Elementary School Arrival/Dismissal Times
Starting this school year, we are adjusting arrival and dismissal services at all of our elementary schools. Safety and security are of…
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Ames CSD and Ames Police Department to put on Active Shooter Training for Staff
On August 21-22, all Ames Community School District staff will participate in an active shooter training within one of our schools. Due to the content of the training, it was important for us to get it completed before school begins, and to ensure that no students would be present in the buildings during the time of this training. The training will be conducted by officers of the Ames Police Department and will include an ALICE refresher segment followed by unknown scenarios that staff must respond to, and will conclude with debrief sessions with officers. We understand that this work is never done and we, as District leaders, need to constantly ensure that our buildings are safe and that our staff are adequately prepared for a variety of situations. Our goal is to make this training as applicable as possible, and that all staff walk away from it feeling prepared. But we also understand that this content can be unsettling. We have encouraged our staff to reach out to us at the District level, or to their building principal with questions or concerns.
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School Board is Accepting Applications for Vacant Seat
School Board Applicants: Allen Beirbaum Joan Bolin Bettis Amy Edwards Latifah Faisal Randal Fitzgerald John Hascall Frederick Lloyd Jeanne Paskach Aaron Rodriquez Jintao Wang…
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ISPRA Communications Awards 2018
The Iowa School Public Relations Association (ISPRA) held their annual communication awards the evening of Thursday, April 19. The Ames Community School District submitted materials in 8 of the 20 competition categories that included Bond Campaign, E-Newsletter, Excellence in Writing, Magazine, Social Media, and three Video categories. This year, there were entries from 20 different school districts. The Ames Community School District won two Blue & Gold Awards as best in state for the Amazing Magazine (magazine category), and the district’s Facebook page (social media category). Ames was also awarded the prestigious Department of the Year award based on the quality of work across many categories.
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Jenny Risner named the Next Superintendent of Ames Community Schools
The Ames Community School Board is excited to announce Jenny Risner as the next Superintendent of the Ames Community School District. Jenny stood out of an applicant pool of 69 individuals from across the country after participating in two rounds of interviews with the school board and a variety of representative groups that included teachers, community leaders, former board members, parents, and District staff. Ms. Risner currently serves as the Superintendent of Ocean Beach School District in Long Beach, Washington where she has been the superintendent for the past four years. Ms. Risner has been an educator for over 20 years and has served as a director of student services, director of special education, secondary principal, assistant principal, instructional coach, and elementary and middle school teacher. She received her superintendent credentials in 2013 from Washington State University, where she also received her MA in Education Administration in 2001.
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Education in the Cloud
This story was originally published in Volume 2 of Amazing Magazine that you can download here. In December, Google visited the Ames Community School District to gather promotional materials that highlight some of the many ways in which our classrooms leverage Google Chromebooks. A group of three representatives visited classrooms in Ames Middle School and Edwards Elementary and witnessed first hand how their next generation Chromebooks were being utilized. The promotional materials that they gathered, namely photos and stories, were used in January at the British Education Training and Technology (BETT) show in London, England. During the visit, their first stop was in Robyn Reisetter’s 7th grade math class where students were completing assignments with a stylus on the Explain Everything app. They then moved over to Willie Lodermeier’s 8th grade Technology Exploratory class where students showed off their TinkerCAD skills as they created models to be made in 3D printers. After lunch, the Google team visited Amy Simonson’s kindergarten class where students were engaging with math principles on their Chromebooks thanks to software provided by an Iowa company, PearDeck. Students in Kimber Spaulding’s first grade class were coding using the Scratch app. Finally, a group of 5th graders, under the direction K-5 Technology Teacher Librarian Teresa Green, were having a blast with their “maker space” time. Some students were coding Sphero balls, others Hummingbird boards, and another group was working with LEGO EV3 Bricks.
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Legislation That Would Force District Cuts or Increased Property Taxes
Legislation That Would Force District Cuts or Increased Property Taxes Notice to the Ames community, In 2013, the Iowa Legislature reduced…
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Fresh Thyme Launches Roundup Fundraiser to Address Food Insecurity Among Ames Students
Customers’ roundup dollars from Feb. 7–28 and $2,500 Fresh Thyme donation will pay students’ negative lunch balances Fresh Thyme Farmers Market believes no student should go without a meal. That’s why the full-service specialty retailer announced today the “No Student Goes Without Lunch” fundraising campaign at its new Ames store. All customer donations from the campaign — as well as a $2,500 donation from Fresh Thyme — will go to the Ames Community School District to pay students’ negative lunch balances. As of Dec. 31, 2017, Ames students’ negative lunch account balances totaled $47,932.42. Last year, the school district grappled with how to address this issue. In June, the Ames School Board amended a policy so that today all students receive lunch regardless of their negative account balance. However, with this action, the district still must find ways to settle students’ outstanding balances.
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Superintendent Search: 30 Qualities Survey
Dear parents, teachers, and the Ames community, On January 17, as a school board, we chose Ray & Associates as the search firm to help us with identifying candidates for the next Superintendent of the Ames Community School District. As a part of this process, we are seeking feedback on the preferred criteria to consider in our candidates. Below is a link to a survey we invite you to complete. Based on their experience, Ray & Associates has identified 30 criteria of effective school leaders. Please select up to 10 criteria most important to you. There is also an open-ended question for you to identify those things candidates should know about our district and community. The survey will close at 8:00 a.m. on February 9. Additionally, our search firm consultants will be hosting listening sessions with various identified focus groups (teachers and staff, students, parents, building administrators, and community leaders). The public is invited to participate in a focus group with our consultants on February 5, 5-6 pm in the District Board Room. As we move through this process, we will strive to keep you informed as much as possible. A timeline detailing the process will be posted to our website in the upcoming days. Thank you for your support during this important process! Sincerely, Alisa Frandsen Ames School Board President
Read moreDepartment of Education officials talk Iowa Core in Ames
Representatives from the Iowa Department of Education stopped in Ames Tuesday night to deliver a presentation and answer questions regarding the Iowa Core, the state’s…
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