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Volume 3 - Issue
26 - April 4, 2005 |
Mike
Lalley Memorial
Last
week, Kyrene staff were notified about the unfortunate
passing of Surenõ teacher Lois Lalley’s husband,
Mike. The Memorial Service celebrating Mike's life will
be held at St. Matthew's United Methodist Church at 2540
W. Baseline, Mesa, Arizona (Between Price and Dobson on
the North side of the street) at 3 p.m. on Saturday,
April 9th. Following the service will be a
block party on Obispo Circle in Mesa. People are welcome
to join in both or either of the celebrations.
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K-8
Programming Study Implementation Plans
Since the Board meeting where the recommendations
from the K-8 Programming Study Committee were approved,
a plan of action for implementing the changes has been
developed. Communication about the District-wide Early
Release Day is being done through school newsletters.
Those schools that have changes are making it clear what
those changes will be to ensure the school community has
this information. The Transportation Department has
drafted a start and end time schedule that looks very
similar to the one we have had for the last several
years. The final plan will soon be available.
To
provide support for the new middle school model, a
representative group of exploratory teachers will attend
a meeting this week at the District Office to discuss
how the A/B rotation and teaching for a longer block of
time will impact each area. All exploratory teachers
will then attend meetings later this spring to ensure
that they will be prepared for the fall. The Curriculum
and Assessment Department is working with teachers on
developing a Spanish curriculum for 6th grade
(an extension of the Spanish program) and on the
integration of performance objectives from Language
Arts/Reading into other content areas (particularly
Science and Social Studies). A course selection sheet
for incoming 6th, 7th and 8th
graders was developed to reflect the choices that
students will need to make prior to scheduling. Once the
data from the course selection sheets is collected,
middle school principals will meet with District staff
to determine if there are any additional staffing issues
that need to be considered. Continuing teachers who have
been displaced because of program changes are working
closely with principals to move into available positions
and the District has made the commitment to find a
position for each one of these individuals.
With
the shift of the February Staff Development Day to a
regular instructional day for students, the Calendar
Committee is considering alternatives and will soon have
a recommendation for the Board. Updates about this very
important work will continue in the coming weeks.
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Highly
Qualified Coursework and Workshops
Individuals
who indicated that they are not Highly Qualified in
their content area received an e-mail on Friday, April
1st outlining summer professional development
opportunities and coursework for which they could
register. The three workshops listed in the attached
document are currently open to individuals needing hours
to become Highly Qualified, and then will be open to all
Kyrene teachers and administrators beginning Thursday,
April 7. Each of these workshops
will count for 5 points on the highly qualified rubric
under Professional Development Activities related to the
content area. Any content area teacher can use this
workshop to become Highly
Qualified. Please sign up for these workshops on
the PGO Web page.
In
addition, there are a limited
number of vouchers and seats available through Rio
Salado College and Heinemann for individuals who need to
become Highly Qualified in their content area. If you
are interested in a class, contact Margie
Lombardi at x4128 in the Curriculum and Assessment
Department by April 15. For more information regarding
these courses, please click on the links for Free
Highly Qualified Coursework or Summer
Opportunities.
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Benefits
Open Enrollment
Benefits
Open Enrollment will take place from May 1st through May
31st. For the first time, benefits packets will be
mailed to your home address. If you have not updated
your home address with Sheryl
Halliburton in Human Resources please do so as
soon as possible. We are pleased to announce
that your benefits enrollment may be done online this
year. Watch for details to come!
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Kyrene
Montessori Now Enrolling
The Kyrene Montessori
program began enrolling students for the 2005-2006
school year on Monday, March 28. The program will also
add another classroom, bringing the total number of
classrooms in the program to three. Parents can register
a child for Kyrene Montessori or obtain additional
information by calling x4054. Space is limited.
Interested families are also welcome to attend the
Kyrene Montessori Open House, which will be held on
April 6 from 5-6:30 p.m. at Kyrene del Norte.
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Monte
Vista Student Essays
Essays
of 12 gifted students in Mrs. McLennan’s class at
Monte Vista were selected as finalists in a national
contest. Thousands of students entered the competition.
As finalists, they will automatically be eligible
to have their work published in a nationally published
anthology entitled: What is Important to Me. In
addition to being published authors, they are now
finalists for the grand prize. The judges are still
reviewing the finalists' essays to award more than
$3,000 in prizes to the top ten writers.
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Kyrene
Promotional Video
Communications
will be working with a videographer for the
production of a Kyrene promotional video that will
highlight schools, programs, students, etc. Schools will
be contacted about conducting brief video shoots and
interviews between now and the end of the school year.
If you have specific programs, activities, or
individuals that you would like to recommend appear in
the video -- or if you are interested in assisting with
developing a shot list -- please contact Johnny
Cruz at x4174.
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Kyrene
Employees Volunteering Time at Greece Orphanage
This
summer, 8 Kyrene employees will be volunteering their
time in a Greece Orphanage to work with special needs
children. While this is not a Kyrene sponsored
activity, these individuals will spend 2 weeks sharing
their expertise with the children at the orphanage. These
individuals have offered to volunteer their time to
develop and administer a program that will provide these
children with possibly their first opportunity to
experience arts and crafts, music therapy, sensory motor
activities, and active games. If you are interested
in learning more about this volunteer expedition,
contact the volunteer team: Alicia Holt, Joanne Thomas,
Ann Pinkwasser, Karen Reiss, Michele McCuen, Michele
Ferber, Margie Barrows, or Karin Crider.
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2005
Valley Diaper Drive
Want to help Valley families in need? Do it with
diapers. The Valley of the Sun Community Diaper Bank
collects and distributes diapers to nearly 60 Valley
nonprofits, government and religious agencies that
assist babies, people with disabilities and seniors in
need. Donate unopened packages of diapers at any Bashas’
grocery store in Maricopa County now through
April 30. The Kyrene Family Resource Center is one of
the agencies that has benefited from the diaper
donations. For more information, visit www.valleydiaperbank.org
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Arizona
State Retirement System Newsletter
Attached
is the latest edition of the Arizona State Retirement
System newsletter.
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