Dear Parents,

As we find ourselves in the middle of preparations for the quickly approaching holiday season, I want to take the time to share with you a few of the many accomplishments that Glen City has achieved and some of our plans for the upcoming school year.

 

As you may know, our school has made its academic goals for the second year in a row which is a testament to the powerful collaboration between our families and the Glen City teaching and support staff. I am very proud of what our school community has achieved and intend to do everything in my power to ensure that Glen City meets its present challenge; we need to achieve at least 46 percent proficiency in both Language Arts and Math on this year's California Standards Test (CST) in order to meet our Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2009.

 

Glen City has already begun the preparations needed to meet this year's academic goals by meeting with every teacher "one on one" to plan classroom instruction and in-school interventions to ensure that our resources are adjusted to help all of our students succeed. To make sure that we are being proactive, our teachers have received additional training to help them examine all aspects of our curriculum to identify any "gaps" that we might need to 'fill in' to meet the needs of our students. As a result of this training, our teachers are working 'smarter not harder'.

 

Another important action we have taken this year in meeting our students' Academic needs has been the hiring of a Literacy Coach, Ms. Crisp. Ms. Crisp is helping me to shape and coordinate our Professional Development so that our teachers are receiving the kind of training they need to 'take Glen City to the next level'. As hard as we are all working to improve our teaching, we continue to make every effort to ensure than any student "at risk" receives whatever Social/Emotional support they need. To help make sure that we succeed in this important mission, this year we brought in two powerful student advocates; Ms. Phillips, our School Counselor and Ms. Wenslow, our new School Psychologist. Finally, in order to better build a more powerful and complete "family" at Glen City, I have invited our parents to participate in honest and focused discussions in my office through Parent Coffee  meetings that are held every two weeks. After all, our parents play the most important role in 'modeling' the importance of education for their children.

 

As for the future, I will continue to make our school a safe place to work and study. Some of the items on my list is to raise some of our fences and install an electronic gate next to the Main Office. I have also spoken to our School Site Council about the possibility of obtaining a portable student release program for emergencies. In addition, I am looking into the possibility of installing a 'circuit track' with diferent exercises stations around our large field. Academically, I want to utilize the talents of our teachers to a greater extent by having some of our teachers put on special trainings for their colleagues to increase awareness and use of 'best teaching practices' across the grade levels. I would also like to take grater advantage of our school newspaper and website to provide visual training guides for our students, teachers and parents. Imagine finding a link to an educational site that will actually 'show' you how to better teach your children with videos of some of our best lessons! The future is in technology and I am also proud to announce that Glen City will be receiving a special teaching tool called a 'Smartboard' as an experiment in using technology, but more on that later.

 

From my family to y ours, have a safe and blessed holiday season!

 

Raul Betancourt