Focus on the Fabulous
Congratulations to our musicians for their successes at the Solo and Ensemble Festival on Wednesday. Several middle school students received top scores of I- Superior. These ratings were based on hard work and their natural ability. Congratulations to Jordan Lobato-horn, Denise Quintero- trumpet, and Omar Prieto-vibraphone. Mrs. Newmyer was especially pleased with Omar’ performance and his ability to focus in on the piece that needed to be learned and perform at such an impressive level. Other middle school students who were successful and scored ratings of II include Sharon Valadez on the bari sax, Sean Cook, Adrian Bahena and Juan Nungaray for their percussion ensemble, Alex Maldonado on the trumpet, Andres Almeida and Cristian Guaderrama for their alto sax duet, and Alexis Sanchez and Camille Ruggles for their flute duet. A big thank you goes out to Mrs. Newmyer for her hard work with all of these kids. The number of kids scoring at these impressive levels represents the direction and instruction that she has provided for the kids on a weekly basis! Great work Mrs. Newmyer and middle school band! I also want to echo Mrs. Newmyer’s thanks to Rosa Ramos and Maria Villagomez for their willingness to help with supervision and organization of this event. We all appreciate your enthusiasm and work effort in helping make these experiences possible for our kids. You reinforce our core belief that with our support kids can achieve at high levels and be successful in life!
Rewind
We spent Monday and Thursday morning administering our end of the year NWEA tests. There always seem to be various issues to contend with, but we made it through. I had the chance to review lesson plans and get into classes throughout the week. It becomes somewhat challenging to get into classes with the number of activities we have going on this time of year. I will be taking advantage of any chance I get to drop into classrooms. Monday morning I met with Leslie Nichols from Lake City to review how we are implementing Senate Bill 191 in our buildings and show her some of the strategies that we are using in our evaluation process. Our baseball team got another win on Tuesday with their game against Monte Vista. Thursday morning, after we got NWEA rolling, I met with Deb from PEBC to discuss how the Boettcher process is coming along and look at the timeline for the remainder of the year and next. That afternoon our Knowledge Bowl team headed to Creede to compete and once again we had a team place. The 8th graders took 5th place in this competition. Our track team competed on Friday at Sangre de Cristo. Friday afternoon I interviewed a number of candidates for different openings in our building.
Forward Focus
This week is going to be nonstop. Monday our 8th graders will be heading out first thing to participate in the Reality Store in Alamosa. After that they will take a tour of theTrinidad State campus and then they will visit the fish hatchery. The Focal Point team will be on campus to conduct end of year evaluations for administrators. They will be conducting my review in the morning. Our baseball team will have an early afternoon game in Alamosa. We have had to do some creative scheduling due to weather cancellations and schools dropping teams. Tuesday our 8th graders will be out and about again with a visit to the Adams State Campus. Wednesday we will be rewarding students who have not been Zapped or received any behavior referrals for the year, by taking them to a Colorado Rockies game. We will leave first thing in the morning and spend the day at the park, watching the Science and Weather Day activities and seeing the Rockies compete! The sixth graders will also be having a fun day with a field trip to the Sand Dunes. Thursday I will be making final preparations for the track meet we will be hosting and helping with the Knowledge Bowl that afternoon. Our baseball team will be traveling to Sangre de Cristo for their game. Friday we will be hosting the middle school track tournament at the park. Saturday I will head to Denver for the CADA conference, which will go through Monday.