Board notes - WPSCraig Downs
Prior to spring break, we had 4 days of productive parent conferences. It was a good opportunity for me to get to know the staff and many of the parents. I sat in on some conferences and was very impressed by the teacher's preparation and professionalism. They shared student progress and samples of student work as evidence of student growth and improvements. I spent spring break reviewing teachers progress and standing on the new evaluation process. The primary school has 17 teachers on the new comprehensive evaluation system. As you know, these are very rigorous and require evidence documented for all eight criterion. Monday morning, our staff met to celebrate and get an update on the progress of the PBIS program. This program, with the excellent leadership of Jeanne Klahn, is making a positive impact on school climate. I took the opportunity to share with the staff about the attributes of giving affirmations. I modeled by affirming 5 staff members for their character qualities that has resulted in positive benefits for students, staff and school climate. I have scheduled individual conferences with all comprehensive evaluation teachers, so we can have clarity for the next steps moving forward. We should be able to get all the evaluations done, providing quality feedback as we race to the end of the year. Tuesday, I reviewed our emergency procedures and updated everyone's role in case of emergencies. We will be doing some drills in the month to ensure we have our incident command procedures well understood. It's been a real pleasure stepping into the Principal's role at WPS. We have a solid staff that is dedicated, caring and working hard to provide quality learning for all students.