Songs to inspire

This song, particularly the lyrics below, make me think of our kids. Enjoy!


Upside Down by Jack Johnson

Who's to say
What's impossible
Well they forgot
This world keeps spinning
And with each new day
I can feel a change in everything
And as the surface breaks reflections fade
But in some ways they remain the same
And as my mind begins to spread its wings
There's no stopping curiosity

Our Mission...not just for the kids.

Though there are many other things I could be focusing on right now, I was dropped a ray of sunshine by a couple of our parents today.

I've always told people that our mission, "to powerfully create our lives," is not just for the kids. It's about everyone here, the kids, the moms, the dads, the teachers, ourselves, everyone. I've had some parents taken aback by that, "Oh, I never thought of it that way," they say.

One of our moms wrote to me today to say that she is thrilled that her son has gone from being the type of kid who would never ever talk about school, to the young man who now talks about going to college. He's having breakthroughs right and left this year. I can clearly see him fulfilling on our mission, he's powerfully creating his life...a new one envisioned for him.

Another mom, a prolific blogger, wrote, "While the journey is about my son, and I definitely don't lose sight of that, it is also about a very confused woman who is still finding her way, one delicate step at a time. In the nurturing environment I find at Innovations Academy, I have been given the gift of friendship, acceptance, respect and love. There is no price tag, no expectation, other than to show up and join in. What a miraculous place to be." She too is powerfully creating this year.

It's amazing to watch these changes before my eyes. Continue to shine on, our IA community, shine on.

Danielle

Updates for Innovations

Hello Everyone!

I'm sorry it's been so long since this has been updated. There has been a lot going on with the beginning of the school year.

For all of you blog lovers out there, I introduce to you: http://iahighlightssandiego.blogspot.com/

This is a blog maintained by one of our lovely parents who is on a mission to keep everyone in the loop. Please see her blog for updates as well as some interesting tidbits.

One great purpose for this blog can be to answer parent questions. If you have questions that you think other IAers would be interested in, please email me!

Thanks,

Danielle

IA's First Parent Night of the New School Year

Future Parent Meetings

· Our first parent meeting was held on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009. The meeting area was packed, so next time 1/2 of the parent group will meet with teachers while the other parent group meets with administrators and then the two groups will switch.

Be a Good Neighbor

· Parking in IA or blank spots ONLY! After 6 p.m., and on weekends, you can park anywhere.

Drop-Off and Pick-up

· Drop-off begins 15 minutes before class. If you arrive earlier than that, you will need to pay for before-school care. Pick-up begins at the END of school. If you arrive early, we will ask you to park.

· The only exception includes siblings in upper and lower grades, who need to be in before or after care, until their class starts or gets out..

Lunch

· Bring a bag lunch.

· We have microwave ovens in the classrooms.

· You may purchase lunches Monday-Friday (except Wed.) See Donna in the reception area for details and to place orders.

Needs of Innovations Academy

· More Students! All classes have openings (except kindergarten)! As much as we love the small class size, unless we get a big donor we need more students to bring class sizes to around 20 students.

· Handy parents. There may be work left from the weekend. Check with Donna to see if there are any more projects that need to be completed. at the school.

Info

· Blogging-Teachers blog each week on the IA website. They will let you know which day.

· Tuesday, September 22, is Family Game Night at the school. It will be $1/per person and you will go home with a free game of Bingo. A variety of games are available to play for free or as little as 25 cents a play. If you’d like to help, please email Amy@InnovationsAcademy.org

First Week, Fall 2009

Congrats on a great first week everyone! IA has been full of smiles, fun, and engagement. I've seen students busy at creating fountains, measuring themselves, learning math drills through outdoor games, writing, eating lunch, making new friends, and enjoying their new environment at IA.

I've spoken with many parents this week who are more than happy with their first week at IA and are looking forward to the continued building of our community.

Next week we'll start again on Monday with those happy faces and warm reception. We're all very excited.

Have a great weekend,

Danielle

p.s. DeeDee's (our K teacher) class has set up a Donors Choose Page

Focus for the 2009/10 School Year

Today I got an email from a parent and in it they pointed out an area where we're not fulfilling on our petition. That said, it would be miraculous for us to fulfill on our entire charter in even two years (this is why the district gives 5 years to get everything rolling before the big review). However, that's where you all can support this mission!

To recap a bit of last year, it was all about being a new start up non-profit (learning budgeting, billing, payroll, insurance, legal, etc.), establishing school culture and building relationships. We hit the ground running really really cold and learned a lot about what worked for our community as well as what didn't. We went through a lot of trial and error, and I thank you all (including our staff) for supporting us along the way. There were some great highs in between all the waves.

This year we have zoned in on focuses that involve developing highly vibrant and interesting student and teacher led projects. Our teachers have enriched themselves in more training over the summer in how to address rigorous projects. For me, this article on constructivism says it all:

[T]he more important point, I believe, is the idea that the actions which we develop for our audience engage the mind as well as the hand. Not all experiences are educative, as Dewey pointed out in Experience and Education. This does not mean that they necessarily have to be complex---but they do need to allow the participants to think as they act...Physical involvement is a necessary condition for learning for children, and highly desirable for adults in many situations, but it is not sufficient. All hands-on activities must also pass the test of being minds-on---they must provide something to think about as well as something to touch.

I really enjoy how the author uses "Minds-on"...I'll be looking for that in our classes this year. One way that this will be able to be seen more is through assessment. Last year, overall, we were not successful at implementing the reflection and assessment piece of projects. This year our focus is to develop our students' abilities to set goals and self assess as well as learn effective peer critiquing. We'll do this by modeling critiquing, build rubrics for projects, and guiding our student in assessing themselves.

Another thing that goes hand-in-hand with maintaining these projects is building a class environment that is safe for opinions and sharing. Our social emotional program will use Positive Discipline techniques, such as Morning Meetings, and methods from the book "The First 6 Weeks of School" to make this environment flourish.

Additionally, our Math and Language Arts skills programs are moving away from textbooks and incorporating more real world problem solving and hands on learning. By the end of the year many of our teachers were seeing that our students needed more of these skills that the Direct Instruction program was not incorporating.

Lastly, we're focusing on Parent Involvement. We know that to make a community really strong it takes dedicated individuals to lend a hand, or two, or three, or however many you've got! We'll be starting out with our Monthly Parent meetings as well as asking parents to volunteer their time or expertise to our community. Already we've had parents coming forward to help with the move, I've gotten one contact for a grant volunteer, and another parent interested in keeping up with a school newsletter. Please write to me with your contributions, I'd love to showcase them here.

I'm very excited for all these evolutions.

Danielle

Looking for a volunteer!

I've got a great opportunity for anyone who would like to uphold their Parent Pledge to volunteer but doesn't have the flexibility to come into school, grant volunteers.

When Christine and I were writing the charter petition we wrote a few grants to support the process over the course of 2 years. Luckily we had people to point us to grants that were applicable to us.

Now, as directors of the school it has become increasingly difficult to sift for grants. There are so many out there that it's actually overwhelming. Comparative with going to a restaurant and having too much on the menu. What we need is a go getter who is ready to jump in and find us some grants that are applicable to our programs.

Ideas to get you started would be to look for:
K- 8 grants
Social Emotional Curriculum grants
Reading program/therapy grants
Project Based Learning Grants
Service Learning Grants

I have a few resources that would be helpful to any grant volunteers including a newsletter with biweekly grant opportunities.

Grants are extremely important to schools, not only as additional capital and financial support for programs, they also often encourage partnership and collaboration with other organizations.

If you're looking for a creative way to really support IA, you're web savvy (effectively searching on Google is easy for you), and are interested in working closely with the admin team, this is it!

Please contact me when you'd like to get started, we can certainly have a team on this.

Danielle