Welcome Back Faculty and Staff

Welcome to the 2016-2017 School Year!

I hope you all are enjoying the last remaining days of summer vacation. As we near the end of a relaxing summer, I just want to reach out to everyone and welcome you all to the 2016-2017 school year! I would also like to provide you with building updates, staff updates, and items to look forward to as we approach the start of school.

As an administrative team, we have focused our summer on continuing to refine our vision for Centennial School District as a whole. The Centennial School District vision is as follows: We are committed to creating learning environments where innovation, risk-taking, and student passion take center stage. I hope that phrase gets everyone excited to walk into the building each day. During the 15-16 school year, we focused our attention on developing a Theory of Action. While this was a great process to start talking about we stand for and what we believe in, we did not have a vision on which to base this off of. As you see above, we now have a common district vision and we will proceed with making this vision our own. Much of the work we will do at the start of the year will focus on developing our own vision that is in-line with the district vision. We will be putting our own Klinger brand on it. Our work over the summer also surrounded the book that every teacher was given at the end of the school year, Mindsets in the Classroom. We will be utilizing this book during our faculty meetings in the upcoming months (see below).

The summer has been extremely busy as it pertains to staff movement and staff additions to the building. First, our custodial staff has done an outstanding job of making sure our building continues to shine. Our staff has been hard at work over the summer preparing for a fun and enriching school year. I would like to welcome our new lower-office secretary, Glory Irizarry to Klinger. She will be replacing Dee Runion who is transitioning to Maryland. Glory is transitioning from the central office. We have a number of support staff additions that I would like to highlight. Joining us this year as a cafeteria monitor will be Jean Walowy, Barbra Dippolito will serve as Title 3 Tutor to help support our ELL students, Janine Erato will serve as a PCA, and Rachel Ginsberg will transition from the high school to serve as a PCA. Our support staff is essential to the success of our building and I know the new additions will only make our building stronger.

We are very fortunate to add two outstanding teachers to KMS for the upcoming school year. First, Julie Howell will be joining our Special Education Department as an LTS for 16-17 school year. Julie served as an LTS at one of our elementary schools and will make the seamless transition to the middle-level. Julie is going to make a great addition to this department as she has such a positive attitude when it comes to working with students with special needs. We also have another LTS position that is being filled by Rebecca Douglass as one of our 8th-grade social studies teachers. Rebecca has held multiple positions in surrounding school districts and we are very fortunate to have her join our staff. She will also be directing our school musical this year!

Next, I would like to highlight the building updates that have taken place over the summer. First off, our maintenance and facilities staff have been extremely busy over the summer, and I really want to thank them for all of their hard work and for making the building look pristine. We will have a new break room for individual students to utilize in-between room 11 and 12. Mrs. London received a number of items through donations to outfit this room in order to help support success throughout the day. The room formerly know as the health room will simply be known as room 41. The new health room is located down where Lab 1 was previously. We were able to make a mobile lab of 30 laptops for teachers to use. With evolving technology, it makes more sense to bring the technology to the class versus taking the class to the technology. Very shortly cafe-style tables will be appearing outside the cafeteria and outside of the library. We want to create flexible learning spaces for students and staff to utilize to take the learning outside of the classroom. As we move through the year you will continue to see updates to our building that will make Klinger a 21st-Century learning environment.

As we think back to all the successes that took place during the prior school year, we also need to look forward to the future. While we continue on our journey to defining our school vision based on our new district vision, we also need to build on an already strong curricular foundation. We will work together to introduce Canvas (an online Learning Management System) throughout the school year along with the many technology initiatives that are rolled out throughout the year. To help support this our professional learning days on Wednesday will focus on both classroom instructional practices and technology innovation. Both of these areas will revolve around curiosity and innovation. This is an extremely exciting time to be a teacher in Centennial School! Although we do have a few challenges to overcome, I know that as a collective group we can move the dial for our students as we all want to see them grow and achieve.

Please be sure to take the time to read through the information below as this will not be covered during the opening faculty meeting. Please take the time to read through the faculty handbook that was sent to both middle schools on 8/22/16. Mr. Doster and I will continue to work together and support each other in aligning the middle schools in achieving our shared vision and goals.

I hope you have enjoyed a relaxing and fun-filled summer, one that has re-energized you for another exciting year at Klinger Middle School. Our opening day will begin at the WTHS auditorium on August 29th from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. I invite you to sit on the left side in the front section of the auditorium, where Mr. Ford and I will be awaiting your arrival. I hope you enjoy your remaining time off and are as excited as I am to start the school year.

Here is to an exciting school year!

Travis and Jim

Faculty Meetings

Faculty meetings will go from 3:00-4:00 as per the faculty handbook in order to provide Act 48 for professional staff. During each faculty meeting, we will facilitate activities that pertain to the text that was distributed on the last in-service day by the district: Mindsets in the Classroom. You will need to have the first two chapters read by our first faculty meeting date. We will hold these activities in a face-to-face fashion or a flipped approach. The purpose will be to challenge each other’s thinking and improve the quality of the learning experiences for our students across the building.

Department Meetings

Department meetings are mandatory for all staff in order for everyone to move as one unit. Department meeting will be geared towards new learning during the 16-17 school year versus managerial items that have been done in the past. A schedule of all department meetings for the year will be sent out by early next week. If something comes up that you need to miss a meeting you need to speak with Travis or Jim prior to that meeting. If we are going to help our students grow we all need to move together and it is important to work together during these established times.

Grading & Frequency of Assessment

Please review these sections in the faculty handbook. We have established expectations regarding these two areas.

Back to School night

Back to school night will be held on Thursday, September 8, 2016. This will begin at 7:00 pm for faculty. Mr. Bloom and I will be holding informational meetings for parents in our respective buildings prior to the 7:00 pm start time in the auditorium.

Beginning of Athletics & Fall Sports physicals

Physicals will take place on Wednesday, August 31, 2016. Fall sports will begin on Tuesday, September 6, 2016. Please be sure to review the weekly sports schedules.

Schedules – A & B

As outlined in the faculty handbook, we will run on two schedules, A & B. Please review those times for familiarity. “A” schedule will always run on Monday-Wednesday-Friday. “B” is on Tues and Thurs. We are going to begin operating on those schedules on Wednesday, August 31, 2016. Mr. Doster and I will have planned out the resource periods for the month of September as we continue to finalize things for these periods in October.

Discipline

The administration of both middle schools has put a consistent discipline system in place. This has been included in your faculty handbook. Please review and become familiar with teacher level discipline and administrative level discipline. As always, be meticulous in your documentation. This will allow for student-driven decisions to be made more effectively.