Oct 9 - Beautiful Day

Posted by pgrant October 08, 2017

Oct 9 - Beautiful Day

Wednesday of last week was a beautiful day in many ways. Sure, the weather was ideal for a day outside, but that is not all I'm talking about. I thought it was beautiful because kids talked to each other, played with each other, helped each other, smiled with each other, and pushed each other in a variety of ways; as did you. I know not all students did this and not everyone had a beautiful day, but I think most did. I know that considering how to make an all school trip positive and worth while for all students is part of our work moving ahead, but for now, let's celebrate what was awesome about last Wednesday. Lots of smiles, lots of helping and sharing, and lots of blisters for a good reason. Thanks to everyone for stepping up to make it work, showing patiences with the process, and especially to Rebecca for the leading the planning team, who was Janet, Van, Averill, Lesley, Mike and Eric. And, for all of you, especially Michele, who made calls home to make sure permission was granted.

M3 & TA:

Thanks for helping to kick off M3 last week. Hopefully you were able to weave the idea of self talk and/or brain pathways into your lessons. If not, no problem, we've got a lot of teaching ahead of us. We are jumping into another M3 lesson this week, on Friday. Your M3 facilitators are working hard to prepare for Friday. Please remember to help set the stage for their work in you TA. Please ask your advisees to remember your circle values and that now (during the M3 lesson) is a time to be exceptionally respectful and responsible. Remind them that their peer leaders are taking a huge risk and that this learning will build and make sense over time. Remind them to give the facilitators and M3 a chance. Thanks.

Upcoming Events:

10/3 - TA M3 starts

10/5 - SHHHHHH!!!! All School trip
10/9 - Best Practice
10/16 - Best Practice
10/18 - Data Day (REPORT CARD FOCUS)
10/19 - CONFERENCES!!!!
10/20 - FREE
10/27 - 1st Quarter Ends
11/10 - In-Service

FYI - TA CALENDAR (This is a living breathing document, sort of. Anyway, it's dynamic, it changes as our needs change.)

Schoology:
The focus on data day early release (10/18) will be on Schoology (Mastery details) and the new reporting system. There will also be some time during Best Practice for you to get help from peers and hear about/view some tips and tricks from out Curriculum Council members (Averill & Kate).

Standardized Testing Update:

SBAC - Many of you saw an article in the locals paper a week ago that outlined how the SBAC is changing. I'm sorry that your first learning about this came via the newspaper. Below is an update on what is changing with SBAC:

High School Smarter Balanced Assessment will be administered in grade 9 this year, not grade 11. This change will provide for seven continuous years of results for each student that will be useful for measuring growth.
New Science Field Test in grades 5, 8 and 11, this assessment will be fully aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This means 4th grade will not be assessed in Science. There will be a statewide field test of this assessment the second through the fourth week of May 2018.
New Alternate Assessments: A new set of alternate assessments in English Language Arts, Math and Science is currently being developed and will be field tested in the spring of 2018 as a replacement to the Dynamic Learning Maps consortium (DLM

ODWP: I think the word is spreading that we will are not going to administer ODWP this year. This is correct. The decision came for several reasons including gaps with alignment with to current practices and resources (particularly at the elementary level) and our current work load. We needed to take something off the plate this year. ODWP is not going away forever, but it is for this year.

Schoolwide Happenings: