The Leader in Me

It has been a while since I've posted on the blog. It is hard to believe that the 1st quarter of school has come to an end.  While I started the blog as a means to update the community about summer construction, I've decided to continue it to share more happenings at Lopez.

As many of you know, Lopez Elementary began its' journey to becoming a Leader in Me school in 2011. After discussions and research by the staff, families, and administration, this focus was selected because it maintained all the best of the school and added an important piece- student leadership.
This year, we are on the path to become Colorado's first Lighthouse school. This designation is reserved for schools who undergo a rigorous process to accomplish three levels within nine categories. Lopez would join only 58 other schools worldwide who have achieved Lighthouse status.

Our school Lighthouse team identified three action areas to focus on this year: Leadership Environment & Culture, Student Leadership, and Displaying School-Wide Goals (WIGs).

Within Leadership Environment & Culture, we've begun plans to add the 7 Habits and other messaging to our Flex Room.  PSD is helping us to develop a design plan.  Additionally, we will continue to create leadership displays throughout the school.

For Student Leadership, we have expanded our Student Lighthouse team into three branches:

• Education/Assembly Leaders
• Service and Philanthropy Leaders
• Leader in Me Ambassadors

 The first two branches consist of 4th and 5th graders who have applied to be part of the groups. The last group has representation from each classroom, K-5.

The Assembly/Education branch creates and performs skits about the 7 Habits at our monthly assemblies.

The Service and Philanthropy branch identifies and coordinates service projects for our school to participate in. They most recently completed a food drive for the Larimer County Food Bank and built a sculpture at "Canstruction" on the CSU campus on 10/9/13.

The final branch of the Student Lighthouse team is the Leadership Ambassador group. These are students K-5 who were chosen from each classroom by their teacher based upon their daily use of the 7 Habits. This group will lead their classrooms in leadership meetings, school-wide events, and advisory about our implementation of the Habits.

Parent involvement is a huge part of our success as a Leader in Me school. Access the Leader in Me parent guide if you haven't had the opportunity yet at www.leaderinmeorg. This week, your child participated in student led conferences. Please give us feedback about the conferences and how we can continue to communicate about our goals with the Leader in Me!

Traci Gile

Welcome to August and Class Placement Information!

Happy August Lopez families!

I am excited to be back to school and writing this from my office.  As you may know, Lopez has been closed for construction since the day after school was released.  We just started to move back in early this week!!!  I think you will be impressed with the changes.  Thank you PSD community for supporting our school improvements.  If you haven't had a chance to check the progress over the summer, I have been posting pictures on a blog at http://drgile.blogspot.com

Lopez is a wonderful school, and I am proud to be part of it.  You are all part of its' success.  Last year, we made several strides toward becoming Colorado's first Lighthouse School recognized by the Leader in Me organization.  Our leadership assemblies, leadership notebooks, student-led conferences, student leadership roles, philanthropy projects, and 7 Habits of Successful Families Event have been hallmarks to our school transformation as a leadership culture.  Look for more information and opportunities throughout the school year.

To build on our school-wide Leader in Me focus, we are bringing in an after-school program from Lego Robotics.  This will be a way to support our students who want to further develop their leadership in science, technology, engineering, teamwork, and communications.

I look forward to connecting with everyone at the Ice Cream Social on Monday, August 19 from 4:00 - 5:30 PM.  Teachers will need every minute to set up their classrooms, so please wait until 4:00 to arrive.  Children can bring their school supplies that afternoon.  School starts the next morning at 8:25 AM.  Students will line up outside of their pod or classroom doors to enter the building.

On August 12th, you will receive an email from me indicating your child's class placement for the school year.  In the event that we have an incorrect email address or do not have that information on file, class lists will be posted before the ice cream social on Monday, August 19.

If any families are new to the Lopez community, they can come by the school to register anytime after August 6 between 7:30 - 4:30.

All other back to school information, such as supply lists, are posted on the main Lopez website.  As always, feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.

Dr. Traci Gile,  Principal
tgile@psdschools.org
970-488-8800 

Lopez Construction Update #5

It is amazing how things start to come together! Little by little, we have seen some big projects completed this week. We are still on track for all of our before school events and to welcome students and families back to the Ice Cream Social on Monday, August 20 from 4:00 - 5:30 PM. Christy and I both moved back to Lopez this week. She and I shared my new office for a few days, but now the new office is ready. The office is much larger and more student and family friendly. I think it will be a welcoming and secure entrance once the final pieces have come together. Thank you PSD community for the transformation that is taking shape at Lopez.  I'll post pictures of the office next week when it is nearly complete!

Who knew all those channels and tubes were above our heads!

Most of the classrooms in the blue pod have returned to normal, with just a few touches left to go!

Still some wires and tiles to place in the front computer lab.

All the new duct work is in place!

 

Lopez Lego Robotics Junior League

This summer I was approached by a Lopez parent who was interested in bringing a Lego Robotics League to our school.  We have been corresponding back and forth to put together the resources to create a team.  With her support and the support of the PTA, we are planning to create our first ever Lego Robotics Junior League team this fall!  The team will likely be open to Kindergarten- 3rd grade students (ages 6-9).  This year's theme is "Disaster Blaster", focusing on how to recover from natural disasters. 
Team Members get to:
  Design and build challenge solutions using LEGO elements
  Apply real-world math and science concepts
  Research challenges facing today’s scientists
  Learn team building and presentation skills
  Develop Show Me poster
 
You can read a bit about how it all works here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/jr.fll.  There is also a cute and short video here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/JrFLLGlobal.  Over the course of a 6-8 week after-school program, students work as a team to respond to the challenge:
http://www.juniorfirstlegoleague.org/the-challenge.html

Image from JFFL website

 Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about the program!

Contruction Update #4

Another few weeks have flown by and Mrs. Farnell and I are back to work today.  Not at Lopez...but at our temporary digs over at McLopez (a.k.a. McGraw).
We took a tour this morning of the construction work, and there is still a whole lot left to do.  However, the office area might be done enough for us to move in next week.  Keep your fingers crossed!  As a safety reminder, please keep away from the construction zone.  There have been reports of children meandering through the parking lot at Lopez and onto the playground.  Several trucks come and go through there all day, and I want to make sure you all return to school in one piece!

This is the new doorway into the office area.  Mrs. Gilmour and Mrs. Farnell will be smiling back at you!

PSD's Greg McGaffin is standing where new carpet will be laid in the entry way.  The ceiling is open above the doors to complete the wiring for new entry scanners and handicap buttons.

 

Mrs. Farnell and I look like we starred in Despicable Me with our yellow hard hats!

No desks or chairs in here...just miles of sheet metal.

New bathroom partitions are in!  They are color-coordinated with the floor tile.

All of the SmartBoards, furniture, and other surface areas remain covered in plastic to make our move-in easier!

Summer Construction Update #3

Happy July Lopez Families!

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July and celebrated our nation's independence with great fun and frivolity.  As President John Adams declared, the 4th of July should be "solemnized with Pomp and Parade." 

I started teaching classes last week for Colorado State, so it took some schedule rearranging to get back over to Lopez for a construction update.  There is so much construction that I have to trade out my flip-flops at the front door for closed toed shoes and a hard hat.  Things have really transformed since my last post.  The front office has had some pretty dramatic changes.  The wall between the principal's office and the main office has come down.  They are preparing to create a doorway into what used to be the principal's office from the airlock.  I will be moving my office into an adjacent conference room.

What remains of the principal's office.  The brick area on the left shows where the new entrance door will be into the main office.


As part of the scheduled bond projects, all schools that do not have a secure entry way received modifications.  The previous entry layout permitted visitors to enter the school without needing to go through the office to check in.  The new layout will have a locked entryway that funnels all visitors through the office to check-in before proceeding to the rest of the building. Additionally, this plan doubled the size of the office area where Mrs. Gilmour and Mrs. Farnell sit.  There wasn't much room for very many parents, kids, staff, or visitors in that small space before.

The expanded office area.



Hmm...which way is the exit?



 

 

Additionally, all of the classrooms will have this high tech looking unit that will help to diffuse the air and create better air flow, thus improving our learning environments.  These metal cabinets did have to take the place of bulletin boards or white boards in the classrooms- you can see the outline of a bulletin board that used to be there.  To place these units, miles of new duct work had to be run through all of the ceilings.  We are looking forward to the many improvements!

This is the new unit that will be placed in each classroom to better control air circulation.

Skylights?  Not really, just temporarily while the duct work is completed.

The tin man visited Lopez and left some things behind in the blue pod.

Write Me!

I remember coming back to school after a summer vacation.  The teacher gave us a writing assignment on the first day of school.  I picked up my newly sharpened pencil and found that my hand muscles could barely wrap themselves around the pencil.  What was so easy three months ago was now a challenge!  While I'd read a lot of books and swum a lot of laps in the pool, I hadn't wrapped my hand around a pencil for weeks.  Find ways to keep your kids writing over the summer: grocery lists, stories, high frequency words, poems, vacation journals, facts about favorite topics, or letters to friends and families!  If your child writes a letter to Dr. Gile, she will write back! Email is best since US Mail isn't delivered again until July 29. Keep writing Lopez!

New staff members for 2013-14

Please help me welcome four new staff members to Lopez Elementary.  These outstanding people were selected by various teams from Lopez to join our school.

Michele Bishop, Counselor:  Michele will be at Lopez on Tuesday and Thursday and at Bacon on M, W, F.  Michele most recently has been the counselor at O’Dea Elementary and previously worked at the Mountain Schools.  

Hollie Johnson, 4th grade:  Hollie will be joining the 4th grade team this year.  Mrs. Delehoy is taking a year off to raise her daughter due in August and young son.  Hollie is currently a K-5 Instructional Math Coach in Xenia, Ohio.  She has held this position for the last three years.  Prior to this role, she worked in North Carolina as a 3^rd, 5^th , and 6th grade teacher.  She has been a Math Teacher Leader, PTA Liaison, PBiS team co-chair, and School Improvement Plan Committee Chair.

Heather Kholif, 2^nd grade:  Heather most recently worked as an English teacher in Egypt, teaching 2^nd-HS students.  Prior to that, she was an instructional coach, second, and first grade teacher in Thompson School District.  She has been on the Leadership Team, PBiS committee, Reading and Writing Task Force, and Collaboration Negotiations team.

Karrie Rolwes, 1^st grade:  Karrie is currently a kindergarten teacher at Zach Elementary.  Prior to this position, she was a primary teacher and Title 1 teacher in both Greeley and Loveland school districts.  Additionally, Karrie has been on the PBiS committee, E2T2 iPad grant recipient, Wal-Mart iPod grant recipient, and District Technology Coach.

Construction Update #2

On Tuesday, June 18, I attended the weekly construction update at Lopez.  Wow!  They made a lot of progress in just two weeks.  All of the new lunch tables are in, and they look great.  There are little keys that go in each table to release them from the wall.  The biggest changes have been in the office, hallways, and classrooms.  Everything is covered in either paper or plastic, except for the ceiling.  All of the ceilings have disappeared.  They have started pulling the old duct work out to make way for the new HVAC components which will help to regulate our interior temperatures a bit. 
Sitting in on the construction meetings is very interesting.  They go through what projects have been accomplished for the week, what issues they may have encountered, and how to resolve them.  A big thank you to the Fort Collins community for investing in their public schools!
 

The office demo begins!  The first thing out is the ceiling...

 

Hard hats only now.  Mrs. Gilmour would sure need one if she were working at her desk!

 

Everything in the library is covered in plastic to protect books from dust and debris.

 

Guess this classroom?  When the old vents were removed, it looks like the outline of a fireplace on the wall.

 

Demo starts in the yellow hallways.

 

Guess this classroom?  Only two walls left untouched in this room.

Lopez summer construction begins!

When Lopez students left on Friday afternoon, the construction trucks pulled in right after the school buses sped away.  Teachers and staff spent all afternoon and through the weekend packing boxes and moving furniture to make way for our school improvements.  By Monday afternoon, the first changes had already begun.  By Thursday morning, it was too hazardous for Mrs. Farnell and I to stay in the building.  They packed us up and deposited our few belongings at McGraw Elementary, where we will have a temporary office until the construction is finished.

I'll try to keep you updated throughout the summer as I can.  I will have limited access to the building as well, but will try to get a few pictures as construction moves along!

Look what is behind all of the lunch tables!

Wow!  Where did everything go from Mrs. DiOrio's classroom?

The blue commons looks a little different these days...

Making way for all new lunch tables in the flex room.

Dr. Gile, Mrs. Farnell, and Mrs. Gilmour have left the building!