#WorkHardPlayHardAPS #Summer

Although most of our students are away for the summer, my dedicated colleagues across Atlanta Public Schools continue working hard as we prepare for the upcoming 2017-2018 school year and move forward on the APS Journey of Transformation!

I miss all of you, and I want everything to be ready when you come back. So our facilities team is cleaning and renovating our buildings … our teachers and staff are taking time for professional development … our human resources team is working to ensure our schools are fully staffed on Day One … and that is just some of the work going on this summer.

(There’s a brief break for the system when the district will be closed from Friday, June 30, through Friday, July 7, and again on Friday, July 14, but we will be right back to work bright and early on all other days!)

I’m so excited for the new school year to begin on Tuesday, Aug. 1! We need all of our students at school on Day One because every day is a day of instruction. #EveryDayCounts

Continue to follow me on Twitter @ATLSuper to track our Day One readiness, also, please mark your calendars with these other important events:

• First Official Day of Practice for Athletes on Tuesday, July 25. Everyone knows I love our high school athletes. I will be joining many of our football teams and cheerleading and dance squads for practice as APS starts on another great year of high school sports. #APSUnitedWePlay #Forever11
• District-wide School Open House on Friday, July 28. Every school will be open to allow students and their families to visit with teachers and staff at their schools to get an early start on the school year. #APSOpenHouse Open house hours are:
  • 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. – elementary schools
  • 1 to 3 p.m. – high schools
  • 3 to 5 p.m. – middle schools
• Third Annual Back-to-School Bash from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 29, at the Georgia World Congress Center. For the Bash, APS is partnering with more than 50 community organizations and businesses to give APS families the resources they need to have a safe and successful school year. The Bash will include school registration information, health screenings, immunizations (while supplies last) and on-site school transfer applications for families who are new to the district.

A ton of information will also be available about APS services and resources, including afterschool enrichment programs, extracurricular programs and more. The Bash will have backpack and school supply giveaways and free activities for the kids. This event is free and open to all APS students –that means from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. There will also be free parking!

Basically, the Bash will make sure that all of our families and students have access to everything they need to get the school year started right and to put us on a path to beat our record attendance numbers from last year’s Day One program for the first day of school. For more details, visit www.atlantapublicschools.us/backtoschool and use the tag #APSBash.

While I want our students to fully enjoy their summer, I truly hope that they are staying engaged to avoid summer learning loss.

To keep our students reading, our Instructional Technology department launched the Summer e-Reading Getaway, which provides students from kindergarten through 12^th grade with access to more than 6,000 e-books, which they may access by going to the Summer e-Reading Getaway website at www.myON.com and entering their unique user name and password, which was given to them before the last day of school. For students without Wi-Fi or an Internet connection at home, media specialists at all of our schools downloaded books onto students’ mobile devices.

The program is linked to each individual student’s school data and will record how many books he or she reads and how much time they spent reading. Additionally, it will suggest books on their reading levels or slightly above to help them continue to improve their reading skills.

So even though it’s summer, the learning should never stop. When everyone returns for Day One – again, on Tuesday, Aug. 1 – our students will already be off on run to start school off right. #APSFirstDay

#WorkHardPlayHardAPS

#Summer