Announcements

Budget Committee—In your boxes, you will find ballots to nominate the Budget Committee. Only certified people receive the ballots. The stipulation to serve on the committee is that you must be a certified person. The Budget Committee will meet on Field Day. (I will get with them on a time.) On May 9, we will have a faculty meeting where one of the agenda items will be to vote on the budget. Next year, you will receive $525 in classroom instructional money. You will keep ALL of it. The legislature has appropriated separate funds in the amount of $200 per teacher to cover the cost of common purchases.
Please lock your classroom when you leave the room. Preventing theft is so much easier than the time and energy spent on a "who-dun-it" an hour later.

Arts Camp—Tommy Moorehead is offering us two scholarships to Arts Camp. To me the ideal student would be one who otherwise would not have the financial means to go and would genuinely appreciate the opportunity. This would be someone who has a good attitude in class and tries hard. There are those people in life that you just like to see good things happen to out of the blue. Here is an opportunity for that to happen to two students.

Rockets—On the table in the Lounge are quite a few rockets that have fallen off of the planets. If any are yours, feel free to collect them so they can be put back up.

The following faculty and staff members will represent our school as you choose your next principal:

• Fannie Barnes
• Angela Estelle
• Allison Miles
• Susie Pressley
• Cathy Sorrell

Bathroom monitors—Each class should have monitors that check the condition of the bathrooms before students enter and after they leave.

Stamps for report cards—Last year upwards of 10% of our kids never got a report card for lack of a stamp. Let’s stay on top of the kids about taking care of that small detail. Right now, do you know exactly who still needs to bring a stamp. Having worked with you as long as a have, I can pretty well tell you which teachers have a list of who needs to bring a stamp and have been bugging the kids daily about it and which teachers have never even thought about making a list. If you are in that second category, you are thinking about it right now because you are reading this sentence. STOP! Don’t read any further until you put that thought on paper in a place you will see at the appropriate time. When we mail report cards, it sure would be nice for EVERY child to get one.

End-of-Year Evaluations—Next week, I will post a sign-up sheet for support personnel and those going through PEPE full evaluation.

How would you like to read this blog in Spanish?

Calendar Events

Next Week

• Monday—Holiday
• Tuesday—4th and 5th Grade to Montgomery
• Wednesday—AR Trip to Baron's game
• Wednesday—I will be in Montevallo
• Thursday—3rd Grade to Chinnabee
• Thursday—Groundwater Festival training (4th grade at 10:00 in Community Classroom)
• Thursday—Sock Hop
• Friday—Field Day
• Friday—Budget Committee Meeting (Time TBA)
  

Week After Next

• Teacher Appreciation Week
• Monday—Talladega City Schools Foundation Banquet
• Tuesday—Faculty Meeting
• Wednesday—PTO will take your class to lunch
• Friday—Recycling
• Friday—Yearbook Signing

Announcements

• PDP—If you are not going through full evaluation, please stop by the office to look over and sign your PDP. If you would like to talk about the score, we can arrange a more extended time.
• Poster printer—I received a call from a company regarding a poster printer that will take an 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper and turn it into a poster. They will send us a machine free of charge to try for 8 school days. They pay shipping both ways. They will also send enough materials for 40 posters. Munford Elementary has this same machine. My first thought is to have them send one just before the beginning of school. In the mean time, you could think in terms of one or two posters you would like to make. (We don't need any one person hogging it all.) That would give us some needed posters at no cost. The machine runs over $3,000 to purchase. You could also do some thinking in terms of how much of a priority that machine would be.
• Plato—Denise Malone will be back with us on May 16. We will follow the same schedule as before. I will arrange substitutes for your classes.
• Someone else has our idea
• More pictures from the Young Author’s Day and Yagibushi coming soon on GrahamSchool.blogspot.com

Calendar Events

Next Week

• Monday-Scoliosis Screening for 5th and 6th grades (8:00 in Community Classroom)
• Monday-Jump Ropew for Heart (9:00)
• Monday-Hoops for Heart (10:20)
• Monday-BBSST
• Tuesday-Drug/alcohol awarenessin Community Classroom during playtime
• Tuesday-I will be out last 1/2 day
• Wednesday-Accelerated Reader Store
• Wednesday-Kindergarten Registration
• Wednesday-BLT
• Thursday-2nd Grade to Blue Bell
• Thursday-6th Grade to CNN
• Thursday-Deadline to have STAR completed
• Friday-Holiday

Week After Next

• Monday-Holiday
• Tuesday-4th and 5th Grade to Montgomery
• Wednesday-AR Trip to Baron's game
• Wednesday-I will be in Montevallo
• Thursday-3rd Grade to Chinnabee
• Thursday-Groundwater Fetisval training (4th grade at 10:00 in Community Classroom)
• Thursday-Sock Hop
• Friday-Field Day

Announcements

Items from Educational Insight—Our cookie dough company is giving us $500 in merchandise from the Educational Insight catalog because of the confusion with this year's sale. That amount comes out to $71 per grade level. Here is what I would like for you to do:

1. As a grade level, pick out up to $71 of merchandise. You can go their website at www.educationalinsights.com to see what they have. (By buying as a grade level, you may find things that you can swap back and forth.)
2. I will give you an order form (one per grade level). You would not know a "page number" to put on the form, but be sure to put the product number.
3. I will send in the order for everyone.
4. Please get your order to me by April 21

STAR—I need to turn in STAR data to the central office by May 1. Could everyone give your STAR by the time we get out for the April 28 holiday?

Field Day—I am looking for a volunteer to keep students who will be missing a portion of Field Day. Please let me know if you are interested.

Supply lists for next year—You can go ahead and give me this information whenever you have it ready. If it would be easier, you can just tell me about any changes you would like to make from this year’s list.

Yagibushi

On Wednesday of next week, we will be entertained by a group of Japanese musicians and dancers from the city of Maebashi, Japan. They are here as a part of the Birmingham International Festival salute to Japan. I did not want to take anything away from our focus on the Young Author’s Day, so I will not begin talking to the students about it until Tuesday. The performance will be in Harwell Auditorium at 1:00. The Ellis student body will join us for this event.

The Yagibushi (八木節) is a popular folk song and dance. It consists of dancers with broad hats called kasa going in a counter clockwise circle around a mikoshi. The dance is very energetic and ends with everyone throwing their hats in the air.

This song has been considered to be one of the three most famous Japanese dance songs. The Yagibushi musicians employ the fallowing traditional instruments: a " taru"-a barrel drum; a "tsuzumi"- a hand drum; a "kane" - a bell orgong; a " yokobue" -a bamboo flute.

Extra cookie dough and coffee

As of last count, here is what we have on hand that is available for sale:

Cookies

• Snickerdoodle-5 ($11)
• Peanut Butter-2 ($11)
• Sugar-2 ($11)
• Triple Chocolate-4 ($13)
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-5 ($13)
• White Chocolate Macadamia Nut-4 ($13)

Coffee

• Columbian-4 ($11)
• Southern Roasted Pecan-3 ($11)
• Vanilla Cream-1 ($11)

If you would like to purchase, please give your money to Mrs. Sorrell

Calendar Events

Next Week

• Monday—Young Author’s Day!
• Tuesday—Faculty Meeting
• Tuesday—ESPO Meeting in lunchroom (4:00)
• Wednesday—Yagibushi (1:00 at Harwell Auditorium)
• Friday—Accelerated Reader Store
• Friday—Graham Shirts
• Friday—Last day to earn points for AR trip

Week After Next

• Monday—Scoliosis Screening for 5^th & 6^th grades
• Monday— Jump Rope for Heart (3^rd & 4^th grade at 8:30)/Hoops for Heart (5^th & 6^th grade at 10:30
• Monday—BBSST
• Tuesday—During playtime, each grade will meet in the Community Classroom for an age-appropriate drug awareness/prevention program conducted by Mrs. Ludwig, our school system nurse
• Tuesday—I will be gone the last ½ of this day
• Wednesday—Kindergarten Registration
• Wednesday—BLT
• Thursday—2^nd Grade to Blue Bell
• Thursday—6^th Grade to CNN
• Thursday—Deadline to have STAR done
• Friday—Holiday

Mid-South Reading and Writing Conference

The Mid-South Reading and Writing Conference will be June 16 and 17 at UAB. Registration is $85. We have professional development funds which will pay for this workshop. If you would like to attend, there are two things you will need to do:

1. Sign up for the workshop on PDWeb pdweb.alsde.edu

2. Fill out the registration form on this brochure and give it to Dr. Buck.

Oportunity for public comment on Course of Study

This coming year, the Alabama State Course of Study for English Language Arts and Alabama State Course of Study for Driver and Traffic Safety Education will be revised. Each course of study is revised approximately every seven years. These documents drive the curriculum in all Alabama public schools.

You have to opportunity to give written input regarding these documents and what should be contained in them. Comments may be submitted by April 28, 2006, and should be submitted to:
Cindy Sewell
csewell@alsde.edu

For the past year, I have served on the Arts Education Course of Study Committee for Arts Education, and I can tell you that the comments received from the public are taken very seriously. In addition to this opportunity, there will be two other opportunities for the public to view working copies of those courses of study of make comments. You should especially look for a window of time in October. Our Arts Education Committee read every single comment that we received from throughout the state, and as a committee came to a decision as to whether we felt the suggestion should be accepted and our document changed (and why), rejected (and why), and partially accepted. Rest assured the public comments receive considerable weight.

Alabama Educational Technology Conference

Brochures had been placed on the Staff Room counter for this summer's AETC if you would like to pick one up. This link will also take you to the same brochure. (The link is a PDP file, so your computer would need to have Acrobat Reader.) The registration form is on page 20 of the brochure. (PDF files can take a while to fully load, so give it a couple of minutes.) We have some professional development funds available that will pay the registration for this two-day workshop. If you would like to attend, there are two things you will need to do:
Sign up for the workshop on PDWeb pdweb.alsde.edu The workshop is not listed yet; I will have that done within the next week, so check back on that site then.
Fill out the registration form and get it to me. You can use the registration form from one of brochures we have on hand or you may print it from here. I will get one purchase order to cover everyone.

Dumpsters

The doors to the dumpster should remain closed. During a monthly Health Department inspection, an open dumpster door counts off on the score out lunchroom staff receives.

Vision Screening

We have the results back from the Vision Screening done for students in grades K and 2. If there was any concern found, teachers will be given material for that student to take home. If there was no concern, nothing will be placed in boxes.

In the office, we are placing a copy of the results in every student's folder whether there was a problem or not. If we ever need to look at results from groups of students as a whole or for individual students who are no longer at our school, we have in the office rosters of the results from years past.

Chair in Lounge. Does it stay or go?

The easy chair in the lounge seems to be showing its age. What are your feelings about replacing it? Does anyone know of someone getting some new furniture and might want to donate their still good used furniture to the lounge?

Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarship

Information on the Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarship is found here. To apply, you may go here.

Turning in purchasing cards

These will be turned in May 1st. After that, you would get a purchase order from Mable. Since using the card is so much more convenient, you may wish to plan ahead and make purchases during April.

Pediculosis Outreach Assistance Program

FIRST Family Service Center in Talladega is implementing a Pediculosis Outreach Assistance Program. The service is absolutely free.

What services are offered?
Families will receive a tool kit to aid in the removal of liceFamilies will be able to talk with a nurse who can explain more about lice, how to prevent re-infestation and how to cure current cases

Who may refer a family?
1. A teacher
2. DHR
3. Parents

What is the first step in getting assistance?
There is a form that may be completed by any school person or parent. Those forms are located in a folder in the Staff Room along with the other commonly-used forms. The folder is labeled "Lice." (The same folder also contains some other information about lice that may be helpful in certain circumstances.) Give me a copy of the form. I will forward it to Mrs. Ludwig, our nurse. The family would take the completed form to the address on the form. No appointment is necessary.

Upcoming Events

Next Week
Monday—Testing
Tuesday—Testing
Tuesday—Deadline to post grades
Wednesday—Testing
Friday—Report Cards
Friday—Recycling
Friday—Poetry Alive

Week After Next
Monday—Author’s Day. You have a detailed schedule already for that day
Tuesday—Faculty Meeting. We will break up into our old School Renewal Committees and discuss what type of committee, meeting, and planning structure we would like to have for next year to replace School Renewal.
Tuesday—ESPO Meeting (4:00 in Graham lunchroom)
Friday—Graham Shirts
Friday—Accelerated Reader Store
Friday—Last day to earn points for Accelerated Reader trip
Friday—Fire Drill