Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Pre-Service 2012 is history

We tried some new things for Pre-Service this year:
1. The back to school family gathering at my house was successful as the 40 plus people that attended (I hope) had a good time. We will plan to continue that for next year.
2. The blood draw (aka finger prick) was a new thing and to start on that, I need to apologize as we were upgraded to the vile of your blood vs. the finger prick. I have no idea why they gave us the better test. Patti tried to talk to people as they came in, but I understand the change issue. Now that we have a year in on this, we will better know what questions to ask and how to notify people better. We appreciate your cooperation as we needed to hit the thresholds on the assessments to lock in our cap on insurance rates at a maximum of 8% increase for next year. This is very important to all employees with insurance as this increase in cost will most likely need to be the amount that is passed on to us. What ever health insurance goes up, that amount will most likely be what we will be paying for a premium increase starting July 1, 2013. Obviously, as close to a zero increase as possible helps all of us. Plus, and more importantly, the testing and the followup has the potential to give us  information to help us all to be a bit healthier. Most likely we will have something along these lines for next year, but for now we are not sure exactly what the followup will look like.
3. We are continuing to formalize the emphasis on cross disciplinary approaches and vertical professional learning communities (such as STEM and Humanities).
4. From what we are hearing on feedback, the Google training was great. We will most likely continue that approach for next year.

Next year:
1. For those of you who were not in the first round of Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training this year, this is fair warning that you are to plan on it for next year - book it in. By planning to train all employees, and bus drivers, we are going way over the minimums as expected under the state laws, but this is an important topic that we desire to stay ahead of. This is an intensive 8 hour long training that covers a lot of material.
2. We do not have any solid plans for the community tour for next year, so if you have ideas, let us know. The Cabela's tour was excellent. We are so fortunate to have great partners in this community.
3. If you know of ways we can improve the Pre-Service week let us know.

We never have enough time in Pre-Service to accomplish all that is needed. With the trainings on new programs, and required meetings, many of you got booked in fairly solid. These events and changes are needed to stay ahead of the curve and to set ourselves apart. As I noted in the presentation, we are a great school that is striving toward being the best school. You are all important in this mission. Have a great school year and Thank You!

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