Superintendent's Scoop

Happy return to school week plus. January is always a unique time. Students returned on a Thursday from a long break. As a teacher, not only did I have to gear up my energy, but I had to get the kids geared up for work. It takes a day or two to get kids back into cycle to learn. The irony for this year is teachers had a couple days to re-energize learning and expectations to then have the weekend break up the progress. Nearly have to start all over on the Monday. I am sure families have similar struggles getting sons and daughters back into the routine of doing school.

The Semester is coming to a close on January 17th. If you have not checked into JMC in awhile, now is the time for a progress report from your son or daughter. JMC is linked on the school's website: https://www.scschools.net/

The Superintendent Board Summary will go out late this week after tonight's Board meeting.

If there are concerns, please reach out to appropriate teachers for any insight or concerns.

Dates for January to remember:

• Monday, January 13 - Regular School Board meeting @ 6 pm HS Library
• Friday, January 17 - last day of 2nd Quarter and 1st Semester.
• Friday, January 17 - Student Early Dismissal
• Monday and Tuesday, 20th and 21st - Teacher In-Service: NO SCHOOL
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - January 20th

Below are another set of Gratitude walks. Enjoy.

Because I did not get these written before Holiday Break, I postponed writing these up until after Break. This Gratitude Walk was replaced with Holiday cheer experiences. The following visits happened at the end of October and early November.

Mrs. McCready's students were introduced to fairytales. In a unique demonstration of what students learned, they were tasked with creating a dramatic representation of Sleeping Beauty at Halloween. There were bats flying, wicked and good fairies competing, and a dashing prince blowing a sleeping princess a kiss to save the day. It was so impressive to see how seriously the students took the drama. The costumes were colorful and matched the fairytale theme. The narrator was fun to listen to as well. I told Mrs. McCready how impressive it was to take her classroom and morph into a stage. Also, it was awesome that every student was expected to participate - some had more roles than one. Inviting families matter as well. In the picture you can see a classroom full of parents and grandparent watching a very unique experience. There was lots of clapping and camera phones taking in the action as students entered from the hallway with beautifully detailed costumes. Such a great success for so many reasons. Well done Mrs. McCready and your Fourth grade students.

I was also blessed to get into Mrs. Moody's classroom. One of the new expectations for the state of Minnesota and its schools is to honor the indigenous people of Minnesota. This happened in Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. McCready's classrooms as well, but two students introduced themselves when I entered. Once might be an oddity, but three different times with three different teachers cannot be an accident. My guess is the elementary staff emphasize this with their students. It makes me uncomfortable introducing myself to others. What a great skill to have at such a young age. In context to great teaching strategies, one aspect that I noted was Mrs. Moody's students demonstrating effective routines. It took me a little while in my career to understand the importance of effective routines. Once I did, my teaching efficiency and effectiveness improved dramatically. Now, when I am in classrooms, it's one of the first skills I am looking for - students are the "tell" in routine effectiveness. On example of many included the directive "Go get your red folder and notebook" was followed with quiet movement as students moved throughout the classroom to where their red folders were located specific to them. In context to the Native People assignment, Mrs. Moody also tasked students with the "Speaking and Presentation" standard. As the pictures below demonstrate, students were tasked with showcasing what settings and homes where early natives likely lived. This required research and creativity. In addition, once those settings were showcased, students were tasked with verbally presenting key research about their tribe and specific choices they made in connection to the created home. Heaps of skills were demonstrated in ONE connected activity. The intellectual process of defending one's research is a key skill. In addition, a couple other aspects I loved about Mrs. Moody's atmosphere, 1. her enthusiasm is so infectious (Her students are so blessed to "feel" this joy - the energy it takes from her is tremendous: I bet she is exhausted by the end of the day); and 2. on a pending assignment for a Narrative essay the steps included a first draft, peer edit, writing eval, and a final draft word processed. This supports so many future experiences in writing. Mrs. Moody, very well done and thank you for the experience.

Finally, I had the opportunity to watch Mrs. Selness expose her students to Food Name Brand Bias vs. Taste. The process Mrs. Selness took was students did a "taste" sensory lab where they were tasked with moving to different tables where blind taste tests of apple juice or cheez-its (for example) were laid out. It was fun listening to student reactions of flavors or hearing them describe the "subtle" differences. There were a few times I looked over at Mrs. Selness for her reaction. She simply smiled. My guess is she knew which one was the "name" brand and which was the "low fat" or "great value" brand. Students then ranked their preferences. The next class day, Mrs. Selness shared the data students submitted. An example she shared with students was the Cheez-its crackers. 100% preferred the name brand over over the low fat or great value. Yet, more than thirty percent preferred the taste of the other brands. The discussion continued into effectiveness of advertising and branding. Society is driven by what impacts us - students are inundated with advertisements on whatever social media platforms they visit. The irony, for those of us old enough to remember, Saturday morning cartoons were rife with targeted adds that drove our parents and kid choices when grocery shopping. As I have shared before, authentic learning experiences like these introduced by Mrs. Selness make massive differences . Experiences are remembered beyond a summarized text in a big dusty book. Well done Mrs. Selness and thank you for inviting me.

There have been some challenges as the district continues to look at how Community Education looks different compared to past practice. With challenges comes opportunities as well. For me, as a superintendent who has little experience with Community Education, it's been healthy. I am getting to know some great people who support a very robust program. Nicole McCready was a name several people shared with me as we started transitioning. What was shared with me was how integral she was in creating such robust programming for St. Charles CE. She started January 2nd as the Community Education Coordinator. She has been such a tremendous asset only a week in. It feels like we have worked together for months. The other person I want to thank is Kaitlynn Heim for her work in Facilities and the scheduling of. There are several pieces to this position that require management. Kaitlynn is crushing. Thank you so much Kaitlynn. Keiara, SACC program, went to Stewartville for some professional development. I am excited to hear what she learned and will bring back to our SACC program. Preschool is going through the screening process now. Thank you so much Justine and School Readiness team for the hard work. Brittany K. also created a survey to find out preferred schedule for community families in the School Readiness world. Financially, at the six month turn, the Revenue and Expenditures are near 50% for the year so far. Fund 04 (Community Education) for FY 25 Revised is projected to be around $75,000 in the red. So, the fact that both are even after six months is a good sign.

The quarterly Community Education Advisory Council meets tonight at 5 pm.