Teacher Appreciation July 4, 2008
Posted by mvalia in IS 49, educational technology career.Tags: IS 49, student feedback
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During the cold, dark days of February, its tough sometimes as a teacher to see the impact you have on your students. At the end of the year, during yearbook signings and “you were my favorite teacher” gifts, its interesting to hear from students you thought you may not have reached or the ones that sat quietly and did their work.
Below are some pictures of cards and words students wrote as an end of the year assignment from their language arts teacher. They are not the only reason why I teach and there are many other positive affirmations along the way. But, they will make for some great motivation during the long run of standardized tests during the cold days of winter.
Click on each image to open it open larger in a new window.
Getting the Staten Island Advance to Publish Good Stories About IS 49 June 17, 2008
Posted by mvalia in IS 49.Tags: IS 49, journalism, PR, press, Staten Island Advance
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Earlier this year, our school endured some bad press about a boy who was injured and a comment our principal made about the incident. While this event could have happened in any school, the SI Advance published stories that put our school in a bad light. The stories were newsworthy and the paper had every right to publish them.
However, six months later, that boy is back and is a productive student in our school community and our school has seen a number of positive events that have gone unpublished, despite many e-mails and phone calls to the Staten Island Advance.
Since our bad press, our school has:
Won first place in the MOUSE Squad of the Year competition
Took first place in the Time Warner Cranial Crunch trivia competition
Won 8th place in the FIRST Lego robotics tournament for NYC
Improved our math and ELA scores
Has been removed from the city’s persistently most dangerous list
Opened a new media center
A colleague and I have tried to get a reporter to come to our school and write about some of these “positive” events, but they have not returned our e-mails or phone calls.
However, if you really want to get some good press about your school in the Advance, you can announce it during a PTA meeting and send the notes to the paper.
Below is a scan of the Staten Island Advance “meetings” section from Wednesday, June 11, 2008:
