Facilities & Internet

As you can tell our field is a mud pit! In order to have enough room for the kids to play, we have been taking a group of grade 3-5 students to the Shale Pit so they can continue to play soccer and tag games. Right now it seems to be the "lesser of the two evils". In the next two weeks, the City and Board are coming to finalize plans for the fence to be moved, so we can possibly use the City property. This is the area beside the pool. Also, we've asked the Board to plant sod to replace the mud (although it can be fun too)! They may choose to wait until the City/Board finalizes their plans, as it doesn't make sense to plant if they are going to track heavy machinery over it in the process. We do know that we are going to have to stay off of it for 3 months for the grass to take. I figure we've been using the shale pit for 2 days now, what is another 12 or so more weeks! When we know exactly what the plan is, I will share on the blog and also at Parent Council.

We are also having difficulty with our roof, as many of you know. We have many leaks in the roof for various reasons, one being that the roof (inverted) wasn't installed properly. We have had the Board in to come up with a plan to fix the leaks as they are not acceptable. They are going to fix the leaks that are causing the most concern, and then they will either repair the 15 year old roof or replace it. Again, I will let you know when that decision has been made.

A couple of issues have come up lately with student access to the internet. The internet, when used properly, can be a great educational tool, and the majority of our student body is respectful of the boundaries. We have had a couple of incidents lately that leads to a few reminders of the internet rules. Just to let you know that the kids are not allowed to be using social networks, like Facebook or You Tube at the school, unless under direct supervision of staff, for educational purposes. Sometimes the kids do use email to send their essays to staff, but that should be the extent of its use. They shouldn't be "checking" emails for social reasons. We will reiterate to the students, particularly the junior/intermediate students as we just finished discussing this at our last staff meeting. Of note, we are in the process of rescheduling our Mediacs presentation for May. We will send home a flyer later.

Welcome to April

Just a reminder that report cards go home tomorrow and parent teacher interviews are Thursday night and Friday. Please see my previous blogs for further details on the second term interview process.

We would like to welcome Bill Miller, our new headcaretaker. Recently, we found out that Mr. Britton accepted a promotion at a secondary school. We wish Mr. Miller great success at LKS!

Also, we just received our staffing numbers for 2008/09. Unfortunately, we were cut from 2 to 1.5 educational assistants, subsequently we have to declare Mrs. Koch surplus to the school. Mrs. Koch has been a wonderful addition to our kindergarten classes and we will miss her greatly next year. We have yet to hear about our special needs assistants, but our office staff and vice-principal remain status quo. Our teacher staff is 36.5 as of now. We may get additional staffing by the end of the week, and I'll repost if that happens.

John G. Althouse

John G. asked me to pass this information on to the community. There will be a 50th Reunion on Saturday, May 3, 2008 between 1:00-5:00 pm. Please check out John G. Reunion on FACEBOOK.

March 25th Week

We hope everyone had a wonderful March Break and Easter weekend relaxing with friends and family. Although the breaks helped many people "reboot", they have created a few short weeks for us. I had Mr. Bracht's class today for a library period and we talked about how hard it is to keep focused due to the lack of routine. Through their discussions, it really did show me, once again, how important routines are for kids, and adults!

Even though Spring has arrived, you would never know it as I watch the wet snow come down right now. Please remember that we do still have ice underfoot, especially from the back gate leading into the school. Mr. Britton continues to salt, and we have put a couple of calls into the Board for backup salt if it continues to snow and ice. Please be careful when coming into the parking lot or playground.

Just a reminder that report cards will be sent home on April 1st. Parent/teacher interviews will be held next Thursday night and Friday, although other arrangements have been made between staff and parents. Second term interviews are usually arranged if there is a teacher or parent concern. If you didn't get a parent/teacher interview letter, and would still like to speak to the teacher after receiving the report card, please do not hesitate to call the teacher.

John G. is having a reunion! I'll put the information on my blog tomorrow or the next day.

March Break

We hope everyone has a wonderful holdiday and we will see you back on St. Patrick's Day! Thank you for a great term.

March Newsletter and Bullying Results

Please check out our website as we have just added our March Newsletter. As we talked about previously, we are trying to post the monthly Newsletters on-line every month to save on paper. We do have hard copies in the office if you want to pick one up. Parent Council also just put out a Newsletter outlining all the wonderful things that have taken place at the school thus far, or will in the next couple of months. Thank you again to all of our volunteers who are instrumental in making things happen around the school!

We also posted the results of our bullying survey the grade 4-8 completed. The findings are very interesting and spark some great discussion. We will be discussing the results further with staff and students. We continue to use the Power of One when dealing with such issues. Please check out yesterday's blog for a great website on bullying! The survey results are under Safe Schools on the left hand side.

Quiet Week!

It looks like we have a quieter week at the school. Jr Swim Practice is on Thursday morning. Our Junior Hockey team just got back from winning the Semi-Finals at Ted Reeve. It looks like Dr. debraga, Mr. Mclean and the team are off to the finals at Varsity on Thursday. They will be sending home some information with the players shortly. Congratulations!

I just want to thank Alison Leung, an LKS parent, who works for Dove. Along with her partner, Ms. Leung presented a self-esteem workshop to our grade 7 classes on Friday. The students participated in some lively discussion and activity. I also wanted to pass on their website if you and your child/ren want to explore the topic a little more: www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca.