Today, Dr. Michael Martirano, Interim Superintendent visited Guilford.  He was able to spend time with many of our students, talk with our staff, and even met a few parents.  We started the visit in our Special education resource room and he engaged in our social skills lesson.  Students used puppets to act out greetings and to talk with one another.  He also shared that we have been assigned an additional teacher based on our growing student caseload.  An early holiday present for sure.
 
He joined our 5th graders who were participating in the Hour of Code, a week-long focus, where all students are engaged in using Computer Science skills during our technology classes.  The students were coding to play a basketball game, they were so engaged, they barely noticed him enter the computer lab wearing his green coding socks.  In addition to Dr. Martirano visiting, there was a reporter and photographer from the Howard County times, so be on the lookout for the article highlighting Guilford.
 
Dr. Martirano joined our Reading Team and Fifth grade teachers who were conducting a Language Arts Watch List data meeting.  Our teams hold these meetings each quarter to monitor student progress in both reading and math.  He asked questions about our students progress, what data we collected and monitored, what interventions we use to support student, and what we needed to continue to successes we are having.  He challenged us to continue to know our students as people, as readers, and as mathematicians.
 
He ended his visit by stopping into second grade to talk with the students about what they were learning and praised them for their hard work.  We were so excited to showcase the outstanding students and staff at Guilford.