Last Wednesday night we hosted back to school night. We opened the night with a blessing from Father Rene and a few remarks from Mr. McFall. The night was an opportunity for families to visit their student's classrooms and teachers. The faculty was excited to share the learning environments they are creating for the students with their families. Our faculty used it as an opportunity to share curriculum, instructional methods, behavioral expectations, and share opportunities for volunteering in our school.
At Saint Olaf's we believe we all need to engage in learning. This year as a staff we have been discussing learning loops. Learning loops take many forms. However, for our team, we have been using a loop that involves the following elements; 1. Introduce an idea, 2. Build on the concept, 3. Produce, 4. Measure understanding, 5. Collect and evaluate data, 6. Learn from the process, 7. Further our understanding/knowledge. To model the learning loop, we are asking our students to engage in we will be surveying our stakeholders. Our back to school night was our first opportunity to survey our families with a survey to gather feedback and data.
Numerous parents responded to our survey after the event. 87% of those parents who responded to our post-event survey attended our back to school night. Of those who attended our parents are grateful to the 45% of you signed up to volunteer in the school. Strong Catholic schools like ours thrive in part because of the spirit of volunteerism and engagement from their stakeholders. We offer our gratitude to all those parents who signed up to help at the back to school night. If you are still looking for opportunities to volunteer at Saint Olaf's, please keep your eye on the website for openings.
Our parents also share their highlights experiences from back to school night via our survey. Here are just a few quotes from the survey;
"Visiting the library & new computer lab, exciting to see where our kids' minds will be so engaged."
"Meeting the different teachers and seeing what my son is doing each day. I loved hearing from his teachers and principal how he's adjusting."
"Being new to the school, hearing from the representatives at the beginning, his teacher did a great job explaining her philosophy, goals, and seeing the art and technology centers and library."
"I enjoyed this teacher and her ways of teaching. Huge step up from last year."
It was great to hear all of the feedback. Our parents also provided us with some great opportunities for our school to grow. We will use a microphone in the future; we will look into if delivering childcare would be possible, and we will make sure a detailed schedule is available as far in advance of the event as possible in the future. Back to School night was an excellent opportunity for our community to spend time with each other and to grow together as a community. We will continue to RISE as a community due to our commitment to each other.