Boxing Day--not a time to beat people up!

Not a big holiday here in the united States, but it is celebrated in nations all over the world. Those nations, primarily the United Kingdom and nations' that were once colonized or affiliated with the UK, all celebrate Boxing Day after the Christmas holiday.

The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon tradition of giving gifts (in the form of a "Christmas box") to less wealthy people and slaves. In the United Kingdom this was later extended to various workpeople such as labourers, servants, tradespeople and postal workers. Today, it is primarily a shopping day intended to buy items at a cheaper price, however, I read an article recently that said it is still the single busiest day of charity in the United Kingdom!
Interesting.

Till next time...

Oxford Central School Teacher of the Year

It is the time of year when we start to look at our staff for the fine work and efforts they put in everyday, and recognize one person to represent the school as the Teacher of the Year. As in the past we would like to have two parents on the committee to review the nominees and recommend a teacher. If you are interested, drop me a line via my email at bmagnuson@oxfordcentral.org.

Thanks.

Till next time...

The School Budget

Next year's school budget will be the topic of discussion at our next Budget and Finance meeting this Thursday, December 10th. The meeting will start at 10:00 am and input from the public is encouraged!

Phishing

No, I do not mean travelling around with the former band!

I am referring to the email and text fraud that tries to get people to give up valuable information and/or put viruses on your computer.

Apparently it is happening under the guise of messages from the CDC or a county agency trying to get people to register for H1N1 information.

The Warren County Health Department wants everyone to know that they are only disseminating information via the schools and their website, not emails or texts messages. If you get an email asking you to download a form or give more information, please do not! Call the Warren County Health Department at 908-475-7960.

Stay Healthy!

28,080...

that is how many minutes until the holiday break starts... give or take a few!

Did you know...?

that the cow eye has four muscles used to move the eye and the human eye has six muscles! I did not know that until the PTA-Sponsored presentation from the Liberty Science Center! That is why it is easier to sneak up on a cow!
Till next time...

Thanksgiving facts...

Thanksgiving is celebrated in October north of the border in Canada... must be from those world famous Canadian Pilgrims I heard about!

The Wampanoag Indians were the people who taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land.

The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days... there must have been plenty of leftovers!

Abraham Lincoln issued a 'Thanksgiving Proclamation' on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving.

Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked weighed 2,020 pounds and measured just over 12 feet long.

Americans feast on 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.

Turkeys can drown if they look up when it's raining!

Why are you sleepy after a big turkey dinner? It's a combination of the type of food, amount of food, and celebratory atmosphere. Happy Thanksgiving!

OYA Movie Night

Starts at 7:00 pm. Mr. Pierro is currently selecting the finest corn kernels in the land for the popcorn!

7:00 pm start time!

Twitter? No way, not me!

Well, that is what I used to think. Now I am willing to try it. I am tweeting, slowly: baby steps... but trying none the less! If you would like to find out more about this bizarre sociological experiment, please read my latest blog.

Till next time...

Upcoming events...

This week we will be having our first PTA Family Fun Night: Family DodgeBall! The evening will kick-off in the OCS Gym at 6:00pm and will go until 8:00pm. See everyone there---

Next week we will be hosting the Warren County Vocational -Technical School Drama Club on Thursday, November 19th! The students from the Vo-Tech will be presenting "The Case of the Missing Paragraph." The program will be presented to our 3-8 grade students and will be held in the OCS Gym at 10:30 am. Everyone is invited to attend.

Finally, next week (Friday November 20th) will mark the second of the monthly Movie Nights, sponsored by the Oxford Youth Association! The movie will start at 7:00 pm. This month's movie will be the Disney?Pixar film, UP!--Man, I can not wait! Get the popcorn cookin', Mr. Pierro!

Till next time...

School is closed

this Thursday, November 5th and Friday, November 6th. We will reopen on Monday November 9th.

Today is the birthdate...

of one of most beloved of all characters in our childhood... Cookie Monster! I am not sure how old he is today, but according to the Children's Television Workshop we should all wish C.M a happy birthday today!

State Assessments

Many of our parents received a letter recently from Mr. O'Brien, the Principal of the Warren Hills HS. The letter discussed how the HS had not met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in one out of 40 different sub-groups. The letter discussed a number of actions that the HS has taken to overcome this AYP setback. I wanted to let everyone know that we have been doing the activities mentioned in the letter for quite some time. Students at Oxford have enjoyed a double block of Language Arts for many years--longer then many can remember--and our recent curriculum mapping and revisions(in conjunction with the Warren Hills Cluster schools) have allowed us to ensure the highest quality of instruction and the most up-to-date curriculum. As part of our on-going professional development plan, we have been working with all of our students to improve their writing. We continue to do this by instituting the MyAccess writing program, developing our writing skills in the primary grades with 6 Plus 1 writing and through increased vigor to improve our writing!

Oxford students continue to demonstrate a high level of academic success as they enter either the Vo-Tech or Warren Hills High School. This is a true testament to our students, their parents, our staff and the programs we use here at OCS.Till next time...

School Violence?

If you looked at the Newark Star-Leger today you may have seen an article about the drop in school violence in our state over the past year. However, what might have also caught your eye was the chart on page 34 that says that our school had 12 incidents of violence last year. 12?! Violence!?

As the report is put together the category of "violence" gets a little convoluted. Last year we had two incidents where one student was physically involved with another student. Both resulted in suspension. The remaining 10 incidents involved cases of bullying. In all ten cases there was never a physical encounter!

The number reported in the state report, 12, is down 7 cases from the previous year and is down from more than 30 incidents four years ago! The programs we have been implementing, the supervision in the halls and the move to make students feel better about themselves and the school have all yielded a very positive result!

Till next time...

This week

This week is an exciting week here at OCS. We have guest author/ artist Dar Hosta, here on Wednesday October 21st. Ms. Hosta has written a number of children's books--and illustrated them as well! She will be here the entire day and will be working on writing skills for our 2-4 grade students.

Speaking of writing...

Soon we will once again be using a web-based writing program called MyAccess. MyAccess is a program that allows students to write essays that are critiqued using stat-of-the-art software. The critiques are based on the holistic scoring rubric used here in NJ to score the NJASK writing samples. This will be another tool for our 5-8 grade teachers and students, as we look to improve our student's writing.

Till next time...

Who wants to win a Million dollars?

I would like to as well, but I only wrote that to get your attention. I wanted to let anyone who reads the blog and was interested in volunteering here at OCS know that we will be having a brief meeting on Thursday, October 22 at 5:00pm here in the school cafeteria. If you have volunteered to be a homeroom assistant, classroom helper, teacher's aide, library volunteer, lunchroom monitor, or all of the above, please join us at this informational meeting.

New safety equipment.

We recently installed a new fire evacuation chair to the second story of our building. The evacuation chair will allow us to assist any disabled student or special needs student during a fire drill or other emergency, quickly and safely. Staff members have been assigned to learn how to use the new equipment so we have another tool to get kids out of the building in an emergency!

A Recent Gallup poll on education

states that 7 out of every 10 parents surveyed said they would be happy if their child went on to be a public school teacher!! Great news on how people feel about their teachers. The survey, found at www.pdkintl.org, asked parents many questions about the educational system and how they felt about their schools. Some of the interesting survey results were the misconceptions that people had about charter schools. Charter schools are public school, they can not charge tuition to students and among many other misconceptions, here in NJ teachers must be certified by the NJ Department of Education.

I will be putting together a similar survey to assess our communities views on OCS in the coming weeks.

Till next time...

Mid-marking Period

The middle of the first marking period is here. Friday marks the end of the mid-quarter. Progress reports will go home a few days after that!

Till next time...

School Spending

Last night at our school board meeting, Mr. Anthony Ardito, from the auditing firm of Ardito and Company, presented the school board (and a few members of the public!) with the results of the most recent audit. Three important facts came out of the presentation: our school district is spending LESS today that we did three years ago and we are spending 61.2 % of our funds on educating students--here at OCS and in high schools and special education settings! The final fact is that once again we had a clean sheet audit, with no recommendations for improvement! Congratulations to our Business Administrator, Mrs. Decibus, and her staff!

Till next time...

Last week's Back-To-School Night...

was attended by almost 89% of our Pre-K - 4th Grade parents! Boy, that sure does put some pressure on the 5-8 grade BTS night!

Fall Athletics

The Fall Athletic season is in full swing! Many OCS students are playing fall sports for the OYA and some surrounding communities. Some OCS students are playing for the Warren Hills Middle School, and many OCS alumni are participating in fall sports at WHHS and the Vo-Tech. Please try to get out there and support our athletes!

Warren County Library link

I wanted to take a moment to let everyone know that we have added a link to our web page for the Warren County Library! The library's web address is www.warrenlib.com. The county library is an excellent resource for students and parents. The Franklin Branch is close and offers a wide variety of services... plus Mrs. Reid works there!

Till next time...

Community Blood Drive

I have been around Oxford now for four years and I can not remember the last time there was a blood drive in town. I have given blood many times in my life and I am anticipating the opportunity to do so again!

The Oxford Central School Student Council will be sponsoring a Community Blood Drive on Monday September 28th in the OCS gymnasium. The blood drive starts at 1:00 pm and will end at 8:00 pm. Please come out and donate this gift of life! This is a great opportunity for our students to see adults volunteering and giving back to the community!

The Scholastic Book Fair is coming!

The library will soon be transformed in to the annual OCS Book Fair! The OCS PTA is sponsoring this annual event once again. The Book Fair will be available for students to visit with their class on Tuesday, September 15th and will close up shop on Tuesday night, September 22nd. The book fair will be open for parents to stop in on both Back To School nights. Teachers will be providing information about when individual classes will be going with their teachers.

2nd Annual Cardboard Boat Regatta

On Saturday, September 12th, the Oxford Emergency Squad will be sponsoring the 2nd Annual Cardboard Boat Regatta over at beautiful Oxford Furnace Lake!

They are hosting a flea market--in case you need fleas?--which will start at 8:00 AM. The Regatta races will start at 10:00am and their will be tube races for all ages, food and fun all day long! I will be a guest judge for the event and I hope everyone can come out for this wonderful community event!

The Virus formally known as Swine Flu...

H1N1, has certainly been on the minds of educators around the state! Now that school is reopened... only 181 days left, but whose counting...we would like to invite our community to attend an informational roundtable about the H1N1 virus that will be held here at OCS on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 in the school library. The meeting will be held at 7:00 pm. I will be joined by our school nurse, Mrs. Nyman, to discuss the virus and how the school and community can prepare for the imminent influenza season.

If you bring refreshments... refreshments will be served!

Poor Pluto!

Three years ago, August 24, 2006, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet, forever changing how we look at the solar system.

This Saturday marks an important religious celebration...

The ninth month of the Islamic calendar has long been called Ramadama and with the institution of Islam, this month has been celebrated around the world by Muslims as a month of fasting, prayer, and good deeds. This year Ramadan begins on Saturday August 22, 2009 and ends with the holy day of Eid al-Fitr, usually 29-30 days after the start of the lunar month. Similar to many holy periods followed by other religions, Ramadan is a very important month for our Muslim families and students.

School Will Open...

ON Time!! Contrary to what might be floating around out there in the community... the school will be open on time. It has been a crazy summer, but the work will be substantially completed prior to September 2, 2009. There will still be some small minor items that need to be addressed prior to the start of school, but none of those will compromise the start date, the safety of the students or the normal routine.

State Testing results are slowly coming in...

and we should have all the tests results this week--August 14th. These scores will allow us to finally make concrete conclusions about our Gifted and talented program for this coming school year, as well as check our placement of students for the upcoming school year. The state is very late in getting them out to districts. The first round of preliminary scores(Cycle One) will be presented to the Board of Education at the regular meeting on August 20th. Follow this blog site for further updates.

Renovation updates

are available by clicking on either the Renovations Update or the Principal's Blog links. I am keeping the blog going with updates about construction and pictures that highlight the progress being made this summer.

Class Lists

How does the school determine the placement of a student for the upcoming school year? This is a question we hear every once in a while, especially after the class letters are sent home. There are many factors that go into this decision and it is not taken lightly or made with just a stroke of the pen. Clearly as students get older the amount of information we have about their learning styles and performance allows us to make decisions based on a wider range of criteria. However, in the early primary grades, where a child is just embarking on their educational experience, the teachers who associate with a student gather together and share their yearlong observations, anecdotal evidence, student grades, test scores(when available), reading levels and special needs the child may have. The teachers then spend a good deal of time and energy matching the students' learning styles, abilities and needs to the teachers at the next grade level. The choices are made with great care and empathy for the students and in most situations the placements are the correct placements--resulting in students who thrive academically, socially and emotionally.

Post Number One...

or is it technically post number two? Anyway, the first "did you know" I wanted to put out there is a brief outline of one of our school-wide goals for this year. We are going to be working this year to improve the writing skills in our 5-8 grade students. We will be doing this through staff professional development, hosting a writing workshop for the county on October 12th, beginning to get involved in the National Writing Project, and bringing back a newly revamped Internet-base writing program, MyAccess.

Check out this blog spot...

for facts and information about our school, community, county and state! If you have some interesting facts that you would like to see up on this blog, let me know...I'll get it up so we can share the facts with everyone. Beats that other blog site: re "forum" Let's give it a try!