What's New

Retirement Meeting Scheduled for Feb. 3

There will be an informational retirement meeting at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at the school board office in Marion. Employees who are planning to retire at the end of this school year as well as anyone who is beginning to think about retiring are welcome. We will answer all questions about VRS retirement and current legislation as well as the Retirement Incentive Plan that the School Board has agreed to offer for one more year. This incentive will be made available to employees at the end of this year only. It will have no effect on retired employees currently in the incentive plan. If you plan to attend the meeting, please let Director of Personnel Rick Blevins know so that he can prepare an appropriate amount of materials. This link will take you to the VRS Legislation that is under consideration by the Virginia General Assembly. All of the bills listed have an impact on VRS but not all apply to schools. We will address some of these at our meeting.

Academic Earth Offers Free Online Courses From Nation's Top Universities

Academic Earth offers free online courses from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, MIT, Princeton, and other top universities. In addition to full-length courses, Academic Earth also offers individual lectures from noted scholars. You can watch all the lectures and courses on your computer; some are also available as podcasts.

Library of Virginia Provides Resources for African American History Month, Women's History Month

In recognition of February as African American History Month and March as Women’s History Month, the Library of Virginia has mailed to Virginia social studies teachers and history and social science chairpersons in elementary, middle, and high schools the 2010 African American Trailblazers in Virginia History posters and the 2010 Virginia Women in History posters. The posters highlight the state and national contributions of African Americans and Virginia women, including a short biography of each individual honored. The posters are supported by online educational resources suitable for teachers in grades K-12, which can be found at lva.virginia.gov/trailblazers/ and lva.virginia.gov/vawomen/.

Chilhowie High Student Artwork to be Exhibited at Blue Windmill Galleries

Blue Windmill Galleries in Abingdon has invited Chilhowie High School to participate in its first student exhibition. Blue Windmill Galleries is owned by the Buckland family. Kyle Buckland is a renowned regional artist who recently visited Chilhowie High School to conduct an art presentation and demonstration.

Other schools particating in the student exhibition are Abingdon High, E.B. Stanley Middle, and Watauga Elementary. Some of the student works in the exhibition may be for sale. Any money realized from the sale of student work will be donated by Blue Windmill Galleries and the student artist to the participating school's art department. Ten students from each school will be invited to enter one piece of art in the exhibition. The exhibit will open Feb. 12.

Phishing Attempts Target School Board Employees

Some school board employees have received "phishing" emails that specificially target our scsb.org Internet domain. Here is information on how to protect yourself against these attempts.

Warning: Do Not Administer Aspirin Products to Children With Flu or Other Viral Illnesses

The Virginia Department of Education is reminding parents that products containing aspirin should never be given to children under 19 when they they are sick with flu, the common cold, chicken pox, or other illnesses caused by viruses. Children who receive aspirin while sick with these illnesses sometimes develop Reye's Syndrome, which is a deadly disease. Parents should be aware that many products other than aspirin contain salicylate, the ingredient in aspirin that is thought to trigger Reye's Syndrome. Details…

Virginia Produces Two Videos on Preventing Spread of H1N1 and Seasonal Flu

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Health, has produced two videos to inform parents and school personnel of the steps they can take to prevent the spread of H1N1 A Influenza (also known as "swine flu") and seasonal influenza. Both videos are available on the Department of Education's website and require the Adobe Flash player to view:

• H1N1 for Parents (length 3:05)
• H1N1 for Educators (length 3:54)

For additional information on H1N1 A Influenza and schools, please see the VDOE Website. Questions about the videos should be directed to Charles B. Pyle, VDOE's Director of Communications, at (804) 371-2420 or Charles.Pyle@doe.virginia.gov; or Julie C. Grimes, VDOE Communications Projects Manager, at (804) 225-2775 or Julie.Grimes@doe.virginia.gov.

Marion Primary School and Marion Intermediate School Offer Public School Choice

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires schools to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals each year in reading/language arts and mathematics. See our Title I website for more information.

NCS Mentor Writing Program Replaced by New Understand Scoring Service

The Virginia Department of Education has replaced the Web-based NCS Mentor for Virginia with a new service to help teachers prepare students for the English Standards of Learning end-of-course writing assessment. The new service is called Understand Scoring. Understand Scoring will be familiar to current Mentor users and offers the following:

• Up-to-date interface—the user interface has been refreshed to make it easier to navigate;
• Guest-user function—this feature allows users to access Understand Scoring without logging in or saving information; and
• Login moved—users may now visit the Learn About Scoring and View Anchor Papers areas without creating an account. The login is only necessary when working in the Practice Scoring area.

Teachers can use the service to score papers in verification sets and view scoring based on Virginia's three-domain scoring rubric. Teachers will gain a better understanding of the Virginia Standards of Learning Direct Writing Assessments for grade 5, grade 8, and end-of-course; understand the use of rubrics in scoring student writing; and develop consistency in scoring actual student work. Teachers may also use this program with students. The service's new guest user function allows students to access the system without having to create an account or save information.

To access the Understand Scoring service, expand the SOL Resources link at the left and select the Understand SOL Writing Test Scoring link.

School Board Offering Surplus Items for Sale

The Smyth County School Board is offering surplus equipment and furniture for sale on the GovDeals website. You can also reach the GovDeals website by clicking the Surplus Items for Sale link under Links/Smyth County School Board at the left.

Virginia Provides New Tool to Help Teachers and Parents Select Books to Improve Children's Reading Skills

The Virginia Department of Education is providing teachers and parents with a new tool to help them select books that will strengthen children's reading skills. The tool is called a Lexile measure. A Lexile measure ranks a person's reading ability and a book's text difficulty on a single scale, allowing parents and teachers to select books at or slightly above a students reading level. Currently, more than 115,000 books have been assigned a Lexile measure. For example, the popular children's book Corduroy has a Lexile measure of 600L, which corresponds to the reading level of a child who scores 400 on the Virginia third grade Standards of Learning (SOL) reading test.

Beginning in the Spring of 2009, elementary and middle school students' SOL reading scores will include a Lexile measure. The Virginia Department of Education has also produced a calculator that enables parents and teachers to determine their children's Lexile measures from previous SOL scores.

More information on the Lexile measure program is available on the Department of Education's website and at MetaMetrics, the company with whom Virginia is working to provide the Lexile measures. MetaMetrics provides an online database to look up the Lexile measure of books.

Vacancies

The Smyth County School Board has vacancies in a number of instructional and support areas. Details…