From the Principal's Desk

With each school year comes opportunities for us to utilize tools that are traditional or even on the cutting edge, to meet the needs of each individual student at Kurtz. Teachers often spend their own money on these resources. We are hoping you will take a look at the teacher projects listed below, in order to support the great things that are happening in our classrooms. Want to support your child's current teacher's proposal? That is great, but we encourage you to think outside of the box. Look at future grade levels and support different projects. With time, your support may mean outstanding tools and resources being integrated in the future!

As of spring 2018, the team at Kurtz has experienced a great deal of success participating in Donors Choose. We have had 16 staff members submit projects and designated over $36,577 in funding for resources we have assigned to classrooms. Our success has been based on your support. In fact, over 305 unique donations have been made to our many classroom projects on Donors Choose. We encourage you take a look at our active projects and consider supporting the great things we are doing in our classrooms. Feel free to share the links to friends, family and business partners in email and social media form. You would be surprised at how quickly even small contributions add up and make opportunities happen for our students and our future students.

The staff at Kurtz has developed a collective vision for technology usage and integration that is consistently focused on empowering students to utilize technology for the sake of learning and maximizing the academic growth of each individual. We are dedicated to questioning ourselves and each other in order to ensure time and resources are ALWAYS allocated to technology that increases communication, collaborations and student achievement. We will work together to research new ideas and try new things whenever we feel confident that new resources have a high potential for positively impacting what we do in the classroom every day.

As the principal of Kurtz Elementary School, it is my goal to look for positive ways to communicate the great things the staff at Kurtz implements throughout the building each day. I am motivated to post images that give all of our stakeholders a sense of who we are and what we do to benefit our students. It is my hope that members of our community follow us on social media in order to participate in a daily open house, so to speak. By following our feed, you will see our staff and students engaged in cutting edge teaching and learning practices. You will see individuals interacting in ways that support collaboration, problem solving and integrating various resources to grow as thinkers and learners. Most importantly, followers will certainly find an amazingly positive culture in place that strives to support our vision statement,
Welcoming + Empowering + Achieving = GREATNESS!

Follow us on Twitter!
On a personal and professional level, I utilize Twitter as a professional tool every day. Twitter offers a newsfeed that I use to stay on top of cutting edge educational practices and strategies. I am able to connect with some of the most impressive leaders in the field and draw from an almost incomprehensible bank of ideas that I can learn about and then offer to staff, students and those I interact with. Twitter validates my passion for what I do. It is my hope our Kurtz community members will give Twitter a try and follow @KurtzElementary. Savvy team members can also be a part of the conversation by participating in our hashtag project at #KURTZPRIDE.

How about Instagram?
Our Instagram handle is kurtzelementary. Instagram is less about ideas and conversation and more about images that represent the great events and learning activities that occur at school. Our staff members post images of students learning, sharing, communicating and/or working. We are committed to sharing images that give followers a clear sense of the things we do to benefit the growth of each of our students.