Walking the halls
By BETTY POWERS Parnell Elementary Principal

We are rapidly approaching the end of what has proven to be a busy and successful school year.

April 21-24 we will conclude our last round of tutorials. April 29 and 30 we will take our final TAKS assessments.

Our students and staff have worked extremely hard, and we already see positive results. We would like to thank our parents for their continued support and desire to help us in our efforts to educate and equip our students to be successful.

We are committed to excellence at Parnell. The TAKS assessment is just one measure we use to determine progress toward our quest for excellence.

Our third and fourth grade music classes have recently completed our spring concerts. JoAn White, our music teacher, does a fabulous job with our music program. We would like to highlight just a few of our upcoming events.

May 2 our right choice carnival will take place on our west playground. Marcia Morgan is chairman of the event and has worked many hours to assure that students have a day they will remember. Our third grade class will travel May 6 to Beaumont to see the theatre production, "Beauty and the Beast." May 15 - 16, our students will go to Mill Creek Park where the P.E. department conducts a field day with relay races, sack races, and other field events.

One of my favorite days will be May 23, when at our "Good Morning Parnell" we will recognize all of our accelerated readers. I challenged all of our students at the first of the school year to read. At that time, we only had a few avid readers.

Now, we have almost 250 students who will be getting prizes for achieving at least 10 points or more in our AR Club. Other events will be our Sandy Creek picnic and our grade-level awards programs, which will be the very last week of school.

A goal at Parnell this year has been to reactivate PRIDE, our parent organization. This group of parents started the year "with a bang," and we are so grateful for all of their hard work.

We will have a Memory CD for sale, and PRIDE has put together a yearbook. Both of these are items that you and your child will enjoy for years to come.

The school year 2007-2008 is almost over. It has been a good year. Parnell Elementary wants to thank our PRIDE organization and everyone else who in any way contributed to our successes this year.

Summer break will be here very soon. Plans are already being made for the 2008-2009 school term. Our prayer is that our students and teachers have a safe and restful summer and return the next school year invigorated, enthusiastic and excited about learning.