Welcome to Coe's Class dot com

Hello everyone,

Wow! I'm super excited to be dusting off this somewhat forgotten corner of the Internet, www.coesclass.com, in order to say a word of welcome to all of you.  I'm looking forward to meeting many of you in person soon at Knoles' Back-to-School Open House on Wednesday, August 8, from 4:00-6:00.  I'll be in our room that afternoon, the second classroom-cabin (technically Portable Classroom #2) outside on the east-side of the school building.  If you're not able to come to the Open House, I'll see you on Thursday, August 9, for the first day of fifth grade!  Wah-hoo!

I'm sure you want to know what supplies you should bring to school on day-one.  For now, we'll start simple.  The most important thing for you to bring to fifth grade is a positive attitude.  More than anything, I want you to be successful as a fifth grade student this year.  Without a positive attitude you will struggle to achieve your best.  Please don't let that happen.  Come to school on Thursday, August 9 (and every day thereafter), with a smile on your face, ready to be your best-self. I will promise to do the same.

Otherwise, you should know, we've got tables instead of desks in our room, and we'll be switching between cabins for many of our classes, so you'll need a place for all your stuff that's fully portable and semi-secure.  You should bring a backpack and a standard-size pencil box stuffed with a few pencils, a small box of crayons, a pair of scissors, and a couple erasers to school with you everyday this year.  I've asked Ms. Belinda to order agendas and composition books for us and hopefully they'll be here soon, so don't worry about purchasing things like that at this time.

Still reading?  Want to know a little about me?  Cool.

I'm Lisa's husband and Bekah's daddy.  Lisa and I have been married for 21.5 years and we still love each other a lot.  Bekah is 13.5 years old and she's going to be an eighth grader at MEMS this year.  We love her a lot, too. We've got two dogs and a cat, all foundlings, which means we rescued all of them, but really they rescued us, ya know. Their names are Rubi, Nellie, and Tabby.

I'm the fourth generation of my family to work in public schools in Arizona.  My great-grandmother was the first licensed school teacher in Scottsdale, in fact.  I'm proud of my family's legacy in education.

I'm 51, almost 52 years old.  This is the beginning of my 26th year working for the Flagstaff Unified School District.  For 18 years I taught fourth and fifth grades at Christensen and Marshall.  Then I quite unexpectedly got asked to be the principal at Marshall when Mrs. Zanzucchi left to be the principal at Coconino High School.  I ended up doing that for seven years, and it was okay, but I always missed being a teacher.  So last year I trained three people to do the principal's job at Marshall and then I asked FUSD to let me go back to being a teacher.  They hired one of the people I trained and gave me a cool new job teaching fifth grade here at Knoles.  I couldn't be happier!

I like to ride mountain bikes in the woods.  And in the wintertime, I love to ski at Snowbowl.  I read books and I write words a lot.  A long, long time ago I even went to college to be a writer. I have a bachelors degree in journalism from Arizona State University and have written for newspapers, websites, and on my own blog a lot over the years.  I also have a masters degree in educational leadership which I got a few years ago at NAU.

I hope you're enjoying the last few days of your summer break and that you're looking forward to a great year in fifth grade in Mr. Coe's class in Portable #2 at Knoles this year.  I know I am.

Let's do this!

Sincerely,

John Coe