Hello GB Community,

Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to go on a trip to Nashville with LASD administrators for an amazing leadership conference. This conference focused on how children learn best and while we have seen teaching practices change over the years, there is still work to be done. The conference also reinforced the good work LASD has done around personalizing learning and supporting all students and provoked our thinking on how to continue moving in this direction.  Participating in the think-tanks and having deep conversations with my colleagues about the children in this district was exciting, motivating, and very gratifying. I shared some of what I experienced at last Friday’s PTA meeting but I will continue to share with you all as the year progresses.     

Site Council and ELAC (English Language Advisory Committee) Meeting

Our first site council/ELAC meeting is next week.  The dates for all three meetings are as follows: 

• ·Tuesday, November 6^th at 3:15 in the student center
• ·Tuesday, February 12^th at 3:15 in the student center
• ·Tuesday, May 14^th at 3:15 in the student center

Our agenda is:

1. Roll call/introductions
2. Review norms 
3. 2017-18 Parent Survey Results
4. A look at 2017-18 Data and our SPSA school-wide goals
5. Give-back opportunities
6. ELAC (English Language Acquisition Committee)

All community members are welcome to come and listen to the meeting; however, we do have a committee of participating members who represent both staff and parents of GB.

DELAC (District English Language Advisory Committee) Meeting

Please note that LASD’s DELAC meetings will be held on Thursdays in the iLearn Studio at the district office from 9:00-10:30am on the following dates:  

•         November 15, 2018
•        February 7, 2019
•         April 11, 2019
•         May 9, 2019

Enrichment Math Competition

Once again, Gardner Bullis will sponsor the AMC 8 Math Competition.  This year, the date is Tuesday, November 13^th starting at 7:40 am in the STEM Lab.  5^th and 6^th grade students who are interested in participating will come home with a permission slip next week.  If you would like your child to compete, you must return the permission slip by November 5th.  If your child is not in 5th or 6th grade but you are interested in them participating, please either let your child's teacher know or email me.  Below is more detail about the competition.

The AMC 8 is a 25-question, 40-minute, multiple choice competition exam for middle school math students, done without calculators. Although the AMC 8 is geared toward middle school, a student at any age that they and their parent/teacher/mentor believes them to be ready respectively can participate in the AMC 8.  Students as young as 8 have participated in the AMC contests, but his competition is entirely optional.  The competition is run by the Mathematical Association of America who score the test.  The MAA AMC office will begin emailing official scores and reports in early to mid-December following the AMC 8 on November 13th. The email reports go out roughly in the order in which they receive them from schools. Processing and reporting from start to finish takes about 3 to 4 weeks. Here’s a link to a sample question Website: http://www.maa.org/math-competitions/amc-8

Halloween Parade on Wednesday, October 31st

As always, we are all excited for our Halloween Parade and all of the evening events that take place on the 31st.  The staff’s costume theme is very fun this year!  While creating your children’s costumes, please be mindful that we do not want overly gory or bloody costumes and definitely no violence. Make-up is also discouraged as students will not have time to apply that part of their costume.  Students should bring their costume in a bag to put on after lunch at their teacher’s discretion.  The parade will start on the upper blacktop at 2:00.  Students may be excused after the parade if their parents are here and they want to leave early, but students MUST BE SIGNED OUT with their teacher FIRST.  Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents are all welcome to join us for the parade.  We look forward to seeing you all then. 

Have a Spooktacular Week,

Nadia Oskolkoff, Principal