March 7, 2025

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• The Reading and Math Family Night was so much fun!  Thank you to the committee for putting such a great event together for our families.  Shout out to Tina, Andrea, Sue, Brenda and Christina for welcoming and showing our families how fun learning is!

• Noah put on a presentation with his HS students to show our 4th/5th grade students the band instruments that are open to them to learn. Thank you for organizing this Noah!

• Shout out to Melisssa A and Ashley G. who did such a great job of explaining the complex process of a re-evaluation to a parent as well as celebrating the tremendous growth that her child has made in the past year.  Such great work!

• Kathy's morning meeting one day this week talked about perseverance.  I love how she used recent experiences that her class had during PLTW to help them understand this idea. The way she tied the experience in to the new word, the feeling they had during PLTW work and finally with the read aloud was so well done!  Kudos!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Sunday, March 9
• Happy Birthday Hailey!

• Monday, March 10
• Happy Birthday Jen!
• Happy Americorps Week! Let's celebrate Bethany and Ashley!
• Bus Duty: Lexi, Mosher, O'Toole, Ellefson (please meet the buses by the corner)
• Lunch Supervisors:
• 12:00 - Schuett
• 12:30 - Zastrow
• 1:00 - CaineT
• Jenny in meeting from 8:30-10am
• Community Referendum Information meeting at Clyman Village Hall @ 6pm

• Tuesday, March 11
• Wear Black/Red to support our Reading Corps Tutors!
• Social Media posts due to Jessica: No one signed up, but feel free to send one anyway!
• Community Referendum Information meeting at Reeseville Community Center @ 6pm

• Wednesday, March 12
• Early Release, Dodgeland Den opens at 12:20
• Workout Wednesday
• Lance's Retirement Celebration at 11am-12:30pm
• Act 20 Staff meeting @ 12:30pm in the IMC
• 3K/4K Screening team mtg in Elem. Conf. rm @ 1:45pm

• Thursday, March 13
• Community Referendum Information meeting in IMC @ 6pm

• Friday, March 14
• Pi Day!  :-)
• Harvest of the Month lessons for Grades 4-5 from 10-12
• Jenny at dr appt from 10-11:15am
• HS Musical performance of Cinderella @ 7pm

• Saturday, March 15
• HS Musical performance of Cinderella @ 7pm

Nitty-Gritty

• School Nurse Update
• We are currently working on securing contracted nursing services with an outside agency. However, we will not know until after the April 1st referendum election whether we will be posting to hire a full-time school nurse or if we will need to move forward with a part-time or contracted part-time position.  It is not uncommon in districts our size to have either a part-time nurse or a contracted part-time nurse (some of you may recall in the days before COVID we only had a nurse 4 hours a day). In the meantime, staff in the office will continue to triage students with minor issues/injuries and we will continue to have ice and bandaids on hands. (For most of our students, these two things work wonders! :-)) In addition, we will continue to address what we can, or call home or for emergency help if necessary.
• Field trip season is coming up soon too, so, please make sure that you connect with Patti or Ella to get the materials ready for the trip in advance.

• PE teacher update
• I have been looking and talking to many people about the next steps for the PE teacher vacancy.  I wanted someone that would be dependable, patient, and understood that there has been some inconsistency in PE instruction delivery for more than a month.  However, I was finding that to be quite challenging and the teacher I thought I had decided not to take the position.  So, that means I am going to put in place a long-term substitute plan. This is the plan that I am going to use for the remainder of the year based on availability of people, and also so that our students have some consistency for awhile.
• Lexi is going to be the sub for PE classes four days a week while Anna Volkova subs for her job in the Special Edcuation Dept.  Every Thursday, Bekah Mountin will be subbing for PE while Lexi is in her regular job and Anna is off.  In order to help with this transition, Lexi has met with Sue Kuhn (Bless this lady for helping me out this month with ideas and coming in to help. If anyone sees her, please help me thank her!) and talked with Marcia.  Lexi has taken these tips/ideas and has begun to plan for procedures to create a system that hopefully will create a structure again for the kids coming to PE.  
• I want to personally thank Teresa, Brent, Lexi, Jessica and all the other people that have stepped in to sub in the last 4+ weeks for a PE class/day.  I also want to thank Melissa and Shanalyn for their flexibility as I am shuffling people in their programs to help the system.

• Early Release
• The schedule will be out soon for this, but we will be returning to some Act 20 training that day starting at 12:30 in the IMC. Please bring a device to the training.  In addition, we will also be meeting for final planning for the 3K/4K screening days.  Finally, if you have not met with me regarding Forward testing, that will be that afternoon as well so that we are ready for the testing the following week.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

• Forward Testing
• Please watch your emails as I may need to move some schedules around for those few short days due to the testing and the adults that are proctoring the test and unavailable for students' intervention times.  Every effort will be made to be as consistent as possible during testing so that our students continue to have access to the instruction they need though.

• Google Survey Results
• Thank you to those that were able to complete the survey regarding feedback on end of the year and last day of school activities.  It was pretty split between end of the year picnic vs. a beginning of the year carnival.  I also talked over this with Brad as our Safety Coordinator as well.  Given all of that information, I think we will use some of the time on the last day to enjoy each other as a school community during the last hour/90 min. of the school day.  We will not be inviting parents in during that time though due to host of logistical details and considerations.  I will however be asking the end of the year picnic committee to look over the feedback we received from staff to help come up with a more definitive plan going forward.  If you are on that committee, please watch for an email from me.

• Summer School
• One more plea...Do you (or know someone) who would be willing to teach summer school for those 5 weeks?  Or share a position with someone?  I had a teacher drop out that has been teaching for many summers and without her classes, it will make the remaining sections have higher numbers than usual.  I can assist with planning and idea generation.  Just let me know!

PD Spotlight

This week we are on the letter "W." It is a great reminder that the behavior of our children and really all of us is communication!  When we genuinely wonder what our students are trying to tell us through their behavior, we have a much better chance of helping them to grow, learn and solve any problems they might be struggling with.

TechKnow Tip

Have you checked out Padlet lately?! Padlet is a powerful tool for brainstorming, collaborative projects, visual learning, and so much more! It is no longer just a virtual bulletin board- the choice and creativity are even more with their recent updates. 

• A new gallery of project ideas with examples. It is searchable by grades or subjects.

• A new AI “recipes” like AI art studio, brochures, and bookshelves 

• New tools like Venn diagrams and a “sandbox” to draw, create, and collaborate in real-time

Click here if this is your first time exploring Padlet.

Click here if you have used it before.

Recess Information

Pretty Please
I know this time of year we are all hanging on by a thread, but please do your very best to get to recess duty on time. When people are late it often impacts the system as then other adults are late for their next assignment. 

Please also do your best to be in our recess coverage zones:
*near home plate/far side of the playground
*sidewalk near the near side of the playground/grass area
*by the gaga/four square games

Thanks in advance for being proactive and holding our kids accountable to the expectations to prevent injury and/or major behavior issues.

Friday Funny

This past weekend were the Oscars.  I always like to see what kind of clothes the celebrities are wearing and watch the opening monologues.  Every once in a while I find something humorous or moving in a speech.  This clip is not from the Oscars but it did make me smile and made me think of our kids and what they may do some day.  I have been fortunate to have been in the district for almost a quarter century and know multiple generations of families.  It is a pleasure to see former students become happy adults too. I wonder what this actor's former teachers think when they see him perform and talk. Enjoy this clip!