Email Summer 2015 Emails / Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:57 PM

From: Daniel Roeske [mailto:roesked@gpschools.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:57 PM
To: Niehaus, Gary
Cc: GafaJ; chrisjprofeta@gmail.com; Admin All; ahmed@portraitplacegpw.com; Brian Summerfield; Cindy Pangborn; Judy Gafa; Lois Valente; Margaret Weertz
Subject: Re: Good News About GPPSS

Thanks Gary.

You are correct in that we need to get this info out into the community. I know you had met with Chamber leaders and officials from the different municipalities we serve. But we need to continue to share our Good News.

Dan

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Niehaus, Gary <Gary.Niehaus@gpschools.org> wrote:

You are right…we are proud of what we have accomplished…we can do better…we need to be able to get the word out. Our media presence is limited by a local newspaper. Radio and television are only for the bad news. So figuring out how to get this information to our communities is essential for us to prove our standing with our communities.

We rank #2 GP South and #4 GP North with our high school teachers. We rank #28 and #36 nationally as high school. The third party source gives us the credit we deserve. We rank 6^th last school year as school district. We are graduating 96% of our high school students in 2014 – 2015.

Perception is more difficult to overcome than the reality is that we are one of the best statewide and nationally.

I applaud you for taking the time to help promote us. We are not bragging…we have done our job to bring the best out of our students.

Thanks,

GCN

From: Judy Gafa [mailto:2158mos@comcast.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:03 PM
To: Niehaus, Gary
Subject: Fwd: Good News About GPPSS

This is a email that Chris sends out on a regular basis. Thought you would like to see it

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Chris Profeta <chrisjprofeta@gmail.com>
Date: August 20, 2015 at 12:13:26 PM EDT
To: Judy <2158mos@comcast.net>
Subject: Good News About GPPSS
Reply-To: Chris Profeta <chrisjprofeta@gmail.com>

There are great things happening in Grosse Pointe.

View this email in your browser

Judy,

Over the last few years, as I've attended school board meetings, I've witnessed controversy after controversy, argument after argument. Lost in all of this is the amazing work being done by our students and our teachers. You may have noticed lately, however, that the Grosse Pointe News and Grosse Pointe Times have been publishing stories that highlight our district's accomplishments. I am sending this email to share with you links to all of the great stories about our schools that have appeared in the last few weeks alone.

I know there are some in our community who feel our district's best days are behind it. I do not believe that. Yes, we have a new set of challenges today that we didn't have 20 or 30 years ago when I was a student here. But these stories show that if we work together there is no reason to look backwards and feel burdened by the challenges we face. Instead, we can look ahead and feel optimistic about the solutions we can find together.

Chris

Rocketry team hits new heights
A trio of Grosse Pointe North High School freshmen launched a rocketry team last year with the goal of qualifying for the Team America Rocketry Challenge, the world’s largest student rocket contest.

State releases five Grosse Pointe schools from Focus Schdools list
The state has removed all five of the Grosse Pointe schools that were named to the Focus Schools list during 2012, the first year the Michigan Department of Education launched its Focus School designation.

Grosse Pointe teachers named finalists in national competition
North teacher Gary Abud and South teacher Nick Provenzano are finalists for a 2015 Bammy Award for high school teachers. The other three finalists are from Indiana and Massachusetts…Not only did the district place two teachers in the finals, but North Principal Kate Murray also was nominated for a Bammy in the high school principal category. She has received the 2015 Educators’ Voice Award.

Howell takes on new role
The emphasis at Monteith, according to Howell, was “on the child and the learning rather than the teaching” and on individual needs. Over the summer he has met individually with the principals at each school in the district with the goal of collaboration to sustain that focus. A main discussion point was to determine the strengths of each building and how those strengths can be shared.

These individual meetings, which Howell expects to continue on a regular basis, will help him devise strategies to support teachers and ensure they have the tools and resources to be successful.

Parcells team wins silver
The Parcells Michigan Social Studies Olympiad Quiz Bowl team took home the silver medal Saturday, May 16.

All-girl robotics team perseveres
The Robo-Terriers, comprised of fifth-grade girls, completed its fifth year in the spring. It is coached by Jane McCaughrin, who runs Trombly’s computer lab, and fourth-grade teacher Susan Howey. During the school year, each girl and a partner learned how to program the LEGO EV3 robots by gradually increasing their knowledge of more and more complex components of the robotics software.

Did Grosse Pointe teachers rank on national list?

2. Grosse Pointe South High School, Grosse Pointe Farms

4. Grosse Pointe North High School, Grosse Pointe Woods

Brownell teacher on a mission
Charuba, a science teacher at Brownell Middle School, essentially “begged” to become a New Horizons Fellow and has been following the mission ever since. In mid-July, he had the opportunity to join scientists at APL’s mission operations center to witness an event many years in the making.

Student represents Michigan at White House
The seventh grader, along with winners from each U.S. state, territory and the District of Columbia, was invited to attend the 2015 Kids’ ‘State Dinner’ at the White House July 10. The dinner featured a selection of the 55 winning recipes and winners were given a copy of each recipe in “The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge Cookbook.”

Paschke sat at the First Lady’s table and had the opportunity to engage her in conversation.

World class Woods dancer heading to Glasgow
Aside from practices, Cosgrove and her performance group stay in shape with Pilates. Cosgrove also is on the swim and tennis teams at Lochmoor Club and will run cross country in the fall when she starts at Grosse Pointe North High School.

Teen butterfly-bench artist’s career is taking flight
Although a group of students from Grosse Pointe North and South high schools jointly worked on a Pointe Perch fish sculpture for the GPCC in 2012, 16-year-old Bianca Jason, of Harper Woods, is believed to be the youngest individual artist ever chosen for one of these GPCC street art endeavors.

Jason, who’ll be a junior at Grosse Pointe North this September, was selected to paint a bench for the Grosse Pointe Times/C & G Newspapers. She said she entered her design at the urging of her art teacher at North, Susan Forrest.