As you slide into the Friday afternoon of your first week with students I wanted to communicate what a pleasure it was to visit your building this week and see first-hand the great things that you are doing with and for kids.  I have never had the opportunity to be in other buildings on the first day of school and I enjoyed seeing and hearing what you were doing to welcome and connect with students.  It was a gift.

My guess is that you are feeling a little spent and are ready for the weekend… Hope you don’t stay long at school this afternoon and get out and enjoy the next couple of days!

A few items for you to know or be reminded of that I wanted to pass along:

• We have a pretty full agenda for our Sept. 21 Horizontal meeting at CMS (and I’ve already started a list for our Nov. meeting).  With that said, if you have an item you think should be discussed please send that to me and I’ll triage what needs to be on this agenda and which can wait until we meet again.  We’ll be meeting from 3:15 – 4:45.

• Smarter Balanced results will be released on September 17.  Just as an FYI.

• ODE is creating an “opt out” letter/form for parents related to SBAC testing.  We are hearing this will be sent to districts the first part of November.  By law we need to provide parents opt out notice at least 30 days prior to testing.  We will work on a plan for the district of how and when to do this – but it will likely not happen until at least after the new year.

• Leadership meeting this Monday from 3:15 – 4:45.  One item on the agenda is Safety Drills Calendar.  Julianne will be sharing a drill calendar for each month of the year.  This is new and we hope very helpful.

Glad to be a part of your work –

Jim