Lost & Found - again!

The week before Sioux Trail got out for the summer we did a thorough overhaul of the lost and found.  After having seven tables worth of unclaimed items out for two weeks Sioux Trail made a large charitable donation of clothing.  Less than a week later we're back to having a large amount of unclaimed items.  To help Sioux Trail families know what we have I have created a short video highlighting the inventory of the lost and found.  Please watch the video and then come to school (or send your child) and claim these items.  The unclaimed items will be donated after a couple weeks.

TRAIL Cards

We're successfully implementing TRAIL Cards at Sioux Trail. This is a project focused on intermittent positive reinforcement. As adults we are very good catching children at making mistakes, but we're not as good at recognizing and reinforcing positive choices. All staff have TRAIL cards with them and can give them to students at any time they are "caught" making a good choice or going above and beyond. I have had students stop me in the hall and share what they got "caught" doing and are really proud of simple things. At the end of the day today a student stopped me and told me that he received a TRAIL card for clearing the lunch table in the cafeteria, another student got a card for going back and cleaning up a mess that she didn't make, a second grader was "caught" holding the door open for her class. The intent isn't to recognize students every time they follow directions or make a good choice, because we expect that, but instead we're trying to reinforce those good choices, with intermittent reinforcement. There are lots of choices for students when they have a TRAIL Card including entering it into a drawing for a monthly lunch with me (I call these TRAIL Blazer Club Meetings), reading the Pledge of Allegiance on Monday mornings or simply keeping the card to remember their good choices. Today I just added some plastic "charms" in school colors. I'm hoping that students will wear these with pride and spread the word about making good choices at the Trail!

You might be asking - why does he keep capitalizing TRAIL? Because I turned "trail" into an acronym or acrostic poem. On the first day of school I invited students to share what TRAIL means to them with me. I told them that to me TRAIL means:
T eamwork
R esponsibility
A cademic Excellence
I ntegrity
L earning

What does TRAIL mean to your student? Have them write it or draw for me and I'll add it to the bulletin board in the office.

Exciting Day!

The first day of school is always an exciting day and I look forward to it each year. As a teacher and now as a principal, I always get very excited about our first day together. On September 7 all the Sioux Trail students in first through sixth grade will join us and then our Kindergarten students join the group on September 9 and we will be ready to formally resume our mission.

We've gone through the transitions from me and the custodial staff alone in the building, to Mrs. Cenci joining us and then all of the teachers joined us last week. The building is ready to go and all of the people who make a Sioux Trail the wonderful educational community that it is are excited and ready to work hard towards continued personal and educational success. I hope that the summer break has been restful for all and we'll resume our work on Tuesday.

I had an enjoyable summer, which included a great trip to Montana. Despite having an enjoyable summer I question the need for a three month vacation from school. Changing that is out of my control right now, but leading a group of staff dedicated to ensuring student success and increased academic achievement for all students in well within my control and something that I am passionate about. This work is not done in isolation but by working within what I call the "triangle of success". The "triangle of success" is formed by school staff, the student and the parents or family working together to support and achieve increased academic achievement.

As we kickoff the first day of school, we're making one side of triangle very visible by wearing our new Sioux Trail shirts. The purchase was made possible by our PTO and money raised through Spring school photos. The shirts make our pride in Sioux Trail very clear as well as the new name for Sioux Trail staff - Trail Guides.

TRAIL Blazer Club

Dear Panther Pages Reader,

You are invited to join Sioux Trail students for a monthly meeting of the Sioux Trail "TRAIL Blazer Club". I believe that being successful fuels our willingness to try new things and be the best we can be. At Sioux Trail our primary goal is increased student achievement and one of the ways we achieve this is by helping students be successful.

One of the methods we are using to recognize success is through "TRAIL cards". Students who are "caught" making good choices may receive a TRAIL Card at any time during the school year from any Sioux Trail staff member. These cards contain messages which offer positive reinforcement and encourage students to continue making good choices. Students have several options when they receive a TRAIL card. One of the options is entering the TRAIL Card in a drawing for lunch with special guest and me at a monthly meeting of the TRAIL Blazer Club.

There will be a meeting of the TRAIL Blazer Club each month and I'm inviting adult members of the Siuox Trail community to join me at a meeting(s). We will be meeting during student lunch times and there will be four to eight students per grade level each time. The meetings are approximately two hours long as students will rotating in during their half-hour lunch times. When we meet students will share what types of good choices they are making, learn about you and what types of choices you have made to be successful. In the beginning of the school year I will share with students what the acronym TRAIL means to me and we'll discuss what it means to them at the TRAIL Blazer Club meetings.

Students will be providing their own lunch, but I'll be providing a treat for dessert and lunch for our special guests. I hope that we will have a wide variety of special guests and if you are interested please let me know and I will email you the meeting schedule. There are two meetings each month which provides for an uninterrupted meeting for each grade level. In addition to inviting all of our blog readers I have extended the invitation the ISD 191 school board members, ISD 191 distrct administration and elected state and national officials. If you are able to join us please contact me and let me know which month(s) you'd like to participate.

Thank you,
Taber Akin

What is LINK?

In the last post I referenced a program named LINK and since the post I have had several questions about LINK. Please keep the questions coming - I'm glad people are reading the blog!

LINK is Language Immersion for New Kindergartners. Nationally this instructional model is known as KLDM - Kindergarten Language Development Model, but we wanted a name unique to ISD 191 and something that was a little easier to remember.

LINK is focused on immersing our Kindergarten ESL students into an English rich environment so that we give them an instructional boost at the earliest possible opportunity. This program does not have a negative impact on non-ESL students; it is not costing anything extra or pulling staff from another program. In ISD 191 ESL teachers are staffed at a ratio of 40:1; 40 students to 1 teacher. During the 2008-09 school year we observed that there were approximately 20 ESL students in our kindergarten program and began to explore other instructional models.

During the 2008-09 school year Mrs. Gonzalez was working with 2-4 students at a time for approximately one 1/2 hour with each group. For our ESL students this meant they were in and out of their Kindergarten classroom and for the students in a half day program almost half of their day was spent out of the classroom receiving Title I asnd ESL services.

With the LINK program in place our ESL Kindergarten students will be in the morning Kindergarten classroom with Mrs. Peterson. They will stay in school for lunch and then move the LINK / ESL classroom for the afternoon. Instead of pulling the students out of the classroom for ESL and Title I services the students will be together in one classroom and all of the services will be provided there. This is not All-Day Kindergarten for free, but it is a creative way to deliver ESL services. The LINK students will only be in Mrs. Peterson's Kindergarten classroom for the half-day program and then they will be in the ESL classroom for the remainder of the day. I believe that if this program is successful we will see long term benefits for 1-6 classrooms, our ESL students and other students as this changes how our teachers teach.

I welcome your feedback on this exciting opportunity for our students.