previous bulletins
June 3, 2008
“Are we not, all of us, wand’rers and strangers; and do we not, all of us, travel in danger or voyage uncharted seas?
_A Gathering of Days, Joan W. Blos, 1979
June is flying by and before you know it the last day of school will be here and we won’t know where it went.
Thank you to everyone who has given us input or made a request for your child for next year. I want to reiterate that I can make no promises but we do take into consideration your request and information.
Many of you have asked about why so many combination classes and who are the spectrum teachers for next year? Right now, we have not made any decisions for next year regarding who will be the designated spectrum teacher for each grade level and the reason for all the combination classrooms is due to enrollment. Basically, we started with the fifth grade and made them one class and gave them a teacher Of course, the blended K has to stay the way it is organized and it is very difficult to have K/1 combinations so we kept those separate. From there you look at the number of kids left and the number of teachers and begin dividing making balanced classes. For instance, you wouldn’t want 5 first graders with 20-second graders. As I stated before, teachers look at levels of academics, friendships, male, female balance, students with special academic needs, family volunteering, students who need to be separated and so forth. After looking at all that we try to make balanced classrooms so any teacher could walk in and teach that class. We also have to consider the students that qualify for the spectrum program and those in the autism program. Please keep it in the back of your head that we do want the best for you child and that every teacher at North Beach is a good teacher but not every teacher and family sees eye to eye.
Please mark your calendars and don’t forget to join us on June 10th after school to be recognized as a volunteer and be appreciated. Staff and students couldn’t do all this without you and we hope all of you that volunteer here at school and home can come and congregate and have some fun with us. Thanks for all you do.
This Thursday will be our last Virtues assembly where we celebrate Unity. We will meet shortly as a whole school to introduce the concept and then break into our families for a celebration with our family leader to have a snack and participate in an activity. If you are free at 2:15 please join us.
Have a wonderful rest of the week and weekend.
Peace and Unity
Joanne Bowers/Principal