June 29, 2018
I am happy to report that we have had another great school year! This culminates my fifth year as principal of Califon Public School, and with the help of many good people on our staff, a lot has happened in this time period. I think the best and most thorough way for you to capture this is to take a look at my past Principal Corners and you will get an inside track on all that has occurred.
Over this time period, we continued to participate in enrichment programs such as Destination Imagination, Reading Olympics, and TREP$ Marketplace to name a few. Our students continue to impress panels, judges, and visitors with their accomplishments during the year as evidenced by our website postings.
In writing, for example, our eighth grade students have fared very well in the DAR essay contest with this year finishing in all top three positions! The judges of the eighth grade essays for the graduation ceremony always state they have a hard time choosing the winning essay. It’s obvious why when you listen to the winning essays being read at the ceremony. I can bet that you were quite impressed if you had the chance to read writing samples of your children during our Creative Arts Celebration evening. Students as young as kindergarten displayed their stories proudly on the wall!
During the past five years, we focused on improving our technology infrastructure and the ways in which we use technology for instruction. We now utilize wireless access with a 1:1 device to student ratio. Teachers actively use Google Applications for their instruction, which opens up a whole new level of access and collaboration among students and teachers. A number of our teachers are now incorporating coding of varying levels into their instruction also. We will continue to look for new ways in which our students utilize technology and its application.
Our language arts instruction is based on best practices from the Rutgers Literacy group and is consistent from kindergarten through eighth grade. Many of our instructional practices were highlighted in the professional book entitled Breaking Through the Language Arts Block. At its base is guided reading, writing workshop, literacy work stations, literature circles, and presentations. Our students are learning reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a block anywhere from at least 80 to 120 minutes. This block is extended as teachers integrate language arts into the other subject areas as well.
Our current mathematics program has now been in place for three years in kindergarten through eighth grade in addition to Pre-Algebra and Algebra in seventh and eighth grade. I see the students now benefiting from the common language they learn from one year to the next as well as the conceptual learning that takes place with the program.
We are also fortunate to have an additional STEM component added over the past couple of years that will continue next year. We recently purchased a brand new science program at the direction of an internal science committee that looked at several different programs and then piloted the chosen one. If you have the chance, visit “stemscopes.com” to check it out. It will definitely be a “hands-on” science learning experience for your children!
We will continue to provide opportunities for parents to interact with their children during school-wide evening activities. Most recently, we have held Science Nights and we added the Seussical STEAM Night to our calendar. In addition to hearing your children perform songs and music, we were able to display their artwork and writing during our Creative Arts Celebration.
We were also able to add after school club opportunities for your children this year, which should continue for the 2018-2019 school year.
Next year should be an exciting one as we celebrate the 100th year of the school! You’ll notice the first signs of this with the Califon rock garden located in the front of the building. It looks great, as the students and staff painted their rocks to display for all to see. There will be other displays to begin the school year and then a culminating event held in October with more info to follow.
I hope you all have an enjoyable and safe summer. We will see you before you know it next school year!
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