Thursday, April 19, 2018

GRE SINGS FOR EARTH DAY
We celebrated Earth Day with an all school sing along.  In addition to singing together, students shared presentations, I movies, poems and performances that promoted environmental awareness.  Students also highlighted efforts Gold Rush students make each day that make a difference, including maintaining our indoor and outdoor gardens, recycling and donating food that would have gone to waste to the Parker Task Force.  We enjoyed the opportunity to come together as a larger community.  We thank music teacher, Mrs. Petty, for organizing this event.  






LEGNED FEEDER FOCUS
K-12 Goals to Support Critical Thinking 
The principals in the Legend Feeder presented K-12 goals for the 2018-2019 school year and information regarding the state of the District budget during the joint SAC meeting Wednesday.  Administrators from the elementary, middle and high schools are committed to furthering critical thinking by embedding the following 6 thinking strategies into instruction at all levels:

Monitoring for Meaning
Making Connections and Activating Schema (or Background Knowledge)
Determining Importance
Inferring
Creating Sensory Images
Summarizing & Synthesizing

Thinking strategies promote deep thinking.  They are routinely used by adult readers, writers, mathematicians and scientists and are widely supported by research.  By explicitly teaching these strategies students will be able to reflect and reason deeply.  You can click here for more information regarding these thinking strategies.  

All schools will be explicitly teaching these strategies and students will be applying them in a workshop structure.  This structure ensures that students spend the majority of the instructional time applying what they were taught in a brief mini lesson.  Gold Rush teachers already implement the thinking strategies and the workshop model in literacy.  We look forward to extending these practices in other content areas.



District Budget Presentation 
Principals also outlined the District's current goals and needs through a District budget presentation. Administrators also explained how schools are funded according to the State Finance Act.  Click here for the full presentation. 





CLASS PLACEMENT PROCESS & PARENT INPUT
Creating balanced class lists that meet the needs of all students is a difficult endeavor.  This process involves hours of thoughtful dialogue between classroom teachers, administrators and other staff members.  We know that creating a strong learning environment is essential to students’ success and we therefore take this responsibility seriously.  Please be assured that we take each child into consideration.  Please see our process below.

·     Teachers identify the social and academic needs of each student.  They refer to existing data and record pertinent information to assist them in their decision-making.

·     Teachers meet as grade level teams to form class lists that are balanced.  Balanced classrooms meet each student’s academic, social and emotional needs.  Teachers consider each child’s personality, academic strengths, needs and friendships. Learning specialists, the specials team and administration also collaborate with classroom teachers to provide feedback.

·     Each grade level team submits a draft of class lists.  I review final lists to ensure all parent input has been considered.  Classroom teachers approve any changes I suggest given parent feedback to ensure classes remain balanced. 

·     Class lists are finalized in mid July to reflect the addition of students joining Gold Rush in the summer.

This process is consistent across grades K-4.  Our 5th grade team collaborates with the teachers at Cimarron Middle School to ensure students’ success in 6th grade.

We strongly believe that this detailed and collaborative process creates learning environments that benefit all students.  Please remember that our ultimate goal is to create classes that promote the success of each child.  Please also know that your child is placed in a classroom for specific reasons and that our process benefits all students.  Because of the input and thought given by teachers, parents and administrators, we are reluctant to make changes once this process is complete.  It may be hard to believe, but moving one child can disrupt the balance of an entire classroom. 

We do value parent input and welcome any insight you wish to share about your child’s strengths, needs and learning style.  We will take into consideration all pertinent information that you share with me on or before Friday, April 27th.  While we welcome your input, we cannot honor specific teacher requests.  Please put your thoughts in writing and address them to me (Jenny Brown).  I will accept either a letter or email (jjbrown@dcsdk12.org).

I cannot express enough how important it is that your thoughts are in writing.  As you can imagine, I receive a great deal of parent input and verbal information is difficult to track.  I also prefer that you direct this communication to me, as I am ultimately responsible for reviewing final class lists in July when teachers may not be available.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions regarding our process or your individual child.  I would be happy to speak with you further.

UPCOMING EVENTS
* April 20: No School
* April 21: Apple Awards - Gold Rush Honors Jenn Dale & Stacie Martino!
* April 27: Legend Art Show & GRE Talent Show @ 6:30