Ms. Wesley on "November"

Dear Malley Families,

The cool morning, brisk evenings and the sound of crunching leaves under my feet tells me that fall is definitely upon us. It’s hard to believe that we have been in school for over 50 days! October was a busy month at Malley Drive. We had our Parent-Teacher conferences early in the month. Thank you to all family members who attended the conferences. It was a great opportunity for the teachers to share with parents the progress that our students are making. We had over 95% of our families attend their conference.

Our school’s annual Fall Festival took place on October 24th. We had over 700 people in the building for that fun event. I was able to enjoy the many costumes and trick or treaters as they made their way down our hallways. I want to thank our PSO and the staff members who participated in this fun and very popular community event.

On October 30th I had the pleasure of attending our first Positive Behavior Support (PBS) Pride Assembly. Our PBS program has the students focusing on the 5 R’s: Respect Yourself, Respect Others, Respect Your Environment, Ready to learn and Responsibilities. During October our students were focused on Respect Yourself. During the Pride Assembly we honored over 75 students who had demonstrated this behavior on a regular basis.

Our teachers are hard at work with your children. I visit classrooms regularly and I consistently see effective instruction occurring. Your children are working hard on their reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. I was in a kindergarten class and the students were reading bar graphs and making predictions. All of our students are focused on their education and engaged in learning activities. During our early release Wednesdays in October our teachers received training on infusing oral language strategies during their literacy block. They learned strategies to use to help our second language learners. We spent one Wednesday going over safety procedures in our building in case of an emergency. Lastly, during our October 31st in-service day the teachers worked on analyzing reading data, enhancing guided reading in the intermediate grades and teachers learned new oral language strategies to use in their classrooms. All of these trainings align with our school improvement action plan.

Finally, many times during the mornings and after school I have a chance to say hello and visit with the parents and guardians of the students and Malley Drive. It brings me such joy to see parents’ hugs their children and tell them that they love them. What a wonderful way to begin and end each school day. I would like to wish each and every one of you a very happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for entrusting me and my staff with your most precious gift, your child.

Sincerely,

Anne Wesley