Getting Ready for Kindergarten!

Kindergarten is an exciting time for children and their parents. As your child moves from preschool or daycare to Kindergarten they may need you to help prepare him or her for this big step. You may be able to build their confidence by doing family activities to help your child learn what school will be like. Over the next several weeks before school begins on Tuesday, September 2nd you may want to try some of the following activities:

• Doing art projects with your child and incorporating the use of crayons, markers, glue, scissors, paint, and other supplies will help him or her to be familiar with activities he or she will do in school.

• Math activities such as counting pennies, grouping items into similar categories, matching numerals with numbers of items, talking about time, and discussing differences in sizes of items such as big, little, small and large.

• Reading books together. The Public Library is a great source for choosing books at random or about a particular topic your child is interested in, such as dinosaurs, dogs, animals, or space travel.

Columbia School District is offering all day Kindergarten, Young 5’s, and Preschool for your children. We believe that all day Kindergarten and all day Young 5’s program are successful in providing additional learning opportunities for our students. The additional time allows teachers to expand and advance our curriculum providing increased academic experiences for our Kindergarteners and Young 5’s. Our teachers are excited about the growth and achievements they see in our children who participate in all day Kindergarten.

Since beginning all day Kindergarten we have seen many benefits. Our students learn to read in Kindergarten and they are excited when they get an opportunity to read to each other. They are able to work on additional math facts and learn about how to count coins. The students count pennies, nickels, and dimes. They also have an opportunity to work with guided writing strategies. Many of the current standards and benchmarks are very similar to what used to be taught in first grade.

Transitioning from preschool or daycare to Kindergarten or Young 5’s is a big step for children. If you haven’t had an opportunity to register your child for one of these terrific programs, please stop by Columbia Elementary or call 592-6632 or email Mrs. Powell @ deb.powell-principal@myeagles.org or lori.hunter@myeagles.org. Together we are Building a Brighter Future for our Students!

Paddling as a Team Towards Educational Excellence!

Recently my husband took a group to West Virginia to go whitewater rafting.  For those of you who have been on the New River, you know that there are medium rapids, fast rapids and a couple areas of calm water.  As you proceed down the river you follow the lead of your guide: paddle on the right, paddle backwards, or lean a particular way.  When you make it through an especially difficult run of rapids, you feel a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie.  You and your rafting team-mates may even use your paddles to do a huge “high-five.”

In a school district, much like a river raft, there must be guides.  The Columbia School District Board of Education guides the district by making policy decisions and budgetary assessments.  When looking forward to the district improvements, the Facility Improvement Team handed over draft plans for the bond issue and the School Board adopted the recommendations.  As the projects go forward the board continues to adjust the plans and maximize the benefits for the students. The guidance they provide influences all those in the Columbia School District family.

Working closely with the School Board, administrators, teachers and community is another guide; the superintendent.  Similar to the way the guides on the New River ask the participants to paddle left, right or backward, as superintendent I work with the principals and teachers on curriculum, technology and school improvements.  I also have the responsibility of putting the budget together and I work closely with the construction team, made up the School Board, Steering Committee, architect, construction manager and contractors. 

This year our high school teachers and students had a new guide in Mr. Hyliard.  As he worked throughout the year with the teachers and students they developed camaraderie, similar to the teams in the river rafting.  They also set their sights to build on previous years’ work by improving student test scores and they succeeded! Our students responded to the guidance of their teachers and principal to achieve to a level unequaled by other schools in the county.  On the MME and ACT, the students raised their scores in each category compared to last year.

Providing guidance for Columbia Middle School is Mrs. O’Neil.  In her second year as principal, she has worked with her teachers to create a positive learning environment for all students.  They work together to celebrate excellence with Student of the Month, the Science Fair, the Robotics Team and Geography Race.  They also have put in a lot of time paddling together in the same direction towards achievement of their school improvement goals.

Mrs. Powell provides the guidance to the Columbia Elementary School teachers and students.  One of their school improvement goals was to align their curriculum to the Common Core standards.  They have spent hours and hours working together to set their goals, objectives and activities to provide excellence in learning activities for their students.  They also have worked on improving support for their students in reading and writing. 

Options High School teachers and students follow the lead of principal Piepkow. One the growing programs at Options is the Online Academy.  The Columbia Online Academy has many students joining every day and taking advantage of the learning environment options.

The Columbia School District is looking forward to the 2014 – 2015 school year!  Beginning on September 2^nd, we are set to have the best year ever!  CCHS has two new science courses and one new AP social studies course.  CMS is providing various new summer programs that will give students an advantage when they begin school in the fall. CES is offering Reading Recovery this summer and has additional supplemental materials for mathematics.  All of the schools will have carts of new Chromebooks for the students and the elementary will have a card of new iPads for students to use. 

If you would like to join us as we paddle our raft to excellence in educational learning environments and register your child for school, please call me at 5175926641 or email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org. 

Columbia Pride Community Wide!

For all of you who attended the Fourth of July Parade, you saw many teachers, staff members, administrators and board members handing out foam flyers with the inscription: “Columbia Pride Community Wide.”  These fine folks are crucial members of the Columbia School District Family who take pride in nurturing, teaching and working with the youth of the area.  From pre-kindergartners through 12^th grade students we take pride in educating our students and providing them with excellent learning environments.

This spring and summer we have given a lot of tours and registered students for Columbia Schools. When we ask parents and students what brought them to Columbia School District, many of them answer “Our children are excited to attend a school with high academic standards” or “Your test scores show that you have excellent teachers” or “Our children want to take AP courses.”  Parents of our youngest students focus on the caring and nurturing teachers at the elementary and middle school level. 

Pride in our Columbia Schools reaches even farther: This fall in addition to having new roofs and safer drop off and pick-up areas at the Columbia Elementary and Middle School campus, our students will have an opportunity to use improved technology.  We are adding to the Chromebooks we piloted at Columbia Middle School this year.  We will have additional carts of Chromebooks at both the middle and high school this fall.  Our Columbia Central High School teachers will receive new laptops and there will be new iPads at Columbia Elementary School.  This is just the first step in the technology improvements that will happen over the next year at all of our schools.

Not only are we gaining students at Columbia Central High School, Columbia Middle and Elementary School, the Columbia Online Academy is growing with students who need an alternative to the traditional school setting.  Many area homeschoolers who have outgrown their elementary curriculum have joined our Online Academy, taking advantage of the free online schooling options and supportive teaching assistance from Lisa Klink.  Other are students who have joined the Online Academy are students with chronic illnesses that prevent them from attending school or students who have adult responsibilities and need a flexible schedule for their school attendance.  There are many opportunities for your child to find a terrific fit in one of our learning environments at Columbia School District.  If you have any questions about our options for free school attendance, please call me at 5175926641 or email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org.

Activities at Columbia School District!

This year I have taken hundreds of pictures of children playing on the playground, studying in their classrooms, getting help from their teachers and participating in activities in school. In each of the pictures are smiling and active students are happy to be at one of our Columbia Schools. This summer, while we are missing our smiling, happy students, there is still a lot of activity.

Columbia School District has contracted with Bloom Roofing to replace the roofs on all four of our schools. Currently, they are about fifty percent finished at Columbia Elementary, twenty-five percent completed at Columbia Middle School and just beginning at Options and Columbia Central High Schools. The roofers are working diligently to ensure proper installation of all aspects of the roof. If you are visiting our Brooklyn Campus of Columbia Middle and Elementary Schools, please use the rear entrance to the Middle School and the main entrance to the Elementary School.

The excavators and asphalt trucks are getting ready to begin working on the parking areas and drives. Columbia School District has contracted with Bailey Excavation and American Asphalt to complete the parking areas, parent drop off locations and drives. If you are in the area, please be mindful that they are working to get everything finished prior to school beginning in September. We want to make sure the area is safe, but it is a construction zone. We anticipate many people attending the fireworks and will have construction areas marked with caution tape. Please help us keep children and adults out of the construction zones.

In addition to the construction and renovations taking place at Columbia School District, we also have our summer school programs currently going on at Options and Columbia Middle School. Options High School is hosting a credit recovery program and Columbia Middle School has a new STEM accelerated math and science program. The accelerated program offers middle school students an opportunity to earn high school credit in math and science through a blended learning activity. Our child care program is also continuing this summer at Columbia Elementary School.

In August the Columbia Middle School Leadership program will begin. Students of middle school age from any area school may participate for only $25. The program brochure is online at www.myeagles.org just to the right of our video link. Also in the brochure is the description of the Columbia Central High School summer school credit recovery program. This program offers students from area high schools an opportunity to catch up on their credits. Each ½ credit is $125.

If you have questions regarding our summer programs or our construction projects, please contact me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org or call 517-592-6641.

Improvements at Columbia Schools

Walking through the hallways everything seems too quiet.  The students have gone home and are on vacation for the summer.  An occasional teacher works in their room putting the end of the year gear away and planning for next fall.  Next week and the following week we will have teachers and principals at school improvement seminars.  Next week I am attending a superintendent’s seminar focused on improving schools.  During July several of our teachers will be at Advanced Placement seminars and very soon, Mrs. Eastman will attend a grant funded seminar in California.

Although this week ended on a quiet note, beginning June 16^th and accelerating throughout the summer, bond funded improvements will begin.  Initially, the improvements will begin with the abatement of a material that includes asbestos and was used in the soffits and flashing areas of our roofs.  Following the abatement, the areas will be covered with plastic sheeting until the roofing contractor seals the area with new material. 

The roofers are using a 90 mil Firestone type roof on Columbia Central High School, Columbia Middle School and Columbia Elementary School.  This type of roofing material will give us a 30 year warranty and is backed by the manufacture for both installation and material failure.  The roofing will begin in a couple of weeks.  On the Columbia Community Education/Options High School building the roofers will be using a 60 mil Firestone type of roofing material which has a 20 year warranty. 

Along with the roofing project at Columbia Middle and Columbia Elementary School, earth movers will be working to construct the new bus drive along the east side of the middle school property.  The asphalt company will install a new parking area west of Columbia Elementary School and a parent drop-off area and parking lot between the elementary and middle school.  New fences and a playground for the future third through sixth grade area will also be constructed.

While all of the construction and improvements are exciting, we will pleased to have Phase 1 completed and have our terrific students back in school next fall.  If you are interested in sending your child to Columbia School District, please email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org or call 5175926641.

Technology Integration into Columbia's Curriculum

Keyboards are a part of everyday life for most of us. Essential to our jobs and access to the internet, we depend on all types of keyboards: virtual keyboards, comfortable keyboards, ergo dynamic keyboards and a weird keyboard entitled Franken keyboard. Most of the keyboards in use today use the QWERTY letter arrangement. Although it seems strange when you first begin to type, you soon get used to the arrangement of the letters on the QWERTY keyboard and learn to overcome your initial doubts.

In much the same way, the use of the internet and computers initially seemed strange in education and people were not sure how to use it to benefit our students. Through the use of the internet Columbia School District teachers are able to open up the world to our students. In our English courses teachers assign blogging to their students. Sometimes a student will blog and other students give feedback and comment on the blog entry. Even our first grade students use blogging to help develop their writing skills.

Other classrooms use the power of the internet to do research with up to date information. When most of us were in school we used sources that were several years old to do our research. Students today have the opportunity to read research that has just been released.

Our middle school students are using Chromebooks in various classes to increase their ability to compete in a 21st Century learning environment. They are experiencing technology integrated directly into the curriculum. Social studies class provides an excellent example of technology integration into the curriculum. Earlier this year students in middle school social studies were researching early American history beginning with the 13 Colonies. Each student had to use internet resources to research one of the 13 Colonies, report on the demographics and events that happened during that time. They created a web page to report their findings to their teachers and fellow classmates.

Early in their student careers, our preschool students have the opportunity to become acquainted with technology in the form of iPads. The students use the iPads and special preschool apps to practice their alphabet complete with sounds. They also work on learning their numbers. In addition, there are apps that help students grasp the concepts of matching, patterning, adding and subtraction.

As part of our Bond Issue Projects the Columbia School District is expanding our technology infrastructure and ability to offer our students the best in technology integration. As we move into the next year, our technology coordination team will begin installing the updated infrastructure, ordering additional devices and installing additional wireless access points. We are all very excited about the updated technology because our teachers and students will benefit greatly.

If you would like to learn more about Columbia School District or our programs, please call me at 5175926641 or email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org .

STEM Options for Summer Learning Opportunities!

School will be over in a couple of weeks and during the summer many of us will load our children into the car and go on vacation. The trip in the car gives you a great chance to work on your child’s math skills and keep them occupied all at the same time!

Work on their math computation skills. Fill a plastic bag with pennies and give them out as your children answer math questions correctly. If they answer incorrectly, you may want to take a penny back from your child. If you have children on different levels, you may alternate the difficulty of the questions with the children. Beyond asking questions such as ‘6+4= what,” you can make longer math sentences filled with addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

Work on clock math. Ask your children questions based upon the question, “when are we going to get there?” The question would be phrased similar to, “It is 5:49, what time will it be in 27 minutes?” You may want to give out pennies for correct answers during the clock math “game.”

Work on graphing. While playing the license plate game, graph the results. A favorite type for the license plate game would be a bar graph. You may choose to graph the results by player, remember you can play too, or graph the results by state.

Build their basic algebraic skills. Talk about the ratio of miles per hour, miles per minute and how to compute gas mileage. On some maps the exits are indicated by “mile markers” so you can teach your children how to figure out the answer to “how long will it take,” based upon the rate of speed you are traveling. The math games will help to teach your children that math is fun and it is all around us. As you travel the games will help keep your children occupied as they earn “spending money” for the next rest stop.

If you are not planning a vacation this summer, you may want to have your child participate in a summer activity at Columbia Schools. Below are two options:

Columbia Advanced STEM (science, technology, engineering & math) Academy has been designed to give middle school students an opportunity to experience a unique hands-on curriculum this summer. Students will be challenged to increase their academic abilities and earn high school Algebra and Physical Science credits and/or Geometry and Physical Science credits, thereby giving them an accelerated placement when they enter Columbia Central High School. Duration of the Program: June 16th – July 1st and July 7th through August 7th (Monday – Thursday)

Columbia Middle School Leaders In Training Program will use team building strategies to assist struggling students build a sense of camaraderie with their peers. Additionally, the students will build a sense of self confidence and accomplishment that will lead to a greater self-esteem. The students will work together increasing their skills both in and outside of the classroom to increase their level of success. During the four week time period students will participate in challenge-by-choice strategies including: learning through a low-ropes facilitated team-building course, increasing their self-image on the high-ropes course, conquering a forty-foot climbing tower and time for reflection and discussion. The students will also work through basic study skill strategies and character development training to help insure a greater level of academic success next fall. Duration of the Program: August 5th -21st (Tuesday – Thursday).
If you are interested in learning more about our summer programs, please call Mrs. O’Neil at Columbia Middle School 5922181, email her at Christi.oneil@myeagels.org or email me at pam.campbell@myeagles.org .