The first few weeks of middle school may well be the most critical for young Bellevue School District students. The transition from a fixed homeroom to managing a variety of teaching styles and assignments is probably the greatest challenge for incoming sixth-graders. While the schools may do an excellent job of orienting new students to the physical environment—helping new students navigate the hallways to their various classes and familiarizing them with the resources available to them—students are largely left to their own resources when it comes to making sure they know what their assignments are and how to complete them. As a result, the sudden increase in workload and personal responsibility is more than many can handle. Often this results in a rough transition while our kids figure things out, and some students never manage to develop the organizational strategies essential for their academic success. Failure during this critical period potentially signals much more serious difficulties later on.

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The Bellevue High School Wolverines will be heading to Texas to face back to back 5A Division II state champion Katy High School. Texas is known for living and breathing high school football so of course a big crowd is expected to fill the 10,000 seats at Jack Rhodes Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

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Bellevue School District (BSD405.org) has chosen a new Director of Curriculum Sharon (Collins) Kautz (the former Principal at Interlake High School). This is obviously a big hire for any of us that care about the future direction of curriculum in Bellevue School District. I do not know Sharon well enough to be able to categorize this as a win or a loss. It will be interesting to hear your opinions and to see her future performance.

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I’m at a bit of a loss for words (but I’ve never let that stop me before)! I got a memo from my son’s teacher informing parents that Bellevue School District (BSD405.org) would be taping (and screening) President Obama’s upcoming speech on Education, then would allow (or not) it to be disseminated to the kids.

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My friend Margit Crane (the Gifted-Teen Coach) is going to present this interactive talk at the Tutoring Club on August 27th from 7:15 – 8:30. I’ve heard Margit speak and she always is full of PRACTICAL real-world ideas to help us work with our kids. I’m really excited about this talk. We’ll keep it to a small group and have plenty of time for discussion!

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Just came across one of Bill Gates’ newest internet projects. Apparently for years he has wanted to make a series of Richard Feynman lectures that he had seen available to the public. They are now up Feynmann Lectures – TUVA project

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In February, we wrote, here, about one of Bellevue School District’sLilia Kol finest teachers, . Though her excellence needs no confirmation (at least for US!!!), we’ve recently found that Mrs. Kol won a Teacher Recognition Award in the 2009 Presidential Scholars Program. She was nominated by former student and 2009 Presidential Scholar, Brian Reiser, as the person most influential to his education.

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