Correction

Oooops...I was mistaken about the December delayed start days. The delayed start is Wednesday,  December 7th which is, in fact, the first Wednesday of the month. Sorry for the confusion!

Back at it!

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."
                -Cicero
Thank you for all you do everyday.  I hope you enjoyed the brief respite of the Thanksgiving holiday and welcome back!
Just a reminder that tomorrow, Monday 11/28, the CHS Admin team will be meeting with groups of students throughout the day. The intent of these meetings is to include our seriously "at-risk", or more fondly referred to as "at-promise" students in the conversation of how to get back on track and what the options are if they do not. We will call students down to the mini-theatre beginning with Freshmen at 9:25 AM.  Please see the schedule and list of students sent via from Becky Gonzales on Tuesday, 11/22.


PLCs: Remember December is one of the odd months where our delayed start day is the second Wednesday instead of the first. PLCs  and delayed start are Wed, December 7.

Dates to Remember:
11/28 "At-promise" student meetings
11/29 Boys BSKB @ CHS
11/30, 12/1 Algebra Workshop SZ and Alg Teachers gone All day
12/02 Girls BSKB @ SHS 
12/02, 12/03 W.H. Wrestling Tournament at FHS 
12/03 FIRST Robotics League Competition 

Thankful for CHS

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."
                                                    ~ Henry Ford
This is my new favorite quote, shared with me from my friend and mentor Dave Roth. 


Thank you to you all for contributing to the "lively" conversations during our school wide PLCs last week.  Making time to reflect and talk about our school and our practice is critical for a healthy and productive environment. There is no doubt that our jobs have become quite complex over the years and it is harder and harder to stay focused on what matters most, our students and their futures. I want you to know I truly appreciate hearing your perspectives, thoughts and concerns. I look forward to sharing out on December 7th. Viva PLCs :)

With all that said there are some logistical and procedural items that have been brought to my attention that warrant a discussion. Therefore we will have an "Open Forum" Faculty Meeting on Tuesday, December 13 at 2:45 PM. I will not have an agenda for this meeting, I ask that you bring items you wish to discuss that are relevant to all for this meeting.

PBIS: Great news, we have 22 CHS teachers on our team.  There will be an informational meeting on Tuesday, November 29 @ 3:00 P.M. in the library.

Dates to Remember: 
11/21 Boys and Girls Basketball.  It all starts at 4:00 PM
11/23,24, 25 Thanksgiving Holiday


Happy Thanksgiving everyone, enjoy the break!

Reflection

Here we are in November, nearly three months into the 2011-2012 SY. So how are we doing? Is CHS moving forward in a positive direction? How is the PLC process going?  Several of you have shared your thoughts, questions and concerns about our PLC journey at CHS. Questions that have arisen include:  Why are we spending so much time in our collaborative teams answering questions? And, what happens with our responses and what’s the real purpose of PLCs?

 I’ll start by saying that the purpose of the guided questions for our PLCs is to get a pulse of our school.  The responses are an analysis of sorts, to discover and identify our school’s strengths, weaknesses and areas of concern with respect to student achievement. The PLC process is part of our effort to establish productive professional relationships where we can be honest and build shared knowledge to help lay the foundation for true, genuine collaboration. Our administrative team values and honors your input and we feel that it is critical to work together to identify our current realities so we can make informed and appropriate decisions to build our capacity to help all of our students to learn and to become the vibrant, academically excellent school we envision.  Thank you for your continued commitment and trust in the process.

What’s next? This week our PLC time will be devoted to working on our school wide goals: Connectedness, Safety, Attendance and Increasing student achievement (Grades),  Please see the email sent on November 2, from Cris Ray to confirm which Goal you will be working on. When we reconvene in December each team will report out and we will share the results of the various PLC guided questions at that time. 

Noteworthy hype: Have you heard about the Kahn Academy? This is a fascinating phenomenon. If you haven't heard about this you gotta check this site out. This is a totally free tutoring and support site that is pretty mind boggling.  This one guy has created thousands of super high quality videos and lessons covering every core subject you can think of. I think it shows some promise for helping to  support teachers and students. Click here to go to the Kahn Academy. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this. 

Dates to remember:

• Canned Food drive this month
• 11/15 Academic Booster Club Mtg @ 2:45 Large Conference room
• 11/15 Mr. CHS Pageant 7:00 PM
• 11/16 Delayed start/ School Wide PLCs 

Updates

Are you curious? How did the PBIS vote turn out? As a collective group are we in favor of Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) at Coconino? Drum roll please...Yes! 94% of you voted in favor of moving forward with PBIS. This is great news as it will most certainly help us in achieving our goal to create a vibrant school community that promotes academic excellence and exemplary citizenship.  PBIS will be the undercurrent that carries us toward this goal.
So, you might ask, what's next? The S3 grant will continue to meet and develop phase 2 of the Safe and Supportive Schools plan. Krista will also lead a PBIS team that will work toward implementing PBIS at CHS. Please let Krista know if you are interested in being part of this team. Thank you for your support!

Policy and Procedures: There have been,  and will continue to be numerous field trips involving CHS students. Please submit lists of participating students as far in advance as possible. If you would also send an email to the CHS-Xchange so your colleagues can plan accordingly, it would be much appreciated by all. Along these same lines, please call off on-line, request your sub and submit your leave requests as  soon as you know you are going to be absent. Thanks!

$$$: Several of you have come to me with me your needs for supplies and materials to support your class curriculum and projects. As you all know funds are in short supply. Although we assess a "Student Fee" for certain classes, many of our students are on Free or Reduced Lunch plans which renders them exempt them from having to pay a fee or reduces the amount they are required to pay. What can we do about this? I recently sent a letter to CHS families that explains the Tax Credit program and asked for Tax Credit contributions. I will put a copy of this letter in your boxes. In the meantime we will do whatever we can to support your needs.

Dates to remember:
11/11/11 Veteran's Day Holiday No School


Have a great week!


Here is a clip from a high school in Rochester, New York that I thought you all might enjoy...