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It was a great first four days of school! I love seeing the excitement of elementary school students when they return for a new school year. I am reminded of why I chose to become an educator 36 years ago. There is a palpable enthusiasm in the air the first week of school. Elementary students are still young enough where they don’t try to hide how excited they are to be back in school. Whereas my 22 years as a high school teacher and administrator gave me a different perspective on the start of a new school year. High school students are for the most part excited to return to school, but at that age they don’t want to show any unbridled enthusiasm, not cool, on the first days of school.
Please don’t forget that students are dismissed from school at 2:30 pm on Monday’s, enabling teachers to have a weekly collaboration time to plan lessons, analyze student assessment data and to discuss how to best meet the educational needs of all students.
Your students probably came home and told you about their teachers going over a lot of rules, routines and procedures on the first days of school. We believe that in order to create a warm and nurturing learning environment, students need to have clearly defined academic and behavioral expectations; consequently, teachers need to teach and reteach what those expectations are. Everything the students are learning about school expectations falls under the umbrella of the Alpine Big 3 of being Respectful, Responsible and Ready.
Please keep student safety in mind when dropping off and picking up your students. We want parents to be parked along a curb before picking up students and not stopping on 300 North where students need to walk in between parked cars to enter a vehicle that is stopped in middle of the street.
It would be helpful if parents put the names of students on lunch containers, and when the weather gets colder, on jackets and coats. Students frequently leave personal belongings on the playground, and instead of staying in our Lost and Found, and sometimes never being picked up, we can return personal items if there is a name identifying the student.
We are excited to welcome our youngest learners, the preschoolers and kindergartners, on Tuesday. We also start our Science Lab classes this week as Rebecca Bergquist begins her instructional duties.
I was in all of the new teachers’ (minus our new kindergarten teacher) classrooms on Friday, and they are all off to a great start.
Three new members were elected last week to serve on our School Community Council. Chelsea Hertig, Brittany Nelson and Tracy Nuttall will join returning members Brooke Bennett, Vanessa Hogan and Dave Wirthlin on the Alpine Elementary SCC. Congratulations to the newly elected SCC parents!
8:15 pm Thursday night at Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo, BYU and Utah face off in their first football game of the season. We have both Utah and BYU fans amongst our students, staff and parents. I will tell students and staff (if you have no allegiance to either school, no special attire needed) on Monday morning that they are welcome to wear either Ute or Cougar gear to school on Thursday. I will be in attendance at LES cheering for the Cougs, but the Holy War hasn’t been much of a rivalry in recent years as Utah has won eight consecutive games, and is favored by experts to win the game on Thursday night. For us Cougar fans, the pain has to end sometime, right?
Have a great week, and as always, remember that it is a great day to be an Eagle!
Dave Perdue, Principal
Alpine Elementary
Alpine School District
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