Welcome Back and Greetings

August 27 is the first day of school for Austin ISD, Clint Small Middle School, and the Green Tech Academy. While summer was great, and much needed, it is nice to get back into the swing of things on campus. I wanted to use this email to introduce you all to myself and other changes to Small staff, to update everyone on Small events over the summer (pictures to follow), welcome you back, and give a brief overview of basic items needed for the school year, and operations.

Our school had many drastic changes come about at the end of the school year. For most of you that follow this blog, I hope that you are aware that David Matthews,  partially retired at the end of the year, going to half time, and is now fully retired. He was our leader, advocate, and inspiration. He is spending time with his family and working on a retirement home on Leakey. His knowledge, expertise and friendship will be greatly missed. Even though he will be around occassionally to help on campus and to offer advice, it won't be the same without him around in the gardens.

We also had many other teachers retire, move campuses, or move on to bigger and brighter things. All of them will be individually missed both personally and professionally. Everywhere I look on campus and at District events it seems there are new faces. I am very excited to welcome everyone and get their fresh perspectives on education and Small!

If you have been at Small at all for the past 4 years, you will be familiar with me. My name is Nate Rosenberg. I have been referenced on this site before working in the greenhouse, running Clean Sweeps, and doing our Earth Day plantings. Chris Brooks and I will be taking over the class load for the Environmental portion of the Green Tech Academy. I have been at Small for 4 years, teaching 6th grade Science and Environmental Sciences. Chris has been teaching for more than a decade, and has been at Small for more that 7 years. Chris has worked in Social Studies, World Cultures, English, and Environmental Sciences. We luckily had a new addition to the Green Tech Academy. Our former Assistant Principal, Sherry Lepine, has added on being our Dean this year. We are super excited! She is already working furiously being an advocate for the program advertising for our GREENFEST, which will be taking place very soon this semester. We will have environmental events, activities, live music from some big Austin acts, food, drink, FUN, education, and mostly FUN. More information will definitely be trickling out when we get it locked in. Each of us will occasionally be contributing to this site and posting pictures of the wonderful things going on at CSMS.

This Summer, Small was crazy busy with events. We had our annual Cougar Camp, where we invited 5th graders on track to attend Small to get to know the campus and our culture. They had a great time! For the first time we offered the STEM Summer Camp. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. We did 5 different themed 1 week camps ranging from Endangered Species to Digital Story Telling. Turn out was great and the kids loved it! It was educational and FUN! We didn't lose any kids but some may have had some close encounters and the Austin Nature and Science Center or at Sea World. After the camp, each of us got a chance to work individually, travel, and relax. Chris and I were able to finally finish our chicken coop. We have had chickens and other wildlife in classrooms being taken care of at Small by students for many years. Last year we had some issues will our natural environmental issues colliding with our permaculture. Natural residents on our campus, red-tailed hawks, were struggling last year with the drought and out chickens were an easy entree. Our coop is now hawk and predator proof.

Now for the nitty gritty. For all Environmental Science electives, you will ALWAYS NEED IN CLASS a WRITING UTENSIL, PENCIL OR PEN ONLY, AGENDA, AND A COMPOSITION NOTEBOOK. There is a $5 lab fee. This lab fee will be used to buy new plants, seeds, growing medium, tools, animals holding tanks and many other things. If your family cannot afford the lab fee please email or call me, so alternative arrangements can be made. Right now all supplies are on sale. Please stock up. Almost all classes at Small use the composition notebook, so why not buy a bushel. Classes will be great this year I look forward to seeing and hearing from everyone. As promised photos will follow from this summer.