This Week at GCMS:
In Proverbs 16, we read about idle hands being the devil's workshop. That has not been a problem around GCMS lately! It has been another very busy week at GCMS, with two Future
Cougar Nights, Reality Store, Operation Preparation, transition meetings, and
tomorrow’s instructional rounds. Teachers are working hard to meet deadlines and still teach students as well. I have
just a few notes to share with you as the week winds toward its end and a well deserved weekend!
Congratulations!
Congratulations
to our newly elected GCMS site based council representatives. Our parent reps will be Jenny Cummings and Jackie
Stanton. Our teacher reps will be Ashley
Johnson, Ellen Thomas, and Don Logsdon.
I appreciate all of these folks being willing to serve, and I look
forward to working with them in the coming year. I also want to thank departing council members,
parent rep Keith Lucas and teacher rep John Cariel.
After
interviewing some very good candidates, I am happy to announce that I plan to
recommend Alex Lovell for our math opening. I believe he will be an
excellent addition to our staff at GCMS.
If you see Mr. Lovell as he finishes up his student teaching assignment with
Mrs. Gallagher here this week, please welcome him to our staff.
If
you see 8th grader, Ethan Pierce, congratulate him for breaking the
school record in pole vault again! That’s
right; he broke his own record by vaulting over 10 feet this week!
Future Cougars:
We had a great turnout on Tuesday evening, and I anticipate
another great turnout tonight for our annual Future Cougar Nights! Current 5th graders and their
parents get an introduction to our school.
Our counselors and administration share some information with the
students and parents, and our Beta Club students lead them on a tour of our
building. I appreciate our 6th
grade teachers coming out to meet their future students and parents. It helps our incoming Cougars feel more at
ease about their transition to middle school.
Instructional Rounds:
Our district instructional rounds team will visit GCMS tomorrow. As we discussed at our last faculty meeting,
we will continue to focus on our problem of practice in the area of questioning. Guiding questions that our observers will be looking
for are:
- Do the teacher and students refer to the common language for questioning?
- Do student responses match the level of questioning?
- · What are the frequencies of student generated open and closed questions?
The team will get in about half of our classrooms. To my knowledge, no one has ever been bitten
during an instructional round. They are
here to help us get better at something we have identified as a focus area for
improvement.
Reality
Store/Operation Preparation:
I would like to thank Faye Critchelow, Kelzey McCubbin, and
Angie Jones for all of their work in organizing and carrying out this year’s
Reality Store and Operation Preparation.
With both events on the same days, it really helps out as far as
reducing the impact on instruction and our regular school schedule. It does create quite a challenge though, in
recruiting more volunteers to work with each program. I appreciate many GCMS staff members
volunteering alongside our many community volunteers! I even saw our Board of Education Chair, our
County Court Clerk, a Leitchfield City Councilman, a State Senate candidate,
and on and on! I appreciate so many
great folks pitching in to pull this off!
Quote of the Day:
“Real optimism is aware of problems but recognizes solutions…has
reason to complain, but chooses to smile.” ~William Arthur Ward
Coming Attractions:
April
29….Instructional Rounds at GCMS
April
30….Summative Conferences due for non-tenured teachers
April
30….All teachers should have organized and analyzed SGG data.
April
30….End of Year Reflections on PGPs should be entered into CIITS (non-tenured)
May
1…..Teachers should have completed final roster verification in CIITS
May 15… End
of Year Reflections on PGPs should be entered into CIITS (tenured)
May
15….Summative Conferences due for tenured teachers
May 17….PLC
Day for teachers and staff (no school for students)
May
18-24..KPREP Testing (makeup testing, May 25-27)
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