Owls Head Central School

Welcome to Owls Head Central School

54 Ash Point Drive

Owls Head, ME 04854    

Phone 207-594-5650

Susan Stilwell - Principal

Suzanne Philbrook - Administrative Assistant

Collleen Kreps- Guidance

Lorrie Callaway - Head Teacher

The 2012-2013 RSU 13 School Calendar (printable) is available at the bottom of the page.

OWLS HEAD CENTRAL SCHOOL

2^ND TRIMESTER – HONOR ROLL 

GRADE 4

High Honors

Carson Murphy

Honors

Kasey Campbell, Tanner Castellano, Molly Gould, Nicole Ladd, Cheryl-Lynn Risch, Julie Sprayberry, Audrey Young

GRADE 5

High Honors

Bennett Penney and Sarah Spizzuoco

Honors

Dayton Dinsmore, Jackie Hall, Mattie Hooper, Skylar Kaler-Wall, Ben Ripley, John Thompson, Joshua Underdown

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 15^th – 5^th Grade Tennis – 10:30 – 12:30

May 16^th – Garden Club for Mrs. Callaway’s Class Only

May 16^th – Mindfulness: A Path to More Balance and Well Being – RDMS 3:30 – 5:30 PM

May 18^th – NO SCHOOL – Workshop Day

May 21^st – 5^th Grade step up to RDMS

May 21^st – Parents Group Meeting, 6:30 PM, Owls Head School

May 21^st – May 25^th – Scholastic Book Fair

May 24^th – Literacy Night - 5:00 – 6:30 PM

May 29^th – NWEA Testing Begins

May 31^st – Music Concert – 1:30 PM

June 1^st – 3^RD Grade to Tanglewood

June 1st    LAST DAY TO RETURN LIBRARY BOOKS

June 8^th – Beach Day – 10:00 – 1:00

June 11^th – 5^th Grade Send Off & Awards Assembly – 9:30 AM

June 11^th – Field Day - 12:30 – 2:30

June 12^th – LAST DAY OF SCHOOL – Dismissal Time is 12:00 noon

**There is NO MORE Afterschool Support Study**

LITERACY NIGHT is fast approaching. We are so excited to have you join us for our very first Literacy Night on Thursday, May 24^th, 5:00 – 6:30 PM. The evening schedule will be as follows:

5:00 – 5:30    Book Fair will be open for students and parents to purchase books and students will have the opportunity to participate in a book swap

                        5:30 – 5:45    Mrs. Eichenlaub, School Librarian will speak

                        5:45 – 6:00    Students and their parents will go to their respective classrooms to receive their summer reading materials.

                        6:00 – 6:30    Ice Cream Sundaes for all!

THE LAST DAY TO RETURN LIBRARY BOOKS is June 1^st. So now is the time to look for those books you think you may have lost. Did you look in the bottom of your cubby? Under your bed, the car seat, your backpack or bookshelf at home? If something happened to your book you may be afraid to bring it back to us. Don’t worry, accidents happen, and we will do our best to make repairs.

Please search out your books and get them back to us on or before June 1^st so we can get the library inventoried and put to bed for the summer. Don’t forget to keep reading over the summer! The local public libraries have great collections and fun summer programs to enjoy! Thank you for your help.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASSES: Students in grades 3-5 should plan on having Physical Education outside for the remainder of the school year, weather permitting. Students will be participating in units of wiffle ball, street hockey, and recreational activities. Please make sure students bring their sneakers on Monday and Wednesdays. 

PARENTS GROUP:

The Parents Group needs your help! The parents group has been dwindling and the group is now down to about 3-4 people who are willing to take time out of their very busy schedules to meet once a month. The parents group brings wonderful programs to the school and is also funding two field trips this spring (our 4^th grade trip to the Maine State Museum and State House and also our end of the year beach day to Birch Point State Park). Due to rising gas prices our field trip budget was cut by the district and the Parents Group so willing stepped in to help fund these trips for our students. The parents group also provides ways to earn money with Box Tops for Education, collecting Capri Sun and Frito Lay bags, printer cartridges and old cell phones, and the Close Buy fundraiser and Scentsy fundraiser that were held last fall. But all these fundraisers and collection of goods takes lots of willing hands. We are asking you to please try and make it a priority to come to the next Parents Group meeting so that we can continue to help fund all these wonderful opportunities for our kids. The next meeting will be held on May 21, 6:30 p.m. at the Owls Head School.

*RSU 13 CONTINUES STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS*

At the beginning of this school year, a Strategic Planning Team -- comprised of representatives drawn from our six communities, the staff, the board, and the administration -- was convened to lead a process focused on developing a five-year strategic plan for the school district. Intended to be a blueprint for action, the strategic plan will ultimately identify priorities that will be adopted by the RSU 13 School Board, and then implemented by the administration and staff. The priorities will be accompanied by a set of leading measures that will track progress and the effectiveness of the district’s education system. Areas of focus will entail teaching and learning; recruitment, retention, and evaluation of staff; financial matters; facilities; community engagement; and development.

Engaging the public and gleaning from the citizens of RSU 13 their thoughts and ideas for guiding the district toward excellence over the next five years will heavily influence the content of the strategic plan. To this end a Community Forum was held on the evening of February 29^th at Oceanside High School East in Rockland. The Strategic Planning Committee was very pleased to have over one hundred residents turn out for this event that included brief presentations relevant to RSU 13, the strategic planning process, and the emerging challenges facing our students as we look towards and plan for the future. Most importantly, forum participants had the opportunity to meet in small discussion groups and share ideas and recommendations in response to focused questions that had been designed by the Strategic Planning Team. All of the comments and recommendations received at the forum will be consolidated and analyzed so that prevalent themes and concerns can be identified, prioritized, and respectfully considered in continuing strategic planning deliberations. The Strategic Planning Team and RSU 13 School Board were also heartened and thankful to welcome parents, students, interested community members, and RSU 13 educators as forum participants.

For anyone unable to attend the forum, or for those who did attend and would like to contribute additional ideas or suggestions, please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/rsu13strategicplanning to gain access to our online questionnaire and THANK YOU for your active interest in RSU 13!

RSU 13 Text Alerts Available

The Director of Information Technology for RSU 13 has set up a server to send out text alerts for the district. If you are interested in signing up please visit:

text.rsu13.org

When entering your cell phone number, the area code is necessary, but do not use spaces or dashes.  Once you submit your cell phone number, you’ll be prompted to enter your “verification code”.  This code will be texted to your cell phone within a few minutes.
 

Please see the Upcoming Events tab for dates and events at Owls Head School!

Owls Head News

It has been an exciting start to the year, with everyone working very hard to overcome the normal “start of school” problems. Things seem to be settling in nicely now that the bus situation has been mostly resolved.

Third grade has two classrooms with a combined 30 students. They are participating in a program at Tanglewood, which the staff and students talked about during Open Doors on Tuesday, October 4. The students are successfully learning the schedule, routine, rules and layout of the school. The first district writing prompt is now behind them, and they have moved on to other academic challenges. In reading, their focus has been on decoding long words and identifying narrative elements. In writing they have learned about ideas. They are just starting unit 2 in math, which is focused on facts and fact extensions and computation.  Science has revolved around articles in the National Geographic Explorer, which Mrs. Ackor supplements with interactive Promethean board activities.  In social studies they are learning about their founding fathers, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights.  The favorite lesson each day of every 3rd grader seems to be cursive.  They can't get enough of it.

There are 21 students in 4th grade. They are just finishing unit 2 in math.  This is mostly a review on place value and landmarks for minimum, maximum, mode, range, and median.  In reading, their target skill is the decoding of unknown words by looking at root words, prefixes, and suffixes.  In writing students have finished unit 1 in the Write Traits program.

There are 20 students in the 5th grade. They are acquainted with their new and busy schedule this year. Recently, the students completed Unit 1 in Everyday Math. Currently, they are using the traditional algorithms for addition and subtraction. Students have completed the district's writing prompt. They are writing descriptive papers, after reading Rodman Philbrick's, "The Young Man and the Sea".