Cricket E-Blast 3-26-15

For Starters…

The last month has shown what a sense of pride this community has in our school.  The tournament runs of the boys and girls basketball teams filled gyms and brought everyone together.  Thanks to the players, coaches, parents, and community members for such a wonderful ride.  That was really fun.

What's Hoppening?

• The hiring season is here.  As I indicated in the email, we will look for internal transfers first (within the same FTE), and then open it up to the outside world.  I'm certain we can find good fits for the building and people that will help push us forward.
• Budget Update: Nothing has really changed in the budget from our last communication. We have a significant issue, but one we think we can handle.  I want to be very clear...whatever the cuts are moving forward, NONE of them are desired.  We don't want to eliminate anything, but that is not the position we are currently in.  I understand that cutting things clearly places less value than other things in the building.  There is no getting away from that, but we are trying to put the best interests of kids first and develop opportunities from there.  We will be instituting more online opportunities for kids at the high school.  This is an essential piece of providing choice for students in areas that we currently are not able to facilitate.  We are also looking into partnering with Augusta for a few classes so both districts can offset the loss of programming.  This is not great work, and probably the worst part of this job, but it is necessary to balance a budget.
• Bus Drivers: We are very short on bus drivers for the spring.  We have and will continue to contract out services to keep our school routes in tact.  There may be some difficulty in that and we will all need to be flexible.  We have ads in the paper for the next 2 weeks to secure another driver.  Fingers crossed.
• Insurance: The state budget has put us in a position where we need to adjust our expectations for insurance quotes.  The group is aware of this and we have information out to bid so we should have some answers in the near future.  The Insurance Committee has done great work to this point...thanks!
• Technology Integration: The expectation is that we are moving to Google Apps for Education in the fall.  I know more people are utilizing the apps and I hope that continues.  We will continue to have optional sessions (Digital Tooltorials) and will add training at the beginning of the year, but the more you are familiar with Google Apps the better moving forward.
• Go Cricket Podcast Itunes:  Still looking for great stories we should share via The Go Crickets Podcast.  Send them my way so we can continue to tell our story in Fall Creek.
• More State Testing in a few weeks: Thanks to everyone for their flexibility in not really knowing what is going on with state testing.  We are trying to stay one step ahead, but so is the state and they are making adjustments on the fly.  We are doing our best to keep up, but thank you to Brian, Laura, Jon, and Jake for their additional time in getting everything ready.  
• Alumni Tournament: A number of alumni will be back in the building this weekend playing ball and reconnecting. To all of our alumni here...have a wonderful weekend with your classmates.
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This week in Tweets...

Keep adding @fccrickets to tweets and use the #gocrickets hashtag after a tweet to add to the wonderful story of the Crickets...or let us know how we can help get your story to the world.  Go Crickets.

http://www.fallcreek.k12.wi.us/district/gocrickets.cfm

Articles Worth Reading
Check out the Google+ community for articles...feel free to add resources to that community as well. We are better together...add what you feel would benefit the group.  Thanks!

Videos Worth Watching:
I will add videos to the Google+ page for those interested.  Can be accessed here... https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106247918310540095234