Dear Spruce Families,
Welcome back to school! It seems that the weather has already received the memo that school is starting! We are so excited to have you back with us for what will be another great year of learning in the Spruce community. This is an amazing time for students,families and teachers as we close the chapter on summer and open the next chapter into the 2016-2017 school year. There are lots of exciting things coming as we move into our year including Curriculum Night, Harvest Fest and a big piece news about Math at Spruce!
The staff at Spruce has an incredible opportunity to be a part of the Edmonds School District Math Initiative that will focus our professional development on Math, and implementing more effective approaches to teaching Math in classrooms for each and every student. This learning comes to us from the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership and has already had our teachers in workshops this summer!One of the most important things we are learning about is the idea of teaching and learning with a Growth Mindset.This idea centers on the idea that there really is no such thing as“Math People” or “Not Math People”. The idea is based on the work of Stanford Professors Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler and brain research that shows how well the brain can adapt to new ideas and circumstances, and that when we present Math as a way of making sense of a situation using Mathematical Thinking, we can all learn math at high levels. We are working with The University of Washington and our district Student Learning staff to support teachers to create effective, student centered lessons. We hope to collaborate to create lessons that center our instruction on students’ thinking about making sense of math concepts that are aligned with our state standards. We have had two days of intensive instruction and the feedback from staff has been extremely positive and teachers are eager to get started using what we have learned to improve your child's understanding of Math. Again, we will be working together on this all year. We will be providing more information about how you can support your student's Math learning using a Growth Mindset. As part of this work, we will be having a number of learning nights throughout the school year which will give students and parents some fun opportunities to connect about our Math and all of our learning!
It has been a summer of transition at Spruce as we said goodbye to Mrs.French this past June. I was very excited to attend the Open House last spring and meet many of you during that wonderful event. Throughout the summer,I, along with many new staff have been working to learn all we can about the caring community that is Spruce. I can't tell you how excited we are to partner with you throughout the year. Though this has been a summer of change, I and my staff are focused on your students as learners and as important members of our community. We are really looking forward to making this one of the most successful Spruce years EVER!
Very Best Wishes,
Emily Moore
Principal, Spruce Elementary School