FRIDAY FIVE

This is the ZCS Friday Five for August 27th, 2021. Thanks for checking it out!

Counselor Avory Freund (Zionsville West Middle School) noticed a group of ZWest students wearing Hawaiian shirts every Friday. She secretly recruited faculty and staff members to acknowledge this group with a fun fashion statement ambush today! Our Janet Mann was there to catch this counselor’s keen awareness in action!

Union Elementary's outstanding Parent-Teacher Organization and mighty Dad's Club hosted a welcome ZOOM gathering for parents new to Union this week. Good time had by all--and so much support for the fine faculty and staff up there in Star Country.

Can you guess what all of these famous people had/have in common? Pablo Picasso, Richard Branson, Whoopi Goldberg, Winston Churchill, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Anniston, Steve Jobs, and Muhammad Ali?  Dyslexia!  That's right, all of these talented folks struggled due to this cluster of symptoms, that results in people having difficulties with specific language skills, particularly reading. Students with dyslexia often experience difficulties with both oral and written language skills, such as writing, and pronouncing words. Indiana wisely instituted mandatory screening of early learners to help reduce this barrier for so many children, and ZCS elementary literacy coaches, district Testing Coordinator Lisa Kern, and Director of Academic Services Christine Squier partnered with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) to give feedback and implement a state approved online dyslexia screener for grades K-3.  The screener is a short, online, animated assessment of six foundational reading skills and the assessment targets work so well that NWEA will use the instrument all over the nation! BRAVO, ZCS pros!

The imbedded graph says a lot about what's happening with CoVID and kids. Testing got a bit easier recently since rapid antigen tests (if medically supervised) can now be accepted for proof of negative test (instead of waiting days for the return of PCR results). Note that home-administered rapid tests cannot be accepted in accordance with public health mandate. 

Our ZCS CoVID-19 numbers, based on what has been reported to us and the resulting contact tracing, are as follows.

That's it, that's all, and it is a weekend. Enjoy!

 Sincerely,

Scott Robison, ZCS Superintendent