Welcome to Morning Creek
Carol Osborne, Principal

MCES Principal's Message

Character Counts

Morning Creek Colts follow the Colt Way
"doing the right thing"
(even when no one is watching)

Principal’s Message June 2009

Greetings Morning Creek Colts

Once again, we find ourselves at the end of the school year and feeling amazed about how quickly time flies.  I would like to thank our Morning Creek community for a wonderful school year!  Our PTA provided us with incredible family events, book fairs and fundraisers that make a difference for children everyday.  Our Morning Creek Foundation rallied during our most challenging fiscal year to raise over $35,000 at the annual A Country Affair.  All of these events are successful because of our community—families and businesses that continue to show their commitment to the children and teachers of Morning Creek.  From my heart, I thank all of you that have contributed time, talent and boundless energy.  You make a difference not only for your child but also for your child’s friends and classmates.  Thank you!!

As one school year closes, we all begin thinking about next year.  As parents, many of you become concerned about which teacher your child will have in the August. I would like to explain the process we use for placing students into classes. In early June, I hold lengthy meetings with each grade level team to begin the process of making initial placements into classes. To realize the Poway Unified School District’s value of “All Students Learning” and achieve the best result for the maximum number of students, our school district subscribes to the practice of heterogeneously grouping students. Research into students’ learning supports the practice of creating classes that are relatively balanced with high, average, and low achiever, boys and girls, etc. Our goal is to create classes that are as equal as possible. The following criteria will be used to create “balanced” or heterogeneous classes:

  • Balanced boy/girl ratios
  • Balanced distribution of student abilities
  • Balanced distributions of students with identified learning problems or special needs
  • The clustering of identified GATE, Resource students, and ELL students into workable groups for support
  • Equal class sizes (K-3 is 23:1 and 4th-5th is 33:1)
  • Separation of students that have a history of not working well together
  • The nature of the teacher, i.e., their specialized training, skills, interests, or presentation style. 

The teachers and I spend much time and effort toward achieving a “balance” in each classroom. Each student’s current teacher completes a profile describing the student’s academic performance data, on-task behavior, ability to work independently, special program participation, class conduct, and other students that should not be in the same class. We are fortunate to have an outstanding teaching staff that works closely with parents to meet the unique needs of each and every student.  We find that most students can perform well with any number of teachers.  If you have specific concerns regarding your child’s health or learning needs, you may provide me with a written note regarding the type of teacher you feel would enhance your child’s learning.  Please do NOT make a request for a specific teacher.  Due to the extreme difficulty of balancing classes, we cannot honor parent requests for specific teachers. 

As you look ahead to the lazy days of summer here are a few recommendations to help students keep growing—

  • Utilize Reading Plus during the summer.  Students that log on 30 minutes, 3 times a week show strong growth.
  • Join the public library’s summer reading program.
  • Check your local Borders or Barnes & Noble for summer reading programs.
  • Log onto Houghton Mifflin Education Place http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmcam/  for math practice

 Thank you for a wonderful school year.  Enjoy your summer and I’ll see you on campus in August!

Together, we create a better tomorrow!

Carol Osborne