Breaking News…..Congrats to the following students who were chosen to represent our school this year on Team 2435….our Lego Robotic Team 2435!!!!



Drum roll, please…..

Seth Addeo

Devonte Benson

Caden Britton

D’Karlus Colvin

Jonathan Richardson

Alex Robertson

Ashley Smith

Vance Summers

Katie Welch



Thanks to all of the DME coaches who assisted in planning and coordinating our Team Tryouts on Saturday!

Our Parent Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 1, from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the Media Center!

Please be sure to congratulate these wonderfully talented students if/when you see them.

What is School-Wide PBIS?

Improving student academic and behavior outcomes is about ensuring all students have access to the most effective and accurately implemented instructional and behavioral practices and interventions possible. SWPBS provides an operational framework for achieving these outcomes. More importantly, SWPBS is NOT a curriculum, intervention, or practice, but IS a decision making framework that guides selection, integration, and implementation of the best evidence-based academic and behavioral practices for improving important academic and behavior outcomes for all students.

(Taken from http://www.pbis.org/school/what_is_swpbs.aspx)

I cannot thank you all for your hard work with getting our DME PBIS initiative "off the ground." I love hearing and seeing our students "walk the walk, and talk the talk" of PBIS! Keep working hard to help our students learn and practice our expectations for behavior here at DME each day!

I want to share with you a news release that I received from the Kershaw County School Distict Communications Director, Mary Anne Byrd, concerning eChalk Parent Alerts:

KCSD parents can receive e-mail alerts with students’ assignments.

Kershaw County School District parents have an easy way to see their children’s school assignments by signing up for the district’s eChalk parent alerts.

“This is a great way to have detailed information from your child’s teacher sent directly to your e-mail as often as every day,” said Kershaw County School District Communications Director Mary Anne Byrd. “Parents only have to sign up once, and then the system takes care of the rest.”

She said that assignment information is pulled from teachers’ Websites and sent directly into the parents’ e-mail addresses.

“These alerts were started last year and have been extremely popular,” Byrd said. “Because of an issue with transferring information from last school year, parents who had accounts last year will need to sign up again this year. We apologize for the inconvenience, but it only takes a minute or two to register.”

Parents will be asked to select their students’ names in order to receive the correct assignment information. They can then identify what classes are associated with their students.

Parents with more than one child will receive information in a single e-mail, and all persons can choose how many days a week they want to receive the e-mails.

To sign up, parents should visit their children’s school Website and click on the Parent Class Update link. All school Websites can be accessed through the district’s Website at http://www.kershaw.k12.sc.us or Doby's Mill Website at http://dme.kcsdschools.com.

Thanks to our amazing PTA for hosting our annual Volunteer Breakfast yesterday morning! It was great to see some of our veteran volunteers as well as welcome some new faces! I am so proud of these parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and special guests who have signed on for a year of volunteerism at our school. There are so many opportunities to become involved in your child's education. Even if you have just a few hours a week, holler, and I am sure that we can find the perfect setting in which you can volunteer. Also, thanks again to Mr. William Lee, our volunteer Lego Robotic Coach, for returning this year to coach our Lego team. Our team tryouts are this weekend, and I cannot wait to announce the team members on Monday!!!
Again, thank you for your continued support! Become involved with our PTA...they are a passionate, amazing, and talented group of parents who love our school and, most importantly, our children!!!

Today, I met with all of my teachers for our first Curriculum Connections this year. We meet monthly to discuss curriculum initiatives, analyze data, and plan for upcoming school events. Oftentimes, we conduct professional development mini-sessions during these monthly planning times. We took our PBIS school-wide Self-Assessment today. I look forward to receiving feedback from our surveys! I am so proud of our faculty and staff; they truly are a hard working group of professional educators who love and care for their students!

I read The Principal’s New Clothes to Mrs. Desjarlais’s class on Friday. I really enjoy reading this book to her students each year! Following my reading, they design “new” clothes for me and then write a story about my new garb! I look forward to sharing some of their works with you later next week. If you have never read this short fiction, pick up a copy and enjoy! It’s a cute story with a great message. Thanks, Mrs. D, for always helping me “kick off the year!”

Yesterday, Mrs. Long and Mrs. Norton surprised me....I was in the front mail room working with some filing and copying for the teachers, when they "sneaked up" on me. They were both smiling from ear to ear, so I thought they were getting ready to play a trick on me. Instead, they handed me a copy of an email they had just received: The email was from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Mrs. Long and Mrs. Norton applied for a $2000 grant to provide kindles loaded with historical novels to our students. I jumped up in excitement! I am so "WOW"ed each day here at DME at what our teachers do above and beyond the call of duty for our students! All because....Our students deserve the BEST, and nothing but the best! Be on the lookout for this great new technology!

I’m so excited about our fundraiser kickoff this year! All the prizes are so cool! Our prize of the day is when you sell 2 items from your fundraiser packets you get a cool “SUPER FLY FRISBEE” that comes in a pouch! Also you get to put your name on the dolphin poster that is hanging on your classroom door and you get a free sonic ice cream coupon! So happy selling this weekend! Please remember this is a family effort and we DO NOT sell to strangers!

Good news today! I just learned that Betsy Long has received a $1200 grant from the Kershaw County Junior Welfare League. With this grant, we plan to purchase shoes and race entry fees for our upcoming Race to Read for 20 members of our You Go, Girls running club. What great news to hear for the beginning of this school year! Thanks to everyone for your continued support of all of our health and fitness initiatives!
Congrats, Mrs. Long! I know the girls will be so excited!

Today was our annual Instructional Fair. Wow! What a great day to kick off our 2010-2011 school year! Special thanks to Dr. John Gardner and Caroline Connare for organizing such a super day of professional development for our county's educators! I am excited to announce that our teachers will participate in a LATTIS initiative this year. We particpated in a professional develpment training today to prepare our teachers for their looping classes. Colleagues from Lugoff Elementary School also attended with us. Can you tell that I am excited about the new year?

Teachers will be working today to plan with their team members for the upcoming year. I am excited about "popping in" to hear this great collaborative dialogue. I know they have so many great activities and lessons planned for the students! Also, I am excited to announce that our school is working to become a PBIS school. You will hear more about this exciting process as the year proceeds. I hope to see you at Open House this Thursday night! (Even moreso, I am ready to see my DME children!!!)

What a great day!!! I have been waiting all summer for everyone to return to school! And, today was the day! My wonderful faculty and staff joined me today for our annual back to school inservice. We had a super day of creative dialogue and work to prepare for the return of our amazing student body next Monday!!! I look forward to sharing more highlights of our year as we all Sail the S.E.A.S. together to "Successfully Educate All Students" at DME!

Also, thank all of you who supported DME this past weekend during Wal-Mart's Stuff the Bus campaign. Kudos to Mrs. Anthony, Ms. Haigler, Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Dixon, Mrs. Gillis, and Mrs. Benson for helping to "greet" customers and solicit school supplies for our students! I appreciate you all going the extra mile to help in this worthy cause!

Get fired up for a great year!!!