Dear Reader:

I begin this blog by posing a question for parents to reflect on:  How is your child practicing the Janssen Way outside of school?  Each day we integrate the principles of the Janssen Way (our community values:  honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility) in everything we do and work hard to have our students make connections to why it is important to practice the Janssen Way at school.  Our hope with such a daily focus is for our students to practice making good decisions and making meaning for themselves on the importance behind why we do the Janssen Way.  In other words, we want our students to find value in the Janssen Way.  The question posed to parents at the start of this newsletter is to have them reflect on whether our students are transferring their understanding of the Janssen Way by practicing our community values outside of school—for example:  at home, in the neighborhood, or at the grocery store. 

We continue to learn from our experiences and refine our practices in order to make the Janssen Way more meaningful for our students.  We additionally welcome parent feedback to improve on what we do around the Janssen Way.  For more information on the Janssen Way, please go to our school’s webpage and link to “The Janssen Way” tab or contact your child’s teacher.  We do great things at Janssen and want parents to be a part of our experiences.

Sincerely,

Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

This month our Janssen Way-PBIS group want to make connections to what we do at Janssen around PBIS with parents.  Sharing Kindness Hearts is the venue for making the connection with our families.  As families fill out the paper hearts with words of kindness, we will be displaying them on our lunch room windows for several weeks.  Kindness is one of our 4 Community Values for our district.  It is so important for our students to see acts of kindness each and every.  The experiences between parents and their children provides multiple exposures to acts of kindness.  By having these paper hearts displayed in our lunchroom over the next few weeks adds to these experiences.

I want to thank our Janssen Staff for pushing these experiences out to our families and our families for contributing to these experiences.  These actions serve as another example of building capacity as a Janssen Community.

Sincerely,

Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

Every Thursday at our Morning Paws we sing our school song.  Our school song aligns with our district's Community Values and our commitment to the Janssen Way.  Below are the words to our school song:


We've got kindness, honesty,
Respect, responsibility, (clap)
We're the Janssen Bulldogs (woof!)

We are bright, we are strong,
We are friends the whole day long (clap, clap)
We're the Janssen Bulldogs (woof!)

We love to learn we like to give,
We use our strengths for how we live (clap, clap)
We're the Janssen Bulldogs (woof!)

We are positive and fun.
We use teamwork to be one (clap, clap)
We're the Janssen Bulldogs. (YEAH!)



When our student body sings this song in our small gym to start our day...simply awesome!

Sincerely,
Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

In wanting for our students and staff to practice our Janssen Way with fidelity, we realize that we need to provide boosters--timely re-teaching opportunities.  These boosters allow for our school to re-acclimate the concepts and beliefs of the Janssen Way to each other resulting in a re-vitalizing or re-energizing of our school culture--similarly to how we start the school year.  With the start of second semester, we will provide based on the data we collect learning boosters for our students.  What makes these boosters successful is the buy-in from our staff.  Our staff has seen directly how the Janssen Way has changed our school culture and wants for our students to be successful each and every day.  Providing  boosters is just a natural way of thinking for us.

Sincerely,

Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

I wish each Janssen Family a happy 2013 and welcome our students back from our winter break.  As we welcome our students back, we are cognizant to give each classroom a Janssen Way booster to re-acclimate them to our Body and Line Basics and remind them about our voice levels through the building.  What is so exciting about coming back from winter break is...once again working with our students.  Our teachers' energy cells have been refueled, and they ready to continue to engage and challenge our students into meeting and/or exceeding our learning proficiency levels.
Our Morning Paws 'sets the stage' for our students each day.  Today is a bit more special based on teachers and students seeing each other for the first time in a week and a half.  I saw so many happy and cheerful faces today at Morning Paws--staff and students.  It is so GREAT to be a part of a GREAT school with such GREAT people.

Happy 2013!

Sincerely,

Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

The opportunities for teaching and reteaching the Janssen Way is not only to set or re-establish our norms and expectations in a timely manner but also to approach happenstance in a similar way.  This past weekend we experienced our first 'snow storm' of the year.  Our first snowfalls are a great opportunity to remind our students about bringing their snow pants and snow shoes, walk and not run on the sidewalks, and be very careful when crossing and the crosswalks.  Sharing these reminders with students is all about building their competence to the Janssen Way by wanting them to be responsible and safe.  Out teachers will revisit these practices with our students throughout the week.

Our Morning Paws reflection for the week is:  "What goes around comes around"...i.e. if we are to say thank you to some one who helps us they too will say thank you the next time you help them.

Sincerely,
Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

Last week we held an all school assembly in honor of our students--more specifically to recognize our students for practicing our Janssen Way.   We took the time to acknowledge the efforts that our students put into the Janssen Way each and every day at school.  We showed them video samples of our How To Videos on the Janssen Way.  Our students were simply awesome in how respectful they were when adults presented and throughout the video clips.  Over 415 students in our large gym with no need to redirect or pause.

For me what was equally rewarding was the effect the assembly had on our staff.  Our staff were just as appreciative of the event, the recognition to our students, and the video clips.  As they were sitting with their students, I saw our staff's smiles and heard their laughter/applause in unison with our students'.  

Our Janssen Way has, is, and will continue to make a positive impact on our students, staff, and parents.  We believe it and see it, daily.  You too can see this impact...so if you can, pop in to see our Morning Paws or volunteer in your child's classroom.

Thank you,
Mr. Nikolaou