Dear Parents,
We welcome you to the 2014-2015 school year. If you are new to our school, we are pleased that you have joined our school community. If you are returning to our school, I would like to thank you for your warm welcome as I join my first year at SSIS.
I have now visited every classroom and every teacher in the early childhood and elementary division. I can say with confidence that our school year is off to a very successful start. Parents and students have been welcomed to the school with our orientation day. Classrooms teachers are teaching all of the necessary procedures that make the school year run smoothly. We have had our first faculty meeting and are discussing ways to strengthen our core value of Academic Excellence.
One way that we can contribute to strengthening the academic rigor in the school is by increasing ‘time on task.’ We will be looking at the school schedule, and how we use our time, to maximize the amount of intentional instruction time that actually occurs during the day. I would like to ask parents to help us make sure that school starts on time. Ideally, you are bringing your children to school between 7:30 – 7:45. We have staff members on duty who can supervise your children during this time. At 7:45, we will have students go into classrooms and prepare for the day. We will begin formal instruction by no later than 8:00. If we lose even 10 minutes each day, that ends up being 50 minutes a week, or over 30 hours of lost instruction during the school year. I will be outside during the mornings trying to help students get to class on time. I will then be checking in with every class to ensure that instruction has started by 8:00. Please help bring your child to school on time so we can maximize everyone’s learning.
On August 21, we will host our Curriculum Night (a.k.a. “Back to School Night”). This will be an opportunity for parents to meet with specialist teachers and attend a presentation from your child’s teacher about this year’s curriculum for your child. I will present to all parents about the various initiatives we will be pursuing this year. We look forward to seeing you at this event.
Sincerely,
Dan Keller
EC/ES Principal
