Welcome to the Garrison Mill Elementary School PTA
Website
Home of the Greyhounds!
Congratulations to Garrison Mill's
State Reflections Winners!
Congratulations to Lucy S. and Allison P.
whose Reflections entries have made them winners at the
state level! Lucy, a second grader at Garrison Mill, won
3rd place in the musical composition category.
Click
here to listen to her composition! Allison, a first grader,
won 2nd place in
the visual arts category. Click
here to see her artwork!
Calendar at a Glance:
- Wednesday, May 14 - Field Day for K through 2nd grade
- Thursday, May 15 - Field Day for 3rd - 5th grade
- Friday, May 16
- PAWS Deadline - Submit articles to
katanddanlee@comcast.net
by 5:00 p.m.
- 7:25 a.m. - Relay for Life Chick-fil-A breakfast
- 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Celebration Night
- Wednesday, May 21 - 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. 5th grade picnic
- Thursday, May 22 - 11:30 a.m. - 5th grade luncheon and reception
- Friday, May 23
- Last day of school
- 1:45 p.m. - 5th grade Walk of Honor
Click here to access the 2007-2008 Cobb County District
Calendar.
*For students enrolled in the School Savings Program,
deposits may be made on Thursday mornings (starting Sept. 27) from 7:15 a.m. - 7:50
a.m. in the Media Center.
"Principal" ly Speaking
Dear Parents,
Our school year is passing quickly, and we want to take the opportunity
to point out some valuable parent resources that are available for you to
best support your child’s educational experience.
The first important parent resource is PICASSO. PICASSO gives you
an overview of the Cobb County curriculum. You can access PICASSO by
visiting
http://picasso.cobbk12.org. Click on the Parent Tab at the top of the
screen, and you will see GPS (Georgia Performance Standards) Brochures for
parents by grade level. This brochure will give you an overview of the
curriculum for that grade level. Under the CCSD Curriculum Standards heading
you will find curriculum standards listed by subject areas.
Georgia has made a transition over the past several years from Quality
Core Curriculum to Performance Standards. Performance standards are designed
to be assessed by a student’s ability to “perform” certain tasks.
Performance tasks can be activities, exercises or problems that require a
student to show what he/she can do. For example, a task might be to solve a
particular type of mathematical problem, to fill in a political map of
Europe from 1945 and explain how it differs from the map of today, or to
jump rope in P.E. These tasks are often designed to be “real world”
experiences so that they will be more authentic. Please take the time to
review the GPS brochure and/or the curriculum standards for your child so
that you will be familiar with the curriculum. The CRCT (Criterion Reference
Competency Test) is based on these Georgia Performance Standards.
The second important parent resource is the Online Assessment System.
As many of you are aware, we will be giving the CRCT beginning on April 23.
This test is in the area of Reading, English Language Arts and Math for
grades 1-5. Grades 3-5 will also be tested in Science and Social Studies.
Our State Department of Education has created a test bank containing
practice tests your child can take at home if he/she has access to the
internet. There is no charge for the assessments, and you can monitor your
child’s progress easily. The practice tests are based on the skills and
knowledge that will be tested in April, and test items are presented in the
same format that students will see on the actual test.
Every parent should have received a letter explaining this online
assessment program during conference week. The website is
http://www.georgiaoas.org. Each student will need to log in with his/her
specific Georgia Test Identification Number (also provided to you at
conferences). The password is education. If you have any questions about
using this program or did not receive your child’s password, please contact
Paula Huffman at 770-642-5600.
The third exciting resource for parents is the Cobb Virtual Library.
This contains many exciting and absolutely free online resources, completely
accessible for home use! Online encyclopedias such as World Book Online,
Grolier Encyclopedia, Culture Grams (information on countries and states),
and eLibrary (access to magazines and newspapers from around the world) are
available at
http://cvl.cobbk12.org, or you can access it directly from the Garrison
Mill home page. You will need the user name (cobbes) and the password (dog)
in order to access these from home. They are wonderful resources for class
projects, research papers, etc. If you have middle or high school students
at home, there are resources available for those age levels as well.
Thank you for your continued support of our curriculum program. Please do
not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding any of these
resources.
The Leadership Team,
| Margaret Wilson, Principal |
Paula Huffman, Assistant Principal |
| margaret.wilson@cobbk12.org |
paula.huffman@cobbk12.org |
