It really seems like it has been a long time since school was last in session but after looking at the calendar, I realized it has been a long time since school was in session. Think about it: school was out before Memorial Day! One week from tonight you will need to go to bed a little earlier (students), or you will be struggling to get your children to go to bed (parents)! Last week I commented on the excitement that is common with the start of the year, but I must confess that I was feeling anything but excitement when I left the office last Friday afternoon!
There were looming issues for the district that hadn't yet been resolved. It had been my hope that all the heavy lifting would have been done by the close of business, but it wasn't to be. You see, we had pretty significant hurdles to clear, one big one was figuring out how we were going to cover high school music classes, which included our award winning show choir; and the other, what to do with our burgeoning kindergarten classes. Answers seemed to be just out of reach for us!
Luckily we have an awesome administrative team, who after a relaxing weekend were able to quickly resolve all those problems, basically by lunchtime on Monday. If you have been following me on Twitter you no doubt by now know that Mrs. Anderson has graciously agreed to take the reins of this fantastic program. Just when we (I) thought that we had a big problem on our hands, Mrs. Anderson swoops in and saves the day. At the elementary level, we have asked Mr. Edgar East to fill in at this position. Talk about a 'double double'. For those of you that don't know Mr. East, he is a long time substitute teacher for Hudson and is a professional musician on the side. The icing on the cake has to be the fact that Mr. East is trained as a music teacher and brings a ton of ability and practical experience to the position. I have no doubt that you will really enjoy his style! We couldn't have pulled this off without a lot of hard work, multiple discussions with personnel, and collaboration among our administrators. Mr. Schlatter and Mr. Dieken deserve all the credit for working together on this project to make sure all the pieces fell into place.
The other issue was in kindergarten. In an effort to be proactive, late last spring I asked Mr. Schlatter to consider a contingency plan in the event our kindergarten numbers blossomed on us like they did last fall. Unfortunately it is difficult to make decisions such as these until registration is complete. This is compounded by the fact that many registrations continue to be late or unaccounted for (sidebar: if you haven't registered for school yet this year, please do so ASAP). Mr. Schlatter was very proactive in his approach, going so far as to personally call all unaccounted kindergarten students. This gave him a firm number to make an informed decision. He decided yesterday that the numbers were too great to have two sections of kindergarten (59 confirmed and 61 projected), so the decision was made to transfer Mrs. Ingamells to kindergarten for next year. This caused a ripple effect of personnel changes, with Mrs. Owen-Kuhn moving to third grade and Mrs. Kiewiet splitting her time between fourth grade and Title One. These were decision that needed to be made in the best interest of all our students.
So here we are, the finishing touches. As I finish this entry it appears for all practical purposes that the final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, just like they do every single year. For those of you who are wondering, the parking lot will be opened at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning.
Better start going to bed early, school is starting soon!
There were looming issues for the district that hadn't yet been resolved. It had been my hope that all the heavy lifting would have been done by the close of business, but it wasn't to be. You see, we had pretty significant hurdles to clear, one big one was figuring out how we were going to cover high school music classes, which included our award winning show choir; and the other, what to do with our burgeoning kindergarten classes. Answers seemed to be just out of reach for us!
Luckily we have an awesome administrative team, who after a relaxing weekend were able to quickly resolve all those problems, basically by lunchtime on Monday. If you have been following me on Twitter you no doubt by now know that Mrs. Anderson has graciously agreed to take the reins of this fantastic program. Just when we (I) thought that we had a big problem on our hands, Mrs. Anderson swoops in and saves the day. At the elementary level, we have asked Mr. Edgar East to fill in at this position. Talk about a 'double double'. For those of you that don't know Mr. East, he is a long time substitute teacher for Hudson and is a professional musician on the side. The icing on the cake has to be the fact that Mr. East is trained as a music teacher and brings a ton of ability and practical experience to the position. I have no doubt that you will really enjoy his style! We couldn't have pulled this off without a lot of hard work, multiple discussions with personnel, and collaboration among our administrators. Mr. Schlatter and Mr. Dieken deserve all the credit for working together on this project to make sure all the pieces fell into place.
The other issue was in kindergarten. In an effort to be proactive, late last spring I asked Mr. Schlatter to consider a contingency plan in the event our kindergarten numbers blossomed on us like they did last fall. Unfortunately it is difficult to make decisions such as these until registration is complete. This is compounded by the fact that many registrations continue to be late or unaccounted for (sidebar: if you haven't registered for school yet this year, please do so ASAP). Mr. Schlatter was very proactive in his approach, going so far as to personally call all unaccounted kindergarten students. This gave him a firm number to make an informed decision. He decided yesterday that the numbers were too great to have two sections of kindergarten (59 confirmed and 61 projected), so the decision was made to transfer Mrs. Ingamells to kindergarten for next year. This caused a ripple effect of personnel changes, with Mrs. Owen-Kuhn moving to third grade and Mrs. Kiewiet splitting her time between fourth grade and Title One. These were decision that needed to be made in the best interest of all our students.
So here we are, the finishing touches. As I finish this entry it appears for all practical purposes that the final pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, just like they do every single year. For those of you who are wondering, the parking lot will be opened at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning.
Better start going to bed early, school is starting soon!
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