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Following the start of the 2011-12 school year,
several Coweta County schools are welcoming parents to open
house nights around the county. Many held open house or grade
level meetings at their schools on August 18. All Coweta middle schools will hold their Open houses on Tuesday, August 23. Times vary by school, and can be found on the schools’ websites (accessible from the school system’s website at www.cowetaschools.org). Newnan High School held their open house on Tuesday, Tuesday, August 16. Northgate High School’s Open house will be held Thursday, August 25, at 7:00 p.m., and East Coweta High’s Open House will be held Tuesday, August 30 at 6:30 p.m. Eastside Elementary school welcomed over 300 hundred parents and students who turned out to hear about the school year and meet their children’s teachers Thursday night. Parents heard how the school has gotten students into the routines of the classroom, and how teachers are using the student’s daily agenda as a form of communication to let parent’s know about assignments, homework and student progress. Parents were also told about how the entire Eastside staff has assisted with first-of-the-year student academic assessments (called GRASP assessments) and setting student benchmarks in things such as reading fluency, phonemic awareness and reading comprehension. Eastside Principal Leigh Munson and the school’s staff reviewed the school’s test performance from the previous school year, and Eastside’s annual school goals for the coming year of raising student mastery of math vocabulary and standards and increasing access to technology for teachers and students. Education technology was a big subject of the night. Munson told parents about upcoming purchases of new Promethean boards and student responders for classrooms, and about new computers that will replace and update the school’s computer lab. Parents also were shown how to use Parent Portal, and staff members helped parents in the school’s front lobby with access codes to use the student information system. “Parents want to hear of our successes, as a community,” said Munson. “We try to celebrate achievements from within the community as well as students’ academic performance. We have found that by offering several times to visit the school and visit with teachers, new parents and students feel more comfortable entering our doors.” Last Thursday, for example, Eastside’s Kindergarten teachers hosted a parent meeting to share how academic standards are presented and assessed during the year. The teachers also provided supplies and directions for several games that parents could use at home with their children, as well as handing out parent/student handbooks with the school’s calendar, policies, price lists and school bus information. “When I shared our goals and objectives for this school year, I think that parents took notice that we aren’t just focusing on our AYP status and test scores,” said Munson. “We are trying to present engaging lessons in all academic areas, and putting more technology into the classrooms, and most importantly into the hands of our students. We shared that one of our school-wide goals is to raise our level of mastery in all math standards, at all grade levels (and) we are trying to use as many center-based activities and hands-on activities to achieve this goal.” To support their initiatives in math, for example, Instructional Coach Misty Markland teaches “Discoveries”, which is a hands-on math class. “She takes the math standards that the teachers are working on, or have experienced difficulty in student mastery, and she creates hands-on lessons” using student data to drive her instruction. “The children don’t realize that this is a support math class. They have so much fun playing games that they don’t realize they are learning.”  Eastside Elementary School Principal Leigh Munson (back right) and Assistant Principal Jena Martin (back left) and Eastside faculty welcomed parents to the school’s August 18 Open House night. With Munson and Martin are, left to right, students Shamal Samuel (Kindergarten.), Abbie Money (1st grade), Alexis Wright (1st grade) and Trevor Colburn (4th grade). |