Homecoming wraps up with students dancing

What a great week. Homecoming week 2009 was an undeniable success.

The Dance was well attended and most students danced the full two hours allotted.

A victory in district helped with the mood as well as every player seeing the field that was able against the Hawks. It was a good release before starting preparations for district rival CRB.

A big thanks goes to the student council and sponsor Larry Hunt. They organize the theme, dress-up days, the auction, coronation, bonfire, parade, game presentation of homecoming court and dance. That means a lot of phone calls, time writing coronation script, making sure each class knows what to do and when among many things.

Another big thanks goes the staff for organizing and supervising float building, supervising events and decorating the field, the coronation and the dance. Also for keeping a focus on academics as well as allowing for the students to enjoy the week.

You see, at the beginning of the year there was a wild rumor that the administration had canceled all homecoming festivities. Now two years ago we did make a decision to limit the elementary's involvement to the parade, but we have never talked about eliminating homecoming activities.

What we DID do was reduce the amount of interruptions during the school day during homecoming week. We had all of our float building and decorating during Wednesday, when anyone taking IWCC classes could be free to participate. We did our "anything goes" competitions on Monday night (In the gym because of the rain) instead of during the school day. So in the end, other than Wednesday, we missed no class time (other than reduced day on Friday for the parade).

We have made a few notes for next year, but I would look for homecoming week to have a similar feel.

Extending the day and CAM Reads

A direct relationship has been established between the school day being extended and the high school implementing a free reading period CAM Reads. A negative vibe from the kids indicating they blame the extra time in school CAM Reads.

Though I can see where that thinking has come from, it's inaccurate. As a Principal I'll admit that the change in the school time should have been brought up in the newsletter and at registration. Along with simply putting the schedule in, and explanation of where and why we are implementing CAM Reads and what we were also considering.

There has been considerable discussion about the school day since it was shortened from 3:30 to 3:00 when our whole-grade sharing situation first began. This past spring we decided to give it a look and with the blessing of both transportation departments we decided to put the instructional time back into the school day.

After that decision was made we looked at just adding the time back into the block, pull-out and homeroom options, several initiatives in reading and math among other things. We received very good information about "Reading Volume" and the amount students can and should read each year. We decided on establishing a free reading period between blocks 3&4 and 7&8 (and after lunch on Wednesday) and titled it "CAM Reads".

I will post more about CAM Reads in the future, but I will say it is the first step for this district to improve our student's ability to read and comprehend but giving them a no-pressure, low impact reading period where they will simply have to discuss their book with a partner or the class. If they simply participate and fill out their log sheets they will get an elective credit.

As I told one student, we could have simply divided the time up to the four classes each day or put them through some repetitious test-prep drill work.

CAM Reads is a great option.

A portal to media literacy

This Kansas State professor is on the cutting edge of digital learning: