Ms. Mukes, the SW campus director, emphasized the importance of intervening for students who are struggling academically as soon as possible. Accordingly, the school has three interventionists who will go to classrooms to help students, as well as pull them out of PE to provide additional academic support.
Additionally, the campus parent liaison, Ms. Hollis, discussed ways parents can become involved through volunteering and/or sitting on the PTO Committee. She will be holding a parent meeting on Tuesday, September 29 at 9 a.m. in room K-1 for interested parents.
The two campus instructional coaches, Mrs. Jones and Mr. Calimag, also made presentations on the campus grade-level handbooks, which contain school information and procedures, TEKs or standards students are responsible for learning in each subject area, and ways parents can help reinforce learning at home.
Later that day after school concluded, the campus held curriculum workshops for parents and students. Thirty-nine parents had an opportunity to sit with teachers and participate in some hands-on activities aligned to the level of rigor, critical thinking and problem solving their students are required to reach in school. The director, instructional coaches and teachers alike stressed the importance of pushing students to the next level and not being satisfied with being good, but to work hard toward being great.
Mr. Ly, who has daughters in Prek-3 and kindergarten, attended both meetings and said he was impressed with the curriculum activities and had high praise for Varnett. “I am amazed at the level of attention the teachers give to students and the class size is not too big,” he said. “But we would like to see a little more homework. Kids are way smarter than we were when we were young.”
Ms. Hayward, another parent, has a daughter in kindergarten and was working with her daughter on a laptop. “I think this is a great idea,” she said of the curriculum workshop. “This is educational and I’ve never seen anything like this."