Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks - With Thanksgiving right around the corner I would like to thank you for your continued support. We have worked together over the past five years and have achieved some pretty amazing things. Each day I am proud to represent our community as we face challenges that are presented to us. Your willingness to listen, become involved, and trust our direction makes my job very exciting and I look forward to keeping us moving in a positive direction. I have no problem putting on the blue and gold each morning. Thank you.

Hurricane Sandy Relief Kits - Last week was pretty exciting. First, we were able to finish our relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy victims by creating a total of 229 complete relief kits and 197 partial kits. Our students in grades K-12 came together to assemble these kits, and they will be shipped on Tuesday by community partners National Grid. This generous gesture is courtesy of Linda Clark who learned about our efforts through this very blog a couple of weeks ago. It was awesome to see students learning about helping people and then rolling up their sleeves to help. Good work!

Visit from the Commissioner - Dr. John King, the New York State Commissioner of Education, visited our high school during the week. He came without alerting the media and really wanted to get into some classrooms. He focused his visit on learning about how we provide services for our Students with Disabilities, as well as students who are at-risk. Dr. King also wanted to see how we use technology in classrooms and was interested to see how strong our Career and Technical Education program is. Our teachers, counselors, and students did not disappoint. As I shook his hand when he left, he told me that I should be very proud with what we have achieved at West Genesee. I most certainly am.

Parent Portal - Our Schooltool roll out is going pretty well.  If you have not had a chance to use our new student management system yet, please begin to familiarize yourself with it. The link to reach the parent portal can be found on our website, and over time more information about your children will be made available to you.

Healthy Choices - I had a chance to meet with high school students to brainstorm ways to try and make our school lunch program more suitable to them but still fit within the new USDA Healthy Choices guidelines. Our student committee was chosen through Twitter and the group is very diverse. We had a diabetic nutritionist and menu planner on hand to teach the students about why we serve what we serve and how we plan menus. The meeting was powerful from my perspective, and the students gave some great input. Our menu planner and nutritionist are planning a December menu based on many of the suggestions that the students gave, and I am excited to see if student input has an impact on the number of lunches that we serve. Our group will meet again in January so that we can monitor progress and keep looking ahead.

I hope that you are able to take some time to get together with family for Thanksgiving, and I will reach out to you again after the turkey break.

Chris