District News and Events
January is School Board Recognition Month
January 18, 2012
As citizen leaders, individual school board members face complex and demanding challenges. They have also been described as having the most important volunteer jobs in the country as they face some of the toughest challenges in elected American government. Our board members are local citizens with extraordinary commitment to education and our local school. We should all recognize the crucial role the board members play in the education of our children.
While boards often get attention when there are difficult decisions to make or when tough circumstances arise, Board Recognition Month provides a reminder that we need to reach out to our board members to thank them for their service to our school. It is easy to forget about the personal sacrifices school board members make. They spend countless hours attending both regular and committee meetings as well as community and school events throughout the year.
Thank you for taking the time to send an email or card to our board members this month or any time of the year to thank them for their dedication to Dansville Schools. You could also join us in honoring the board members at our January Board Meeting on Monday, January 23rd at 7 pm in the elementary library.
Several Maintenance Improvements in the Elementary Over Winter Break
January 4, 2012
As many of you are aware, the elementary school has a new roof that was completed at the end of the summer. Despite the preventative efforts that were made by the roofing company, some of the classrooms experienced flooding due to the weather during the roof installation. As a result of the insurance settlement that ensued, seven of the elementary classrooms had new carpet installed over the break. In addition, one of the classrooms that had previously experienced leakage because of the old roof was also painted and carpeted using district sinking funds. The district also invested in new industrial-strength carpet in the entrance of the elementary/middle school. The teachers and students were excited to see the improvements when they returned to the building this week!
iPad Distribution to Teachers
December 7, 2011
Today was an exciting day for Dansville Schools! We had the privilege of distributing the first 25 iPads of the total of 30 that the district will be given as a result of a blended learning grant that Dansville was awarded by the Ingham Intermediate School District. This grant is a Title 2 Part D Enhancing Education through Technology Competitive Program Grant made available through the Michigan Department of Education.
We are certain that providing iPads for our teachers will have a SIGNIFICANT impact on student achievement at Dansville Schools because along with the iPads, the teachers have committed to attend several hours of training led by the instructional technologists at the ISD. They have also committed to regularly incorporate their iPad training into their instruction.
In addition, we are planning to use the district’s Title 2 Part D grant money to purchase even more teacher technology, which allows us to purchase an additional iPads. The combination of both of these grants means that we were able to offer every teacher in the district both an iPad and the training necessary to significantly impact the classroom!! Again, the teachers had to agree to attend several hours of training throughout the rest of the school year as well as next school year as well as committing to use the iPad in their classrooms in order to be able to get an iPad and EVERY TEACHER IN THE DISTRICT MADE THIS COMMITMENT!!
By choosing iPads, we are making hundreds of educational apps available to our teachers to download, with more being added every day. They will also have a special cord to connect their iPads with their projectors. Teachers and students can use iPads for: notetaking, downloading assignments, as a regular and graphing calculator, to download textbooks or library books using eBooks, to stream video instruction, listen to podcasts or watch vodcasts on iTunes U, to create their own digital stories or videos, to access Regional data bases for all kinds of research and reference tools, to listen to and translate conversations in other languages and the list goes on and on for every content area and for every level of instruction, including our special education population.
Thank you to Ingham ISD for your support of our district and thank you to the teachers for your courage and commitment to incorporate this technology into your classrooms!
Love & Logic Workshop Being Offered
November 22, 2011
Kris Wing, our school social worker, is offering a great opportunity to all parents of the Dansville community! Love & Logic is an alternative parenting approach that provides different techniques that allow natural consequences to shape child behavior. This workshop will be held in the elementary library on Tuesday nights beginning on January 10th. This workshop will run for seven weeks with childcare provided by the National Honor Society. Please call Kris Wing at 623-6120 for additional information.
Communication Survey
November 21, 2011
