Extra Extra Read All About It...

Dear Reader:

"Extra, extra...read all about it:  Janssen Elementary is in their 3rd year of implementing PBIS-aka The Janssen Way.  And...we started our year off with such a WOOOOF!!! from our staff and students.  We began our year with an all school assembly that we called our Boarding Ceremony.  Our staff was decked out in a Hawaiian cruise wear theme and cruise music was playing throughout the school.  Each grade level represented a cruise ship ready to embark on fantastic voyage where as a school we revisit/teach our expected community values of honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility.

[Chorus] "...because at Janssen every day...we DO the Janssen Way!"

Two weeks later, our cruise ships returned from their voyages of knowing, making meaning, and practicing our community values and docked themselves in a second all school assembly.  Here, each grade level shared their learning through writing samples about the Janssen Way.

We are four weeks into the school year and you can clearly see our students routinely and purposefully practicing the Janssen Way.  Kudos to our entire staff for facilitating our students learning in citizenship.
At Janssen, we a have a staff that sees the value in PBIS and continually push each other to support our students into practicing the Janssen Way.

To another great start to our school year...thank you all!!!

Bon Voyage
"Captain" Nikolaou :-)

Dear Janssen Readers:

I have added a poem written by one of our third grade students about teachers.  This revealed to me an example the value-laden impact our Janssen Way has on students.

Enjoy:

A Poem about Teachers

Each teacher is unique,

Each one has something in common:

One:  to teach us to stay active,

One:  to teach us to be musicians,

One:  to help us with reading and math, 

One:  to teach us with something truly amazing--The Janssen Bulldog Way.

Also thank you for making this year great!

Thank you,

Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

Two thoughts I wish to share with you...

We are in our last week of school and our Morning Paws think and reflect is on how to practice The Janssen Way during the summer in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities.  The Janssen Way does not need to be limited during the school day or within the school year.  Our staff does a fantastic job connecting the good decision making skills we expect in our school to the lives our children live outside their school.

We are finishing our second  year of The Janssen Way off the PBIS initiative in our state and we have had great experiences with what we have taught our students and what they are practicing.  The challenge for next year is sustainability and ownership.  At a minimum we need to sustain our level of implementation that we currently have and allow students to own their decision making experiences and continue to find value in the practice instead of simply teaching them how to behave and rewarding them with dog bones.  Our staff believes each of our students can make good decisions, we simply need to encourage, support, and reteach them through out the year.

In conclusion, PBIS/The Janssen Way has strengthened our building culture for our students and staff.  The impact of what we do is based on what our students do, WOOF!!!

Your Principal
Mr. Nikolaou

Booster Time

Dear Reader:

This week we began our last 8 weeks of the 2012-13 school year.  Our staff have been communicating with each other  about targeting 'booster lessons' for our students.  Boosters are indiscriminate amount of learning opportunities (based on strengths and needs) to have students practice, reflect, and refine their actions around the Janssen Way.
Quarter 4 and the anticipation it brings for students about the upcoming summer is an excellent opportunity to provide our students with booster lessons.  We are very excited about finishing the year strong.  Woof!  Woof!

Sincerely,
Mr. Nikolaou

Dear Reader:

We are currently on Spring Break for the week, but I still wanted to share with some data we have collected related to our practices of the Janssen Way--for it sets the stage for the remainder of the year. Since the start of the school year until the end of March, 95% our students have received 0-1 office referrals.  Office referrals take place based on the severity of the behavior or its frequency. This is positively phenomenal--an example of the fidelity in which our staff members integrate the Janssen Way into their daily routines.   I also believe our daily messages during Morning Paws contributes to the high percentage of students making good choices during the day.  Last week for example we target honesty throughout the week--our students were prompted each day about how and why it is important to honest.
We have a great incentive for our students this month.  The more dog bones they receive the closer to reaching the target.  I cannot give you the specifics at this time, but it does include all students who do not receive any office referrals for the month of April.  This all school event's purpose is to acknowledge to our students the thousands of good decisions they make at Janssen School.
Upon our return from Spring Break, 8 weeks of school remain.  Our staff recognize the challenges for students during this time of the year and are committed just like the start of the school to acknowledge good decisions and reteach and prompt for making good decisions.  Developing and practicing citizenship skills for  each of our students continues to be very important to our school.

Sincerely,
Mr. Nikolaou

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