Parent Information

VISION STATEMENT

"Horace May strives to be a caring learning community that values student success, communication, kindness and respect."

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice."

Peggy O'Mara

Horace May Kindness

 This passage was sent to us by one of our parents after a first grade field trip! (Our students are the BEST!)  I also wanted to let you know about the act of kindness I witnessed from our first graders on Wednesday. When we were eating lunch at PB Park, there was a boy sitting on the ground by himself. One student noticed and said that he was sitting by himself, and I suggested they go ask him if he wanted to come sit at our table, so a couple of kids did. I could tell the boy was a little uncomfortable, and he declined, so the kids came back to the table and said he didn’t want to. I said that that was ok, the important thing is that they asked. Then one boy said that he was just going to take his lunch and go sit with the boy who was alone. So he did, and then, a whole group of kids, not just from our table, but other tables picked up their lunch and sat down on the ground. About 10 kids or so total. I was just blown away, and you could just see the joy that it brought to the boy who had been alone. It was amazing to see the trickle effect of one small act of kindness. I’m not one to get emotional, but it was hard to fight back the tears welling in my eyes (thank goodness for sunglasses!). Just thought I’d pass along the note. I’m so proud of our first graders. It was a wonderful experience.

Our district is working to focus on our Minnesota Education Standards by creating proficiency scales for each standard we focus on and by creating a bank of assessments to be used across the district.  We are working on this for a number of reasons: 

*to create clarity of expectations, instruction, assessment and grades

*help us reach our goal of consistency across grade levels and buildings

*to help students wee what quality looks like

*so grades have more meaning for students and families

*make progress more visual for students

*and Standards Based Learning has been a push from the State Department of Education

Please let me know if you have any questions about Standards Based Learning.