Happy May, Walnut Acres Parents!

School Site Council Members Sought

Are there 3 parents who are interested in joining the School Site Council (SSC) for 2013-14? Our group of 5 staff members and 5 parents meets every first Thursday of the month from 3-4:00 p.m. to discuss the activities, challenges and successes at our school. SSC members also work with me to budget School Library Instruction Block Grant (SLIBG) funds for the year. If you are interested in applying to be part of the SSC, please write a brief paragraph indicating why you would like to join the council and pass it to me along with your name and contact information.  If there are more than 3 volunteers, we will vote next month to elect SSC members and I will include your paragraph in the ballot. 

Noon Supervisors Needed

If you would like to be a paid noon supervisor for the 2013-14 school year, please contact Denise in the office.  Supervisors work self-selected days from 11:30-1:00 p.m. If you like children and want to help them have a relaxing, calm, eating/play environment, come join us!

Odyssey of the Mind Leader Wanted

Is there a parent(s) who would like to lead an Odyssey of the Mind group for students? Odyssey of the Mind supports out-of-box thinking and innovative collaboration among our students by teaching them to think divergently with open-ended problems to solve. Call me and I can put you in touch with a past Odyssey of the Mind leader so you can discuss the volunteer position or check out the website (click here).

Healthy Treat Choices

We want to support the Board of Education wellness policy which includes healthy eating at school. School lunches are being designed with this in mind in order to promote student health. In fact, our salad bar will begin on May 28^th and be available on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I ask you to support the Board’s effort by packing healthy snacks, lunches, and nutritious or nonfood treats for parties and celebrations. You can check out suggestions from the Food and Nutrition department on the district website (click here) for some creative ideas on providing healthy foods that children might like. Go to Action for Healthy Kids (http://www.actionforhealthykids.org), an organization working on ways to reduce and prevent childhood obesity and undernourishment, for further information. 

A parent has passed along websites for vegetarian recipes, as well. If you’re interested, check out http://www.vegkitchen.com/kid-friendly-recipes/school-lunch-recipes/ or  http://www.inhabitots.com/vegetarian-school-lunch-box-ideas-for-kids/

One more note regarding nutrition, we have one last barbecue lunch (veggie option available) coming to our site. Mark your calendars for 5/23. 

STAR testing has arrived

Each spring, Walnut Acres participates in a series of state assessments designed to evaluate student progress towards mastery of the California State Content Standards. The results of these assessments serve as the basis of the California education accountability system. These tests are part of the California Standardized Testing and Assessment Reporting (STAR) system. The California Standards test (CST) is a series of multiple-choice tests administered in English Language Arts and Math. 5th grade is also tested in Science. Modified assessments (CMA) and alternate performance assessments are available for students with disabilities who qualify.

FYI, STAR testing will be with us for one more year. For the 2014-15 school year, the second generation assessment of Smarter Balance should be in place. Smarter Balance will be computer-adapted and will include non-multiple choice response items.

Please talk to your students about the annual testing and remind them of our motto, “Do your best, and forget the rest.” We want students to give their best effort to the assessment, but no one is to get nervous about the process. If you have a student who is tense about testing, please let me know and I will work with you to reduce your child’s anxiety. The best state of mind for learning and for assessment is “relaxed alertness” – not stressed, not too casual- awake, but not alarmed or anxious.

For information on the details of the test, parents can look on line at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sr/resources.asp

For testing day-to-day routines, here are a few tips for students...

·         Be at school every day.  Please. Make up tests are difficult for everyone.

·         Be on time. Testing sessions are usually in the morning and often shortly after school gets underway.  Time to get settled into the classroom before testing begins each day will help students relax.

·         Be rested and fed. Make sure that students have a good night's sleep and enough of a breakfast to sustain them. This is always important.  Do not, however, think that your child should load up on a big breakfast for testing when a lighter meal is their usual routine.

Thank you. Don't hesitate to contact your child's teacher or myself if you have any questions.

Upgrade to playground

I am excited to inform you that our playground will be slurried when summer vacation begins. That means that the blacktop will receive a new coat of asphalt. When we repaint our games on it, we should have a pretty spiffy looking play area! This work is being funded by Maintenance and Operations and I thank them for their Walnut Acres focus on behalf of our kids! Note that the playground will be unavailable for 5 days starting June 14th. Thanks!

May Fun

Don’t forget our wonderful Open House Festival on Thursday, May 23^rd! It will be fun and educational. One request…please do not park in the teachers’ parking lot when you arrive for the Festival. Some of our teachers like to go home and freshen up (particularly those without air conditioning) before the big event and may return with ‘stuff’ to lug. Thank you for your thoughtfulness. 

I hope you will join us at our Volunteer Appreciation event at noon on May 29^th in the MUR! All volunteers are invited, including parents, grandparents and friends of Walnut Acres. If you help in any way to keep our kids happily and safely learning, WE WANT TO HONOR YOU!

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and grandmoms in our community! You are a hero because, as Erich Fromm so wisely commented, “Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.” Happy special day to all mothers who love unconditionally!

Respectfully,

Colleen Dowd

Principal

Happy April, Walnut Acres Parents!

I hope your break proved to be a delightful and restful family time! We are back for 10 weeks of focused learning and we will do our best to compete with the beautiful weather and myriad of sports activities. Here is the scoop for April, a heads up for summer opportunities at Walnut Acres, and fall planning requests:

Following our very successful Auction, Science Fair and Art Show and in preparation for the annual 5/10 Golf Tournament, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all who are helping our school community continue to thrive in difficult financial circumstances. Your time, donations, and joie de vivre are much appreciated!  If you want to provide input about how PFC money will be budgeted for 2013-14, you are welcome to attend the next 2 PFC meetings, on 4/16 and 5/14. Thanks to your previous generous spirit and your dedication to education, we have now hired a 6-hour a week, Site Tech I, Laura Decker, to support computer lab sessions and provide technical assistance, so that Patty Galindo, our Site Tech II, can spend more time assisting teachers with technology device activities in classrooms.   

This month our CAP presenters will be with us visiting in kindergarten, 1^st 3^rd, and 5^th grade classrooms.  At the parent information meeting, The CAP training folks graciously offered to share their handouts electronically with the entire school community. The information is now on our school website and in the office.  The Training Handbook for Parents specifically presents concepts that will be shared during the workshop in both child and adult language. I encourage you to peruse the handbook so that you can better support your child in assimilating the workshop experience (click here). The other handouts provide more general information about what to do if you suspect abuse and local contacts for support (click here). I particularly recommend the handout on cyber safety resources and internet safety.

Also this month, Spring pictures will be taken on 4/11. Lost and found items will be donated to charity on 4/19, please check lost and found soon for any child-owned clothing you are missing.

These activities are routine for us, but check out the items below that are new to our community:

The front page of our school website now has a link to the local public library. (Click here for library site.) The CCC libraries are offering online kid-friendly research support with 80 full-text elementary school magazines, plus encyclopedias and an image collection. For access to this kid-safe research section of the CCC Library website, follow directions also on our site. (Click here for directions to the site.)

Speaking of the public library, if your child is excited about writing, consider having your author take on a creative writing project at the Ygnacio Valley Library in honor of National Library Week. The challenge is for K-5^th graders to write a short story or poem about what the library means to them and submit it between 3/25-4/19. Every contributor who submits a product will earn a small prize, have their product displayed, and receive an invitation to a recognition celebration on 4/22 at 7:00 p.m.   

And one more intriguing new event in our district…MDEA (Mt. Diablo Education Association) in conjunction with MDUSD is planning the 1^st Annual Employees’ Academy Awards, scheduled for 5/17, from 5:30-9:00 p.m. at Centre Concord. Nominations are now open to recognize outstanding teachers, classified employees, and parent volunteers! The Nomination Forms and Ticket Forms are both available on the MDEA website (click here) and you are encouraged to submit a nominee to recognize, promote and celebrate the excellence of those you feel have contributed to your child’s education in 2012-13. The crunch is that you must send in your nomination form by 4/12, so “get to it if you want to do it”! The ticket price to attend the event is $40 for the general public, but you don’t need to attend to make a nomination! 

Summer is around the corner and our school will host major opportunities for growth and FUN! Consider these options…

1.    Walnut Acres Children's Theatre's summer production, Summer Magic, featuring scenes, songs and dances from Beauty & The Beast, Mary Poppins and High School Musical has a limited number of spaces still available. On Tuesday, 4/9 a registration form will be sent home with all 3rd graders. Registrations must be mailed and spaces will be filled on a first come first served basis based on postmarks. See the webpage (click here) for more details.

2.    Walnut Acre Day Care will again provide a Summer Fun Camp Program that includes weekly themed activities, enrichment classes, active games and sports, community service, van trips and bike excursions. For further information visit the website (click here).

3.    Galileo Learning is offering their first Walnut Creek summer program at our site from 6/24-8/2. The curriculum is focused on art science and outdoor activities for budding innovators, using the design thinking process developed at Stanford’s d school. Visit  www.galileo-camps.com or call 1-800-854-3684 to learn more.

Finally, Walnut Acre families, can you believe that it is time to begin planning for 2013-14?

That means that once again it is time to offer you an opportunity to share any insights that you have about the placement needs of your child for 2013-14. If you would like to offer input about your child’s learning needs, please complete the “green sheet” that will be on our website and in the office starting on, Monday, April 15^th.  Please note that this is an opportunity to share any specific learning needs your child may have, it is not a forum for parents to select their child’s teacher. The forms are available through Friday, April 26^th. 

I am also looking for parents (or grandparents) who may want to take on 2 very different, but valuable tasks for the coming school year.

1.    Is there a parent(s) who would like to coordinate our volunteer project(s) for the 2013 Walnut Creek Community Service Day (September 28^th from 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.)? Typically we submit gardening projects to the city for volunteers to complete.  This year we may ask for community volunteers to clean our library books. Our coordinator will attend a Project Leader training on September 12^th, and in mid-October, and cultivate materials or donations if needed.

2.    Is there a parent who would like to earn a small stipend as coordinator for a 4^th/5^th grade recycling club? The club would meet once or twice monthly at lunch and take on projects such as organizing a recycling poster contest, creating recycle opportunities at school events, creating an art project from recycled materials, or attending a materials recovery fieldtrip.

I had hoped to talk about healthy foods this month in my newsletter because I notice we are reverting to sugary treats, but there is so much going on for April that I will focus on that topic next month when I also hope to share a salad bar start date. I will tell you though, that the recent PFC food drive brought in 1518 pounds of food which translates to 1214 meals. The Food Bank thanks the community and I thank the Food Bank coordinators and donators!

Enjoy the beautiful weather and your precious children. Just between you and me, there are times when the obligations of this job seem overwhelming, and other times, such as at our 3/29 Sing-out, when I am overwhelmed instead by the amazing beauty and promise of your children. We are all so lucky to be the adults in their lives who will help them become all they can be. Here’s to our children and to all of us who do our best to help them flourish!

Respectfully,

Colleen Dowd

Hello Walnut Acres Parents,

Happy March to you all! We have about one month until Spring vacation and we will spend it busily supporting student learning. I'd like to share with you a few of our learning plan and event highlights. 

Last month I mentioned to you that we were piloting a new formative, computer-adaptive assessment, and thus far it appears that the reports generated from that assessment will be useful to consider as one measure of a multiple measurement process to inform instruction. We are focused on analyzing the data reports this month. There are online lessons that were provided to us to explore along with the assessment and we are also investigating those during the month of March. Your child may access those lessons at home, as well, so you may want to take a look at them. Ask to see your child's label (hopefully in a binder) titled iready.com that indicates his/her user name and password. (It's the same information your child uses to access IXL.) 

Our 21st century growth efforts continue as we learn more about the Common Core Standards and create student opportunities for deeper thinking through the strategies that we implement at school, including the use of technology devices. I hope you are beginning to see some of our efforts at home through student products and/or student conversations. We will be asking you in an end-of-year survey about your observations of our efforts. 

I spend quite a bit of time reporting to you about safety challenges and solutions. That is because we can't focus on learning if we don't have a safe and secure environment for our children. Recently our safety committee has completed an update of our Walnut Acres Emergency Plan and they have developed goals for continued safety enhancement. Those goals will include CAP services for 2013-14, a structured process known as the Peace Path (through Soul Shoppe) to empower students in playground problem solving, and 2 small areas of fencing behind the K rooms near the garbage containers and near the gate backing Cedro. Once the district approves our Safety and Emergency Plans in April, they will be placed on the district website as public documents.

There are 2 recent changes to current safety practices. First, Student Messenger attendance calls are being made earlier. If your child is not at school and you have not called in the absence, you should receive a call at 9:30 a.m. (There is a later call for late kindergarten friends.) Second, our doors will remain locked each day, but Mr. DeLeon has fashioned a wonderful little "tie" that can be placed in front of each latch, effectively preventing the lock process. If there is a lockdown, the tie can be shifted slightly and the door will lock. This practice allows us to have the doors readily in position for an emergency, while allowing traffic flow in and out of classrooms so as not to distract busy teachers and students. 

So what noteworthy events are happening in March? 

Our PFC is sponsoring a Food Drive from March 11-15, 2013.Donating to the drive is a great way to model good citizenship, our March life skill focus.

March 15, 2013, is noteworthy for 3 reasons. The Student Council has decreed that day to be PJ Day. Secondly, and much less excitingly, March 15th is the end of our second trimester. 

And the third event of March 15th? It is the evening of the PFC Havana Night gala that preserves our assistants working with students, keeps our science lab humming, helps us to differentiate, and provides funds for our 21st century transformation, despite continued financial cuts within the district. I thank you in advance for your participation and your financial contribution at our annual auction! Click here to join the fun!

Child Assault Prevention (CAP) workshops will be presented to students in kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade and 5th grade in April. Last year the workshops were successfully implemented in every classroom. We hope to continue that developmentally appropriate conversation each year with our youngest students and biannually with our 1st-5th grade students as recommended by the CAP trainers. (Their research strongly concludes that to keep children safe, it is crucial for parents and educators to have ongoing conversations about empowerment.) The sessions will unfold as they did last year and non-permission forms are being sent home this week so that parents who do not want their child to participate in the workshops may indicate that choice. If you have not had an opportunity to learn about the workshop sessions, please attend the parent workshop scheduled for Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in A-1 from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and bring any questions you have. 

Speaking of upcoming events, the Walnut Acres Student Council is planning a special family evening of fun on Friday, March 29, 2013.Starting at 6:30 p.m. there will be a free family movie night in the MUR. Come enjoy the movie, Brave, with your family and purchase some tasty treats as you relax and laugh together! Watch Enews for details about RSVPing for the event.

On March 29th, you can also look forward to receiving a Progress Report. Your students can anticipate a Walnut Acres Sing-out (8-8:20 a.m. for 3rd-5th grades and 8:30-8:50 a.m. for K-2nd grades) and a yummy barbecue lunch! 

A wonderful presenter once commented to our staff that we need to ask ourselves, "How great are our kids really?" Let me give you one example of how great they are... The 4th and 5th graders secretly practiced a Macarena dance and last week created a flash mob performance that took my breath away and tickled everyone who was lucky enough to watch it. I tell our students routinely that they are very special; I encourage you to do the same. 

"No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure."

~Emma Goldman, author

Sincerely, 
Colleen Dowd
Principal

Hello Walnut Acres Parents,

Last month I shared with you our expansion of our 21st century work to include the Common Core standard shift. I also mentioned that there will be a new generation of assessment to replace STAR testing with the implementation of Smarter Balance (planned for 2014-15.) The assessment will require responses beyond multiple choice options and will be computer-adapted (meaning that computer software dynamically adapts the test questions to a difficulty level specific to the student's knowledge or skill).  

We currently have a unique opportunity to pilot a formative assessment that will introduce our community to the online assessment process. The assessment is called i-Ready and it will be given in lieu of the paper/pencil CA benchmark in February. The i-Ready assessment is based on Common Core standards and it is computer-adaptive, though it is still completely multiple choice.  All classes will participate in the online assessment process, so be sure to ask your student his or her opinion of the experience. I hope the students will enjoy the experiment!

On the subject of Common Core, I thank our district leadership for creating a Common Core website page.  Click here to link to the page and learn more about the Common Core. This website is a work in progress and will be embellished with further text and detailed explanations. Currently, the website includes the standards themselves, as well as links to resources.

To help make thoughtful PFC monetary decisions as we work towards Common Core and 21st century, our Strategic Planning Committee has been reviewing school requests for PFC fund approval. With their recommendation, PFC has approved 5 laptops for each of our second grade classrooms and our kindergarten teachers will soon be asking to purchase 5 desktop computers per classroom.  Meanwhile, our MUR sound system is working again sans the ear-splitting feedback, and our 21st coach will continue to support our teachers as we march towards becoming a 21st century community implementing Common Core standards to prepare students for college and career readiness. 

I am also happy to report that we have recently received a $15,000 matching grant for laptops from the Hedco Foundation. (Thanks to a parent grant writer who wishes to remain anonymous.) We have 2 years to match the grant which will allow us to purchase $30,000 worth of laptops. I'll inform you as the funds are matched and expended.

Since I am publicizing the generosity of our larger community, you should also know this year through Donor's Choose, with strong support from Chevron, we have received an LCD projector for 3rd grade, a boom box for each kindergarten class, 4 cordless microscopes for the science lab, $800 worth of literature sets for 4th grade, $400 worth of art supplies for the art room, and an ipad for one of our SDC classes.

Profound gratitude to you, to Hedco, as well as to Donor's Choose and Chevron, for much appreciated support as we continue to grow and enhance our ability to serve children!  We are indebted to our school community members and the larger community for their financial assistance.

If you would like to offer your services as we continue to enhance our educational program, please consider the following work to be accomplished for our children:

Apply for the new site tech I position (FTE .15) for 6 hours per week in the computer lab or talk to a neighbor who might be interested in the job. For further information please refer to the MDUSD website under classified job announcements (click here) or contact personnel office at 682-8000 X 7500.

Volunteer to serve in the library every other Thursday from 12:15-12:55 p.m. so that we can have our library open for 4th-5th grade students every Thursday. (Thanks to our wonderful library volunteers our library will be open at lunch from 12:15-12:55 p.m. every Friday starting on 2/1 for students to enjoy. At this point, every other Thursday starting on 2/14 the library will also be open and we will have an ARF therapy dog visit so that students may read to a 4-legged friend.)

Volunteer at lunch recess a few times this year. We need your support both in the lunch room and on the playground. We now have lanyards for all volunteers to wear that designate a particular area for each noon recess volunteer to oversee. We also have pocketsize playground rules and suggestions for redirecting and guiding children at play to guide your efforts.

One more service request that we can all embrace -

A few folks have recently shared with me that they feel isolated at our school. That saddens me because I know this is a caring and accepting community. I invite you to smile and say hello to our most vulnerable students, our children with autism. I also encourage you to take every opportunity to connect with parents who may not be on campus as often as others, and those parents who may not feel as connected due to language or ethnic diversity. Please take an extra moment to be inclusive with a smile and hello or by engaging folks in conversation. As the wonderful educator and writer, Leo Buscaglia, used to say, "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

Here's to our continued learning and growing together,

Colleen Dowd 
Principal    

Happy 2013, Walnut Acres Parents!

I hope your families created wonderful memories over the holiday and that your children are happily returning to school to continue their learning adventures. The Walnut Acres’ staff eagerly welcomes students back to make the most of the excellent learning months before us.

As the new year unfolds, our teachers will be spending focused time on understanding the “new” Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The CCSS were developed through a voluntary state-led effort coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, with stakeholders from nearly every state in the country contributing to their development in 2009. The CCSS were officially implemented in CA in 2010, but were largely ignored until 2012. Focus on the standards has heightened as two new national assessments (Smarter Balance and PACE), designed to measure student learning of CCSS, are being developed and piloted for 2014-15 implementation.

What are the Common Core State Standards? The CCSS specify what students should know and be able to do at each grade level to be fully prepared for college and career. Most exciting for us at Walnut Acres is the reality that the skills and knowledge foundational to CCSS mirror those of 21^st century learning development. So our efforts to enhance critical and creative thinking, as well as collaboration and communication, through the infusion of technology and increased content integration, are redoubled rather than defused by the CCSS movement.

MDUSD leadership has provided an introductory presentation to all district teachers and we will now focus on deeper understanding of the CCSS. That work will begin in earnest on our next professional development day, 1/28/13, when we will contrast the CA standards and CCSS then begin the process of unpacking the Common Core standards. As we study the distinction between the old standards and CCSS we will be assessing the differences between each set of standards and how those differences will focus our 21^st century learning development. We will also initiate the long and detailed process of unpacking the standards by asking particular questions about the essentialness of each standard and then deconstructing the most essential by restating the standard in student-friendly vocabulary, articulating rigor, format and assessment for mastery, detailing prior skills for learning, establishing enrichment for standards, and formulating an initial scope and sequence for learning.

To learn more about the Common Core State Standards go to the Contra Costa County Office of Education website (click here) or the California Department of Education (CDE) website (click here). Here is a link to the introductory video presentation on the CDE website (click here).

Before signing off, I want to remind you of a few exciting opportunities offered this month within our busy learning community. Your participation at these events is welcomed and encouraged:

Do you want to know what is going at school and in the PFC?

HOW: PFC meeting

WHEN: 1/15/13 at 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: in the library

WHO: All PFC members

Do you want to help your child enhance social skills?

HOW: workshop that will offer strategies for peer conflict resolution at home or in the community

WHEN: 1/17/13 at 1 p.m.

WHERE:  in A-1

WHO: Our school counselor, Alma Spring

Do you want to help your young child learn to read at home?

HOW: attend workshop that will offer strategies for early literacy skill development

(Bring a child so you can practice each strategy that is shared with you)

WHEN: 1/22/13 from 6:45-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: in A-1 at Walnut Acres

WHO: Our reading specialist, Lindsay McCormick

Do you want to help deepen your child’s understanding of material read?

HOW: attend workshop that will offer techniques to enhance reading comprehension

(Bring a child so you can practice each strategy that is shared with you)

WHEN: 1/29/13 from 6:45-7:30 p.m.

WHERE: in A-1 at Walnut Acres

WHO: Our reading specialist, Lindsay McCormick

Would you like to learn more about programming in the company of other learners?  

HOW: a fledgling programming club comprised of both adults and students is now active under WHEN: TBA by group

WHERE: TBA by group

WHO: Patty Galindo, our Site Tech II.  To join this adventure, contact Mrs. Galindo at galindop@mdusd.org with programming club as your subject.  

And one more upcoming meeting that I have not mentioned to you previously, the Walnut Acres safety committee will review the current safety plan on Thursday, 1/22/13 in A-1 at 3:00 p.m.  Please contact the office if you would like to attend the meeting.

May 2013 be a safe and exciting learning year for all of our Walnut Acres community members! I thank you, parents, for your continued work with staff to support our children in becoming the best they can be. Here’s to learning and growing together as a 21^st Century learning community as we implement CCSS, preparing our students for success in college and beyond!

Best wishes,

Colleen Dowd

Hello Walnut Acres Parents,

It’s the season of caring and I thank you for all the ways that you practice compassion and kindness.  I particularly want to thank all parents for breaking our record of Jaguar Fund contributions by soaring to a 72% rate of participation! That community spirit is much appreciated and sends an important message to our children whatever your donation level. I wonder if we can increase that rate to 75%? No donation is too small.  

Conference time is a great way for teachers and parents to collaborate in caring for students and I encourage every parent to actively participate in your upcoming teacher conference. Here are some tips for a successful conference from the National PTA:

    1.      Ask your child to share any concerns before you go to the conference.

    2.      Bring written notes and questions.

    3.      See your child’s teacher as your partner. Avoid antagonism.

    4.      Share any home challenges that might be impacting your child’s learning.

    5.      Ask teachers to explain any educational jargon you do not understand.

    6.      Ask for specifics about your child’s work, including data (eg. CA results) and samples of classroom              activities (eg. writing notebooks).

    7.      Keep the conversation focused on your child.

    8.      Discuss strategies to support your student.

    9.      Take notes on plans or common goals you develop together.

    10.  Ask for follow-up conversations or e-mails as needed.

A few staff members have developed new plans to support further collaborative caring for children as we enter 2013. Consider participating in one or all of these options:

• Our industrious reading specialist, Lindsay McCormick, is offering 2 evening workshops for parents and their children on the topic of reading support at home. On 1/22/13 from 6:45-7:30 p.m., Mrs. McCormick will present strategies to promote early literacy skills at home. Children are invited so that parents can immediately practice the strategies presented. On 1/29/13, during the same timeframe, Mrs. McCormick will present techniques to expand and deepen comprehension. Again, parents are encouraged to bring their children to the workshop.    

• Our creative site technology II, Patty Galindo, would like to form a Walnut Acres programming club to include both students and adults in our community. She is hoping that some parents employed as programmers will provide some expertise for the group. Mrs. Galindo hopes to create a group interested in experimenting.  Dates, times and formats (skyping or videotaped lessons) for meetings will be decided by the group once she has a sense of interest. To join this adventure, contact Mrs. Galindo at galindop@mdusd.org with programming club as your subject.  

• Our compassionate counselor, Alma Spring, is developing a list of strategies for parent playground volunteers to use in response to parents who have expressed the need for more direction when supervising children on the playground. Mrs. Spring will provide specific guidelines and contexts for using those strategies during an hour-long workshop offered on 1/17/13 at 1:30 p.m. in A-1.  The problem solving ideas that Mrs. Spring shares with you will also be valuable for resolving sibling conflicts and peer relations.

 Our caring for our students leads us to 2 new activities that require parent volunteers…  

• MDUSD has received a grant that will allow our students to have a salad bar on Tuesday and Thursdays. This is a welcome addition to our lunch fare. We will need parents to help supervise little hands at the salad bar, so if you are signed on to be part of the volunteer lunch patrol, you will have another duty to perform on salad bar days.  Hopefully, current numbers of lunch volunteers will be adequate to cover this Tuesday/Thursday duty. More details on this plan will come in 1/13.

• We would like to have the library open at lunch for interested students. We are piloting a program in which parent volunteers supervise the library on Thursdays and Fridays from 12:15-12:55 p.m. so our 4^th and 5^th graders can browse the library as a recess option. (The library is being used for classes during the lower grade lunch times.) If you are willing to provide supervision on Thursdays or Fridays during upper grade lunch, please contact Heather LeBlanc at famhusswc@yahoo.com or Giselle Stein at gstein@astound.net. If this pilot is successful, we will try to expand the lunch library plan.

Here’s to a memorable holiday season for all master gardeners and the uniquely exquisite flowers we are cultivating!

Colleen Dowd, Principal

Hello Walnut Acres Parents,

During our development as a 21^st Century learning community we will maintain and enhance activities that encourage both critical/creative thinking, collaboration and communication, while maintaining our focus on the life skills. Our goal is to prepare our children for the dynamic, fast-paced, technology-driven world they will enter as young adults, and our assumption is that all our students will successfully grow their brain power as parents and teachers work together to support learning. Intelligence potential used to be considered genetically coded and therefore set and fairly intractable by birth, but current brain research clearly indicates that brain power grows according to experience. (I hope you saw our brain power display in the office.) We are working to evolve our educational program to maximize learning and actively engage our students through strategies that promote problem-solving, engagement, open-ended questioning, and student ownership of learning. 

We have a couple of new community service activities to help us support our students’ growth. ARF-trained dogs will be joining us to listen to some of our students read (with parent permission) through a program called “All Ears Reading”, and CCCSWA (the County Waste Authority) will work with us to help our students become more environmentally aware through expansion of our “Wastebusters” recycling program. We have also again instituted our ROP program in which Northgate high school students, exploring a teaching career, join us 4 hours a week to work in classrooms.  Our own 4^th-5^th grade leadership groups, Student Council and our Student Newsletter committee, will begin meeting this month.   

The folks at the district office are our partners in building student brain power.  They are not always seen as active partners in our educational efforts because they work behind the scenes, but their support is vital to our school functioning.  Dr. Steven Lawrence, MDUSD Superintendent, has created a new format this year to connect to the school/parent community. He will meet regularly with parents who represent our leadership groups within each feeder pattern. The purpose of the meetings is to increase the opportunities that the Superintendent has to speak with a broader group of parents and address concerns that parents on leadership teams (PTA, PFC, School Site Council, ELAC) have around district issues.

The dates for Northgate feeder pattern meetings are Wednesdays on 10/10/12, 12/12/12, 2/20/13, and 5/8/13. Jane Moler is our PFC representative to the meeting and Julie Stokol is our School Site Council representative. If you are interested in joining our representatives as they attend the Superintendent forums, please contact me.

As I close this newsletter, I want to share a valuable message directly from the Walnut Creek Police Department. As of last year, all cell phone 911 calls in Walnut Creek are routed directly to the Walnut Creek Police dispatch. This direct routing means shortened response time for 911 calls made on a cell phone. In a recent special E-news I stated that cell phone calls in Walnut Creek are routed to the Highway Patrol. I apologize for the misinformation!

Police department staff also remind us all that we need to follow the signage on Cedro that indicates “No Parking” and “No Stopping”. For those of you concerned about drivers following safety rules on Cedro, I have asked Lieutenant Edwards to encourage officers to drive by during our drop-off and pick-up times to help us hold ourselves accountable for student safety. Lieutenant Lanny Edwards (Edwards@walnutcreedpd.com) is our Sector 3 liaison with the Walnut Creek Police Department and you are welcome to contact him with further safety questions or concerns.

It really does take a village…So, with thanks to our community colleagues, at ARF, at WCPD, at Northgate, at CCCSWA, at the district office, and with heartfelt gratitude to you for dedication to Walnut Acres as a PFC leader, volunteer, and loving parent, here’s to all of us as we work together to grow our children’s brain power! 

Yours in community collaboration,

Colleen Dowd

Principal

Welcome back, Walnut Acres Parents,

We look forward to another year of parent and teacher collaboration to give every student a great learning experience! Working together we will continue our movement forward as a 21^st Century Learning Community in order to prepare our children for the fast-changing, digitally-based, very connected world in which they will live and lead.

A couple of items are worth repeating from BTSN presentations. First, to support our transformation efforts, the MDUSD district leadership gave Walnut Acres a priority designation to receive a state-of-the-art 10 GB backbone that includes new and faster switches and commercial grade wireless access points throughout the school.  That Measure C work has just been completed and will allow us to serve as a 21^st Century model and pilot for other schools. To put this technological advancement in perspective, no other school among nearby districts (except American Canyon High School) has a system as strong. The new network should allow us to have any student online with great speed and maintained connections despite large numbers of other students on line simultaneously. We are very grateful to our district leadership for their support of our 21^st Century efforts!  

Second, over the summer we also made progress implementing the plans from last spring’s Fund-A-Need (Thank you generous parents!) New athletic equipment was purchased, a plan to refresh the playground was designed (thanks, Ms. Rubenstein), and our basketball backboards were repainted with district funds. (For this, we thank MDUSD Maintenance & Operations personnel.) The district also laid asphalt along most of the fourth turn of our track to alleviate the constant mud puddle under the solar panel. I hope you notice this upgrade in cleaner clothes this year! 

As we work at school to establish 2012-13 school routines, we urge you support your child’s mastery of school procedures by discussing the 2012-13 Student Conduct Handbook with your student, getting your child to school on time every day, and following the drop-off and pick-up directions designated in the Handbook. (Click here to view the Handbook on the Walnut Acres website.) Please clearly communicate that all rules are in place to keep students safe. I particularly urge you to very carefully comply with school driving rules.

Heads up on a new district opportunity that could benefit your family routines at home…Parents may pay for MDUSD lunches through a program called My School Bucks. Click here to connect to this information. Using this site you will be able to view your balance, pay through multiple methods, and receive e-mail alerts when your balance is low.

A few other beginning-of-the-year reminders...

*Because MDUSD does not carry medical insurance for students injured on school premises, the District has approved an optional medical and dental insurance plan for presentation to parents. Click here , then click on the 5^th item in the left column to see the letter from Dr. Lawrence with further details of the plan.

*Click here to get to the Student Services page on the website that has information regarding TDAP vaccinations required by law. Clicking on the heading in capital letters at the top of the page will give you information about community providers for immunizations and TB testing.

*5^th grade students will be taught family life science this spring. The focus of the discussion will be how bodies change and why. Materials used in this instruction are available for inspection and preview at the District Instructional Media Center at Willow Creek Center, at 1026 Mohr Lane, Concord, Monday-Friday, 10/8-10/12 from 8-4:30 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. and 1/28-2/1 during the same time frame.

*The CAC (Community Advisory Committee) is comprised of folks specifically interested in special education services. You are welcome to join CAC meetings from 7-9:00 p.m. at the district office monthly. The next meeting is 10/7 from 7-9:00 p.m. in the District Board Room, 1936 Carlotta Dr., Concord.

I know that your hopes for your child’s learning this year are high. We will do our best to meet your expectations by teaching our children content mastery, and the 6 C’s that they need to be successful adults. I hope they also hear from all of us in a million little ways the message of Pablo Casals, “You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. You have the capacity for anything.”  

Thank you for sharing your little marvel with us, and thank you for being our partners on this educational journey! Here’s to 2012-13!

Sincerely,

Colleen Dowd

Dear Walnut Acres Parents,

I hope you are all enjoying a lovely family summer. I am disturbing your vacation time in order to update you on a variety of changes that came our way towards the end of the school year. Some of these changes I’m sure you’ve heard something about and I would like to make sure you have accurate information, and other changes may be new to you.

First, the personnel news:  Mr. Remmers is leaving Walnut Acres. This is very sad news for our community, but he is leaving for a very good reason. As Mr. Remmers shared in the last 5^th grade newsletter, “only one thing could make me leave Walnut Acres – love.” Our wonderful Mr. Remmers is moving to Marin to marry, live, and work with the love of his life. We wish him well, but we will miss him dearly!     

I am happy to report that Mr. Reilly McBride will be joining the Walnut Acres team as a 5^th grade teacher.  His major teaching focus for the 2012-13 school year will be writing. Mr. McBride has been with us as a long-term substitute in Mrs. Otsuka’s class. We are delighted that he remains part of our learning community.

Meanwhile, our beloved Mrs. Ryken is reducing her teaching load so she can focus on providing Tuesday grade level choral classes to all our students. She will also continue to create the wonderful grade level performances we all treasure, she will support our Sing-outs and other special events, and she will offer after-school enrichment classes, including the 5^th grade play. Her new home is in the MUR which provides more room for her large group choral and performing work. The PFC will continue to fund Mrs. Ryken in providing one music class a week for our students.  The second music class that our 1^st-5^th grade students receive each week will be taught by district-assigned music teacher, Sherri Bensen. Mrs. Bensen has taught in the district at Monte Gardens for 10 years and at Woodside for 1 year. She and Mrs. Ryken have been friends and musical colleagues for 30 years, so they will collaborate well on behalf of our students. Mrs. Bensen will provide music and add an instrumental flavor to the children’s music classes.  (Right now, Mrs. Bensen is working with our dedicated volunteer grant writer, Tonia Morr, to place a grant for ukuleles on Donor’s Choose.) Mrs. Bensen’s service is paid by the district. I know you will welcome her to our site.

I also want to share with you that Walnut Acres has been assigned two intensive autism classes. One class will be for students in grades K-2^nd and the other class will service students in 3^rd-5^th grade.  These classes will have 9 students each, and the experienced teachers, Ms. Robin Louchis and Ms. Christine Cerullo respectively, will work along with their district-provided assistants to support student learning. I am told that mainstreaming will be limited, but I hope our students will have some opportunities to interact with these newcomers and expand their understanding of diversity. As the school year begins, we will take some time to introduce our student community to our newcomers.  I know that you will join me in welcoming our new community members.

Our additional classes, a few teacher grade level shifts, and an effort to maximize our air conditioning for optimal student coverage, have led to some classroom changes. Although I reserve the right to modify this plan, I am sharing the current room/grade level assignments with you:

Kindergarten                      

K1 - Erdiakoff                    

K2 –  Ireland                       

K3 –  Datzman                               

1^st  grade                 

A4 – David                     

A8 –  McGoldrick              

A9 -   Hartman                                      

Autism classes                               

A6 - Cerullo                          

A7 –  Louchis                                                                                                

2^nd grade                    

C1 – Ng                                

D2 –  Aguilar                                

D6-    Garcia-Roy                                           

3^rd grade                  

B2 – Amundson               

B3 –  Bangs                         

B4 –  Bellendir                                         

4^th grade                    

D3 – Reamy                       

D4 –  Rubenstein              

D5 –  Otsuka                                 

5^th grade                              

B5 – McBride                     

B6 – Clark                            

B7 - Grebe

I understand that some parents helped teachers with their classroom moves. Thank you so much for your assistance! I appreciate that our school community spirit is alive and well through the summer months.

And speaking of our incredible parent volunteers, I welcome Mrs. Halverson, Mr. Moler, and Mr. Wu to our School Site Council for the 2012-13 school year.  I thank them for their willingness to serve.

As you return to your summer activities, please enjoy your family time and know that while Walnut Acres staff members are relaxing, we are also preparing for a great 2012-13 so that your children have a super learning year ahead!  For those of you who feel unnerved by changes at Walnut Acres, I will ask you to consider the words of one of my favorite ex-bosses…  “No institution remains the same. It is either growing or it’s dying.”  Here at Walnut Acres, we’re growing…and thriving!

Respectfully,

Colleen Dowd