Congratulations to all of our 2018 area high school and college graduates. This week, students from Martin Luther College (MLC) will graduate and go on to start their next chapter in life. While it isn’t widely known, we have a great partnership with MLC. We have students from MLC in our classrooms as they work on requirements to complete their teacher preparation program. MLC students also work with our Jefferson Elementary students in the iTutoring program that serves to help elementary students gain literacy skills and provides teaching opportunities for the MLC students. Additionally, MLC students work in our Kids Connection program to help provide educational and recreational instruction during the school year. We thank all of them for their work and wish them well as they start their professional careers.

We are in the home stretch of the school year. This means we will have many events, activities and requirements to complete before June 1. With only a few weeks of school remaining, we will be working hard to fit all events in. We try to keep our parents and community updated on events happening in our schools. The following link will take you to our events calendar that shows you the non-athletic events happening in our schools: https://www.nupseagleshop.com/insight/affinety/modules/calendar/calendar.asp.

Each spring we say good-bye to staff members who retire, move or take a position with a different organization. We would like to thank them for the work they did for our students and the positive impacts they made. Working in education today is not an easy task and it takes a special person who is willing to commit each day to working with students as young as three and as old as nineteen. With these changes comes the work to fill vacancies and re-align positions. Our leadership teams are working to fill these positions for the next school year.

While the school year officially ends for students on June 1st, there will be many events happening after that date. Staff will return to complete professional development work, select students will begin summer school and we will host our first ever Career Technical Education (CTE) summer academies. Students will have the opportunity to take CTE courses during the month of June as a way to earn additional credits, learn more about a particular trade and work with local businesses and industry on job shadowing.

Select teachers will be working with teams to update curriculum and planning for common assessments that will roll out next fall. Most people think a school job is only nine months, but it is really more than that. Our staff spend time in the summer to get additional training, develop new lessons for the upcoming school year and attend professional development seminars that support what we are doing in our schools.

Go Eagles!