Principal’s Report
October - 2007

“Meet the Teacher Night” was held on Wednesday, September 5th. This night gives the parents the opportunity to meet their child's teacher and learn about what they expect for the upcoming school year. There were over 400 students represented by parents in the attendance that evening.   

Mrs. Gray's class is off to a great start. Meet the Teacher Night was well received. Their class made a Welcome to Sixth Grade Power Point including pictures of the students and teacher. They are learning about the “Habits of Mind” and enjoying using the interactive Promethean Board for most of their lessons. The Discovery Channel has provided them with a video, through United Streaming, that lines up with our standards in several areas they are learning about and even provided them with a teacher guide support materials that enforce lessons.

The first PTA meeting of the school year was held on Tuesday, September 18th. There was an excellent turnout for the meeting with over 40 people in attendance. Programs for the year were discussed.

Thanks to DVES first graders, there are lots of beautiful, brand new butterflies in the world. The students in the first grade classes loved watching the caterpillars make their chrysalises and then watch the butterflies hatch. They enjoyed coming in every day to check on the caterpillars' progress and then singing “Happy Hatch Day” before releasing them outside. Some of the butterflies landed on trees when they released, and students had a chance to get a good last look at them. Mrs. Mason's class released 13 butterflies; six girls and seven boys. Mrs. Barnes' class released five butterflies; three girls and two boys. Mrs. Hiller's class released six butterflies; two girls and four boys. The first graders say they are very lucky group to have had these experiences.

Hearing Screenings were held on Wednesday, September 26th for kindergarten through third grade. Approximately 250 students were screened. We had PTA volunteers and retired school nurse's assisting with the screening. Our thanks to them.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick's third grade class has begun their recycling program. All bins were given out throughout the building. Mrs. Fitzpatrick's class asks everyone in the building to recycle one main thing, which is Xerox paper. Her class collects the bins once a week. Each week, students from her class get halls to collect from. Mrs. Fitzpatrick's class does a lot of work to help our environment, and we should all do our part to help, too.

DVES had a special guest on September 28th, Ms. Karla Schmidt a librarian who represented the Library of Congress' The Book project. DVE-TV and DVE-News reporters had a chance to interview Ms. Schmidt and have lunch with her. Ms. Schmidt was here for the letters of Literacy Program, which is a program that lets kids all over the country write to their favorite author and maybe gets their letter published in The Book.

Our library circulation for the month of September was 9,284.

Fire Drill - Thursday, September 27th - 88 Seconds.