Friday, August 3, 2018

Week of August 6, 2018

It is hard to believe that we are a week and a half away from our 840ish learners filling our building.  We hope you are as excited as we are!

This year's theme is: this is our HAPPY place and Lee surely is a HAPPY place!  Happiness starts in our front office with Shanna.  Thank you Shanna for working NONSTOP to enroll all of the new learners in the area.  Gwen, Deepa, Lisa, and Rucha have also been helping Shanna check residency verification of our learners.  This is a HUGE undertaking each summer, and with our number of learners, that makes it a challenge.  Our office staff does a wonderful job of making people HAPPY when they come in the front door! You rock, ladies!

Thank you to Stephanie D. for spending many days organizing our FOSS Science supplies in transparent tubs and bins for each house.  It is going to be so much easier seeing the resources we have, and it makes us all HAPPY that you did this for us!  You are an organizational ninja!

Thank you to our Kinder Designers and Jacque for working this week to assess our incoming Kindergarteners and for creating most of our Kindergarten class lists.  We know you work very hard to create balanced classes so that ALL of us are HAPPY as the learners grow through Lee.  Thank you, girls!

Thank you to those of you that participated in curriculum writing or professional learning this summer.  Your hard work and dedication helps us improve every year.  Many of you were HAPPY to share your learning with others and will also share your learning during our professional learning this next week.  Our kids and school are so lucky!

Shout outs to all of you that have put time in getting systems in place before we come back.  I know even if you weren't up here in person, you were working electronically, meeting for dinners, attending ARDS and GPCs, orienting teammates, tweeting, and MORE.  Please know that your efforts do not go unnoticed and are what help make this the BEST SCHOOL ON THE PLANET!

Lastly, I am so HAPPY to celebrate the blessing of an INCREDIBLE Admin Team!  Not a minute goes by that I am not reminded about the power of teamwork, collaboration, and servant leadership when I am with Angela, Ashley, and Leigh Ann.  They make Lee my HAPPY place to be!



DID YOU KNOW:

  • Chantel will host a Facebook Live bedtime story read aloud the night before school starts?  Stay tuned for more info on how you can share that with your learners.
  • Claudia, Melinda, Angela, Kathy, and Susie have already been working behind the scenes this week?  We are grateful for their extra contract days!
  • there is a sign up genius for Lisa's family, if you would like to support them? 
  • the painters have returned to Lee?   You will see our learning stairs are repainted and also safe, now.  They are also touching up our building so it looks as good as new.
  • Schoolworks with Irving Bible Church will still accept your wishlist items if you did not get them in?  Here is the form

RJL ROADSHOW
We are super excited to take you on a little field trip on Tuesday.  Please tweet and retweet the event out to help spread the word!  A parent link will be going out this weekend, too.

We feel terrible that our Homegrown Institute staff members will miss this awesome event!  I'm sure you will understand that we did our best to have this event when most staff could participate and when busses were available.  Thank you for your understanding.  


iPADS
Exciting news!  For these people, new iPads and pencils are in and ready for us to get out to you.  I believe you will want to get a case to your liking, one will not be provided by the district.  Here are the specs. We have them ready for you to come and get all day on Monday OR from 7:30-8:00 am on Tuesday.  Here are the directions for enrolling on them.  You will want to have yourself enrolled and ready to use by 8:00 am on Tuesday morning.  You will use your iPad and pencil on Tuesday and all week for professional learning.

     2018-2019 iPad Educator Enrollment Directions
     Educator iPad Backup Procedures


THE SCHEDULE FOR NEXT WEEK
It is going to be a wonderful week of learning.  Please check out this document to see what we have planned for you.


PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Brooke Sims sent out an email about the professional learning in the district.  The website is super organized and helpful.  THANK YOU to our Lee Designers who are helping to facilitate sessions.  Taylor, Priscilla, Sam, and Stephanie.   Please remember that you represent Lee at these events so being friendly and positive is an expectation.


CONVOCATION
Please carpool over to Coppell High School on Friday.  We will sit together as a school and you need to wear your new CISD Convocation t-shirt.


CLASS LISTS
Class lists are starting to be populated in Pentamation, so that you can email your parents on Friday evening.   Please work together, as a house, to comprise a welcoming email to send out on Friday afternoon at 4:00pm.  We want to be consistent, and send these at the same time, so that the office is not bombarded with phone calls.  In your email, please include a Google form to capture info so that you do not have to have all of your parents complete it at Meet the Designer Night.  PTO has requested you add a yes/no question on your form that asks if parents may be contacted by the PTO. Also include the Volunteer Background Check link so that ALL parents can get approved to engage at school.  


MEET THE DESIGNER NIGHT
Please plan to be at this event from 6:00-7:00 on Monday night.  Your space DOES NOT have to be completely ready for this event!  Stage it the best you can and remember that your space will come to life once the learners arrive and create work.  We will give you our 2018-2019 campus shirts to wear on this day and to our event.  We will take a staff picture in the gym at 5:45 and these shirts will help parents to identify staff members in the building.  I am fine with you wearing shorts or jeans with your new shirt for MTD.  Designers, if you have a PTO board member's learner, or a staff member's child in your class...they may need to come to your space at earlier, to meet you, so that they can participate in Meet the Designer Night.  Thank you for your flexibility with these parents.  


FACULTY FAVORITES
Some of you still need to fill out this Google Form that includes information about you and your favorites.  This is a tool the office, PTO, and staff uses to treat you and get to know you better.  We also did our best to order shirts in the right sizes for those we didn't have responses from.


PHONES
If you moved spaces in the building, you need to take your phone with you.  Please disconnect it from the wall and put it in your new space. 


KEEP AFLOAT
In an attempt to lighten your load, we have been strategically sprinkling out "to-do's" though the last couple of blog posts.  I want you to be kind to yourself this school year, so it will help if you get some of these tasks done, now, so you can focus on relationships and lesson design the first couple weeks of school.  Here are some items you can hopefully check off:


LEE STAFF CALENDAR
All important events are uploaded to a shared Lee Staff Calendar.  New hires will want to add the  staff calendar to your phones and MacBooks.  It will help you if you go to this link to bookmark your email on your device.  (NOT THE OUTLOOK ICON ON YOUR MAC BOOK!)  Go to "Add Calendar" above the date range and insert the link.  Here are links to help you:
HTML Link                                         
ICS Link  



DATES TO REMEMBER:
August 5- End of Summer Bash
August 6- Home Grown Institute
     New Hire Breakfast (CMSN- 7:30 am)
August 7- Home Grown Institute
     Campus (am)   District (pm)
August 8- Home Grown Institute
     District (all day)
August 9- Home Grown Institute
     District (all day)
August 10- Convocation (am)  Campus (pm)
August 12- Stephanie R's Birthday
August 13- Campus (all day)
     Meet the Designer (6:00-7:00)
August 14- Campus (all day)
     You will not sleep because tomorrow is...
August 15- The First Day of School!!!

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