#ourfcps

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First day of school! One high school freshman, one fourth grader! #fcpsfirstday #ourfcps

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Visual Literacy Talking about visual literacy at the secondary literacy symposium. Not only do art students engage with traditional texts like books and articles, they are also learning art language to develop abilities to decode and encode the visual world.

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Courage & Joy

Add to my recent post that educators need to have courage! Principal Dawn Hendrick and her staff at Woodlawn Elementary certainly demonstrated courage when they decided to dedicate an entire day to CARDBOARD! A few of the teachers, including art teacher Angela Noland, started playing with the idea of doing Imagination.org’s Global Cardboard Challenge with some students at the school, and before…

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Expectations

I have had the privilege of attending our local leadership conferences for years and have always felt that it was a shame that all teachers in the division couldn’t be there to hear the message that would drive so many decisions in the coming year. That feeling is compounded when we have a new superintendent. It may not compare, but I hope some of you can appreciate those messages shared here…

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Art and Our New Superintendent

A Leadership Conference marks the beginning of each new school year for the school and central office administrators in our school system. This year’s conference was our first real opportunity to hear from our new superintendent, Dr. Scott Brabrand.  https://www.fcps.edu/news/fairfax-county-school-board-confirms-scott-brabrand-fcps-superintendent One of the prominent ideas he spoke about was…

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Gratitude

I don’t usually talk directly about where I work, but today I am feeling particularly proud to be part of the Fairfax County Public Schools art program. I have been communicating with an art teacher who left our school system a while back to live in another part of the country. She is excited to finally have a Fine Arts Supervisor in her division and has been talking with this supervisor about…

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Art & Technology

Congratulations to the many students, and their teachers, recognized at the Technology+Art=NOW reception yesterday evening. The artwork is stellar, and you should be incredibly proud! I also want to thank — and congratulate — Arts Herndon, the organization that organizes this program. I want to thank them for recognizing our artists for excellence and for providing monetary scholarship awards to…

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Staff Development Day

I am so inspired by the FCPS art teachers who shared their expertise with one another for our staff development day. Sessions included media process demos… …collaborative work sessions… …presentations by practicing artist colleagues… …technology and blended learning training… …and many other valuable sessions including meeting the needs of students with special needs and working with English…

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