Happy Thanksgiving

As I am thinking about all of the things that I am thankful for, I have the usual list of family, friends, a warm home, food on the table, healthy children, etc...  I am so blessed and fortunate to have all of these things and I will always be thankful.

I am also lucky enough to be thankful for being a part of the Prairieland Cougar family.  I love coming to work every day because Prairieland is such a wonderful place to be!  Every morning when I come to school, I have students who smile and greet me or respond enthusiastically to my greetings.  Each day I get to witness or hear about student successes.  Just today (in just one hour of school so far) I was able to celebrate with a second grader who earned stickers for working towards a goal that we set for him a couple of weeks ago.  I celebrated with several kindergarten students who earned stickers for making good choices and following expectations in the classroom.  I celebrated with a third grader who moved up 7 reading levels in just 2 1/2 months!  I get to go into classrooms and see students excited about learning and working hard.  I get to see the smiles on their faces when they succeed and when they are pleased with their work.

I am so thankful that we have parents who are excited and willing to be involved in the education of their children!  I greatly appreciate the fact that parents share concerns with me and are willing to be a part of the solution.  I also appreciate the fact that parents take the time to tell me about the good things that they are seeing at our school. 

I am thankful that I get to work with such a wonderful staff every day.  They make me smile, they make me proud to be a Cougar, they amaze me, and sometimes they make me cry because I am so touched by their passion. 

I know this post is kind of a repeat of my last post, but this month of Thanksgiving has really gotten me thinking about how blessed I am to be at Prairieland!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Enjoy the time with family and friends.

Prairieland success

As our staff has been studying the student data from Prairieland, we feel tremendous pride for all of the success that our students have had and continue to have.  We will, of course, continue to look for areas for improvement, but we also like to take time to celebrate the successes!

Here are some of the things that we want to celebrate:

• 92% of our students met or exceeded on the Reading ISAT last year and no one scored in the warning range.
• 97% of our students met or exceeded on the Math ISAT last year and no one scored in the warning range.
• In Reading, Math, and Language Usage, our mean RIT scores on the MAP testing exceeded the National Norms at every grade level for the fall term. 
• Our students have an attendance rate of over 96%.

I could, of course, go on an on about the successes that we celebrate daily.  I am so proud of our Cougars and the hard work that they put into their learning. 

There are many reasons for the success of the students at Prairieland:

• We have a supportive and encouraging parent community.  This support includes volunteering at school, encouragement at home to value education, assistance at home on homework and practice activities, attendance at school events, parent support of teacher initiatives and interventions, and much more! 
• We have an outstanding staff.  The staff at Prairieland cares about the whole child, works tirelessly to find the best way to educate the students, uses creativity to "hook" students, meets students where they are ready to learn, and much more!
• We have great students who want to learn.  Our students are respectful, they work hard, they understand their responsibility in the learning process, and they are motivated to be the best they can be.

Thank you for your continued support.  During this time of Thanksgiving, I have to say that I am thankful to be surrounded by such a phenomenal group of people who are all united by the desire to "Educate each student to achieve personal excellence"! 
It's a GREAT day to be a Cougar!