Principal's Report
February 6, 2008
Basketball season concludes this week.
Our girls did not make it into
the play-offs tomorrow, though they played well against Brooksville
last night. The boys would have played Brooksville today to gain access
to the tournament, but for the weather. So they advance based on season
standings and play on Thursday at 3:00pm and Saturday (TBA) both at
GSA.
I’m very happy with this year’s season. We had
excellent coaches, and played well against overwhelming odds, in a few
cases. One note: the league may want to go to board-certified refs next
year—standardizing the caliber and consistency of refereeing. I’m in
favor of it, though our budget for referees would double. It’s worth
the cost for a well-run, safe, educating game.
Heating: We have a boiler
fitting-crack to repair during February
vacation. At that time, the system can be shut down. It’s an opportune
moment to accomplish some other changes in the system—perhaps part of
the proposal from Gary’s Fuel for system retrofit? Hot water changeover
from boiler to propane, separate unit? See Gary’s proposal.
French Trip: We receive between
$100 and $200 per day in response to
our community mailing. Yield to-date: about $1350. Two more fund
raising dinners are ahead (2/12 and 3/13) with Castine cooks providing
an excellent menu. I project we’ll have about $15,000 in the bank over
and above the cost of the plane tickets. Hard to say exactly how much
the trip will end up costing, pending Euro exchange rate and final
expenses. Exact activities are being planned; homestays with French
families and Castine student pairs are being worked out; St. Castin is
very welcoming and excited by our venture. Castine families are signing
waivers of liability, funding trip/medical insurance for each student,
etc.
Civility: Choosing Civility by
P.M. Forni is making its way into
classroom conversations. I hope it gently corrects and encourages the
tone of our lives here together. Copies available for you. Stay tuned
to next week’s newsletter for more thoughts on this.
Project Acceptance: Very
worthwhile day spent in Blue Hill with all of
the other 5-8 students in Union 93 meeting author Cynthia Lord (Rules)
and learning about people with disabilities. We’ve committed funds to
keep this going next year.
Bottles and Buoys: Randy Flood
has hooked us up with a NOA drifter buoy
program to launch during the Argo’s March trip to the Bahamas. We’ll
also drop a few dozen more wine bottles, with messages, in the Gulf
Stream. But now we can track the drifter buoys online. Nice complement
to the Right Whale program, since the buoys measure salinity, wind
speed, water temp and location, as they follow the current up the
eastern seaboard. We are also hooking up the school in St. Castin to
the project. NOA likes the international exchange piece.
Enrollment: Two of our primary
students will be away for an extended
leave during the winter; we’ve added a third grader as of last week.
Yearbook: Our yearbook
enterprise has already reached the level of ad
patronage necessary to fund it—140 ads—with the same binding, color
printing, etc. as last year, and still free to all students. Thank you
Castine families and businesses. And it’s not too late to take out a
school board page! Still $25.00/quarter page.
Term Reports: We have been
working on a revision of our report forms.
At this point in time, we do not have a final form to share, but the
goals can be summarized as follows:
1. The forms for each subject will be shorter.
2. We’ll have a primary level and middle level “form.”
3. Middle level students will get number/letter
grades on the traditional scale, and
honors and high honors designation for academic work.
4. Each form will contain a prose summary of the
work and projects from the
term.
5. There will be a narrative comment from the teacher and
citizenship/behavior
will be imbedded in that. We are contemplating a citizenship
rubric/theme
list.
6. Specialist (Art, music, PE, Band, French) brief narrative comments
and grades
will be sent to the homeroom teachers to be consolidated in a separate
page.
7. Middle level form will include a chart of grades
and scores over the
term—parents can see averages as well as trends, by assignment.
8. Standards may be mentioned in course content
“boilerplate,” but will not be
the basis for the report form.
9. Data: we will not be contributing to union-wide
data gathering on standards.
10. Production and publishing: We will simply print
out this document in Word,
the responsibility of homeroom teachers to consolidate and produce. Cut
and paste, for now.
There are draft forms—works in progress…see handouts—that give an
indication of the volume and focus of our reports.
Regarding a Union 93 report card: This means that we would not be
reporting in the same way as the other three schools. Once we have a
form we’re content with, that works for our school and parents, I
foresee using PowerSchool and PowerGrade as our publishing tool. But
producing a PowerSchool form as complicated as we have been will not be
our intent. It means we are putting the list of standards to which we
teach in the background, and allowing teachers to control the
description of their classroom/course content, term by term. A
list of the annual standards could be the basis for conferencing before
school and during the other parent-teacher conferences.
February 15th is a parent-teacher conference day and
a chance to gather parent input and feedback prior to the end of the
term a month later, on March 14th. We will do so in conversation or
questionnaire.
We envision using Word to produce T2 reports, then refine and tweak
them for T3. Next year, when there is a new PowerSchool administrator
on board, we would ask to convert the form to PowerSchool for
publishing to parents and archiving the content.
Rink: Kudos to Dave Gelinas for
fine-tuning the liner and perimeter of
the rink this year. No leaks! And we’ve had great ice for the last
week, thanks to Castine Fire Department water deliveries by Captain
Syra and Lieutenant Tom.
Come Eat: Bah is making
Chicken Jambalaya on February 12…French trip
fund raising. Emerson Hall, 6:00pm. Raffle!
Super Bowl XLII: What went
wrong? We sang in morning meeting, just like
we did for the Red Sox—and look what happened for them!—to no avail.
Maybe we’re losing our edge? Or maybe Belichick’s red sweatshirt jinxed
our mojo. There’s always next year….
Todd R. Nelson
Principal
Enclosures
Principal’s article in town report
Gary’s Fuel heat proposal
Learning Curve column: “Blink, or You’ll Miss it”
“All Lemons are Not Alike”
Newsletter preview/draft
For
Town Report
Friends:
By the time you read this letter, the news on the school consolidation
bill—which occupies much thought and energy these days—will probably
have evolved in significant ways that affect Castine. So let’s focus on
our local control of other matters here at Adams School! Suffice to
say: the children, teachers, and parents of Castine cherish what
happens for each of us, in this place. You can hear it in their voices
and see it in their stride as they bound in the doors or onto the
playground each day. S.O.S.: Save Our School? Share Our Strengths? We
hope so!
Gratitude first. As I write, the Castine Fire Department has filled our
little ice rink and we await some old-time cold to freeze it for
skating at recess; the timber frame nature cabin has been roofed
(thanks, Drew Marks) with the cedar shingles that our students watched
being cut in the shingle mill at H.O.M.E. last fall (thank you, Wilson
Museum), we have an expanded school yard to roam and garden in (thank
you, Temple Blackwood and family). Adams School has been the
beneficiary of every organization in town: the Womens and Men’s Clubs,
Golf Club, Castine Fire Department, Garden Club. MMA, Castine
Historical Society, Wilson Museum, Witherle Library, all the town
employees; our yearbook is made possible entirely by ads from local
businesses and individuals—and every kid gets one, free.
We are a smaller, fiscally leaner school this year. Last spring, The
School Board reduced the staff by one full-time teacher due to
declining enrollment projections and rising per pupil costs. This
necessitated a restructuring of our teaching assignments and grade
configurations. It may take more than one year to assimilate all of the
changes and assess the remaining challenges—we’ll do so with feedback
and guidance from parents and students. We are also in the process of
revising the way we report grades and term comments to parents. We have
one new teacher this year: Kate Morse, who teaches French to all
students.
We are not smaller in terms of aspiration and activity. Our projects
and unique opportunities abound. We welcomed Senator Collins for a
visit last May, and our oldest students presented her with their Right
Whale preservation project. They have also visited the Right Whale
Symposium in New Bedford, for a second time, to share their research
with scientists. Our 7-8th graders are preparing for a trip to St.
Castin, France in April, supported by their own fund-raising events,
and generous donations from town institutions and individuals. We hope
that next year we’ll be hosting our new French friends here in
Castine—which was once known to the world as Nouvelle France.
Todd R. Nelson
Principal
www.adamsschool.com
K-12 Enrollment:
Grade
|
K
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
12
|
Students
|
3
|
3
|
8
|
7
|
8
|
4
|
11
|
5
|
7
|
3
|
7
|
6
|
7
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Grade: K 1 2
3 4 5
6 7 8
9 10 11 12
#
3 3
8 7 8
4 11 5
7 3 7
6 7