Thursday, April 7, 2011

The Brickton Weekly, April 8, 2011

Brickton’s Strategic Plan
As you may know, Brickton embarked on the process of developing a new strategic plan over the last year. The process of developing our plan was truly invigorating. The thoughtful input we received from our faculty, staff, parents, Board members, and students (even if they didn’t know it) energized us and helped us define what we want to be and what we need to do to get there.

Our plan is a roadmap for the next several years that will help us achieve our vision – to be the independent school of choice in our surrounding community by delivering the finest quality Montessori education through continued inspirational teaching, a focused curriculum, and sustained operational excellence.

We established goals in six overarching areas that represent the keys to our continued success: Education, Community, Finance, Gifting, Marketing, and Operations. Over the next several months, we would like to share with you some of the key components of our plan. Today, I would like to highlight Education.

Our primary Education goal is to maintain our Montessori and ISACS accreditation and to offer a distinguishing educational experience to attract and retain students. To that end, we have established three workstreams:

  • Articulating a continuum of outcomes, aligning curriculum to outcomes, assessing outcomes and curriculum against state and national standards
  • Developing a Portrait of the Graduate that defines our mission and values
  • Updating our progress reports toward consistency across all levels
  • Creating a stand-alone document that illustrates the logical content sequence of our curriculum across all our programs (Toddler through Middle School)

These activities are not only critical to continuing to provide the highest quality Montessori education to our children, but also are designed to help us improve the way we communicate with current and potential parents.

Our plan is a living document and we are always striving to improve our school each and every day. My door is always open for anyone who wants to share his or her thoughts and concerns. I look forward to continuing to work with you and your children.

In peace and friendship,

Debbie

Prettying Up the Playground
It's Spring Clean-up time at Brickton! Please join us in beautifying our playground.  Lots of helping hands (children and adults) are needed to lay new wood chips on the playground.

When: Saturday, April 30th at 10 a.m.

If you can, please bring your wheel barrel, shovels and rakes.  Please RSVP to Jackie at jackie.toro@brickton.org.  We look forward to seeing you then!

Brickton’s Bowling Bash
bowling The Bowling Bash is Saturday, April 9th, from 12 to 2 p.m.  Fill out the form
to RSVP and turn it in to the main office.


New AED in Brickton’s LobbyAED
Thanks to grant money from the State of Illinois, Brickton now has an  Automated External Defibrillator.  The AED is located on the east wall in the lobby (next to the fish tank), just outside the main office.

Earthquake Drill
Brickton Montessori School will be participating in an area-wide earthquake drill, the Great Central U.S. Shakeout, on Thursday, April 28, at 10:15 am. 

earthquakeThree important steps which may prevent injury if you are in an earthquake are:  drop (where you are), cover (your face and hands), and hold on (to something sturdy) until the shaking stops.  You can get more information about the drill and earthquake safety procedures if you visit these websites: www.shakeout.org and  www.dropcoverholdon.org

World’s Finest ChocolateWorlds Finest
Thanks to all who participated in the chocolate sale.  The World's Finest  Chocolate is scheduled to be delivered on April 14.  Extra chocolate will also be on sale for those who forgot to order or those who just want more!

Paper Recycling
recycling As you know, there are large green paper recycling bins located in the east and west parking lots.  Brickton earns free money when the paper is deposited into these bins. A representative from the Abitibi Recyling Co. recently stopped by to explain that while we are paid $5 per ton for 3 tons or less per month, we earn $15 per ton if we recycle 4 tons or more. In the year 2010, there were several months when we were just short of 4 tons.  We still managed to recycle 35.87 tons of paper and earned a total of $308.15.

Please keep filling the bins with your old newspapers, catalogs, magazines and phone books.  It's such an easy and beneficial way to earn money for our school.

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