January 19, 2016

Are you back in the groove yet?

Head's Up

Sunday, January 17th (not Friday, January 17th as posted last week), was Kid Inventors' Day. I apologize for not being more on top of this opportunity, but here's a link to some invention contests for "kidventers" and "learnerpreneurs." They might be something to share during your next #geniushour.

Diversability Awareness Festival is truly a community event this year! Mark your calendars for Saturday, April 23rd and plan to join us at Lawrence Plaza in Downtown Bentonville to experience some creative projects that celebrate the contributions of people with disabilities and the diverse abilities we all share, find solutions to challenges faced by people with disabilities, and showcase the creativity and solution finding of students in Bentonville Schools.

This year we're supporting Best Buddies. Best Buddies is an international organization dedicated to connecting people with disabilities and non-disabled people for friendship and mentoring. They're busy building an organization and preparing for a fund-raising walk on, wait for it, Saturday, April 23rd that starts and ends at Lawrence Plaza! This is a great opportunity not only for community service hours, but also for students to have a real impact on the community. This Saturday is also the first Farmers' Market of the year.

@bpscommunity

 Friday evening, Central Park's Maya Ellgass and Old High's Ashlyn Farmer were honored for their adaptations of MLK's I Have a Dream speech. Not pictured is BHS Sophmore Pierce Reitnauer, who also was honored.

Hundreds of community members toured the new Bentonville West High School yesterday. It was great to see so many excited students able to walk through the building.

Wolverine Wednesdays are coming soon! Get your Snarl on people!

This space is only going to get more amazing once it's finished. The clerestory windows flood the space with natural light. It's hard to describe how bright this area is, even on an overcast day.

Bentonville West is definitely worth the wait.







Superintendent Poore's annual Hunger is Heartbreaking food drive for Snackpacks runs Monday, February 1st through Friday, February 13th. Let's fill his office and send him to the roof! Thanks to David Engle's 4th grade class for researching the coldest day for Mr. Poore to work from the roof. Their prediction? February 19th.

Social media policy update:

I think we are close to having a policy that outlines rationale, expectations, and potential consequences without undue overreach. I'm meeting with BPS Attorney Marshall Ney tomorrow to go over the final draft. The group working on the policy has developed a survey for students in grades 4 -12 that will be sent out within the next week. We would like to have students in grades 4 - 6 complete the short survey during computer lab time. I'm not sure how best to engage junior high and high school students, but seminar would seem the logical choice. Any other suggestions?

Grants & PD

There's some interesting offerings coming up in the next few weeks from edweb.net. Check the right hand side of their webpage for some great one-hour webinars.

Video of the week

It's tax time. That W2 is coming soon, leaving some to wonder if it's all worth the effort. Here's slam poet and teacher Tayor Mali's response to the question: What do you make?

Enjoy your week.