to parents/guardians about groupings

February 20, 2007

Dear Parents/Guardians:

I am writing this letter to you because we are starting the process of looking at next year’s groupings (class placement). We would like to involve parents & guardians in this process. Actually, there are several things we would like to see happen as we proceed. First of all, we will need to determine which students will remain on their team and which students will move onto the next team. We have criteria that helps us make that decision.

For the Early Childhood Education (ECE) team, we have established a cut-off date (September 30th) to help us determine placement. Students will need to be at least 2.0 years old on, or before, September 30th to be considered for admittance into the Nursery class. Students between the age of 2 and 2.6 as of September 30th may be considered for an alternate placement (Pre-Nursery class or the Parent Infant Program) as determined by the IFSP team according to the readiness of the child.

The cut-off date for age eligibility for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten is September 30th. Students must be 4 years old before or by September 30th to be eligible for the Pre-Kindergarten class.

The cut-off date of September 30th was selected after researching the cut off dates in other districts. Districts in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. all use September 30th as a cut-off date and KDES decided for the sake of consistency when working with other districts, we would use this date as well.

The IFSP/IEP team may determine placement if the child’s birthday falls short of the cut-off date. Placement decision will be based on assessment and evidence that the child will be able to progress with no risk to emotional well being.

We would also consider all of the five outcomes to determine readiness of each child: Essential Knowledge, Communication, Critical and Creative Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, and Life Planning. We base decisions using formal and informal evaluations & assessments in addition to teacher, staff and parents’ input.

We have already begun looking at the students in our team meetings: PIP and Nursery; Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten; Team 1/2/3 teachers and staff members review the groupings together. We anticipate this will take several weeks before we have a complete picture of what the groupings will look like. Teachers and staff members will not be assigned to groups and classes until the end of the school year. We will also have few vacant positions we will be advertising for and hiring in the spring. Once the school administration completes this process of hiring and teacher assignment to classes, more information will be shared with you.

As you can see, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Now, we want to also involve parents/guardians in this process. I am inviting you to schedule a meeting with me if you’d like to share your input for what will happen next year for your child.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We hope that this information will help you understand the process underway at this point in the school year and enable you to provide us with your input.

Sincerely,

Maureen Yates Burns
Acting Coordinator, Birth to Grade 3
Assistant Principal of Instruction, KDES

from Maureen Y. Burns

Happy New Year!

It’s an exciting time, the beginning of a new year! We have so much to look forward to and this semester is surely going to be a busy one. I’d like to share several things that are happening here at Kendall.

KDES 150th Anniversary

Special Events on Wednesdays for Team 1-8
On early closing days (Wednesday) once a month, we continue to have special activities for our students related to the 150th year anniversary of KDES. For the months of January, February and March, each team (grades 1 through 8) will rotate and participate in different activities. The Principal’s teams led by Marilyn Farmer along with members of the Support Service and Literacy teams are planning the activities for them.

ECE project
The ECE team will begin some discussion and activities with our ECE children related to Kendall’s 150th anniversary. We will follow our students’ lead as they learn about Kendall’s history and how the school has evolved throughout the years (people and buildings don’t look the same today compared to 150 years ago!) Class projects will depend on students’ interests. We will also talk with our children about what school means to them.

Art Activity
In the month of February, students will be provided with art materials to create art work that reflects the 150th year anniversary of Kendall School. We look forward to seeing the students’ work!

Committee
There is also a committee focusing on the 150th anniversary event coming up in June. Please let me or your family educator know if you are interested in participating on this committee. This committee is being led by Donald Mahoney.

Space Committee
A space committee has been established to look at the use of space in our building. The reason for this is to review our current programmatic needs and make sure that the use of all spaces in the building meets the needs. If you are interested in serving on this committee, please contact me or your family educator as soon as possible.

Staff Changes
We are sad to announce that Darla Washington, our teacher aide on the ECE team, will be resigning. Her last day with us is on February 2nd. Darla’s sense of humor and hard work will be missed by many of us.

We are happy to announce a new person joining the Kendall family. Harold Catron will be working with us as a part-time temporary physical education teacher starting January 22nd until the end of the school year. He will be working with students, grades 1 through 8 daily.

Portfolio Day, March 19th
March 19th is our work day therefore there will be no school that day. However, all teachers and staff members will be shifting their work hours to 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. The reason for this is because we want to invite all of you to come and meet with your child’s teachers and staff members. During this time, we will be showing you your child’s portfolio so that you can discuss your child’s progress with the teachers and staff members. Please begin to contact your child’s teacher to make an appointment to come to Kendall. Please do not miss out on this opportunity to review your child’s portfolio! More details will be shared with you as time comes closer.

Language Planning
We continue to discuss language planning for our students. We had a workshop last week and invited Dr. Stephen Nover to give a presentation to parents and guardians about language planning. Thank you to those of you who attended. Dr. Nover’s power point presentation is now online and your family educator has shared a hardcopy with you all by now.

There is a parent committee on language planning. We welcome any of you who are interested in signing up. Please contact me or your family educator if you are interested. Our next meeting is on February 12th from 6-8 p.m. and Dr. Nover will also be attending.

In closing…
As always, I welcome your feedback. Please feel free to contact me at anytime. Kendall is constantly evolving to meet our students’ needs and we are continuing to try to improve in all aspects. Your involvement is always welcome and needed.