Memo

To: Freshmen Academy Members

From: Tom Sedore

Time: 7:35 a.m

Date: 2-13-2006

Thanks to your interest in making the transition to high school more successful for all incoming freshmen, we can now begin discussion of how we can best serve our students.

Though we will explore a variety of issues surrounding the reasons for past problems, which have hindered both academic and behavioral success, we will try to focus on evidence-based solutions backed up by solid research.

Some of us will be stronger in some areas than others, which is natural. Yet, we will use the people and the resources we currently have to work collaboratively in solving these problems. Whether the roadblocks have been dealing with classroom discipline, lack of student engagement, poor skill levels, lack of respect, lack of administrative support, or any of a number of negative factors, we will do everything in our power to redress these issues together.

Please review the four domains of professional practice from the Danielson Model on the other side of this memo. I’ve plugged in some ideas that have been proven successful in the past. We will discuss these ideas and refine the Freshmen Academy as we go. I put it into our supervision and evaluation model so that we all could see how it all fits into our individual and collective professional development.

I am eager to begin working with you.