Welcome Class & Parents

I hope that each and every one of you have enjoyed your summer. Summer has now come to an end and we are now starting a fun and inspiring school year. I am eager to get to know each one of you and have fun and grow together. This is going to be a wonderful school year packed with lots of activities, ways to earn trips and having fun while learning. I am excited that I have been given the opportunity to be your teacher, and I am looking forward to a successful school year.

Policy & Practices

In my classroom I will have an open door policy meaning that parents and or students can come and see me during school hours when I am available. Should I not be available when one arrives I will schedule a time that will work for the both of us. Students will be required to complete their work in class and occasionally their will some homework sent home that the student will need to bring back the following day. I will require students to read at least one or two books a week of their choice and parents need to sign saying the child did read. There should not be any excuses for late work, however I do understand things come up and I will work with students and parents on this. I will be available for study sessions with students three days a week but I can make alterations to accommodate students and parents. I will plan on sending grade reports to parents after each lesson is complete so parents can see how students are doing.

Rules, Consequences & Rewards

For the rules the students will be expected to respect everyone in the classroom, do not be disruptive by talking while working, be polite to everyone with no name calling and always be on time. Now the consequences students will face will vary based on whether or not they have an IEP, for the students who do not have one the consequences will be a warning, then a one on one talk between myself and the student, if this does not work then a call to the parents or guardians. For my students, they will lose their free time if we have to have a one on one conference. Should I have to call the parents then the student will lose their free time plus have to stay after school for fifteen minutes and do some work or write a letter of apology. Students will have the chance to earn money that they can use at the end of the week. The way this will work, is students will be given a dollar for every assignment they turn in on time, going all day with no warnings and being respectful the whole day. At the end of every month if all students earned money and had no issues I will buy them pizza for lunch.

Grades

Students will be graded on the work that they do. For instance, they will be graded for group participation and individual work. I will also grade them based on completion of their work as well as testing we do. The only time I will grade a student based on their spelling is if it is a spelling test otherwise I will not give a student a lower grade for a misspelled word. I will try to add a section for behavior so that I can give students a grade based on how they act in class. This will let the parents and students see if there has been any issues with behavior. I will follow the same grading scale the district has which is listed below.

94-100 A Excellent
90-93 A-

87-89 B+ Superior
83-86 B
80-82 B-

77-79 C+ Average
73-76 C
70-72 C-

67-69 D+ Below Average
63-66 D
60-62 D-

59-0 F Fail (Did Not Meet Expectations)

Communication & Contact Information 

I would communicate with parents or guardians by using email, phone calls and parent conferences. I would use the email for giving reports of how the student is doing, what things will be coming up in class and what things will take place for the whole school. I would try to limit the calls to parents so that I am not bother them if there is no reason to. However, I would make sure that if I noticed a drastic change with a student then I would talk with the parents or guardians to try and figure out what is going on so we can come up with a solution. Parents will have access to my email address and they can always reach me by calling the school during school hours. I will do my best to accommodate parents so we can make a better future for the student.