Happy Birthday Chets Creek!

Chets Creek adds a candle for each year.
All 18 candles are displayed in the school's lobby.
This year's "The Greatest School on Earth" (right)
was painted by talented  Art teacher, Jen Snead.

Happy Birthday!  Today Chets Creek is 18 years old!    I was watching a video of years past in the lobby with a 5th grader this morning and he said, "Wow!  Do you know I wasn't even born then?"  It was quite sobering to think that every child we are educating today at the Creek wasn't born when the first group of children came over with "Mrs. Fizzle" from three different elementary schools to form that first class in the middle of the school year.  That first group of children are grown now and we have even had second generation children entering Chets Creek. Incredible!

Chets Creek began to build a reputation from those very first days.  I can remember however, that we had very few teachers interviewing at Chets in those early years.  There were rumors that we worked too hard, that teachers were required to work on Saturdays and Sundays, and that the Principal sat in the parking lot with a camera and checked cars coming in and out to make sure teachers came on time and didn't leave early!  Have no idea how those rumors got started but they were so ridiculous.  Instead we were busy building a learning community.  Teachers who didn't feel comfortable being transparent and opening their classroom to others generally self-selected out.  Soon test scores began to verify what we already knew - that something quite extraordinary was happening at this new school. Now we generally have teachers interviewing that say they really want to come to Chets as their first choice because of our reputation with on-going professional development.

Notice the detail in this year's candle
with a nod to the Principal's championship team,
 Clemson Tigers.

After five years the county promoted our founding Principal.  I'm sure people wondered if Chets would be able to maintain - was the school's success due to a single charismatic leader? Some internally may have wondered that too!  Thankfully the county promoted a teacher from within who was familiar with, and had had a pivotal role in, establishing the culture and community.  She was able to continue what had been started - business as usual - which is as hard as establishing the initial foundation. While many schools that opened around the same time that we did have had six, seven, even eight principals in these 18 years, we have had only two.  That stability has been our strength.

As test scores came in this year, Chets Creek ranked second in our large county (behind the gifted magnet) and 36st in the state, but what has been built here is so much more than test scores. We have established a true learning community where children, as well as adults, work together and lean on each other for support. Regardless of the winds of change, we have stood steadfast in what we believe is right for children.  Because we have always had strong test scores, thank goodness, we have been allowed much autonomy in charting our own course.

For 18 year Chets Creek has maintained a solid reputation as an outstanding school, inside and out. What a celebration!  Happy Birthday, Chets Creek.  Just as teacher leaders have continued to exceed the expectations, may they continue to rise to exceed the expectations for the next 18 years!

The ARC Birthday

Last week we celebrated the ARC's birthday. It has been a year since we opened this tutoring program in the midst of a 1000 mobile home community that is zoned for Chets Creek. I have written about this effort several times and the inspiring people, KK Cherney and Liz Duncan, who jumped into action over a year ago to make it happen. At the birthday party, a group of students from the community, chosen by the Music teacher, opened with the National anthem. Honestly, they sounded like angels. A fourth grade student who wants to be a teacher and comes on our first grade afternoon to tutor students, spoke about his experiences at the ARC. There were jumpy houses for all the children, ice cream and cupcakes and presents (books and pencils donated by Scholastic) for all the children. The school presented the Management of the Community with a framed picture that included a picture of each of the 250 students who had been serviced at the ARC that will hang in the Community Center. The children brought their families from across the community.

We have entered this project into a $1000 local competition to earn a few extra dollars for books and technology. We hope this will become the hub of activities for this community, that will not only meet their academic needs but will improve their quality of life. Please help us by going to Community First's blog to "Like" our project! What an inspiration this project could be if the idea caught on across our entire county.... It's possible... dreams really do come true... Just take a look at the ARC!

Happy Birthday George!

I have the same birthday as our first President, George Washington. When I was very young my mother had birthday parties of red, white and blue and served cherry cobbler - patriotic all the way! I was quite upset when our nation decided to celebrate President's Day instead of George's specific birthday on the 22nd. While I have nothing against Abe, I just didn't want to share the day and certainly didn't want the date changed every year depending on when the third Monday in February fell on the calendar!

As we returned to school today after our President's Day holiday, I was talking to the children about George and Abe, trying to find out exactly what their background knowledge might be. They did know that George was the first President and that his profile appears on the quarter. They knew that Abe was born poor and had his profile on the penny. It's all about the money! They even identified our current President. They also knew that it was my birthday. They had made cards and had a surprise birthday cake with a little of my favorite Diet Coke on the side planned for the afternoon. Well into my fact finding mission, Tanner raised his innocent hand and gave me that puzzled look. "Mrs. Timmons, if you and George Washington were born on the same day and he is dead, how come you're not dead?"Out of the mouth of babes!

Birthday Wishes for Kate

Last night I attended a very special birthday party. Lansing Roy turned 70 and his granddaughter Kate turned 1! My connection to the party was the mom in the middle. Elizabeth Roy Conte and I taught together at Chets Creek for several years. In fact, I was her Special Education teacher during the Teacher of the Year selections. She is a lot of the reason that I was selected because I was able to use the strong rituals and routines that she had established in her room when I taught demo lessons in her class. It was her lovely, organized room that visitors saw when they watched me teach and best of all, Elizabeth was the lead cheerleader. She is a passionate, committed teacher in her own right who was very often chosen to teach demo lessons because of her expertise and natural ability. In fact, she taught our very first videostream to the Schultz Center. She is a risk taker and an accomplished National Board Certified teacher. I have been so fortunate to share time with her over the years.

Like so many of her young teacher friends at Chets, Elizabeth has taught her entire career at the Creek. She came as a young single teacher and then married and had two children. We watched and celebrated each of those landmarks. This young group of teacher friends have shared many things - pregnancy thrills and challenges, suggestions for soothing colicky babies, what to do about children's asthma and allergies, birthday parties... They have met as a mommy play group since the first babies were born, even through the summer. Now they are working on Round Two babies. Last year Elizabeth welcomed her second child and first daughter, Baby Kate. Almost immediately, there was a problem and Kate was eventually diagnosed with Myotonic Dystrophy. Through the diagnosis of this genetic disorder, it was also discovered that the gene is carried by both Elizabeth and her father. Through their heartache and pain, Elizabeth and her husband Dave searched for answers. Last night their strong families and many friends came together to celebrate the answer- a cure through money for research.

Many of Elizabeth's Chets Creek family were there - young teachers with their husbands, babies, toddlers and preschoolers in tow along with Principal Susan Phillips. As we celebrated, we cried, we laughed and we joined in the family's hope for a cure! As I watched our little group of young moms and dads with their precious children, it was a looking glass into the future of Chets Creek. Some of these moms have stepped out of the teaching force to be stay-at-home moms. Some have returned to teach part-time. Others have never left teaching and one even came with a new foster child last night but the one thing they all have in common is that they have a heart for children and they all want their own children at a school like Chets Creek when the time comes. They know the school from the inside out and even with its flaws, they want their children to have the opportunities that are offered there. I think it is these strong, deep relationships that these teachers have with each other that are characteristic of a high performing school. It is just so reaffirming to me as I watch these moms rally around Elizabeth and her hope for the future because what we want for Kate is what we want for each of our little ones - as her mother said through her tears last night, "we want her to dance" - to learn and to find meaning and happiness. Happy Birthday, little Kate! May we be there for all of your birthdays... as you celebrate the cure!

From Apple Queen to Apple-Bottom Jeans

I'm celebrating one of those landmark birthdays this weekend - you know, the kind you hope no one will notice and will go quietly by. Of course, at Chets Creek nothing goes quietly by. My life is quite the open book and they never do anything in a small way at the Creek, so.... I was greeted to a Surprise! Birthday Party first thing Friday morning. With the entire faculty dressed in red and green with crowns upon their heads to go with the theme "From Apple Queen to Apple Bottom Jeans" (it's a long story!), I entered the red paper covered walkway of the Media Center (passing a mouth watering array of apple themed breakfast foods)! Melanie Holtsman, friend extraordinaire, had put together a video of my life including my childhood, pictures of me as the Westminster, SC "Apple Queen," pictures from my double wedding with my sister, pictures of me with my husband of 38 years, pics of me as a new mom and from my teaching years, me with the granddaughter, interspersed with videos of the faculty pretending to be yours truly displaying some of my most (in)famous character traits (such as talking people into doing things that they never intended to do, my inability to work anything in technology including a DVD player - oops, they told me it was a CD player! and my obsession recently with adding things to our wiki, wiki, wiki!) The video ended with our Leadership Team dressed in gangster garb dancing (sort of!) to Apple Bottom Jeans - a song they have been trying to teach me for a year because they think my sixties beach music is a little outdated! I laughed until I cried. Each grade level even brought Diet Cokes as a gift since I pay $.75 several times a day to the Coke machine because I think a pack of cans is just too heavy to bring into the building (sad, I know!) with my arms full of other stuff.

Just as soon as I thought my heart could absolutely take no more, my husband - who has never kept a secret in his entire life - pulled off a surprise party on Saturday night with my favorite people in the world. I am so NOT the surprise type or much of a party girl, for that matter, but I have been so touched all weekend by the people in my life. I have realized that, outside of my family, all of my deep, emotional ties are with people I have worked with - many go back 20 years. How fortunate I am to have worked all these years in schools that have allowed me to really LOVE going to school every day. There is no doubt that the children and families I have taught along the way have touched the very depths of my soul, but it is the relationships that I have had with my colleagues that bring me to my knees in thanksgiving. I have taught alongside people that I learn from every day - that make me laugh, that keep me humble, and that are willing to share in my pain as easily as they share in my joy. Can anyone wish for a richer life than this?

Thanks to the cast of incredible, colorful characters who have reminded me all weekend of just how lucky I am! My cup truly runneth over. I don't know what the next 60 years will bring, but the first 60 have been everything that dreams are made of... and more.

Happy 10th Birthday CCE!

The birthday candles represent the theme
for each year in our school's history.

As the Leadership Team has been studying The Disney Way, one of the chapters reminds us of how important details are to the overall effect. It is obvious at Chets Creek this week that so many people have taken care of the details. Most of that credit goes to KK Cherney, our Media Specialist, and her little crew of worker bees that have made so many dreams a reality this week.



From individual displays for each of the ten years to the time capsule display to the beautiful birthday candles painted by our Art staff, you can see the history of Chets Creek as you walk through the lobby.

Each day WCCE, the student hosted morning news cast, has revisited a video clip from a previous year. On the first day of this celebration week, the children saw footage of that very first day, as Chets Creek opened with children boarding the Magic School Bus with Mrs. Frizzle to journey to their new school. On Tuesday the current children revisited Mrs. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus that brought those first children from three different elementary schools in the middle of the year to the newly built Chets Creek Elementary. Today's children hopped on those same buses and watched a video of that first magic ride. The video then took them through the years with photographs. Even Mrs. Frizzle was the same - well maybe ten years older!

On Wednesday we celebrated with a breakfast for our alumni - children and adults. Alumni were invited back for breakfast and were guest readers for the entire day. Each guest read their favorite Book of the Month from a previous year. This was a chance for the original students and faculty to meet once again and remember and share stories about those years gone by. It gave our present faculty and children a chance to understand the rich history that their present is built upon.














On Thursday all of the faculty and children were dressed to represent one of the themes from a previous year. From Hollywood to Racing to Cowboys, the teachers (the Kindergarten Team on left) entertained their grade level at a birthday bash. The Kinder teachers performed their rendition of the Hokey Pokey to the delight of their students! Then the kids sang "Happy Birthday" and had their chance with the "Chicken Dance!" Each child enjoyed a birthday cupcake and treat bag delivered by the CCE Paraprofessionals!


On the final day of the week-long celebration, the school held a flag raising ceremony much like the first one at Chets Creek. This time the Chets Creek patrols stood with the award-winning honor guard from Sandalwood High School which contained Chets Creek graduates. Principal Phillips briefly reviewed our history as one of the top 20 schools in the state of Florida and then read from the book, C is for Chets Creek which was written by this years' students. Each class wrote a page about the traditions and history of the school.

The culmination of the week was a flag raising ceremony to bury the new time capsule. The first mounds of dirt were turned by current fifth graders, representatives of the "Class of '08." Ten years from now at a birthday celebration much like the one today, this new capsule will be dug up and we will once again celebrate our history. These children that are writing their names on our hearts today will be gone and some of the faculty will have moved on, but there is no doubt that this school has left its mark. Surely, some of us have been changed... forever.