ENSC Parent Notes
October 28, 2013
Key Club - Safe Trick or Treat Night
Interact Club - Honor Flight
ENHS Interact Club
Honor Flight is a national organization whose focus is to send WWII veterans (and eventually Korean/Vietnam vets) to Washington D.C. for a day. Every one of us has been touched by a veteran in some way and it is our responsibility as citizens of America to give back to these brave men and women. Help us be the reason our veterans are taking part in this opportunity.
Purpose: Honor our Veterans by giving them the opportunity to visit their memorials in Washington D.C.
Our Goal: To raise $10,000 for the veterans’ travels
How to Help: Fill out one of the pledge forms below and forward to-
“Honor Flight” East Noble Interact Club
901 Garden Street,
Kendallville, IN 46755
Questions? Contact Natalie Pine at pinena@eastnoble.net or Matthew Rickey at mrickey@eastnoble.net
Update on Balanced Calendar
Update on comments I have been receiving:
1. This year's five day fall break was very nice and people believe just one week for a fall break is plenty. The challenge is determining the best time for this one week break.
2. When will a decision be made? Many parents work for employers who require them to submit vacation requests before December. It is my hope to have an approved calendar by December.
3. People are wanting to make sure spring break is the end of March/early April. At this time, that is the plan.
4. What will the date be for the last day of school. This will all depend upon the start date, if we use one or two weeks for fall break, and if we build in snow days.
Please continue to submit your comments and also feel free to discuss the potential calendar with families.
Additional School Resource Officers!
Speak Up Survey
Parents Speak Up – Your ideas are important to us!
Open October 2nd – December 20th, 2013
http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2013/
Be a part of the conversation! Starting this month, we are participating in the Speak Up national research project. Speak Up is the first survey designed to help parents share their ideas directly with schools and national policymakers. As key stakeholders, Speak Up provides parents with a mechanism for expressing their views to the administrators at their child(ren)’s school and district about key issues impacting their child(ren)'s education. Since 2003, Speak Up has collected and shared the views of over 2.6 million students, teachers, and parents from all 50 states, as well as internationally. By participating in Speak Up, parents are expressing their views to a wider audience of local, state, and national policy makers as well as the business community—and contributing to the national dialog about science, technology, and preparing students for the 21st century workforce.
The online survey is open to students, educators and parents; it’s quick and easy to get involved. To take the survey visit: http://www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2013/ and click the blue parents enter here button!
This week's Super Hero of the Week is Avilla Elementary's Shannon Leman
Avilla Elementary recognizes Shannon Leman as this week’s Superhero! Shannon has been relentless in helping to set up and implement our BURST Reading program! She has put in countless hours, both at school and at home, to ensure our K-2 students become proficient readers. From creating numerous resources to learning the inner workings of the program, she is stepping up to ensure student success. The Avilla Staff is appreciative of her efforts to ensure success for OUR Avilla Students!
Websites worth a look.....
Building and Curriculum News
Curriculum - Building Comprehension in All Subjects
Our recent reading data shows that our students are fluent readers but struggle with comprehension.
All teachers can help build reading comprehension by driving the students back into the reading to gain information and respond to higher order questions. Simple questions that can be answered with “yes”, “no” or one word answers do not require students to comprehend - they simply ask students to state information. To help students increase their reading comprehension, do you ask students to explain "why" after reading? Even in math class, students build comprehension of the problem by explaining and using details and information from the problem.
This week, I encourage all teachers and parent/guardians to increase their students’ reading comprehension skills by requiring students to explain why their answers are correct by citing information from the reading or problem.
- Tell me more…
- Tell me why that is the answer.
- What supports your answer?
Wayne Center Elementary
The Wayne Center Tigers have started a new reading incentive program! Mrs. Mossburg made a wonderful “score board” for the individual classes. The students who read at least 150 minutes in a week get put into a drawing for baseball themed prizes, books, and more! The minutes are submitted by class at the end of the week and classes are deemed either home run hitters, triple hitters, double hitters, or getting a single base on the number of minutes read. Our school goal is to read 1,000,000 MINTUES! After the first week we have already reached 33, 623 minutes.
When the school reaches:
· 250,000 minutes read we will enjoy donuts, juice, and milk
· 500,000 minutes read we will enjoy individual snacks
· 750,000 minutes read we will enjoy ice cream sundaes
· 1,000,000 minutes read we will enjoy popcorn, cracker jacks, cotton candy, and are working on plans to have special visitors join us to help celebrate.
South Side Elementary
At last week's Trailblazer University celebration, South Side hosted the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, and Mad Ant himself challenged our students to a jump rope and a basketball competition. South Side students beat the giant insect on both counts! Impressive--especially since he has a couple of extra limbs for jumping and dribbling!
Rome City Elementary
Friday was the Awards Program at Rome City Elementary. Students in 1st and 2nd grade earned awards for “E” in all math areas, “S” in all math areas, “E” in reading, “S” in reading, Merit (Great Effort), and Character Counts. Grades 3-6 earned awards for honor roll, and character counts. All students with perfect attendance were able to enter their name into a drawing for a bicycle at the end of the year.
Bus problems are minimal with Beiswanger Bucks! This mini-economy is a great solution to many bus issues. The students enjoy being rewarded for their great behavior. Once a month the students get to spend their bucks on prizes, ranging from pencil grips to sodas, candy bars, and larger games. This week the students went to the store for the second time this year.
Wednesday night was the board meeting at Rome City Elementary school. The staff was able to share results of Daily Math Review (DMR). DMR is a daily review of skills that have been taught in Everyday Math. It helps to ensure that 80% of the students make mastery of the skills. DMR is a quick way for teachers to ensure that all students are making progress in math. Additionally, Rocket Math is in full swing in all Rome City classrooms. The students love the new challenge.
Trunk or Treat Friday night was amazing! It was great to see Rome City Staff alongside community members hosting the second annual Rome City Trunk or Treat.
North Side Elementary
Miss Ebert's class and Mrs. Sibert's class invited Beth Munk from the Kendallville Public Library to come into their room to do a voracious reading demonstration. Beth read the text called Skippy Jon Jones. She was exceptionally fluent as she read. The students noticed her voice changed when different characters were talking. The students learned that readers become more fluent by increasing their volume of reading.
The second grade team is also comparing and contrasting two or more versions of the same story. The students have had a great time reading all of the different versions of Cinderella. Mrs. Sibert's class used big hoola hoops to create a Venn Diagram on the floor when comparing and contrasting the tex ts.
East Noble Middle School
The math classes are working on solving equations and looking for ways to apply this skill. Some classes will soon be making videos demonstrating their skill and knowledge of equations.
Seventh grade orange team science classes are beginning a short unit on volcanoes before we begin to transition into a much larger unit involving energy and natural resources. Students are beginning the 2nd grading period with a clean slate and a new opportunity to achieve high marks over the next nine weeks. Note taking continues to be an important part of the process, as well as making sure all assignments are completed on time. Look forward to new labs and other projects involving a variety of topics we’ll be covering in the next 8 weeks.
Seventh grade social studies students are learning about culture and world religions. Students created a Culture Collage of their personal beliefs, interests and preferences. Currently, students are discussing Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. By the end of the unit, students will have completed various class activities and assignments related to world religions.
The academic labs were reorganized this past week in order to assist students who need additional assistance in certain areas. Acuity A scores were used to identify the students and their needs. Goal setting and planning steps to achieve those goals are also skills being taught during academic lab time.
Seventh grade students also visited Manchester University on Thursday, Oct. 24th. Students had a great time touring the campus, learning about college admissions and speaking with college students who took time to answer questions. Upon returning to the middle school, students completed a Web Quest about college. Students said they liked seeing the dorm rooms and were excited about college food!
Parent –teacher conferences were held Thursday night with many parents taking advantage of the opportunity to meet with teachers and receive report cards.
East Noble High School
It’s not too late to participate in the HS Coca-Cola fundraiser. The Campus Beautification Project is selling Coca-Cola products by the case. It’s a presale fundraiser, so money is due at the time of the order. Delivery date will be November 19th at the Cole Auditorium Lobby from 3:00 – 5:00 pm. The committee is applying for a matching grant; every dollar we raise could actually gain us two more dollars from the foundation. A product sheet with prices was sent out to each principal. However, feel free to come to the HS Main Office to place your order. Friday is the final day orders will be accepted.
Algebra I teachers are working extremely hard this year to promote mastery. To help us reach this goal, they are looking into implementing modules and will be visiting schools in our surrounding area that currently use this system to promote mastery of the topics. As a step in that direction, each student who is taking Algebra 1 this year has a data folder that is being using to track student understanding of material.
Recently, the HS received dual credit certification through Ivy Tech for two more courses. The high school currently issues dual credit for the following courses: AP English 11, AP English 12, AP Chemistry, AP World History, AP Art, AP Calculus, Spanish IV, French III, PLTW Intro to Engineering & Principles of Engineering. This is in addition to our IPFW dual credit Trig/Pre-Calc course. We hope to be adding additional courses within the next week or so.
This weekend East Noble Student Council attended Indiana Association of Student Councils State Convention in Indianapolis. East Noble was represented by 1 Indiana Assoc. student council official, 2 advisors, 2 executive committee members, and 34 student delegates. While at state convention, students listened to Phil Boyte, had opportunities to share/swap ideas with other high school student council members, and participate in a service project that collects books (new and used) for Riley Children's Hospital. During state convention, East Noble High School was awarded "The Kids Caring and Sharing Award" for raising 12,000 for Riley last year and also awarded an IASC Honor council for the 28 consecutive years, which is the same number of years honor councils have been in existence. East Noble Student council was also named a National Gold Council of Excellence.
Avilla Elementary
This past Wednesday OUR sixth grade students made the annual trek to BizTown. Students, high school students, and parents did an outstanding job of running the city for the day. We would like to congratulate OUR mayor Justen Teders for representing Avilla so well. We would also like to thank OUR Citizens of the Day Abby Tjon and Collin Strohm. We really appreciate the help from OUR parents and the ALC students that helped chaperone for the day as well. We would not be able to have learning experiences like this without you.
This Tuesday will be a very busy day. OUR first graders will be visiting Trine University and hope to have a nice day for their trip. Panther University will be at 6:30. A very fun evening is being planned including The Bat Guy! If you have time in your schedule please feel free to visit.
OUR Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held this Wednesday evening from 3:30 until 7:30. Parents and teachers will have the opportunity to discuss progress made throughout the year using the data that has been compiled on M-Class and Acuity. Teachers will also be discussing reading levels, writing skills, and all of the wonderful things that are happening on a daily basis here at Avilla.
Alternative Learning Center
It was another busy week at the ALC, as we welcomed two new Middle School students. As our middle school numbers grew, so too did the number of credits earned by the High School students. The current credit total stands at 68. That is just 2 credits shy of the total number of credits earned by our High School students during First Trimester last year. Who will be the one to put us over the top this year? In addition to accumulating several credits this week, we had 4 High School students go to Biztown with Avilla Elementary. Our students helped with Biztown in a number of ways and one of our students even stepped in to lead a group when a parent volunteer did not arrive. Thanks to those students who helped and thanks to Ms. Justus for arranging that service opportunity.