May 21 Concert 5

May 21 Concert 4

May 21 Concert 3

May 21 Concert 2

May 21 Concert Part 1

May 21 Fine Arts Performance - Video 5/5

Field Day Volunteers Needed - Tues 6/4 8am-2pm

This is a fun day and our last big volunteer event of the school year - we need help cutting up watermelons, and assisting teachers with the activities (duck duck goose, etc)

If you can help out on June 4th, please message marquettepto@gmail.com

Volunteers wanted for 1st-4th Field Trip to Pinhook Park

Contact/Email your teacher by Weds May 22 if you can help along the walk and trip to the park.
The students will have suck lunches provided, volunteers need to bring their own.
The school requested that volunteers do not bring other children

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Pictures from Meghan Esau - Fun Fair 2013

all of Meghan's pictures at this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mxex5qsu7kglnop/bcb-A4_v5I

Bridging Day - 2 per child, K, 3rd & 4th

Letter will go home soon

-James

Parent Coffee - May 9th 8AM - Room 200

Heather Eschbach will lead the parent coffee group again this week.   Younger children are welcome, we just need to make sure the room is put back in order as it is used by students immediately after the coffee group is done.

Day 1 & 2 of Teacher Appreciation (Photos)

Walking School Bus - Weds May 8 @ 7:30AM

Join Marquette Primary Montessori Academy friends & families in our first ever walking school bus!  We will meet at the Family Video Parking Lot on Portage and be accompanied by SBPD including Police Chief Teachman!

(click to enlarge)

Quick Note about Progress Reports & Montessori

The final progress reports of the year were sent home recently.

Montessori doesn't typically have "grades" in the same way that traditional schools do, but the school is  required to use the same progress report system as other SBCSC schools.  The compromise that the staff was able to reach with SBCSC was to use the "Non Mastery, Partial Mastery and Mastery" designations instead of A-F letter grades.

Parents interested in seeing more specific information about their child(ren)'s progress can log in to Power School.  You will see a list of subjects and you can see scores for specific assignments.

As an example, Carter's Science grade on the Progress Report (the paper sent home) said "PM" because his overall score was 40/80 or 50%, but that's really just due to two assignments not yet being complete - you can see this information on Power School:

(click to enlarge):

In order to login to Power School for the first time, you need an "Accesss ID" and password, which were sent home to parents in February.  You can request the information from the office again if you can't find the paper.

Dave Kurtz: Fiasco shows why tests can be overrated

http://www.kpcnews.com/columnists/dave_kurtz/kpcnews/article_083a56fb-be6c-5a61-a259-0f61a0d961df.html

"Last week, Hoosier educators expressed shock at the ineffectiveness of a testing company used by Indiana schools.

CTB McGraw-Hill could not handle the load of tens of thousands of Indiana students taking their ISTEP+ achievement tests online at the same time.

The incident raises a bigger question. Even when the tests work, how effective are they in their intended function — measuring the performance of students, teachers and school systems?

In a response last fall to the debate over testing, the Indiana Department of Education pointed out that students actually spend very little time on state-required tests — between 4.5 and 6.25 hours per year. That adds up to one school day, or less, out of 180 total days of school.

For something that takes so little time, Indiana is relying heavily on those tests to make important decisions about education.

We use test scores to decide the future of students, and now they could affect the pay rates and evaluation ratings of teachers. We make decisions about the competence of school administrators. We’re going to use them to decide which schools and school districts will be the winners and losers in state funding.

We suspect school principals and other administrators have been fired because their schools scored badly on ISTEP+ tests.

Indiana has placed incredibly high stakes on testing that takes up the equivalent of a single school day.

What about the other 179 school days? Maybe they should carry more weight than a few hours of testing.

Last week’s testing fiasco should make us stop and think.

Maybe the best judge of a student’s ability is a teacher who spends 180 days in a classroom with that child.

The most accurate evaluator of a teacher’s effectiveness ought to be the principal who oversees that teacher for an entire school year. To ensure that outcome, every school should be equipped with a principal who has demonstrated classroom ability and can provide sound advice and mentoring for teachers.

Perhaps the true judges of a school or school district’s success should be the parents of its students.

After all the disruption, Indiana should place less weight than usual on the outcome of this spring’s testing.

Under normal circumstances, testing can play an important role. Without it, parents might not realize how their schools and school districts compare to others across Indiana.

Low test scores for students, classrooms, schools and school districts — especially over more than a single year — can serve as a basis for asking questions and looking for remedies.

But we should be careful about assigning too much importance to standardized tests. As last week’s events proved, they clearly are far from perfect."

Ted Church Featured on Front Page of SB Tribune

Marquette teacher's lessons transcend academics

Early childhod educator awarded by Magnet Schools of America

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/sbt-marquette-teachers-lessons-transcend-academics-20130501,0,3567238.story

Marquette hits $2,000 Box Tops Goal for 2012-2013

Thanks to all of the efforts of our families, students and staff (especially Mrs Springstead and Mrs. Regueiro), we have officially hit our $2,000 goal for Box Tops for Education!  

We have completed our "pink stairs" and we are now working on the "brown tower" to the right.