Administrator's Corner
Archived Posts
Welcome to the Administrator's Corner. Shawn Gonyaw, Principal of Marion Cross School, and Greg Bagnato, Student Services Coordinator will post their weekly messages here. The intent is to keep you updated on important topics that are happening at school.
These posts can also be found in the weekly Who's Wise Words newsletter, which we highly encourage you to read. We hope you find all this information helpful, informative and fun. We encourage you to reach out to us with questions and comments.
Regards,
Shawn and Greg
Most Recent Post:
Week of December 2 - 6
Message From the Principal
One of the benefits to being the school principal is spending time in classrooms. My goal is to visit a minimum of 3 classrooms a day and to experience what it is like to be a learner in each of those settings. A highlight of my visits this week was time spent in Mrs. McKeever’s 5th and 6th grade math class. The day I visited happened to be they were sharing the Problem of the Month (POM) for November. From my visit, I learned that students have the month to work on POM. There are up to 5 levels (A-E) each month. Mrs. McKeever has time during the month when students can access her expertise and get support focussed on POM.
What struck me as amazing during this visit was the level of conversation that students had about the problems. Students each shared their thinking and the results of the problem. As they did so, other members of the class chimed in with questions and notices. The POM discussion was student led and fascinating to witness. I thought to myself that our students are lucky to learn in an environment where it is safe to share successes and failures, where the level of challenge is a personal choice, where their teacher has set the parameters for self-directed discussion, and where so many students rose to the level of leader.
Fortunately for me, I get the opportunity to visit a whole new batch of classrooms next week and learn even more about the fantastic academic program that MCS has to offer!
Enjoy the weekend,
Shawn