February 8th

From page to stage - AP English comes to life with some help from stage guru David G

I'm excited. I'm excited to see what all of our work does for students, our school and our community. I'm not totally sure what this will look like and this is part of my excitement. We're building something new and to me, that's exciting. I can't wait to see how you and we build on the many great things we are already doing. Just imagine, we are already pretty darn good, our school culture is off the charts, we're making national honor rolls, students are stepping up and out like never before. And yet, we continue to dig deep and look at how and where we can be better. THANK YOU!

Thanks for your patience and diligence with the PBL work. I realize there are lots of questions for us that will take a long time to answer. I really appreciate it when you offer ideas (and try new things) in an effort to build our understanding and move towards becoming a PBL school. There are things you are doing like changing the 9th grade curriculum, offering structures for a new schedule, asking to offer entirely new classes that focus on things like work habits or 'being compassionate', teaching on-line courses, organizing huge trips, driving students to internships, building  more choices and independence into your curriculum, and the list goes on. I also appreciate what appears to be great patience and understanding that this PBL process is going to take a long time and that many questions will not be answered for awhile.
Let me try to answer a few of the big ones right now about next year that may be helpful to you:
- We are not going to have a new grading and reporting system.
- We are not going to have a new schedule.
- We are not going to have a new portfolio system.

- Next year, we will continue to build our understanding, use, and collection of learning scales and student work exemplars. 
- Next year, some of you will explore and try some new grading and reporting elements (some of you have already started)
- Next year, we will explore and research how to adapt or change our current schedule to better meet the needs of our changing requirements and understanding of  how students learn.
- Next year, we are all going to do more with the PLP and explore ways for students to exhibit their learning.
- Next year, will be full of learning, laughter, challenge, and more...just like this year. 

Thanks in advance for the effort and energy this will require from you and I encourage you to look for the excitement in the process.

Calendar:

2/8 - BP with Bill Rich **Bring something PBL related**
2/13 - Polar Splash on Lake Elmore - Go Wolf Pack (WHO IS JUMPING this year!?!?!)
2/15 - ODWP Calibration- 3pm Duffy's room to start
2/19 - Winter Carnival in the afternoon
2/20 - 3/2 - WINTER BREAK
3/2 - Town Meeting Day - Lily Merriam will be helping to Moderate/Orchestrate

Co-Curricular Calendar

Important Link: So, you think you can write an awesome EXIT card, do ya?


Classroom Happenings:

PA 1930's.................................................PA 2016

The Physics of Broom Basketball - that student in the back is keeping time (he's engaged!)

prepping for tie-dying in 9th Science

Wrapping up a dye lab in 9th grade science

Celebrations: 

Congrats to Dan Bruce who received a $300 grant from the Green Mountain Fund for band uniforms.
And, students who will be representing PA at the All State Music Festival, held this year in Swanton in early May.   - Tyler Shackett will be in the All State Chorus
  - Edward Habeck IV was accepted into the All State Band -- quite an honor for a freshman.

  - of note: Greer Southall auditioned for the chorus, which is highly competitive for sopranos, and missed the cutoff score by only a few points -- again, quite an achievement for a freshman.

In case you missed it last week, buried among all the other celebrations. I didn't hear anyone talking about it, so I didn't want you to miss this:

- Congratulations to Grace Safford who once again won a STATEWIDE GOLD MEDAL in the Scholastic Arts & Writing competition. Her GOLD MEDAL winning portfolio consisted of 4 writing peices based on the theme of social issues. She chose this theme and submitted 1 Flash fiction writing and 3 short stories. As a GOLD MEDAL winner, her portfolio now advances to the national competition (where you may remember she won a silver medal in flash fiction last year).

Happy birthday- Barb Wood (2/10)