GCPS LINKS

To help students and families be successful this school year, please review the GCPS 2023-24 Virtual Backpack for Families here. This toolkit includes links to important information and district resources for families as we partner to support student success.

Many schools hold Curriculum Night in August. Check your school's website for more information!

Each month of the 2023-24 school year, we will spotlight one of our strategic priorities or Portrait of a Graduate competencies by sharing the stories of two clusters—highlighting their classrooms, notable events, community insights, achievements, community service projects, student organizations, volunteer efforts, and more.

Effectiveness...the degree to which something successfully produces a desired result; success.

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. – W. Edwards Deming

GCPS has a legacy of results and recognition that has cemented its reputation as an effective school system. In this new era, the district’s challenge is to sustain this legacy of performance while responding to the diverse needs of a growing community. GCPS must continue to build organizational capacity to define our desired results and be able to execute to achieve those results. Effectiveness is a strategic priority to ensure that we maintain and accelerate our collective efficacy and impact for the benefit of children and families.

Learn more about the Mill Creek and North Gwinnett clusters' fantastic work in their commitment to evidence-based practices and data-driven decision-making as they show examples of our #GCPSBlueprintInAction.

Georgia Parent Mentors invites you to “Starting the School Year on a Positive Note” on August 22 presented by Parent Mentor Dawn Albanese in association with GCPS Special Education Department. This workshop is highly recommended for parents of students at all levels (elementary, middle, and high school). This session will share information to help get the new school year off to a good start. We will be discussing parent engagement, effective communication, daily routines, self-determination, record keeping, and self-care.

10–11:30 a.m. session (in person)

J. Alvin Wilbanks Instructional Support Center, 437 Old Peachtree Road, NW, Suwanee, GA

30024, Building 200, Central Gwinnett Room 2.111

Registration link for the 10 a.m. session: https://forms.gle/eQUrEkV56uMgkQYQ8

6–7:30 p.m. session (Zoom)

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the

meeting.

Registration link for the 6:00 pm session: https://gcpsk12-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ufuGrpz8iHNN0o5_SRgzhSh4DOVjKM50B

If you have any questions, please contact Dawn Albanese at dawn.albanese@gcpsk12.org, (678) 301-7212

Interpretation services are available upon request. Please make a request at least a week in advance of the scheduled meeting date. Spanish interpretation is already secured

The Gwinnett County Sports Hall of Fame inducted six athletes and sports professionals that have made their mark on Gwinnett County and beyond. Coach Cecil Flowe, Brock Newman, Rhea Taylor, Amanda Winslow Rego, Jared Cook, and Will Hammock have all played their part in making Gwinnett County sports legendary. Championship basketball coach and player Kim Mulkey was the evening’s keynote speaker. Coach Mulkey honored us with a Q&A discussing her career, her take on the status of sports in 2023, and what she sees for the future of college sports as a community and a business. Through the generosity and kindness of donors, proceeds from the 2023 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will go to supporting academic initiatives and more than 100 scholarships for GCPS students. Events like these allow us to be a resource for student success, enrichment, and empowerment. Since 2010, more than 1,000 Foundation scholarships have been awarded and supported GCPS students as they pursue higher education. The GCPS Foundation is so grateful for the support we receive from our donors and our school district.

We are happy to announce that this school year, we have adopted the CharacterStrong resources built around character development and social-emotional learning to ensure a focus on the whole child! This curriculum includes the “Eight Essential” character traits and the social-emotional skills that have been proven to help us be productive, empathetic, and successful people.

The Eight Essentials: Patience, Kindness, Humility, Respect, Selflessness, Forgiveness, Honesty, and Commitment

The Five Social-Emotional Learning Competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-Making

Helping our students grow into kind and compassionate adults can be challenging in the current social media climate and other distractions. While academics are an essential aspect of education, we must also focus on investing in the whole child by helping them develop habits and traits that make them successful in all areas of life.

Each month, we will include “CharacterDares” that you can do as a family. If you complete the dares by the end of the school year, you will have engaged in almost 40 weeks of thoughtful conversations, relationship-building activities, and character development at home.

Gwinnett County Public Schools was selected as the recipient of the 2023 Samsara Connected Operations Award for Excellence in Performance in Education. Charley Humble, the Executive Director of Transportation and Fleet Maintenance, accepted the award at the Samsara Awards banquet in Austin, Texas in June. This honor was also highlighted in the pupil transportation industry’s most recognized publication, School Bus Fleet Magazine, in June 2023.

For some time now, Team GCPS has been building and nurturing a culture that encourages people to say something when they see something that is concerning. Those efforts, along with using technology to prevent problems, are making our schools safer.

During the first couple of weeks of school, the district has managed a few lockdowns that ultimately proved to be false alarms, including an incident at Collins Hill High School in which Gwinnett County Police Department’s SWAT team was called to the scene. Although this incident turned out to be a false alarm and disrupted the school day, what happened at Collins Hill High was not a mistake or failure. The district’s safety and security procedures and protocols worked. An educator saw someone who she thought was an armed intruder and triggered the alert system.

We expect to deal with additional false alarms in the weeks and months to come as we continue to train employees on how to use our new alert system and as people feel more comfortable sharing their concerns. At the end of the day, we’d much rather deal with a false alarm than an alternative where people don’t report their concerns and something unthinkable happens.

In case you missed it, read our Back to School update on Safety and Communication.

This school year, our district is transitioning to ParentSquare to communicate with families. We encourage all families to download the app and create an account. With its user-friendly interface, ParentSquare offers seamless two-way communication through text, newsletters, posts, emergency alerts, and direct messaging. One of our favorite features is the integrated translation feature, enabling automatic translations for multilingual families. Stay effortlessly connected with your child's teachers, schools, and the district. To get started, and learn about all the cool features, check out our website!

GCPS families can learn about the 1:1 initiative that provides GCPS students access to a Chromebook for instructional use via GCPS Tech Tips Youtube Channel.

GCPS invites all families to attend a virtual Universal Screeners - Family Night led by GCPS Accountability and Assessment Executive Director Miranda McLaren on August 29 from 5:30–6:30 p.m. During this session, families of students in grades K–12 will receive information about the iReady and MAP Universal Screeners. Find out how the screeners will help identify students ‘strengths and areas of need and how they are used to formulate the next steps needed in instruction to support all students. Online registration is now open—interpretation will be provided in Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese.

On Thursday, August 17, the Gwinnett County Board of Education (BOE) held its monthly Work Session and Board Meeting.

Before the meeting, students from the Mill Creek and North Gwinnett clusters hosted a showcase highlighting their Computer Science and Career, Technical, and Agricultural programs. Students from elementary, middle, and high schools in each Cluster engaged with board members, district staff, and those who attended the monthly board meeting, using their projects to demonstrate what they learned.

During the business meeting, members of the BOE recognized students from Brookwood High School, Discovery High School, and Lanier High School, honoring them for winning state championships in Esports (Brookwood High and Discovery High) and Bass Fishing (Lanier High).

• Coffee with Calvin (August 4)
  
• Connected (July 21)
  
• GCPS Links (July 28)
• Board Meeting recordings
  
• News Releases
  
• Student Calendars
  
• News You Can Use
  

And much more at www.gcpsk12.org!

• Keep Connected with news from GCPS TV… the next episode airs August 25!
• The next regular Board Meeting is September 21. (Online, find links to sign up for the public comment sections of the meeting.)