7/28/2010

The start of school in upon us and it is Thursday, August 19 at 7:50 a.m..  This summer has been spent getting ready for an excellent school year.  I am very excited in where we are headed.

If you are wanting to enroll students, have questions for the start of school or visit with councilors and Principals, the week before school starts is a good time to get this taken care of.  All staff will be on campuses at this time preparing and attending professional development activities.  We are having open houses for each school as follows:

            Elementary Open House:  Monday, August 16 - 6:00-8:00

            Middle School Open House:  Tuesday, August 17 - 6:00-8:00

            High School Open House:  Wednesday, August 18 - 6:00-8:00

As usual we have had some changes in staff and we are planning to add some extra positions.  We are working on adding a Math Specialist in the Elementary School.  We would like to add an extra teacher to the upper level of the Middle School.  This will help with scheduling issues and offer more electives for our Middle School Students.  For our High School would like to add an extra intervention teacher to provide that needed extra help for our students to be successful.

We have a new Principal for our Elementary school.  Her name is Mrs. Candie Watts and she is coming to us form the Arch Ford Educational Service Co-Operative. She worked with many school districts with professional development and improving student outcomes.  She is an excellent person who has an excellent background in student learning, curriculum and school improvement. I welcome her to our team and look forward to an excellent year at our Elementary School.  She lives just north of Mayflower and I am sure you will see her around the community.  Please introduce yourself if you see her and welcome her to our school district.

The administration team has just completed working on our annual Educational Improvement Plan.  It was a positive influence on improving our students’ learning last year and will continue to be an excellent plan for our future and continue improvement.  I will have a copy placed on our website soon and I will share it at our next community meeting and Board meeting.  The plan will explain our educational direction and provides the data that shows how we are doing.  The data has been color coded so you can see green for where we have met our goals, yellow for making progress and red for not meeting goals.

If you have been to the High School or Middle School lately you will have noticed that our $5 million dollar, Middle School construction project has begun.  As we need room to park, the construction company has started with the parking lots.  Several of these will be in place for when school starts.  Please be aware that our traffic patterns have changed.  The main area to try and avoid is the parking lot in front of the high school and gym.  This area will be congested this school year as it is where the bulk of the construction will occur.  We have a new drop off and pick up area in front of the high school cafetorium which will help.

There is a Board Meeting this Monday night.  The public are more than welcome at these meetings and it is a good way to find out what is happening at the school district.  Audience participation is not normally part of these meetings, however, the meetings do provide you a good opportunity to observe and beware of the latest school issues.  We do offer Parent/Community meetings that allow for maximum participation of those who attend.  At these meeting we encourage ideas and suggestions for making the school district better.

We are expecting a great year at Mayflower. We continue to strive for educational excellence.