Husky Mentor Update

Debbie, Carol, and I met today to make plans for the Husky Mentors as the beginning of the school year is rapidly approaching. We drew up a contract for the mentors, and we have 2 trainings scheduled for the mentors (Aug 1st and 15th). At those trainings we will be reinforcing the vision of the program, and brainstorming with them what they will need to communicate with their freshmen (for ex., get contact info, ask questions about schedule, etc...) and how they can communicate with them (text, notes on/in lockers, meet in morning, etc...).
After these trainings, the mentors will meet with their freshmen at orientation, make introductions, ask and answer specific questions (that they come up with at training), and do some icebreakers.
We still have a lot of questions- a major one being: when is freshmen orientation?
We hope that, with administrative approval, the mentor program will become a club meeting throughout the school year. We see it being a bigger deal with more time involved at the beginning of the year, tapering off throughout the year. However, we do feel that the mentors can be helpful talking to their freshmen throughout the year, and a debriefing session at the end of the year would benefit the program as a whole.
We are really excited about this program, and if you would like more info about it or would like to get involved, we invite you to attend either of the training sessions (Aug 1st 6:00, Aug 15th 1:00)!

Fairfax Textbooks Going Online

Fairfax County Schools may use online textbooks for social studies classes in middle and high school.

Click here to watch the news story.

Links section

I added a Links section to the left-hand side of the page. Please add links that you think people would be interested in, or send them to me and I'll add them. I added Edutopia to the list, but here's a specific link to an entry I read today:  Benefits of writing for math and science

What Happened to New Tech?

Our teachers spent many hours researching the New Tech Network as a possibility for North Marion.  However, we found that our timelines did not coincide well.  For North Marion teachers wanting to be "on the ground and running" by August, this meant that we would have to try to implement many of our ideas on our own.  We give much credit, however, to Jon Reinhard and the New Tech Network for the impetus they gave us to take trips together as a faculty to see New Tech Schools in action.  These trips provided three things for our teachers:  1) An opportunity to bond as professionals which began the process of further developing our dream, 2)  The idea that a school culture component is a desirable element to our plan, and 3) Opportunities to interact with other educators who are excited about change in their schools. 

And so our project goes on as a grass roots movement rather than as a part of a more formalized, non-profit organization.  We are still excited about our opportunities, but needing time to explore our options rather than committing to one certain direction.

by Joetta Schneider