Welcome Back

Welcome back to Oak Grove High School for the 2001-2012 school year!! I am looking forward to another great year!!  I will be updating our activities here, as well as in a Google Calendar to help you stay up to date with events that are coming up.  Once I get the dates for all of our Special Olympic events, I will send you the link to the calendar. 

Some food for thought

So, it appears that our summer is quickly passing by.  I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and having a safe one!!  

It appears that we will not be participating in as many Special Olympic and Community-based Instruction activities this school year, due to budget constraints. However, I will try to make sure we have the same level of experiences, just on a smaller scale.  One of the things that is in danger of being cut is the Exceptional Prom.  I know how much we all look forward to this.  I hope that we can join with Hueytown High and McAdory to have our own Prom at one of the schools. We may try to do it during the school day, as the Exceptional Prom has been done, or we may try to have an evening event.  I know enough musicians that I think we can get a live band to play, volunteering their time.  Parent's I will need you to help with providing food or finding someone to donate food.  While we will be planning for April or May, we need to start planning ASAP!!


Dr. Robertson

March 6, 2011

This week 7 members of our class and I will be going to Montgomery for the State competition in Special Olympics Basketball.  This is an overnight trip!!! There will be a substitute at school with Mrs. Richards and the few students that are not going on this trip. 

Some reminders for those attending the trip:  We will leave school at 8:30 on Thursday morning.  Be at school, with your luggage.  Parents should bring any medicine and make sure you give that directly to me!!  Students will need money for lunch on Thursday and for the hotel vending machine.  All other meals will be provided.  Please make sure you pack all needed personal hygiene items and remember the tennis shoes for competition.  We will be wearing our uniforms for competition, but your child will need clothing to change into after the games on Friday!!

We  have Special Olympic Soccer this month also.  This event will be March 24h.

Several have asked about the Exception Prom.  That event will be April 12 at the BJCC Grand Ballroom.  Please be thinking about dresses and formal wear.  If you need assistance finding the appropriate clothing for your child, let me know.  We have access to some items.

Fundraising Update

Our efforts to raise money for the functional skills program has pretty much come to a standstill.  However, we did get about 450 dollars in donations from my friends and friends of friends (Now my new friends!!)  There are a lot of good people out there willing to chip in on a good cause!!

I have decided to approach this program in a different way.  Instead of buying the lab package with 20 ipod touch, I am going to go through the county bid list and buy ipod's and then buy parts of the program.  We can pick and choose the parts of the program that I think would be most beneficial to my students and then add as we get more money.  I am going to try to start with 2 ipod's and one part of the program and then buy more as we can!!

We did raise about 200 dollars with our Alabama/Auburn Coin drop and button sales.  This money went into our Special Olympics Account, so we can continue going to our competitions. Each time we go to an event we spend between 80 and 160 dollars, depending on where the event is held and who drives us.  Sometimes our work instructor, Mrs. Harris, is able to drive us and since she is being paid as a teacher, we are not charged for a driver. However, if we need a bus driver, it cost us 11:40 an hour to pay her, from the time we leave the school to the time we return.  That adds up very quickly.  We also have to pay $1.25 a mile for gas.  When it is 18 miles to the interstate from the school, you can see that mileage adds up VERY quickly.  For that reason, we need to continue raising more money for Special Olympics or find a company to sponsor us. Maybe you know  a business owner that could adopt our class??

We also have another project I would like to pursue, which is a photography program.  I have submitted a project o Donorschoose.org.  Right now, as one of Oprah's favorite things, Bing is giving people a $5.00 donation code that they can use to donate $5.00 to the project of their choice. You can get to this at
http://www.bing.com/gives/Default1.aspx#fbid=F2Aw1g8iHz5&wom=false  click on help now and follow the instructions to get you code.  Then you can find our project by searching by zipcode 35023.  When I do that our project is the first one to come up.  It is listed as "life in Pictures" Go get your 5 dollars code and donate toward this project!! 40 codes can go towards this project.

December Activities

Well, we are back after a relaxing week-long Thanksgiving break.  We have three weeks of school before our Christmas Break!!  I can't believe how fast this year is going!!!  We are planning a trip to the Galleria. We are aiming for December 6th--Next Monday!!! We will window shop, ride the carousel and have lunch at the food court!!  Students will need money for lunch and the carousel, however, if money is a problem, let me know.  I don't want anyone to miss out because of finances!!

We are still taking orders for specialty buttons.  We need all orders by December 10th so we can make the buttons and get them to you to deliver!!

We will have our Christmas Party on December 17th. 

Personal Learning Networks

As part of a class I have been taking, I have been learning about personal learning networks.  To be honest, although I already had a blog, a Facebook Account and a Twitter account, I never thought of them being professional tools. There are a couple parents of students I communicate with through Facebook, but still thought of Facebook as being more of a social outlet, than a professional tool.

After seeing the benefit of having a PLN I decided to create a new blog, one specifically for my classroom.  I have decided this is a great way to keep parents and other interested people up to date on current events in our classroom.  I hope some of my parents will utilize this tool.

I also see that Twitter could be used to update parents on issues during the day, when I do not have time to make a long blog.  However, this cannot be utilized at this time, as Twitter and Facebook are blocked by our school system.  I could use my cell phone to make a short update, but cannot use the school computer.  I think that schools are shooting themselves in the foot by blocking these tools.  So many people do use these tools now, it may be the easiest way to keep parents involved.I cannot do much about the sites the school system chooses to block, but when I find tools that are not blocked, I will utilize them.

I am touching on two of the three questions put forth in the class, even though I was only required to comment on one of them.  My PLN had certainly grown and I plan to continue to use the class blog for informing parents of goings on and for posting pictures of our events. I will explore some of the other things we learned about in class, but I see blogging as perhaps the best tool for me to use at this time.  I can not only use the class blog, but can follow blogs related to exceptional education and issues I find important. 

The questions I am addressing are:

1. Reflect on how your personal learning network has changed and grown during the course of this workshop. Discuss your plans for how you plan to continue to grow your learning network and how you hope to contribute to the professional learning of your administrative colleagues.
2. Reflect on the current policies in place regarding social networking in your school or district. How has this workshop shaped your opinions about the potential of these tools to facilitate learning and collaboration? What are the challenges you face regarding incorporating these tools and allowing teachers and students to network virtually? Describe how you plan to address these challenges in the coming school year.