September 14

Dear Fireside Families,
In an effort to streamline and improve our home-school communication we will soon be launching a new platform to  simplify life for our families and meet the varying needs. We will no longer have our lengthy monthly Chat. Instead, we'll have specialist "spotlights" and programmatic highlights spread throughout the month. We live in an age of mass communication, and our sincere hope is to reduce, refine, and distribute information more efficiently in order to enhance accessibility for our families. I'd like to thank our team for helping coordinate these changes- Director of Communications for BVSD, Randy Barber, Leah Sylvan, Kathryn Wolf, Samantha MacMillan, Dilek Eccles, and Trish Ortega. 

We were fortunate to host our Superintendent, Dr. Rob Anderson this week. Together we visited classrooms and he spent time with staff gathering feedback on ways we can continue to grow as a district. He noted as many do when walking through the doors of Fireside, the positive, purposeful, and engaged learning environments established in classrooms. As I myself have spent time in classrooms observing learning and trying out our new adaptive seating and personalized learning spaces, I couldn't agree more. There are noticeable shifts in the ways students are gathering to listen and learn from peers, their teachers, and flexing with seating and spaces. Personalization means meeting students where they're at as learners- this includes academically, social-emotionally, and physically. 

As a school, we continue to use brain research to inform teaching and learning practices. One of these areas is supporting our students with their developing pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for executive functioning/a.k.a organizational skills. During this week's leadership team meeting, we discussed the similarities and differences of how this looks at different grade levels. For primary grades, it may be "chunking" information and having students kinesthetically involved to retain learning. For intermediate grades, it may include completing their daily planner and explaining short-term and long-term assignments. As parents, you can support your child with these skills as well by discussing what they've written in their planner and breaking down larger tasks into shorter manageable pieces. Visual schedules and list making at home can also support students with executive functioning skills. A simple step by step list of what they need to be ready each morning for school or a weekly/monthly calendar can help as well.

I'm happy to discuss this topic as well as others during our upcoming Principal Coffees. This is an open forum for us to come together as a community, ask questions, learn more about the school and support one another in our most important work- raising our children. 

I am so grateful for our amazing Jogathon committee who made this year's Jogathon such a success- we couldn't have done it without you! Proceeds from the Jogathon provide a variety of educational experiences for our kids that truly make a difference for our Fireside Falcons. Thank you for your financial support and participation in this one-time fundraising event. 

Your partner in education,
Christa Keppler