Centricity/Domain/724/Student%20Recognition%20at%20Cahaba%2019-20.pdf

Tents for lunch? Can we consider getting the tents back out for lunch and places to gather for students? Often the same classes are the ones getting the prime eating sports each time. Mrs Tyner is  happy to arrange for the tents to be put up and taken down when we need them because of heat.  It’s quite an undertaking to get that done and also watch the weather and find people to take them down quickly, if needed. However, if you would like your class tent, please let Tony know and he’ll bring it to you.

Duty schedules? There seems to be so many days spent coming in to school early.  Can these days where we must come in early be limited?  There should be people here working in their rooms if there is an emergency.  The leadership team discussed this and offered a few minor changes that I’ll try next year.  However, the changes they suggested won’t change the number of early morning positions needed. I assign teachers to duty positions for two reasons. 1. To proactively avoid any emergency situations 2. To have adults happily greeting our students to school. Both of those require intentionality. We have brainstormed and tried several different ways to assign duty at CES and I’ve always taken staff input.  The plan I’ve followed this year has created the least number of complaints. Typically everyone has early morning duty one week out of every four.  That is created by only having four sections per grade level. EX: Kindergarten holding is covered by Kindergarten First grade by first etc.…..   I combined 3^rd and 4^th this year so I could add an additional person in the cafeteria due to following COVID protocols.

Is there a plan to honor the teachers who retired in 2020 and who will retire in 2021?  We had a plan and had to abort in January with the upswing of COVID.  We need to get the committee back together asap.