school information

Dear Parents:

We are looking forward to our School of Excellence Celebration on February 4th from 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. in the big gym. We invite you to attend. You won’t be disappointed!

Third quarter began on January 23rd.  This is a chance for the students to start over not only academically, but behaviorally. The criteria to attend the end of the quarter Polar Pride celebration, students may have up to one major Office Discipline Referral or three minor Office Discipline Referrals. The teachers and I discussed how the students who don’t qualify might possibly earn their way back to the celebration after being disqualified for their behavior. We came up with the idea that students will have the opportunity to write an essay on how they have improved their behavior and how the changes have made a difference. The student will bring the essay to the teacher or staff member who wrote the Office Discipline Referral to determine whether the student will be allowed to attend the celebration. The celebration for the elementary this week was changed from snowing shoeing at Jay Cooke State Park to movies at the Rich Event Center because of the cold weather. The high school celebrated last week was Archery Tag brought to us by the National Guard.

Some of the School Board members and I attended the Minnesota School Board Association Conference last week. The keynote speaker, David Horsager, is the author of the book, The Trust Edge. Trust is key to sustaining relationships. The recent vote of our failed operating referendum says the relationship between the school district, the parents and community members lacks trust. The School Board, the staff, and I are committed to improving the trust issues. In order to do this, we invite you to attend school board working sessions to ask your questions. If you can’t attend the meetings, you can email your questions or call. If there is something that is causing the lack of trust, please let me know. We are doing the best we can for the students and the community. We just scheduled a Community Information Meeting for Monday, February 11th at 6PM in the media center regarding the upcoming special election where we are asking again for voters’ support on an operating referendum.  Please plan to attend. If you cannot attend and have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

The highlighted staff member this week is our School Counselor and Communications and Community Education Coordinator, Ms. Fierke. She is part time and works four days a week. She completes the Star Report for the Minnesota Department of Education, which documents the certified staff, the classes they teach, and their qualifications. She also completes the MCCC report for the Minnesota Department of Education. This report outlines the classes that are taught from Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade. Both of these reports take many hours to complete because of the required details. She also works with students on scheduling, graduation plans, individual learning plans, meets with students who are struggling with friends, family, or life stresses, and provides resources for teachers. She plans and organizes college visits and visitors from the college. She organizes and administers the national assessments for our juniors and seniors. She also organizes the state assessments and is in charge of training staff who administer the state assessments. Under the communications portion of her job, she puts together a monthly city flyer, and news articles for the local newspapers as well as updating the district website and Facebook. Her job encompasses all of these tasks as well as many more. The tasks she does would be done by other people in larger districts. Due to the size of our district, our staff members have to do many different jobs because they need to be done regardless of our size.

We have been reminding students that energy drinks are not allowed at school. Please remind your child to not bring energy drinks into the building. We have students who have adverse reactions to energy drinks and students are sharing the drinks. To keep everyone safe, any drinks brought into the building will be taken away and placed in the garbage or recycling bin.

Another safety issue that has been occurring is students being in the building unsupervised after school. All students must leave the building after school unless they are involved in a school-sanctioned activity. Students seem to stay after school waiting for basketball games and because they are unsupervised, we are concerned for their safety.

It has been a busy first week of 3rd Quarter with holiday, the City water line break, and the changes in the high school classes! This coming week should be calm for students and staff.

Sincerely,

Dr. Rae Villebrun, Superintendent/Principal

 

                                        Floodwood School: Preparing all students to succeed.