Superintendent Update - November 1, 2018

Breakfast and Lunch Menus now on the District App!

I wanted to take a moment to plug the District App for smartphones.  If you go into your app store, search for the Beacon City School District, and our app will appear.  Once you download it, you can customize your app to follow the schools you want to follow.  The app has a great calendar function, it allows for notifications and updates from the district, and it now has breakfast and lunch menus which is a very popular addition in my world!  

Sustainability Committee

We are forming a Sustainability Committee for the district.  The Sustainability Committee will help the district create a more formal plan for recycling, composting, and other important issues in this area.  There have been many efforts in the district started by PTOs, students, or staff and we want to find ways for the district to support and be more strategic in the ways we help.  Our first meeting will be Tuesday, November 27 from 4:00-5:15 and we will try to meet monthly. The committee will be comprised of administrators, teachers/staff, parents and community members.  If you are interested in joining, please email me at landahl.m@beaconk12.org.  Let me know what school you are affiliated with in the email.  

Thought Exchange to Support Our Strategic Plan

Thanks to all who have supported our Thought Exchange.  You still have time to participate.  Once you enter the exchange, you can answer the question posed about creating our profile of a graduate, or just rate other people’s responses.  It is very easy to use and we would love to have more input.  Here is the information:

 It could take you as little as 5 - 10 minutes to participate.

1. You can complete questions at your own pace and come back to review your answers at any time.

If you know someone else who would like to participate, you can forward this invitation.

If you need technical help, please call Thoughtexchange at 1-800-361-9027 ext. 4 or email feedback@thoughtexchange.com.

Participate in this exchange by using the following link: https://my.thoughtexchange.com/#713723496

Alternatively, you can also use the Thoughtexchange app on your iPhone or Android device – or go to thoughtexchange.com and enter the code 713-723-496

Update on Air Quality Work at Beacon High School

Our air quality work at the high school is mostly complete.  The Beacon High School theater has been open for a couple of weeks and it looks beautiful! We will be working on our air chiller this year to see what improvements need to be made.  Thanks to the community for your patience with this process.

Superintendent Blog Post October 12, 2018

 Homecoming Success!

We started a new tradition this fall with new Homecoming activities.  This year we had a tailgate party for the high school students, a soccer game before the “under the lights” football game, and we saw the return of the Homecoming Dance for the high school dance.  Thanks to all of our administrators, teachers, custodians, security monitors, students, parents, and community members for making it happen!

 

 

 

Rombout Technology Improvements

As of this writing, every classroom at Rombout Middle School has a new Dell Interactive Board and every student has a chromebook for use in all classes and at home.  Teachers received training on using the new interactive boards this week and on the November 6th professional learning day we will offer more.  Our plan for next year is for every Beacon High School student to have a chromebook and to add more interactive boards to the high school classroom as well.

 One of the interactive boards being used at Rombout

 

The Math Science Partnership Grant: Hands-on, Minds-on Modeling Across STEM Disciplines

This week we had several of our secondary teachers working on planning some very engaging learning modules as a part of the Math Science Partnership Grant.  The Math Science Partnership Grant is an interdisciplinary project in which teams of teachers at the secondary level come together to develop modeling modules combining math, science, and technology.  As a result of this Project BCSD Teachers will help our students experience the concept of "Mathematical Modeling" .  Our students will use "Mathematical Modeling" as a means to explore and develop a deeper understanding of real-world problems  This work is being done in conjunction with Clarkson University and Beacon Institue for Rivers and Escuaries.

Beacon teachers planning at as part of the Math Science Partnership Grant.

 

 

  

There are lots of amazing things happening in our district.  Thank you so much for supporting this work!

 Matt Landahl

 

 

Superintendent Blog Post- September 21- Information About Strategic Coherence Planning

 Dear Beacon City School District Community:

The BCSD will be embarking on a Strategic Coherence Planning process this school year and I am very excited about it.  We are working with a consultant through PNW BOCES named Jonathan Costa. He has worked successfully with a number of districts in the area.

Strategic Coherence Planning helps us come together as a district to define what we want our graduates to be able to do when they leave and also helps us organize as a district to make that happen.  The focus is on our students and the learning process. The process is highly interactive through both online tools and meetings and allows us to take a hard look at where we are currently and helps us plan where we want to be.

One of the key features of this work is having a Strategic Coherence Planning Process Committee.  Members of the committee will come from both external and internal stakeholders.

If you are interested in being a part of this committee, please let me know by Wednesday, September 26 and include what school or schools you are connected to in the district.    The meeting dates of the committee are below. Please check those dates before you respond. Committee members will also be a part of a smaller committee that will meet once or twice to review data.  One key part of the committee I want to be clear about is that the main role of all committee members is to help review all of the feedback and input we gather from the entire community, not to advocate for a particular program or school.  If you are a staff member reading this email, you will be able to inform me of your willingness to participate through a separate process next week.

I will let you know if you have been selected to be a part of the committee by Friday, October 5th.  Even if you are not selected for this work, please know there will be a robust online forum for community input and several public meetings as well.  Once this process is done, we will also be developing Building Leadership Teams at each school you may want to be a part of. We will create a page on our website where we will keep everyone informed about the process.

Dates of the Strategic Coherence Planning Committee

Tuesday, October 23- 4:00-7:30

Friday, November 16 8:30-4:00

Wednesday, December 19 4:00-6:00

Friday, January 18 8:00-4:00

Thursday, January 24 2:00-5:00

Thursday, February 7 12:00-4:00

Have a great weekend!

Matt Landahl