Welcome to our 2019-20 school year! We are Team Woodcrest and we are glad to have you and your students on our team! You may have heard that TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More. We believe this to be true on our campus. As a Leader in Me school, we practice the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 6 is “Synergize - Together is better”. This year, we will focus on building our team spirit, mastering the needed skills that allow us to play our best, and knocking it out of the park in terms of achievement across the grade levels.
This is my 4th year as principal of Woodcrest Elementary and our third official year as a Leader in Me school. Our students have done amazing things as they have learned and applied the 7 Habits. Last year, we had a school-wide WIG (Wildly Important Goal) of reading 75 million words as tracked through the Accelerated Reader program, a 10% increase over the previous year. Our students actually read 168 million words, a 250% increase in words read! This really demonstrated the power of goal-setting and tracking. This year our focus is on Empowering Instruction which involves building trusting relationships within the classroom and across campus, focusing on learning more than on teaching (“We learn”, rather than “I teach”), and regular collaborative planning and reflection, for both teachers and students, resulting in continuous improvement. There will be more information provided as the year progresses so that you can support these skills at home with your child, as well. Watch this website for newsletters, upcoming events, and important information.
The success of each Woodcrest student depends upon a strong community of support and a willingness to work toward common goals. I encourage you to become as involved as you are able to be in the school community. Besides volunteering directly in your child’s classroom, you could join our wonderful Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) that provides many enriching and exciting activities and events for all of our students. In order for the PTA to do its good work, many volunteers are needed throughout the year. See the Calendar of Events for tentative dates and times, and check out the PTA website at http://www.woodcrestpta.org and Facebook page at Woodcrest Elementary PTA
In our Parent Handbook, you will find information about daily schedules, student dress code, behavior expectations, and much more. Please be sure to sit and read it over with your student so that everyone is informed about school policies and procedures. Keep the handbook in a place where you can pull it out and refer to it often. It has contact information for your child’s teacher, the school office, the cafeteria, and others you may wish to reach during the year. Good communication is the key to mutual understanding and problem-solving.
I look forward to meeting you at our Back-to-School Night on August 15th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
See you soon!
Mrs. Jeanette Prescott
Principal
