Educators: What are you doing during your summer break?

*At last night's School Board Meeting (July 9, 2009), I shared the following events that members emailed to me. The Board gave me well over my 3 allotted minutes, and I still didn't get them all read! I think it is just awesome how HARD our members work no matter what time of year it is!
**Also at last night's meeting, Scott Little was moved from interim to the official Assistant Superintendent of Employee and Labor Services!

Board of Education Three Minute SHARE Presentation – July 9, 2009
Good Evening, my name is Terese Fitzpatrick and I am the proud president of the Walled Lake Education Association.
Iris Salters, President of the MEA, recently wrote a newspaper article talking about what educators did during the summer. I thought it might be interesting to find out what Walled Lake educators were doing this summer, so I sent out an email. The responses were amazing, and although I can’t share them all, I will begin with the remaining minutes I have. For all those whose accomplishments I can’t “get out” in the 3 minutes alloted to me, I want them to know I will be posting them to my blog for everyone to see.


David Stanton at Northern is working this summer toward the completion of his doctorate degree by finishing his required course work. He is also taking the Advanced Placement World History seminar at Oakland University.

Sherri Look at Central is teaching summer school and is also taking the entry test to be accepted into University Of Maryland’s Masters of Chemical and Life Science Program.

Paulette Loe had the opportunity to attend the ground breaking for the new Federal Lock project on the grounds of the Soo Locks. Many dignitaries were in attendance including Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. She conversed with Senator Levin about the History of the Upper Penninsula, as well as sharing the great work being done with kids at Walled Lake Western! Way to go, Paulette. Thanks for promoting Walled Lake Schools with our representatives in Washington!

Lois Griffin, Cindy Goris ad Jan Lamb from Walnut Creek attended a summer institute on Linking Literacy which focused on reading and writing essentials.

Jan, Greg Cleveland, Mary Rashid, Barney Hyland and Mike Peterson will be attending a 3 day vocal music workshop at MSU at the end of July.

Amanda Swanson of Central and Molly Anson of Northern did a week long AP statistics training course. Molly and Joanne Lambert did a 2 day workshop to learn how to use the TI-NSpire calculator to enhance their teaching.

Julia Gidcumb from Creek attended a four day workshop sponsored by Eastern Michigan University called, Training Content Area Teachers to Teach English. This class focused on teaching ELL students and also on teaching writing.

Joan Garretson and Cheryl Goodwin taught a 2 day Non-violent Crisis Intervention class in June and will be doing it again in August. Joan has taken a 4 day class this month to be qualified as an advanced Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Instructor.

Jason Culbert is taking math courses to gain another certification, which will make it his fourth certification area. He is also updating his Water Safety Instructor Certification this summer.

Melanie Livingston from Commerce traveled to London this summer and did a study on the Prime Meridian. In addition, she told me that Commerce teachers are participating in the online book study “Writing Essentials” using the blogosphere!

Several teachers at Mary Helen Guest have volunteered their time this summer to come in and conduct a reading lesson with students that have been selected for their Super Summer Success program. Teachers gather with students every Wedenday for 45 minutes to read to and chat with the students about their reading done at home.

Patti Graham from Smart is serving as the Public Relations Director for the Michigan Reading Association and is chairing the Public Relations Committee for next year’s MRA conference.

Patti Graham and Tim Wichert, also of Smart, attended a 2 day conference at Central Michigan University meeting with the NASA folks learning about Astronomy and solar system instruction.

Brian Blackney from Western wrote that he attended a two day symposium with the US Peace Institute at Baker College. He also completed his Education Specialist degree at Oakland University. In addition he is being in serviced to become a “Digital Coach” and will be teaching at Walled Lake “Spice it Up” Seminar in August.

Kelli Doyle of Clifford Smart is taking classes this summer to earn a library science degree at Wayne State.

I am taking a 24 week program through Notre Dame University to earn an Executive Certificate from their Business college in Negotiations and Communications.

Cathy Ferguson is heading up a very successful ESL Summer School with 123 students, 10 teachers, and 7 Walled Lake district bilingual parapros.

Zuzanna Morelli from Geisler is one of the ESL teachers working in that program and she also attended an ELL Summer Academy which dealt with motivating adolescent readers and writers.

Saundra Josephson from Smart is teaching the Autistic spectrum Disorder extended school year program. She is also taking a class on reproductive health and sexuality for special education students at Oakland Schools. She will be meeting with other CI staff this summer to work on curriculum and goal writing for the CI population at the middle and high schools.

Jeri Weems, Jenny Farough, Fran Hufferd and Kari Routledge are attending the Michigan Reading Association’s Summer Lit conference next week that is featuring Nell Duke and Stephanie Harvey.

Steven McIntyre from Smart is adding six new credits to his current TWO master’s degrees to renew his teaching certificate. He is also a part of the Aspiring Principal Academy and is teaching summer school at Western.

Melissa Imhoff of Creek took Moodle Basics at Oakland Schools this summer and has completed Pam Shoemaker’s 5 Module Technology online course. Later this summer she will be taking two more online Special Ed classes through learnport.org.

Kaye Lynn Mazurek who teaches German at Northern emailed me from Germany to let me know that she is there with 22 Walled Lake Northern students participating in a German-American exchange program. It is a 25 day trip. The students are going to school every day and participating in field trips. They have done flag exchanges and tshirt-painting with German families as they develop friendships with the German students.

Rita Sintron from Northern is taking an online course this summer sponsored by Thinkfinity.org. This course prepares her to train others to integrate thinkfinity resources into the curriculum to enhance student learning. She will be receiving full credentials as a thinkfinity Field Trainer for Michigan.

Jamie Singelyn from Smart has laid out his entire 8th grade social studies benchmark studies for next year and has posted it to his website.

Paula Cullison at Guest is taking classes and participates in their Super summer success.

Brian Gorden at Smart is taking 3 summer classes.

Emily McBryar, soon to be from Geisler, is taking classes at Oakland University toward her master’s degree.

Kathy Murray at Glengary is doing a 6 hour training called “Talk, Draw, Write”. She is participating in the Techno Fest this summer and helping to plan Martin Luther King Day activites.

Suzanne Stiles of Wixom and Beverly Currie of Loon Lake are leaving for Santa Fe, New Mexico on Saturday to attend a art teacher training session with emphasis on Pueblo culture and pottery. They will be presenting their learnings to 12 other art teachers in September.

Laura King from Creek is taking a class on Communication and Collaboration in the classroom this summer.

Michael Weiskopf from Western attended the 2009 Michigan Joint Education Conference at Holt High School in June.

Debbie Jess-Isenegger completed her 30+ hours in March and will be leaving for Pampered Chef “school” in Chicago on Wednesday.

Carol Kravetz from Geisler is conducting an instructional program for the West Bloomfield School District that provides weekly units of study in math and language arts for grades K through 8. She is also working with the group of educators planning Martin Luther King Day celebrations for 2010. In August she will be taking a one week workshop at Oakland Schools, called "The Reading Workshop." Carol is also the president of the West Bloomfield Library Board which keeps her very busy.

Jennifer La Cross shares that several teachers from Walled Lake Central took a week long class on Differeniated Instruction last week. Lessons were created and will be ready to use when school begins.

Chris Kozicki from Commerce Elementary shares that Commerce teachers are working on continuing their educations during the summer. Those who are changing grade levels are accessing the District Curriculum website to study pacing guides, rubrics, and curriculum guide lines. These teachers as well as others are reading and reviewing current research making sure they are continuing to use best educational practices in the coming school year. A teacher blog page has been set up on the Commerce School website to accomodate discussion of our selected summer reading, Writing Essentials, by noted author Regie Routman. We are updating and recreating personal web pages so that communication between home and school flows smoothly when the new school year begins. Commerce teachers are commited to excellence!

Sandi Brough-Gresh wrote that this summer I attended AP physics training and spent a day this summer with Judy Davis and JP Arens updating and revising Physics benchmarks.