What Have You Done For Me Lately?Many people may think that a school plods along year after year without change. The only difference some people notice is the name on a door after a retirement party. Well, what have we done at Algonquin lately?
- Reading Minute - A school wide initiative to develop better summarizing skills. The teacher, and sometimes students, bring in a short article of interest. After reading and listening students write a one sentence summary of the article. The initial work shows that this is a skill many students need practice at. I recommend that parents try this one at home.
- SSR - Silent Sustained Reading will start school wide on Monday, March 19th. They class periods have been adjusted to allow 21 minutes of SSR per day. Student can read books, articles, manuals or other resources to increase reading comprehension. With SSR the average student will read an additional 1,823,000 words per year. Our hope is that the benefits of the extra reading will give our students an edge as they pursue more education.
- Olweus Bullying Prevention Program - The Olweus program will kick off on Monday, March 19th. The program was developed by Dan Olweus of Norway. Algonquin will be the first school in Michigan to use the program. The research associated with this program shows a reduction in bullying behavior. Our hope is to make Algonquin the best possible place for kids to come to school.
- Genre Units - The school has purchased units developed in Macomb County to help improve the language arts classrooms. Students are already reading some of the new books as part of these units. (The Cay, Ghost Canoe)
- Parent Connection - Parents can check student grades on-line.
- E-Mail Announcements - Parents can now sign up to get e-mail information from the school. Some notes seem to get lost on the way home :)
The question shouldn't be what have you done for me lately, but what are you doing next?
posted by MiddleSchoolPrincipal @ 3:25 PM
1 Comments:
Glad to hear it!Hopefully three of these changes are not just implemented because of the LA MEAP scores, and prove to be beneficial to our students in all areas. Too bad we didn't do this last year. Unfortunately, the Zangle program is not used/updated by all of the staff, so I would have to say that's a step in the right direction, but when will everyone be "on board". As for the Bullying Program - I was unable to attend the parent meeting about this, but why haven't we seen more information about it? Why can't we get emails that contain the daily announcements?
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