Spotlight on Leadership Night... Formally Known as Open House

Open house is a time honored tradition in public school. 

Do you remember Open House Night? 

It was a time to display a your very best work and prettiest art pieces.  There was also a bit of apprehension and uncertainty...Would your teacher remark on your neat handwriting and strong reading voice, or tell about how you figured out how to use the drinking fountain to spray your friend standing in line behind you? 

I loved Open House.  My brother hated it.

 

This year, we decided to give our Open House a" Leader in Me" flavor.  There have been so many changes at our school this year, and we wanted to showcase these improvements.  The students were eager to show their parents their Leadership Binders and tell them how they were becoming leaders at school.  So we scheduled a Spotlight on Leadership Night.

Our Jr. Lighthouse Team greeted parents, students and members of the community and guided tours through the school.

Every grade level designed a scavenger hunt in the classroom... a Leader in Me Scavenger Hunt!  Each student had a copy of the items that had to be found and explained to the parents.  The teachers greeted the parents and students, but after that the kids took over. 

 

 

At first, the kids were a little tentative, but by the time they reached item #3, they were sailing! 



After they finished the scavenger hunt, most of my kiddos showed their parents other pieces of work they were especially proud of, or brought their parents over to visit with the teacher, and hear him or her say good things about them while they blushed, giggled or just grinned and kicked at the floor. 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to admit, I wasn't sure how the whole "scavenger hunt" thing was going to work, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I think the Spotlight on Leadership Night will be a new Ortiz All Star Tradition!

 







Leadership Abilene Visits Ortiz

We had some visitors at Ortiz Elementary.... the nice folks from Leadership Abilene.  Leadership Abilene is was organized by the Chamber of Commerce and designed to give local citizens interested in the future of Abilene a chance to see different aspects of our community.  They visit various locations in Abilene and today they came to our school.

Our Jr. Lighthouse Team acted as tour guides to groups of  3-5 adults.  Our kiddos planned out a tour schedule and a timeline for the schedule, and decided what they wanted to say at each stop on the tour.

At first, we were a little concerned that the Jr. Lighthouse kids would have a difficult time speaking in front of groups of adults, but we shouldn't have worried.... they did GREAT!

They answered questions and talked at length about our school and The Leader in Me program.

I know I've said it before, but WE ARE SO PROUD OF OUR JR. LIGHTHOUSE TEAM!!

Introducing Our Jr. Lighthouse Team!!!

A major component of "The Leader in Me" is developing student leaders and one of the steps toward this goal is the formation of a Jr. Lighthouse Team. Think of them as Student Council and The Welcome Wagon all rolled into one.... on steroids! These awesome students have really come into their own and developed into the leaders we hoped they would be. The Jr. Lighthouse Team meets every 2 weeks, and plan events.

They served us breakfast one morning, which was really, really nice!

They help with the operation of our school, such as conducting morning announcements, unlocking doors for subs and even have acted as tour guides to visitors.

To be selected for the Jr. Lighthouse Team the students had to write a speech outlining why they wanted to be on the Lighthouse Team and give the speech in front of the WHOLE 5th grade.

The 5th grade then voted for who they thought would make the best Jr. Lighthouse Team members. 

Once the team was selected, they completed an all day training program and signed a contract, outlining responsibilities and behavior expectations. I could go on and on, but I thought it would be nice if you could meet our team and let them tell about what it took to be chosen for the Jr. Lighthouse Team and what it means to be a Jr. Lighthouse member. So without further ado (drum roll, please)......

 

Introducing, the Ortiz All Star

Jr. Lighthouse Team!!

Asheri

“The visit from Leadership Abilene was amazing. We got to tell them about the 7 habits. My favorite habit is Habit #6 Synergize.”

 

Jaci

4^th grade

Jacob

“I like being on the Lighthouse Team because I get to help the school and show kids how to be a leader.”

Shalom

4^th grade

Alyssa

“I want to be on the Lighthouse Team because I want people to look back at us and do what we are doing right now. I will be successful, smart and brave like everyone should be. “

Isabella

4^th grade

Elvira

“I know I’m a leader, but now I can show it. I always wanted to tell people they matter and to be a person that helps people.”

 

Noah

4^th grade

Angelita

“It took me a while to decide to be on the Lighthouse Team, but I said to myself it was time to be brave. This is the time for me to try something new for once in a lifetime. I also wanted to learn how to be a good leader for the younger ones so in the future there will be lots of good leaders.”

Timothy

4^th grade

Brent

“Leaders are kind, respected, and nice. Being on this team will help me prepare for being a leader in the future.”

Vivianna

4^th grade

 

Victoria

“I love being on the Jr. Lighthouse Team! I wanted to be on the team because I felt like it was my thing. The Lighthouse Team could prepare me for the future by being a counselor at a school. My family is really proud of me for trying something new. My mom inspires me to never quit.”

Hannah

5^th grade

Jennah

“The Jr. Lighthouse Team is a wonderful thing to participate in. Being part of the team will help me be a better leader because it will allow me to take a stand, help others and use our 7 habits. The Jr. Lighthouse Team has brought me happiness, success and a whole lot of leadership!”

Stephanie

5^th grade

Jayden Stackhouse

“I wanted to be a member of the Jr. Lighthouse Team, but I was a little nervous. Mrs. Holcomb and Mr. Riddle encouraged me a lot. So thank you Mrs. Holcomb and Mr. Riddle!”

Evelynn

I am a part of the Jr. Lighthouse Team. The reason why is because I want to learn how to be a leader on campus.”

I cannot tell you how proud we are of these guys!

Parent Conference Time!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

It's parent conference time again... I remember as a child sitting at home and waiting for my parents to get home from "The Parent Conference".  What would my teacher say?  What would my mom and dad say?  Why was it taking so long????  After one particularly brutal parent conference with my brother's teacher, my mom went to bed with a 3 day migraine!  My students are no different.  Some of my students will worry.  Some will be excited.  Some will just throw the parent conference notes away.

 So this year, several of the grade levels decided to give our parent conferences a Leader in Me twist... student led parent conferences.  Yup, we invited the students to not only attend their parent conference with their parents, but to be in charge of it!  Each student has a Leadership Notebook (formally known as our Data Binders) and the students are all familiar with the data. The teachers worked with each student to practice talking their parents through the notebook and analyzing their progress this year.  We talked about the data together.  We discussed areas for improvement and areas for celebration.  We looked at behavior and attendance.  Was there room for improvement?  What was the plan?  The kids were so excited!  We sent out the notices and the response was immediate and positive.

The parent conferences went great!  The kiddos came in with their parents, shy and smiling.  With a little encouragement and guidance, they talked about their progress and what they were proud of and what improvements they wanted to make.

 

 

 And their parents listened.  

 

And they were so proud!

A New Box of Crayons

When I was a kid, I loved the beginning of school.  I would like to say that it was because I was excited to move to the next grade, where I would be imparted with the knowledge of the ages, but mainly I was excited about getting new school supplies. Opening up a brand new box of crayons is one of the true pleasures of life and if you were lucky enough to convince your parents that you really, really, really, NEEDED the big box of 64 crayons WITH the BUILT IN crayon sharpener, you knew that you would be the envy of all your classmates. "Why yes, I have a blue crayon you can borrow.  Would you prefer cerulean, sky blue or periwinkle?"

Don't you love the way school supplies look, feel and even smell?  Go Ahead... open up a box of crayons and take a big, deep breath and it will take you back to your elementary school days.  Some of you even like the way school supplies taste.  Admit it, we all knew someone in our class who ate glue.

As a parent, buying school supplies is much more stressful, especially if you have more than one child. Many of our parents at Ortiz are going to school themselves or working minimum wage jobs and it is difficult to find the extra money for pencils, markers, glue, scissors and crayons.

This year, at Ortiz, thanks to Arrow Ford and Walmart, all of our students received school supplies!  Every, single one!  We have 641 students and that's a lot of crayons, folks.  Our parents were so grateful and oh my, the kids were ex-cit-ed!  For some of our students, it was the first time they had ever started a school year with new markers and crayons.  It may seem like a small thing to us, but to a first grader, having nice school supplies is huge.  There are no words to describe the atmosphere at our school at Meet the Teacher Night, so I will just show you a few pictures!  Enjoy!

A special thank you to our School Supply Angel from Arrow Ford, General Manager, Shanna Kevil.  One little guy asked our principal where Mrs. Arrow Ford was because he wanted to say thank you, and Mrs. Fulkerson pointed him right to Shanna!

Also a thank you to the Cactus Lion's Club, who provided each student with school bags to carry all those supplies.  You guys rock!

It looks like it's going to be a good year!

Work Day #1 And so it begins...

Today we had our first Leader In Me Work Day!  Although I am feeling muscles I haven't felt since my early 40's, it was a day well spent.  Here are some of our projects:

Power washing the front of the building.  FYI, in the interest of full disclosure it should be mentioned that power washing one's toe is painful and it will blast several layers of skin right off that little toe before you know it. No, it wasn't my toe and no, I didn't get a picture.  Sorry.

Painting the walkway up to the school.  This is not finished yet, but a work in progress.  Our school colors are silver and blue.  The plan is to paint each of the 7 habits on the blue areas.  We can't wait to see it!

Spray painting planters blue and silver and planting lovely plants in each planter.  Every class will have plants for the students to care for, which we hope will  foster responsibility and develop student pride in our facilities.  I did notice the teachers were a little free and easy with the spray paint and all went home with silver and blue hands, arms and legs.  Party animals.

Rock climbing wall for the gym.  Is that not the most amazing thing?  I didn't even know you could do that in a gym.  Sadly, my rock wall climbing days are over.  Actually, they never really began.  Our P.E. teacher, Coach C. is a beast!

Mural painting in the front entry way.  Evan and Jessica are our resident newlyweds.  Turns out hubby is a Graphic Arts major and an Art minor. Bonus!  Guys, just so you know, if you marry a teacher, you WILL be pressed into service.  I think it should be mentioned in the wedding vows.

Landscaping the front entryway.  This job actually took two days to finish because we hit a rather stubborn layer of rock hard caliche about 4 inches down. Gotta love Texas!  After rejecting the idea of using dynamite to pulverize the layer, we decided to lay down extra top soil instead.  Not nearly as exciting or fun, but much safer... and legal.   Now that's what I call Synergizing!  I dug some holes and it only took me 4 hours, because I had to rest between each hole.  A lot.

Aaron and Santiago from Templeton's Equipment brought a Bobcat (the machine, not the animal) and dug out some previous landscaping that had seen better days, moved rocks and laid down some railroad ties in front of the school.  Aaron is Kami Winter's (our counselor) husband and graciously agreed to come from 8:00-12:00 and stayed until almost 4.

Thanks to Arrow Ford and WalMart, we have a ton of school supplies to sort and distribute.  It was a lot of work, but a labor of love.  For our families who have several children in school, providing school supplies for each child can be a financial burden.  The school supplies will be a God send to these families.

Suzanne, our Energizer Bunny of a principal is already thinking ahead to Work Day #2, tentatively set for a Saturday in October.  We will be inviting parents and students to join us and I am hopeful they will.  I don't think I can do the hole digging thing again so soon.

A big, big thank you to Templeton's Equipment, WalMart, Arrow Ford and Lowes.  We couldn't have done this without you!  Also a HUGE thank you to all the husbands, children, and siblings of staff and faculty members who came out to work on a lovely Saturday when they could have been sipping a cold drink by the pool.  






You are now honorary Ortiz All Stars!  Which means you are all invited to Work Day #2! You're welcome!