The Four Corners

Updates for Lake County District Superintendents

 

Happy Summer!

 

This is the last "Four Corners" of the school year. A big "thank you" to Shelly and the Communications Department for implementing this communication tool. I hope you have found the "Four Corners" to be a useful tool. If you have suggestions for next year, please forward to Shelly or share at our meeting on Monday.

 

Monday's meeting will start at 8:30 am due to not having a Governance Council meeting on the same day. This will be our last meeting of the school year, so it will be a good time to tie up loose ends and share some of our "Dreams and Schemes" for next year.

 

Thanks. See you Monday.

 

Wally 

 

 

 

 

COUNCIL CORNER

• Agenda

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Last month, we had to say goodbye to literary icon and universal source of inspiration, Maya Angelou. She modeled how to overcome adversity with grace, spirit, and dignity. Her legacy will live on in the words and wisdom she left behind. Here are some of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes.

• "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

• "You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."

• "The best candy shop a child can be left alone in is the library."

• "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

• "There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you."

• "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

• "All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike."

• "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

• "It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody."

• "The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry."

So-called "walking school buses"  are catching on in school districts nationwide  because they are seen as a way to fight childhood obesity, improve attendance rates and ensure that kids get to school safely. For a growing number of children in Rhode Island, Iowa and other states, the school day starts and ends in the same way - they walk with their classmates and an adult volunteer to and from school. In Providence, organizers have specifically targeted schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism with positive results. In Sioux City, nearly 1,000 children in 10 elementary schools use walking school buses during the spring and fall, helping the schools incorporate fitness into the morning routine and building a sense of community. In 2012, about 30 percent of students living within a mile of school walked there in the morning and 35 percent walked home in the afternoon, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School, an increase of about 6 percent since 2007. 

 

Many of the programs across the country are funded by the Federal Safe Routes to School program, which pays for infrastructure improvements and initiatives to enable children to walk and bike to school. Robert Johnson, of the Missouri-based PedNet Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for transit alternatives, said the success of the programs reflects a growing interest in getting kids more active. Johnson said he is working with 15 school districts in Kansas on what may become the largest walking school bus project in the United States. Some districts have been able to cut school bus routes and save money because of the program, he added. 

COMMUNITY CORNER

Lake County Office of Education will be at the Spring Fair. If you have any projects or initiatives you would like to highlight, you may be able to share our space.  Contact Tammy Serpa for details at tserpa@lakecoe.org

Please mark your calendars for the 2014 New Teacher Welcome, Thursday, August 21 at 4:00 pm.  Stay tuned for location and additional details. The response to our inaugural welcome last year was overwhelmingly positive. We hope this event supports your district efforts to retain quality educators by providing a warm Lake County welcome.

Please mark your calendars for the 2014 Excellence in Education Award Night, Saturday, November 15, 2014 at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.  Please note this is a change from the previously announced date of November 8.

Please join us to honor the contributions of John Drummond and celebrate his retirement from Lake County Office of Education.

June 19

5:30 pm

The Saw Shop

Kelseyville

$10 pp

RSVP by June 13 to Michelle Buell

mbuell@lakecoe.org

LCAP CORNER

Thank you for your collaboration and support over the 2013/14 year, as we worked together to facilitate this transition!