Tuesday, January 7, 2014

January Faculty Blog

Dear Faculty,

The next Enrollment Open House will take place on Saturday, January 18 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
. January is usually our biggest open house. We look forward to welcoming potential families that day. These families really appreciate the opportunity to meet teachers and learn more about the classroom experience at ACS. Thanks in advance for the time and effort it takes to make your room inviting. 

ACS is moving to automatic re-enrollment this year. Families will receive information later this week about the mechanics of the new program. I will send the timeline document to everyone on the faculty and staff so you will have what the parents see. This week families on financial assistance will receive a memo from Steve regarding the new third party financial aid evaluation tool called FAST. It is accessed from the website and provides the financial aid committee with consistent financial aid information based on families' incomes and assets. Also this week, the families of current begindergarten students will receive their placement for next year (JK or K). 

Over the break ACS continued to receive donations to the Annual Giving Campaign. Thanks to the generosity of  faculty/staff, parents, board members and alumni, the AGC has topped previous records and tops $323,000 in gifts and pledges. Parent participation stands at 63%. 

Janet





Patriotic Assembly - Thursday, February 27th at 9:00 am
Please notice the date change. The Patriotic Assembly was moved to the 27th to accommodate the First grade play.

Practice days will be Tuesday and Wednesday, the 25th and 26th.

In conjunction with the Sochii Olympics, the assembly will focus on the Healthy Individual ESLR and will have the title of Go USA! (Actually, we are open for a better title.)


PLP Reminders
Here are the due dates for PLPs:
·      enrichment/elective teachers - comments due to homeroom teachers on Tuesday, January 21 by midnight.
·      homeroom teachers - final copies (including enrichments) to Gary/Cecilia on Thursday, January 23, by midnight.

Clearly, early finishers will be appreciated.
__________________

So you know, you will have dedicated time to work on PLPs on:
Tuesday, Jan. 14 - after-school meeting dedicated to PLPs
Tuesday, Jan. 21 - 10:00 - 12:00 (inservice day)
__________________

Homeroom teachers should have gotten an updated PLP template for this year by email from Gary. Please contact him if you did not or have questions.


Fire Drill, January 28th
This fire drill will be unannounced to students and will be sometime in the afternoon.

App Fair
The first annual ACS App Fair will be a chance for students and parents to share and present apps, programs, and coding projects they have created. This will be after school on April 9th and open to grades 3-8. Students in K-2nd  grades who are interested can speak with Mrs. Gay or Mr. DeMoss about taking part in the fair. There will be more information coming out to parents and students about how they can take part and times students can work on their own projects at school. Mary Beth and Gary are organizing this showcase of our students’ talents with computers and programming. More information and details soon.


Gary





Monday, January 6, 2014


Did you know you could do a Google search by reading level?
Read on to find out how simple it is!






How to Search a Topic by Reading Level



Go to Google and type in the topic you want to research.


Click on Search Tools


Click on All results and you will see other choices in the drop down menu. Select Reading Level.

At the top of the list of resource list, you will see a graph that shows you how many of the following resources are at each of three reading levels.


Then as you scroll through the list, under each resource heading, the reading level is noted.


 Hopefully, this will help you and your students to focus on resources that are at an appropriate reading level for them.