Ponderings of a Principal: We Are Crew: Happy Fall

Bootcamp

Thank you in advance for supporting our kids!

What a day...

What a difference our community makes in supporting our school.

Thank you Steve Zizzo for DJing ALL day!
It wouldn't be nearly as fun without the tunes
that energize the event!

Behind the scenes....

The funds raised at Bootcamp will go towards 'The Renaissance Fund' that will be used to meet the unique needs of our school. Those can range from scholarships to support families, maintaing our one-to-one technology (whoot! whoot!), Adventure Education programming needs, classroom resources, professional development, and the list goes on. Thank you so much for supporting this fund that enables us to meet the ever growing needs of our school.

A huge shout out to Brittnee Pierse and Katie Coyne for chairing this fundraiser and to ALL the parent volunteers who worked on this committee.

Renaissance

From Good To Great

With the support of our Building Leadership Team and the voice of all staff, we have rewritten our school mission statement. It was time. In order for a mission statement to be truly guiding the way towards our desired state, it must resonate in the hearts of those working together on that common goal.

We analyzed and evaluated every single word before we could settle on something that we felt captured the spirit and vision of our work.

You'll notice that Ms. Pam has taken down our old mission statement in the lobby and will use the Eric Carle inspired letters that students made, to display our new mission statement:

Renaissance Mission Statement

To empower students to explore, discover and understand the world around them and the passions within them.

Students who are...

* creative, reflective, fulfilled individuals;

*active, compassionate citizens;

*courageous builders of a harmonious and sustainable world.

As a staff we set a goal of increasing our collaboration. In order to do that, we had to take some risks to try working in new ways which also meant some changes to how we had been doing things.

We started by creating a new schedule, which didn't work out quite as we hoped - so we did what we ask kids to do, and we revised and are trying again! (Of course we took you on that journey with us, and likely created some confusion for you!) In order to create a chunk of time for teachers to work together, we needed to be able to have a fourth rotation paired with Art, Performing Arts and Physical Education. Thus, the creation of the Sustainability class. (More about that in just a bit.) This allows four teachers to work collaboratively at the same time rather than just two - which is increasing our collaboration across grades.

We have also shifted the way we use the library. Students have been trained and are doing self-checkout - just like they do at the real library. Students go to the library to get a book as they need one, not as a scheduled class time. This is allowing Ms. Diana to work collaboratively with teachers in a team teaching approach. The library is now a space that can be scheduled for all kinds of learning experiences and is staffed during the day by parent volunteers so that we still have supervision of students who are visiting the library to checkout books.

Teachers are sharing their expertise across the school by collaboratively planning, coaching and mentoring one another and facilitating our professional development sessions.

We have many more ideas, but as often is the case, the idea to action is a bit more complicated than it appeared to be when we were brainstorming and dreaming. We will continue to explore new ways of working together and expanding our expertise!

I've heard from lots of parents that their children are loving this thing called Sustainability. What in the world is that?

Introducing Mr. Brooks! I've asked him to share a bit more about our vision for this learning experience....

Hello Renaissance do-gooders! I'd like to formally introduce myself to the community. My name is Brooks Letchworth and I'm so excited to join the team here at Renaissance! You may have seen a superhero, mad scientist, or detective popping up here and there; three of many personalities that help teach Sustainability to our students. What is Sustainability?

Check out the mission statement for this new class that is scheduled in the rotation with Art, Performing Arts and Physical Education:

To awaken students to the human impact on the planet and inspire them to learn how to become better stewards of the world they will inherit and leave for future generations, empowering them to create solutions for our modern day challenges.

As I've been telling kids in class, Sustainability is simply thinking about how our choices affect the planet and trying to make it a better place for everyone, forever! Another way to think about it is using the Native American idea of the Seventh Generation. That is, considering the health and happiness of seven generations down the road when we make choices in our lives.

Some of the things taught early in the school year encompassed voyage preparation (for personal sustainability) and Leave No Trace principles (for the planet's sustainability), as well as, the art of working as as crew. We worked on effective communication, belonging, empathy, and group dynamics. Kindergarten through second grade have been studying composting, recycling, reusing, and how reducing our use of resources can help the environment and habitats of animals. Fifth grade has been looking at what problems our planet faces, with Fifth Discovery students embarking on an Energy Audit of our school. Sixth grade students have been crafting presentations about causes they are passionate about and learning how to make messages powerful and meaningful to a variety of audiences. Fourth grade has just begun a Waste Audit of our school to measure and track how much food waste and recycling we are able to divert from the landfill. This is an ongoing project that involves designing and building new compost bins to turn our school's food waste into soil!

Stay tuned for many new exciting projects to make Renaissance a more sustainable school! And be ready for your kids to bring you great ideas for becoming more sustainable stewards of the planet! Green Team go!