Gator Run Friday Focus - August 26, 2016

This has been an amazing first week of school.  Thank you for all that you do for our students.  We need your assistance at dismissal time in the front office.  Please be aware that from 2:00 - 2:30 our office staff is answering phones and responding to dismissal concerns on the walkie talkies.  We need to make sure that the office is as quiet as possible during this time.

Next Week at a Glance:

• Open House next week: PK-2 on Tuesday and 3-5 on Wednesday, both at 6:30 PM.  
• Our first General PTA Meeting is Wednesday at 9:00 AM in the Cafeteria.  
• Our first SAC meeting is Wednesday at 2:20 in the Media Center.  
• Team Collaborations are scheduled for Thursday at 2:20.  

Website of the Week: Get Epic - https://www.getepic.com/app/  Thanks to Melissa Lopez for sharing this one.  It's sort of like Netflix for books.  It's also available as an app.  Check it out!

Article of the Week: Great article from the New York Times on the debate over homework - How Much Homework is Too Much

Quote of the Week: "Students will do amazing things if you can design a class and environment that is positive and empowering." - Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like a PIRATE.

Gator Run Friday Focus - August 19, 2016

This week we asked all of our instructional staff to write out their hope for this school year.  My hope is for everyone to be happy here at Gator Run.  We all have outside concerns and worries (me too).  But if our personal goal is to help make kids' lives better, what better place to do that then here at GRE?  I hope that each of you finds happiness in what you do and I hope that you find it (or found it) here!

Twitter Challenge - We are going to have an ongoing contest to see if we can flood Twitter with the awesome from Gator Run.  As I spoke to you on Monday, I am encouraging everyone to post 1 Tweet a day using the hashtag #GRE1617 and then to spend a few minutes each day reading other posts from our school using that hashtag.  If you can add #trendthepositive or #CelebrateMonday when appropriate, please do so.  We want to overflow social media with how amazing our school is.  Every teacher who posts using #GRE1617 at least 3 times a week will be entered into a weekly raffle.  We will draw a ticket each Monday morning for a prize.  Remember - "If we as teachers don't tell the stories of the positive work in schools, there is a chance that nobody will." - Josh Stumpenhorst, @stumpteacher

Let's also continue to use Instagram to tell the stories of our classrooms and our school.  Here are five new Gator Run accounts to follow if you haven't already:

Next Week at a Glance:

• Please make sure that you know how your students are going home on Monday.  Apart from starting to build relationships immediately with them, this is your most important goal of the first day!
• We will be conducting our first fire drill on Wednesday at 8:20.  We will immediately follow this up with a tornado drill.  
• Let's make this the best school year ever!  It starts next week.  

Quote of the Week: "The expression "work-life balance' makes no sense.  You don't try to balance your life with your work.  Your work is a sub-category of your life and should serve the values and ideals of your life." - Bert Jacobs, Life is Good Co-Founder