Hawk Thoughts & Happenings
Team Pennoyer,
We're rolling through April and it's starting to feel more like spring around Pennoyer. I'm looking forward to a lot of events coming up in the next couple of weeks. We've got Literacy Night, our Spring Book Fair, Community Kindness Day, and the Mother Son Event just to name a few. I want to thank everyone for all of your hard work this week and holding down the fort at Pennoyer while some of us were away. I know our staff stepped up as you always do, and I truly appreciate it. I wanted to share some highlights of our Washington DC trip with our 8th graders this week and give everyone a taste of our experiences. They were really a great group, and we had such a nice time with them that I'm hoping they'll never forget...
From O'hare Airport, where we actually had a student experience their first time on an airplane, we made our way to Washington DC and started our trip at the US Marine Corp Battle of Iwo Jima Memorial...
Then we moved onto the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial where there were 184 benches with reflective ponds that represented the combined lives lost between passengers on the airplane and the people in the Pentagon...
The World War II Memorial was an amazing sit in itself, but surprising our very own Officer Bob there, and then our students being asked to lead the pledge of allegiance was an absolute emotional thrill and honor for all of us...
When we got to Arlington National Cemetery we had our walking shoes ready for sure. We learned about the special significance of the area and some of the important political figures buried there like President Kennedy and his family...
We didn't get to go up it, but it was a beautiful late afternoon when we visited the Washington Monument and got some great pictures...
Next, we walked along the water and visited the FDR, Jefferson, & MLK Memorials...
Our day two began with an amazing visit to Mt. Vernon - George Washington's home, where we got to actually go inside and see where he worked and lived his final days...
Then is was onto Ford's Theater and the Peterson house where Abraham Lincoln died...
Next, we spent about 2 hours walking around the American History Museum and saw so many cool things from over 200 years of our young country's history...
When we got to the Vietnam Memorial, our students learned that there was an incredible 58,000 names engraved on the reflective marble and so many were MIA...
We ended our second day at the Lincoln Memorial on another beautiful night...
Our final day was filled with an emotional start at the Holocaust Museum...
Then we got pretty close to a familiar building called the White House...
Next, it was time to check out the original Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights at the National Archives Museum...
We even got to walk up the steps of the Capital Building...
Weekly Shout Out From Melissa, Monica, and Adam to Julia
"Julia put an amazing trip and experience together for so many of our 8th graders at Washington DC this week. Everything was so well thought out and planned, and her dedication and spirit definitely shined through. We were just happy to go along for the ride. Julia helped put the surprise together for Officer Bob, and did special things like having our students recite lines of MLK's I Have a Dream Speech right next to his memorial. She really made the entire trip something we know our 8th graders will never forget."
Hawk Action Items
- Pennoyer Teachers...just a friendly reminder if you havn't gotten a chance to complete the follow up Culture and Climate survey, please take a moment to do so by April 22nd. I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback.
- Just another friendly reminder that we're getting ready for the new Skyward Qmlativ, and I wanted to share out information again that Patrick sent out a couple weeks ago.We are well into our migration from Skyward SMS to Skyward Qmlativ. The final data migration will take place in July, where we will be exclusively using Qmlativ by Skyward for our student information and business systems.Your teacher account for the Qmlativ test and training environment is now active and is accessible through the Pennoyer OneLogin portal. It is listed as Skyward Qmlativ.You will be able to use this database while training to practice what you have learned in the training modules. Please note that this is just a training environment, so you can explore and change whatever you want -- it will not affect REAL STUDENT/STAFF DATA and will be erased after the migration. The data in the training instance contains data that was migrated in October 2023, so you will not see any recent data that has been added since then. It is only a copy from October.
You should have already received an email with access to the Skyward Knowledge Hub, which contains all of the training tutorials to help you on your way to learning the system. You will be assigned training videos and tutorials that are specific to your role as a teacher. You will be able to watch the training videos and practice in the test environment well in advance of the actual migration so you are comfortable when the migration happens and you return from summer break. It is recommended that these assigned trainings will need to be completed by the end of April so that you have an opportunity to become familiar with the new platform. Feel free to reach out to Patrick with any questions.
Below is a sneak peak at the Qmlativ system. If you have a few minutes, take a look at some of the quick videos to get a look at the interface: - If you're interested in signing up to supervise and facilitate any Behavior Academies after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, feel free to sign up on the spreadsheet. Here's a reminder about the protocol for our Behavior Academies if you're interested. *New addition to the protocol...please make sure to let the supervising teacher know you're sending someone when you sign a student up for a Behavior Academy. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting these.
- Wanna make somebody's day at Pennoyer...don't forget about our staff shout outs we'd like to get started up again this year! It's real easy; if one staff member wants to give another staff member at Pennoyer a positive shout out for something that week, just send a quick email blurb to Adam, and he'll feature it in our weekly Hawk Happenings!
Great job with all the social media posts shared for the month of March! Keep it up in April. Here's the Google Form for teachers to complete. Thanks!!!
Weekly Hawk Playlist/Lyric
"Take Me to the River" by The Talking Heads
Hawk Celebrations
I wanted to take this week to celebrate our incredible Leadership Team at Pennoyer. Ms. Norgard, Mrs. Slawson, Ms. Barzano, Ms. Bieda, Mrs. Loring, and Mrs. Koukari have been amazing Team Leaders to work with this year. This group of staff members have done so much work to support our systems, staff, students, and families. I know we have more work to do, but the level of dedication and thoughtful collaboration this year has set us on such a promising path, and this team has certainly put in the work. Whether it's at Staff Meetings, Grade Band Meetings, or Institute Days, this Leadership Team has taken on so many responsibilities and really stepped up time and time again. I know how incredibly lucky I am to be working with such a great group of educators. #Pennoyerpride
April Birthdays! 🎂
Jenny Arencibia - 4/12
Diana Muntean - 4/13
Monica St. John - 4/15
Audrey Sampson - 4/16
Rachel Michaels - 4/17
Adam Greenberg - 4/21
Katherine Kopoulos - 4/21
Alain Ramirez - 4/22
Patrick Christl - 4/25
Emerson Burghart - 4/26
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