Earlham Community School District

September 6, 2017

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CHATTER

ECSD’S Mission:

Empowering innovative, adaptive, and resourceful learners

School Board Elections

Student Arrival Procedures

The 2017 School Board Election will be held on Tuesday, September 12. The polls are open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM. There are two candidates, both current board members, running for two available seats. Kathy Woolcott has been a Board Member since 2009 and is currently serving as Board President. Kasey Henke was appointed by the Board to fill Teresa Waldron’s seat when she moved out of district last year.

Standardized Testing During September and October, our students will engage in FAST and MAP testing. A good night’s rest and healthy breakfast are two key ingredients for success in school, and especially during testing. Encourage your students to give their best effort, as testing results impact instructional decisions. supports.

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Due to the ongoing construction project, we want to ensure student safety and effective traffic flow during arrival. Parents dropping students off should use the circle drive by the main entrance. Parents should stay in the car and students should exit the car onto the sidewalk, then cars exit by looping back out around the flagpole. If parents need to drop off near the weight room, they must enter through the west side of the parking lot near the water tower and exit to 6th Street. Buses will arrive at the school around 7:55 AM to unload students near the crosswalk between the greenhouse and band room on the west side of the school near the playground. Students riding a bike to school must walk their bike along the sidewalk by the main entrance to get to the bike racks, located by the entrance near the greenhouse. All students eating breakfast will go directly to the school cafeteria. K-5th grade students will use the crosswalk and enter the playground on the north side. 6th grade students will go to the school commons. Middle school and high school students will go into the school and report to the cafeteria. We will have adult supervision in these areas and on the playground beginning at 7:45 AM. No student should be in the building or on the playground without supervision prior to 7:45 AM.

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Earlham Community School District

September 6, 2017

Professional Development Teachers traveled to Grundy Center to learn from Trevor Ragan (trainugly.com) about Growth Mindset. The idea that skills are developed, not born, is a focus for staff development this year. Many teachers are beginning to share growth mindset principles with their students as well.

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Personnel from Pass the Love provided six hours of mental health training for our teachers and associates in August and September. Content included understanding the impact that childhood trauma has on brain development and learning, recognizing behaviors associated with mental illness and building a trauma-informed school environment.

PowerSchool Info Parents can set up their own PowerSchool accounts to access information about their student’s grades and attendance via the free PowerSchool app. Creating a Unified Classroom account will provide access to grades, attendance and classroom pages. Lunch account balances are still accessible via the old JMC parent log in. For more information, visit the school website.

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First-grade teacher Jody Dvorak, Instructional Coach Jess Enger and Reading Recovery Teacher Ami Schultz traveled to Boston in July for the Footprints Institute Literacy Conference. They were able to work with the author Jan Richardson on developing best practices in literacy instruction, as well as networking with other teachers from around the country.

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Earlham Community School District

September 6, 2017

Gymnasium Project Progress continues on the gymnasium construction project. Cranes begin setting pre-cast walls, which are built off-site, transported to the building site, and then placed. Good weather is helping the project stay on track!

A Day of Service and Fun Middle school students traveled to Des Moines to volunteer packaging meals at Meals for the Heartland on Friday, Sept. 1. The afternoon was spent doing team-building activities.

Snapshots from the Elementary

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Earlham Community School District

September 6, 2017

From the Board Table The Earlham School Board met on August 23 rd at 5:30 PM in the library and then took a walk through the building to see some of the improvement projects that had been completed this past summer. The installation to replace SMARTBoards, speakers for the paging system, the “time-out” room and the new carpet in the instrumental music room were all highlighted. The Board returned to the library at approximately 6:00 PM for their regular meeting. The Board was presented a proposal by Alexis Huls to implement a Silver Cord program. The Silver Cord is a volunteer based program that is awarded to seniors who have completed the required 160 hours of service work while their four years in high school. The Silver Cord program will offer the students at Earlham High School the opportunity to give back to the community while also developing their own leadership skills. This program affords the opportunity for students to earn extra recognition at graduation for demonstrating a service-oriented mindset that would benefit the student, the school district and the community. Silver Cords would be presented at the Scholarship and Awards night and worn at graduation ceremonies. Students will be responsible for finding volunteer opportunities and must have those activities pre-approved. Volunteer hours used to achieve a Silver Cord can not be paid and must be actual acts of service. The program would be coordinated by three high school teachers as well as Mrs. Knight. The Board instructed Alexis to work with the faculty sponsors to implement this program as presented. Mrs. Sheffield presented the new Professional Development website and reviewed the professional learning that took place August 14-16. In addition, she shared information on a training that several staff members attended referred to as “Train Ugly” by Trevor Ragan. This training is in concert with the growth mindset theme for professional learning this year.

Get the Cardinal Chatter delivered to your mailbox or inbox! We will publish this newsletter monthly throughout the school year to keep our school community updated on our progress as a district. Copies will be available at local businesses and it will be posted on the school website, but you can elect to have the Chatter delivered directly to your home via email or mail! Simply go online to http://goo.gl/dJ08ds or call the district office at 758-2214 to get signed up to receive all future issues! Looking for more information about our school? Check out our school website at www.ecsdcards.com for more announcements, calendar of events, staff directory and more.

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