greatest gift we can give you in this community is to join with you in building responsible kids. We wel-come the opportunity to guide children to solve their own problems with-out causing a problem for anyone or anything on the planet. For more infor-mation, visit www.loveandlogic.com.

In closing, we have a GREAT school that can only become stronger with your help and support. Team with us to build re-sponsible kids!

Don’t forget to check us out on the web and re-member:

“Core Knowledge Don’t Leave School Without It.”

Welcome to the 2015-2016 school year!

I want to thank you for choosing to partner with Sculptor Charter in the education of your child. All of us at Sculptor would like to make your child’s educa-tional experience engaging and successful.

Our Vision:

Sculptor Charter School will develop culturally literate citizens who are successful in the real world by delivering a world class education in a collaborative environ-ment with a passion for learning.

We ask your assistance in supporting your child’s education by encouraging them to keep focused and to perform to the best of their ability. Student suc-cess is achieved when re-sponsibility is accepted

with integrity and purpose. Your active support, com-bined with our best profes-sional efforts, ensures stu-dent success.

I invite you all to become involved in your child’s education by volunteering in the classroom, joining one of our parent/school committees, and participat-ing in events and activities that occur throughout the school year.

I urge you to join our Sculptor PTO. Research shows that your participa-tion in organizations like the PTO and school spon-sored activities during the school year is a big part of your child’s success in school. And, it’s the best way to become a member of the Sculptor Team!

Sculptor staff and faculty have embraced the Love and Logic philosophy. The

PRINCIPAL’S CORNER

UNIFORM POLICY ALERT—DON ’T FORGET YOUR BELT AND...

Our Uniform Policy Mis-sion: to keep our focus on a quality, well-rounded educa-tion where students are free from the distractions of fashion trends, provide the opportunity to present a neat and pleasant

appearance as a career skill that will serve students well in the future, and to enhance school safety and security.

IMPORTANT REMINDER:

“Snugly fitting (skinny

style) or baggy low-er garments are not appropriate.”

Please review our Uniform Policy located in the preface section of your 2015-16 Calendar/Handbook.

NEWSLETTER DATE: SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1

IMPORTANT DATES TO

REMEMBER

September 9th, 16th, 23rd, & 30th— Early Dismissal Days, 2:00pm

September14th— Harvest Festival meeting, 6:30 pm

September 15th— Great American Fundraiser Ends (PTO)

September 17th— Interim Reports Issued 1st-5th Grade

September 18th— Interim Reports Issued 6th-8th Grade

September 21st-25th— SCS Book Fair, Media Center

September 23rd— Expiration of 2014-15 Free/Reduced Lunch Status (unless renewed/reinstated, apply at www.brevardschools.org)

September 24th— Student Yearbook Photos

September 25th— Family Movie Night, sponsored by SCS PTO

September 28th— BICS Board Meet-ing, 7:00am

October 1st— SCS Annual Walk-A-Thon

CAR LOOP

SAFETY

FOR THE SAFETY OF

OUR STUDENTS , STAFF AND

FAMILIES , SCULPTOR ’S

PARKING LOT IS ONE

WAY ONLY, ALL DAY ,

EVERY DAY . REMEMBER

TO DRIVE WITH CAUTION

AND PLEASE REFRAIN FROM

CELL PHONE USE WHILE

YOUR VEHICLE IS IN

MOTION . WE ARE ALL

WANTING THE SAME

THING—A SAFE CAMPUS !

SCULPTOR CHARTER SCHOOL

-AN OFFICIAL CORE KNOWLEDGE SCHOOL-

1301 ARMSTRONG DR , TITUSVILLE , FL 32780 • (321) 264-4000 • WWW .SCULPTORCHARTER .ORG

“Sculpting Young Minds To Shape The Future.”

S C U L P T O R N E W S

To continue to develop student math skills and math reasoning, Sculptor has renewed a research-based highly effective online math program called IXL, for students in grades 1st-8th.

With over 2,000 skills and an unlimited number of generated programs, your children always have something new and exciting to practice on IXL.

Start your children on the road to success and help them become more confident students. You will appreciate how IXL tracks your chil-dren’s progress and keeps you informed every step of the way. Watch and be amazed as they master new math topics and become proficient in essential skills.

Teachers have been entering students into IXL and should soon have infor-mation for you on how to use IXL at home!

Every charter school’s governing board must appoint a representative to facilitate parental involvement, provide access to in-formation, assist parents and others with questions and concerns, and resolve dis-putes. The representative must reside in the school district.

The BICS/Sculptor parent liaison is Mrs. Jackie Flynn. She may be reached via email, jackie@brevardcounseling.com.

Let’s be respectful of our community and not create a problem for anyone on the planet or in our city.

Please do not park on the right of ways on Grissom Pkwy and Armstrong Dr.

THANK YOU!

All of Sculptor teachers are certified by the State of Florida and highly qualified. Some are working towards added course work/exams required by the State of Florida in Eng-lish as a Second Lan-guage or adding a sub-ject to their certificate this year. Mrs. Dawn Robinson finishing her Reading Endorsement.

A RESEARCH-BASED TECHNOLOGY TOOL - IXL

OUT-OF FIELD TEACHERS

SEVERE/INCLEMENT WEATHER & SAFETY

ALERT TO PARENTS:

When weather conditions interfere with staff supervi-sion of the car loop, students will not be dismissed by the normal procedures. This means that car loop procedures will be suspended, as required by the district’s safety procedures.

Parents will be need to exit their vehicles in order to claim their children at the exterior gym doors. Parents/individuals, claiming students, must present placards and/or I.D.

Most times, we have very little notice from the time a storm rolls in until the time the storm is severe enough to respond to this protocol. To help inform you that car loop is under sus-pension, a large red sign, displaying “SEVERE WEATHER DISMISSAL” will be posted in the window of the front office. When severe weather strikes, keep alert and keep your eyes out for the red sign so that you may plan to follow the Severe Weather Dismissal procedures in order to pick up your child.

Your cooperation will ensure a speedy and safe dismissal.

In Florida, we are all aware of those random thunderstorms that can roll into our area any given afternoon.

When severe weather is forecast, approach-ing or present, the staff and any visitors will be alerted and we will move students to safety.

If lightning is present, Sculptor will use the “30-30 Rule”.

If the time between seeing lightning and hearing thunder is thirty (30) seconds or less, outdoor activities shall not begin or will be suspended if already in progress.

Sculptor will wait thirty (30) minutes or more after thunder is last heard before allowing students and staff to leave proper shelter.

Conservative decisions will be made whenever severe weather is forecast or observed with the highest priority given to the safety of students and staff.

This includes car loop and/or loading the bus.

PAGE 2 SCULPTOR NEWS

The presence of digital technology in our daily lives has made it a must for your child to be keyboard proficient. This invaluable skill will serve one well in life, whether one pursues further studies or training. With this in mind, Sculptor would like to inform you that we have a school-wide license to Typing Pal Online, a great tool for learning how to type. Via the Internet, your child can now practice keyboarding at school AND at home. As a parent, we ask that you encourage your child to improve on what they have learned during technology class by reminding them to practice at home as often as possible. All grades (3rd-8th) have been introduced to Typing Pal during technology class and have been provided their login account information. The Sculptor Typing Pal page can be found at: https://school.typingpal.com/index_ecole.asp?BPSFSCSF. If you need your child’s username and password for Typing Pal, please contact our technology teacher, Mrs. Widmeier via email: widmeier.elizabeth@sculptorcharter.org.

PARENT LIAISON

BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR TYPING PAL

Why I Never Tell My Child He is Smart By: Salman Khan

My 5 year-old son has just started reading. Every night, we lie on his bed and he reads a short book to me. Inevitably, he’ll hit a word that he has trouble with: last night the word was

―gratefully.‖ He eventually got it after a fairly painful minute. He then said, ―Dad, aren’t you glad how I struggled with that word? I think I could feel my brain growing.‖ I smiled: my son

was now verbalizing the tell­tale signs of a ―growth-mindset.‖ But this wasn’t by accident. Recently, I put into practice research I had been reading about for the past few years: I decided to praise my son not when

he succeeded at things he was already good at, but when he persevered with things that he found difficult.

I stressed to him that by struggling, your brain grows. Between the deep body of research on the field of learning mindsets and this personal experience with my son, I am more convinced than ever that mindsets

toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach. Researchers have known for some time that the brain is like a muscle; that the more you use it, the

more it grows. They’ve found that neural connections form and deepen most when we make mistakes do­ing difficult tasks rather than repeatedly having success with easy ones.

What this means is that our intelligence is not fixed, and the best way that we can grow our intel-

ligence is to embrace tasks where we might struggle and fail. However, not everyone realizes this. Dr. Carol Dweck of Stanford University has been studying peo­

ple’s mindsets towards learning for decades. She has found that most people adhere to one of two mind­sets: fixed or growth. Fixed mindsets mistakenly believe that people are either smart or not, that intelli­

gence is fixed by genes. People with growth mindsets correctly believe that capability and intelligence can be grown through effort, struggle and failure. Dweck found that those with a fixed mindset tended to focus

their effort on tasks where they had a high likelihood of success and avoided tasks where they may have had to struggle, which limited their learning. People with a growth mindset, however, embraced challeng­

es, and understood that tenacity and effort could change their learning outcomes. As you can imagine, this correlated with the latter group more actively pushing themselves and growing intellectually.

The good news is that mindsets can be taught; they’re malleable. What’s really fascinating is that

Dweck and others have developed techniques that they call ―growth mindset interventions,‖ which have shown that even small changes in communication or seemingly innocuous comments can have fairly long­-

lasting implications for a person’s mindset. For instance, praising someone’s process (―I really like how you struggled with that problem‖) versus praising an innate trait or talent (―You’re so clever!‖) is one way to

reinforce a growth mindset with someone. Process­praise acknowledges the effort; talent­praise reinforces the notion that one only succeeds (or doesn’t) based on a fixed trait. And we’ve seen this on Khan Acade­

my as well: students are spending more time learning on Khan Academy after being exposed to messages

that praise their tenacity and grit and that underscore that the brain is like a muscle. The Internet is a dream for someone with a growth mindset. Between Khan Academy, MOOCs, and

others, there is unprecedented access to endless content to help you grow your mind. However, society isn’t going to fully take advantage of this without growth mindsets being more prevalent. So, what if we ac­

tively tried to change that? What if we began using whatever means are at our disposal to start performing growth mindset interventions on everyone we cared about? This is much bigger than Khan Academy or

algebra – it applies to how you communicate with your children, how you manage your team at work, how you learn a new language or instrument. If society as a whole begins to embrace the struggle of learning,

there is no end to what that could mean for global human potential.

And now here’s a surprise for you. By reading this article itself, you’ve just undergone the first half of a growth-mindset intervention. The research shows that just being exposed to the research itself (—for ex­

ample, knowing that the brain grows most by getting questions wrong, not right—) can begin to change a person’s mindset. The second half of the intervention is for you to communicate the research with others.

After all, when my son, or for that matter, anyone else asks me about learning, I only want them to know one thing. As long as they embrace struggle and mistakes, they can learn anything.

Sculptor is trying to get in a this new habit too. We want to help you create “growth-mindset chil-dren”.

PAGE 3 SCULPTOR NEWS

PAGE 4 SCULPTOR NEWS