New Friends

This is a shout out to my new friends from Coppell ISD.  :)

This past Friday, we were so thrilled to have visitors from Coppell ISD, which is outside of Dallas, Texas.  Earlier in the school year, I was contacted by a representative from the district.  She had found my name from the LME website.  She shared that Austin Elementary School in Coppell was interested in SEM. They have sent 16 staff members over the past two years to Confratute at the University of Connecticut.  Confratute is the conference/institute that occurs every summer that Dr. Renzulli, Dr. Reis and UConn staff plan and organize. I told them that they were more than welcome to visit and we made the arrangements.

In all, Coppell ISD sent the principal, assistant principle, TAG teacher, Dyslexia teacher, Technology Specialist and grade level teachers from Austin Elementary School, along with the Director of Elementary Education and Director of Strategic Initiatives.

Jan Richards and I took our new friends on a tour of the school while E-slot and Enrichment Clusters were happening.  They were so impressed with our students, teachers, hallways, student work, bulletin boards and the overall positive atmosphere of LME.  During the tour they were recording with their FLIP camera, taking notes on their i-pads, taking pictures with their i-phones and tweeting about their experience.  It was so fun to see their excitement and enthusiasm.  The assistant principal promised that he would send us a copy of the video that he is going to make with the footage of their visit (just a little reminder).

After the tour, we had a panel of several students from our Leadership Team, one parent and three LME teachers available to answer questions and talk about what SEM looks like at Laurel Mountain.  The students were fabulous and had valuable insight on what SEM means to them.  The staff from Coppell were able to ask honest questions to our teachers.  My hope is that we were able to give them useful information that they can take back to their staff.

I look forward to having further conversations with our new friends from Coppell and maybe even taking a trip up there to say hello!  It was inspiring and really fun to share all of the fabulous things that we do at LME to make this such a remarkable school. 

I was very proud and honored to show our visitors around and represent our amazing staff.  And it was very encouraging that these teachers from Coppell ISD found uour school, read about what we are doing and wanted to visit to find out more.  I think that is a huge compliment to the great work that is accomplished at LME everyday.  And that is thanks to our teachers, staff, students and parents.

Continuing to develop the whole child, by building a Texas community...