September 2007

Welcome or Welcome Back!

I hope you and your child are ready for an exciting year at El Roble Intermediate School. Hopefully, you were able to enjoy a little bit of a rest and are energized for what lies ahead. Our focus continues to be about "making connections" so be looking for ways to get connected at El Roble.

Over the summer, three of our 900 portables were remodeled and are now great looking, high functioning science labs. This now means that all science at El Roble will be taught in lab classrooms! In addition, we will be offering some new electives for the school year including: "Beginning Band," "Introduction to Digital Media." "Graphical Editing/Desktop Publishing," "Internet Protocols & Research," and "Advanced Computers," and the 8th grade "AVID elective class." Along with our English Reading class that helps support struggling readers, we have added a Math Support Class to help support struggling math students. By way of growing the whole child, El Roble will also be offering an after school sports program that has El Roble playing flag football, volleyball, and basketball against local area junior high schools.

El Roble continues to seek out input in to ways to grow and improve the instructional program for our students. If you have any thoughts, please feel free to contact me. Furthermore, there will be parent survey going home in the fall to elicit some input from you about El Roble. Hopefully, you will take the time to complete the survey.

PARENT INVOLVMENT IS ALIVE:

At El Roble, we are committed to finding ways to keep parents connected to their child's education via volunteer opportunities. The research is clear that a good predictor of a child's academic success can be linked to the level of parent involvement in the child's education. At the intermediate school level, the involvement may take different shapes than it did in elementary school. Parents are still encouraged to volunteer in a child's classroom for all or part of the day (depending on teacher need). Parents can also assist in the office during special events, be involved with the PFA, chaperon special events or trips, be an active booster member, etc. The bottom line is to be involved. The campus will benefit and so will your child. Contact the office or the PFA for possible volunteer opportunities.

Kevin Scott Grier