Changes

Highland Park will have some staffing changes next year.  Though change is hard for most folks, I firmly believe, when done right, it can be a good thing for all involved.  And it's a definite good thing when people grow into next steps and continue on their path.  Truly.  We have some first-rate people leaving at the end of this school year, but the good news is, we have some first-rate newbies coming in hot on their heels.  Good for all.

Chris

Lauren

Best of luck to Kinder teacher Lauren Farmer, SBS teacher Chris Purkiss, and ASCC teacher Markeshia Dunston.  Ms. Farmer is moving from Austin to another big TX city and will be exploring new life and career opportunities - first rate teacher and person as we know, so I know she is on to great things.  Mr. Purkiss has accepted an SBS teaching position at McCallum High School (woohoo! for our vertical team), which is a definite next step for him, while Ms. Dunston (who recently completed her special ed teacher certification requirements) is off to Dallas as a brand new teacher.  Happy for all!

Markeshia

The inevitable retirements are almost upon us and four HP'ers who have meant so much to so many over the years have decided to hang up their AISD badges and begin own next life steps.  Technology teacher Kyle Etie, reading specialist Kathy Sederholm, 5th grade science teacher Janet Matetich, and cafeteria employee extraordinaire Mona Rodriguez are exiting this June.  Love them all and though they may officially retire, the good they have done will continue to positively impact our school for many years to come.

Kyle

Kathy

Ms. Janet

Mona

So with the goodbyes, we have some hellos we are equally thrilled to share with you.  Welcome aboard to the following folks...

Laura Grannell will be our new 5th grade science teacher and comes very highly qualified and recommended to our campus.  From NY originally (hear her husband is a native Texan through and through!), Laura is a current AISD Science Coach (helping other teachers understand and deliver best practices in curriculum and instruction - cool!).  She formerly taught elementary science in Houston, is set to be a state StemScope trainer, and is very knowledgeable in all things inquiry based classroom. Much professional development delivery experience, Science Fair coordination experience, GT experience, and more.  Welcome Laura!

Roger Steele will be the brand new technology teacher for HP and our interview committee (including a very knowledgeable parent rep) was very impressed with the current CTE programming he delivers.  Roger is the Career and Technology Education teacher for Garcia Middle School and involves his kids in such things as coding, gaming development, web design, and again, much more.  He has extensive elementary tech teaching experience and even owned his own web design company at one point.  We're excited for all the new he will bring to our school, including pumping up those morning announcements each Monday! 

Erin Murrell is coming on board as the SCORES teacher and if anyone came more highly praised and recommended than Erin, I would be surprised.  Current Life Skills teacher in Springtown ISD, as well as an in-home trainer (offering family support for elementary age children with autism), Erin has a wealth of trainings and certifications directly related to our SCORES program, including a Graduate Academic Certificate in Autism Intervention.  Former Teacher of the Year for her school, former Educator of the Year nominee for her district, former Peace Corps volunteer in Western Somoa (cool!), we know Erin will bring much to our programming on campus.  Our special ed team is excited!

Last but not least, we are equally thrilled to have Carolyn Mixon join as the HP Reading Specialist.  Also highly qualified, Carolyn is a licensed speech and language pathologist, also working currently as a part time reading specialist, and is in process of finishing her studies in order to become a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT).  Our committee was very impressed to hear of her passion and curiosity for connecting the work of a language therapist to the work of reading intervention.  A smart cookie who will be a great asset to HP.

Finally, I leave you with some pics from our week.   Fifth grade headed out to Camp Allen on Tuesday morning and though the weather was a bit iffy early that morning, I hear they had a fantastic time. 

Loading the buses early Tuesday morning

And of course, I also caught a pic of 4th grade practicing for next week's Pioneer Fair performances.  Always a fun Social Studies culminating event that signals to our campus the last week of school is definitely upon us.  Hard to believe, but we have only a few days left in 14-15.  Set to be a week of varied and meaningful activities and as always, we're Scottie Strong to the End!

Rehearsal Time!

Keeping it real

I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the important work of our 5th grade Safety Patrol.  Teacher sponsor Mrs. Matetich, along with parent Amy Inman, hosted a celebration lunch last Friday and I was honored to say a few words of thanks to our student volunteers.  These young leaders help keep our traffic flowing in the afternoon and I can't thank them enough for their service. Keep up the leadership in middle school and beyond!

Practicing for the performances

It's all things 5th grade Greek Week here at Highland Park (and a bit of gearing up for fourth grade Pioneer Fair) and the projects tied to readings/research tied to the student created mythology dramatic scripts tied to performance are well under way.  Love the creativity and critical thinking demonstrated in these type of activities, but most importantly I love knowing our students are learning at deep, engaging, and thoughtful levels.  It's truly hard to beat performance assessments of this type (what I believe are truer, more real-life measures of knowledge application) and I hope HP keeps a focus on project/performance based learning for many years to come. We all know this type of learning helps set the foundational skills that give all students a leg-up with those sought after life skills - think confidence and sense of belonging as two examples - in college, career, and life.  Thanks Scotties for always keeping it real for the children we serve.

Andra's impressive Athena

Aidan's use of varied techniques to highlight Greek wrestlers

Starting to wrap up...

We started our week with retreat days.  LOVE these days with teachers as we get so much done, it's a relaxed atmosphere and a chance to really talk with each other.   Great moments to find out what we  are thinking, gather ideas, share ideas, tackle needs, and so much more.  The bulk of our days this year were spent on scheduling for 14-15, marking big dates on the master calendar, and other get rolling kinds of things.  Some great, great team leaders and special education teachers.Appreciate the dedication to get it done.

Team Leaders at work

It was also my great pleasure this week to attend my good friend and fellow principal Elyse Smith's retirement celebration at Lee Elementary.  She is one of those West Texas gals who has a passion for always doing the right thing and has been a wonderful sidekick over the years.  Going to totally miss her, but know she is on to great things.  Thanks for the invitation.  

I had the opportunity to visit with some delightful second graders from Mr. Gay's class one morning this week.  They were very knowledgeable in explaining their recent biography projects, which as you can see, involved written composition, creation of timelines (including momentous moments captured in a sentence and picture frame), portrait creations, famous quotes, and more.  We all agreed that Jane Goodall, even at 80 years of age, continues to do great things to make our world a better place.  Cool.  I especially loved the caricature photo/quote display and really, the students' genuine enthusiasm for the work they completed.  They were very eager to share.  Thanks second grade for keeping the learning going in the final weeks of school.

HH

Finally, it was an Ocean Odyssey day!  First graders wrapped up their unit of study with a performance this afternoon, performing songs and script based on their work with Creative Action.  From what I could hear, they learned lots of great things about ocean animals this year.  Way to go first graders! 

AM practice before the real performance!

Scottie Strong!

I absolutely loved hanging out Tuesday with Hazel, HP's Principal for the Day.  Hazel was organized, enthusiastic, and ready to tackle all of our daily tasks, even making a to-do list, then checking it off as we completed things.  Great executive functioning skill to practice and put in place in those early years. A reliable source tells me Hazel also wants to be a teacher  one day.  Way cool!  Thanks Hazel for a really fun day.  Be sure to check out her own blog post below this one. It's a good one.




We've tackled many other things this week as well.  Gearing up for our Team Leader and Special Ed Team Retreat Days next week, planning ahead for a smooth transition to next year's leadership.  Additionally, we had a great presentation at Wednesday night's PTA Exec Board meeting by vertical math committee reps Mrs. Finkle and Mrs. O'Donnell, along with parent Erinn Windler, on all things math alignment for 14-15.  Great initiatives in the final planning stages, with a K-5 CGI math training being scheduled and the long planned Math Fluency Centers (headed by math specialist Erinn) coming to fruition.  Exciting work and continued good for HP.  Special shout out as well to Clayton Elementary's Dr. Robinett for her additional thoughts on the good she has seen at Clayton with CGI.  And to incoming HP principal Katie Pena for jumping in with planning the implementation. It does indeed take a village.

It was our last PTA exec board of the year with current members and as you can see from the picture, we each received a special going away hat, courtesy of outgoing board president Shannon Ratcliff and board member Bria Cirkiel.  Though some of our crew had to skedaddle pre-pic, this "Oscar" selfie, courtesy of David (we jokingly dubbed him our Bradley Cooper), provided the right note to end our night.  Good people doing good work on behalf of kids.

Final pic for this post.  In addition to checking out Hazel's blog below this post, take note of the bulletin board she created during her day as HP Principal - with a bit of help from AP for the Day Holden.  I think it sums up much for the last few weeks of school, not only for me, but for all of us.  Going out strong and working hard till the end of the year.  Lots of teaching and learning left and lots of good work to finalize.  Scottie Strong to the End y'all.  Scottie Strong to the End.

Hazel's Day as Principal!

Me in the Principal's office

 

Hi, I'm Hazel. I have been principal for today with Ms. Workman.  We started our day at Kinder Round-Up, then we observed classes, we had lunch together, and I made a new bulletin board.  It was the best day of school!

Here are some pictures I took while I was observing classes.

Holden, Assistant Principal for the day

Ms. Brunello's class practicing Ocean Odyssey play.

Mrs. Olson greeting new Kinders

Coach Deline teaching archery

Senor Jorge teaching about Cinco de Mayo

 Learning about Native Americans in Mrs. Guenther's class

Mrs. Absher reading The Victory Garden

Mrs. Levine teaching hatching in art class

Learning Morse Code in Mrs. Kolodziej's class

The good they do

I so enjoyed the dedication last Sunday for the newest addition to Perry Park.  Highland Park's Girl Scout Troop 1510 saw a need for an outdoor learning area, made a very detailed plan, raised the necessary funds, coordinated the vision with their Troop Moms and Austin's Parks and Rec folks, then got to work installing the brand new Perry Park Learning Circle.  This enhancement to our adjacent park area will be a very cool place for classes to meet, for reading and writing workshops, small performances, and for the many park visitors to simply sit and enjoy nature in all its beautiful bounty.  It was a very nice event, with Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Friends of Perry Park's Nadene Morning, as well as HPWBANA members, PARD employees and many others in attendance.  I was honored to cut the official ribbon and say a few words to open the Learning Circle and truly, it was a great project that helped these young leaders understand the power in good works - when you just go for it.  And when you work together with your community to achieve a dream.  Confident and capable girls all!

Juliee & Sharon giving the overview

Ribbon Cutting Time!

Mrs. Hunter with Troop 1510

The Plan

The accolades were overflowing this week for a couple of our teachers and I couldn't be prouder of the recipients.  'Cause I know how hard they work and what good they do in teaching and learning.  I just heard that 5th grade Social Studies Teacher Pam Kolodziej has been nominated for the TX Council for Social Studies Elementary Teacher of the Year due to her "outstanding teaching for the advancement of social studies education".  A very well deserved honor.

Also, 4th grade Teacher Laine Leibick was recently notified that she has been selected as the 2014

Mrs. Leibick with the notification letter

Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award.  Per the official notification I received, "this prestigious award, presented annually by Humanities Texas, recognizes teaching excellence in humanities fields such as language arts and social studies in Texas elementary, middle, and high schools."  Woot! During the 2014-2015 school year, the official award will be presented to Mrs. Leibick, along with a $5,000 check in "recognition of achievements", as well as a $500 check  for Highland Park to use in the support of humanities programming on our campus.

Very, very proud of these ladies and all they champion in the area of Arts and Humanities on campus. 

Painting the design...

First grade teacher Ms. McLelland caught me going down the hallway this morning, telling me I just had to check out what her class was doing for the Ocean Odyssey unit of study.  Students and parent volunteers were making a variety of art projects, but the one that caught my eye (and nose!) was the use of fish to make the Ocean Odyssey t-shirt designs kids produce every year.  Students were painting real (though not live) fish with a variety of self selected designs (washing the paint off  after each design was complete and reusing only a couple of fish over and over), then transferring the design onto a white t-shirt.  The imprints of the scales were very detailed, and as Mrs. McDaniel stated to me a bit later, this was the kind of project "that those kids will remember forever".  Loved the creativity and use of realia to create art and make meaning of what they are now learning about ocean life. 

Transferring the painted design to the t-shirt

and voilà

Finally, Ms. McDaniel and I are just back from a Fling auction luncheon with some of our fifth grade girls.  Loved dining out (doesn't happen often!) at our Partner in Ed businesses Craig-O's Pizza and Berry Austin.  Always good.  Very nice girls and a fun way to wrap up our week as well.

A bit of dessert at Berry Austin. Yum!