Opening+Letter+-+5+August+2009

 Craven Early College 800 College Court New Bern, North Carolina 28562 252.637.5706

July 15, 2009

__D__ear Faculty and Staff:

I hope all of you are having the most enjoyable and relaxing summer ever. All of you most certainly needed a vacation of relaxation after all of the hard work this past year, and the relaxation will serve you well for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year as we continue to add students and become acclimated to our new location. As you all know, enrollment and the new location alone will present enough excitement and challenges, but also the implementation of three different initiatives for our school as well.

(1) At the start of school all teachers will have gone through the first phase of Kagan training, with the other remaining training days to come very early in the school year. Kagan training will allow us to have a consistent model of cooperative learning, and better help us get a handle of differentiation within the classroom. (2) Since our inception, CEC has provided a 1:1 Laptop learning and instructional environment for our students and faculty. It will be our goal to expand in this area significantly. We will work more aggressively to become a paperless school and will seek the required professional development that will help facilitate that process, make us more knowledgeable of the resources readily available at our disposal, and improve instruction delivery and learning in the classroom. (3) Lastly, we will implement a program called Fast Forward by Scientific Learning. Fast Forward is a program designed to build foundational reading and language skills while improving memory, attention, and processing. This program will be deployed slowly, with the program being loaded on the laptops of designated students. I am anticipated a group of about 15-20 students initially.

The above, along with our continued dedication of service to our students, most certainly will help CEC continue to perform at the highest level possible. This past year we saw gains in almost every single data point and saw some outstanding results for first time courses that were tested. However, we will continue to focus on the ‘soft skills’ that best prepare our students for college readiness and prepares them to be 21st century **//savvy//** learners.

When you return you can expect to see two new faces as additions to our CEC family. Sheena Hamilton (Biology) and John Cooper (Algebra II) have both been made aware of the expectations here at CEC, and are eager to join us in carrying out our mission. We are extremely fortunate to have these two faculty members join us. Also, as I have already mentioned, you can expect to see a total commitment to creating and sustaining a paperless environment. It will be a very busy and exciting year as we continue to improve in all areas, but we have a strong foundation of committed faculty and staff, and two new members to help with our efforts.

Enjoy the remainder of your summer, learn all you can in Kagan training, and return to school with your batteries fully charged. Also attached with this letter, is a schedule for the dates July 30th – Aug 4th. Please feel free to call if you should have any questions.

Respectfully,

Daniel Colvin Dean of Craven Early College H.S.