JoJo hn Muir Schoolhn Muir School September 2008

Calendar September 3 First Day

5 School-wide Field Trip to Tou Velle Park 12, 19, 26 Outdoor Education at Earth Teach/Lithia Park 30 to October 3 6th,7th and 8th Graders to Central Oregon

October 3 Outdoor Education Lithia Park

10 Staff Inservice and Planning Day (no classes) 17 Outdoor Education at Earth

Teach/Lithia Park 23, 24, 27 Parent/Student/Teacher

Conferences (no classes)

* Please refer to the Parent Handbook or JM website for the entire year’s calendar

Welcome! Welcome, and welcome back to school. As we begin the third year of John Muir School, our staff is excited about our community and curriculum. With the physical campus established and traditions developed, we look forward to spending energy and time to refine and articulate our curriculum and deepen the bonds within our community.

What’s new… Families A dozen families have joined our community this year. We have eighteen new students. Please help us to welcome our new community members with your words, wisdom and invitations. Principal(s) Ashland School District Superintendent, Juli DiChiro has created a new and unique model of administration for John Muir. Instead of one principal, we have three.

Debbie Shaeffer-Pew will be our district liaison. This position will involve directing the budget, ensuring compliance with federal, state and district policies and regulations and coordinating special education, enrollment and staff assignments. Debbie is also the principal of Willow Wind School and will bring us experience and expertise in alternative education. Michelle Zundel will supervise our curriculum. She is the Curriculum Coordinator for Ashland School District and collaborated with us last year as part of our Professional Development Team. Steve Retzlaff will provide on-site support including physical maintenance and extra-ordinary discipline and safety issues. Steve is the new principal of Ashland Middle School. He was the assistant principal of AMS and John Muir’s primary principal last year.

If you run into these people around town, please help us to extend our welcome to them. Facilities With the temporary closure of Bellview School due to building construction, part of their community has moved into the AMS campus. John Muir School has given up our Art/Indoor Lunch space for Bellview’s special education team. Room 9 will not be part of our campus this year.

…and what’s not new. Most of our school population is not new. We have 45 continuing families and 82 returning students in our community. The John Muir staff including Noreen, Joyce, Ramana, Pat, Emy, Camille, Tim and Marcia remain the same. In addition, here are a couple of notable “same’s.” Communication Our staff remains your first contact regarding questions, concerns and clarification. Though you are welcome to contact Debbie (488-2684), we ask that you speak with personnel on campus first. We believe in direct communication and are committed to listening to you and responding within the tenets of our philosophy, knowledge of our profession and love and care for your child. Earth Teach Forest Park Again, with the generosity of the Earth Teach Board and Martha and Pete Cotton, we have renewed our partnership with Earth Teach. We will once more base our outdoor science studies at the John Muir Campus site within this beautiful park.

"We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. John Muir

Step 1: Brainstorming List any units that might be interesting.

Step 2: Review the list and choose Relevant criteria include: Will the unit allow study from kindergarten through 8th grade? Is this a unit that children will be interested in? Does it have content that can be tangible and abstract? Will the unit contain information and activities that will allow us to meet Department of Education Standards?

Step 3: Establish our Baseline Once we select the unit of study, we assign one teacher to be the coordinator. Then we share everything we know about the subject.

Step 4: Research Next, we research the subject area. We review the state standards that we can incorporate into the study. Then, we brainstorm possible field trips.

Step 5: Sift and Plan With all of the information gathered, we sit together and sift through the standards, concepts and activities and assign them according to the developmental level of children in the four class groups. We gather and share resources appropriate for each grade level. From this meeting, each teacher develops specific daily and weekly plans.

Step 6: Implement, Review, Assess and Adjust Finally, we set about teaching. Throughout the unit, each teacher and the entire staff will assess the success of activities and concepts, review the lessons and make changes to meet the interest and needs of the students.

Curriculum Development at John Muir John Muir is an art/science magnet school. Our curriculum model is founded in the belief that children need to learn with their senses as well as their mind and that lasting knowledge is the result of individual concept construction. When the teachers at John Muir School develop curriculum for the school year, they reference a number of sources and follow a series of steps. This page outlines the steps of integrated unit development. The following page shows how these steps were applied to our current study of geology.

Step 1: Brainstorming List any units that might be interesting. milk rocks insects birds flour spiders baking geology space sustainability

Step 2: Review the list and choose Choice: Geology From rocks to volcanoes, from dinosaurs to plate tectonics, this unit has a wide enough scope to meet many of the standards we want to teach and enough depth and breadth to be interesting to students. We can explore the geology of Lithia Park and Earth Teach. We can simulate mountain development in the sand box and research ages of the earth’s formation in textbooks and on the internet.

Step 3: Establish our Baseline We took stock of geology courses we have taken, and courses we have taught. We talked of Earth’s history and the geologic forces that shaped the Rogue Valley. Tim decided to take lead in this unit. Marcia will lead a later unit on sustainability. Pat will organize a unit around milk and Camille will organize a science and art unit about painting.

Step 4: Research Next we researched geology. Tim read a number of books including Roadside Geology and a BLM publication. We reviewed the state standards that we can incorporate into the study. We also brainstormed possible field trips.

Field Trips Planned, considered or possible: Bend volcanic loop Klamath Refuge lava fields and caves Gin Lin Mine trail Crater Rock Museum Table Rocks Tou Velle and agate desert Rock walls of northern California Fossils in I-5 roadcuts, highway 99, Shale City Fish Lake lava flows Mt. McGloughlin

Relevant Oregon Department of Education Standards

Odds and Ends Calendar Mistakes……….The following dates or events were incorrect on your year-long calendar. Thanksgiving Holiday will be on November 27 & 28 with the early release day on November 26 (not Nov. 19) to match the rest of the country. February 5,6 is a snow camping overnight for only 7th and 8th graders. (5th and 6th will have to wait a year or two.) Coming Up… Next month’s newsletter will feature our campus sustainability efforts and hints for home conservation.

Ten Ways to Help Your Child Have a Successful Year

1. Stay informed of school events.

2. Make school a priority. 3. Attend Parent Nights. 4. Discuss school activities

with your child. 5. Meet other parents in the

community. 6. Maintain clear, direct and

compassionate communication with the school staff. Direct questions and concerns to the staff without your child’s presence.

7. Make sure your child is on time for school (8:05).

8. Establish a healthy life style for your child including rest, sleep and food.

9. Be patient with your child’s own learning process and progress.

10. Remain positive about school and hopeful about the world.

Parent and Family Page

John Muir School Organization

Site Council: a governance board made up of staff (2) and parents (2) that oversees the school development, writes and guides the school improvement plan. (contact Tim)

Parent-Teacher Collective: an organization dedicated to augmenting the school curriculum and developing community among parents. Open to all! (contact Camille)

Art Week Curriculum: A unique week-long curriculum cycle taught by parents, teachers and community members. Bring your talents! (contact Marcia or Camille)

Courtyard and Project Volunteers: Stop by anytime to pull weeds or plant in our courtyard. Sign up for workdays. (contact Pat)

Happenings Around School Sustainability and Recycling-Tracy Harding is leading the way to help John Muir School become a cutting-edge model in sustainability and conservation. We have compost bins in place, a program to coordinate bike riding, walking and driving to school, a project to reduce packaging waste at lunch time and Friday bike riding to Lithia Park for third and fourth graders. We’re working to get 90% or greater post consumer recycled paper, eating from our organic garden and reducing waste on campus. John Muir Garden-We have an amazing organic garden in the corner of AMS campus! Thanks to organization and leadership from Scott McQuire and outstanding efforts from families like the Pyle’s, Ruiz’s and Grahams!

If we allow ourselves to be defined by what has been, we can only be prepared for a world that no longer exists. T. Brnardic

“I can’t get Nell out of my mind. When she talked with me about understanding fractions today, it was as if her mind rejected understanding. Isn’t this unusual? Kids often resist understanding, make no effort to understand: but they don’t often grasp an idea and then throw it away. Do they? But this seemed to be what Nell was doing. Several times she would make a real effort to follow my words, and did follow them through a number of steps. Then, just as it seemed she was on the point of getting the idea, she would shake her head and say, “I don’t get it.” Can a child have a vested interest in failure? What on earth could it be? There may be a connection here with producer-thinker strategies. (We used the word producer to describe the student who is only interested in getting right answers, and who made more or less uncritical use of rules and formulae to get them; we called thinker the student who tried to think about the meaning, the reality, of whatever it was he(she) was working on.) A student who jumps at the right answer and misses, often falls back into defeatism and despair because he doesn’t know what else to do. The thinker is more willing to plug on.” John Holt How Children Fail