Latest News! *Click here for information regarding a new road being built along the south end of our school property boundary. *Click here for the current SCC newsletter (information on school time change, Trust Lands money, parking lot safety, and PTA Meet the Candidates Night) Cub's "Le Tour de Literature" To motivate the students to read, the School Community Council will be introducing a new reading incentive program "Le Tour de Literature". This is similar to our Rocket Reading program last year. Minutes read by each student at home will help us "virtual bike" across and around the United States. Monthly rewards, grade competitions, as well as drawings will be given throughout the year. The grade that reads the most during a month, will get to have the coveted "yellow jersey" in their hallway. Your support of this program and encouragement of your children to read is greatly appreciated. Last year we read over 1 million minutes and we hope to beat that number this year! Trust Lands Money in Action! Money from School Trust Lands in 2006-2007 was put towards reading instructors for grades 2nd through 6th. These instructors tutored small groups of students identified as reading below grade level. As a result of this effort, 72% of those children who participated were reading at or above grade level by the end of the year. We are excited to again be able to fund this program through Trust Lands for 2007-2008. Our instructors will be Gina Maxwell and Andrea Short. Both work under the direction of Paula Burns-McEvoy, our reading facilitator. In addition, new instructional reading materials were purchased to help in this effort.

Many have asked, what is the School Community Council, and what do they do? Crescent's School Community Council is a board of 5 elected parents, 3 teachers elected by the teachers at the school, and the principal. The purpose of school community councils are: to build consistent and effective communication among parents, employees and administrators; to allow parents an opportunity to be actively involved, with the school, and in their children's education; and to make good schools better. They are also responsible for decisions involving Trust Lands money for our school. This council generally meets once a month to discuss and implement issues and programs for our school.

Parent members of our council are: Sherri Bodine, Chair, Amy Bell, Jolene Reddish, Secretary, Michelle Armstrong, and Marc Hunter. Teachers are: Kathy Burton, Sherrie Andrizzi, and Paula Burns-McEvoy.

In the 2006-2007 school year, Crescent's Council discussed and implemented a variety of issues and programs:

Rocket Reading: Our 2006-2007 school reading incentive program, "Rocket Reading", was developed, funded (through Happening's Book sales), and implemented by the School Community Council. Our goal was to read to the moon, 250,000 miles/minutes. However, our goal was far exceeded, with over 1,000,000 minutes read by our students.

School Trust Lands: Every year, each school is granted money through the School Trust Lands Program by the state. This past year, this money was spent on two reading tutors that assisted our Literacy Specialist in helping students that are below grade level in reading, get additional help and tutoring daily in reading. Money was also allocated to reading materials for those tutors to assist them in their efforts. For 2007-2008, we have proposed hiring two reading tutors and one math coach. These hires will help us facilitate improvements in Math CRT scores and reading levels. In addition, money has been set aside for monthly teacher collaboration with single and multi-level grades. Our goal is to increase cohesive concept teaching. This will track that each student is taught the core elements and also will ensure that the students have been taught what the following grade level expects.

School Time Change: For the past 11 years, our school has been on the late start time. This late start time of 8:50 makes it difficult for students, faculty, and families to get to after-school appointments, scheduled extracurricular activities, etc., that often start at 4:00. Many of our students do not arrive home until 4:45, further complicating after-school scheduling. We sent a letter from the council to each of our board members, the Area Executive Director, and the transportation director to request a change. This was just one of many attempts (in many years) to get this changed. Our request was denied, based on the complexity of changing the busing schedule for the district. Although this is a setback, we intend to keep pursuing this request. A petition is being circulated to present to the Jordan District School Board. If you are interested in signing or circulating a petition in your neighborhood, please contact Jolene Reddish, 571-3044.

Safe Walking Route: A safe walking route has been developed by members on the council. A copy of this route is located in the back-to-school packet received on the first day of school.

We hope this explains some of what we are addressing. If you have any questions, please contact a member of the council.