Happy New Year

Nope, he's not 'dropping the ball' at Midnight - he's testing his egg carrier design.....which failed, ouch!

Welcome Back! I hope you had the restful and enjoyable break that you deserved.

Good luck in the coming two weeks as you work hard to close up your semesters. There will not be an early release day for you to complete your grading this quarter. However, the student exhibition/finals week will offer several windows of time for this work. Good luck. 

On that note, one of our challenges with the transition to a Proficiency Based Learning system is understanding our methods and tools for feedback. A few times this fall we discussed this dilemma. One take away from these discussions was an interest among teachers (and students) to strengthen our use of and consistency with Schoology. The Leadership Team and I believe that a good step to help us move forward in this area is for me to take a hard look at everyone's Schoology set-up. The ideas is this will help me begin to understand where and how we can build consistency and clarity. 

Thus, this week you can expect to hear from Janet about scheduling short One on One meetings with Maura Weiler and I. (I guess that's technically one on two.) These are meant to be information gathering meetings and supportive to you and our school wide system. We are looking to find things that are working for you and students in an effort to strengthen our feedback systems. Ultimately, I hope to be able to share with you some helpful insights and begin to design consistencies across our classrooms. 

In service Update: The January in-service day is an LSSU day. We will update you soon on details, but expect to be working with your colleagues on system wide topics. It will not be a day dedicated to grading and prep for a new semester.


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Calendar

   1/11 - Last day of Semester
   1/14-19 - No TA this week
   1/21 - LSSU In-Service @ PA
   2/1 - LSSU In-Service
   2/19 - TA YRBS survey during TA/Flex
   2/25-3/5 - Winter Break
   3/9 - Science Olympiad @ UVM
   3/14 & 15 - One Act plays in Aud 7pm





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TA this week:

  Tuesday (1/1): Happy New Year

  Friday (1/4): ***On your own... flex sign up, announcements


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Schoolwide Happenings:

Next Steps class visits Howard Jones downtown office. 

Les gillets jaunes! You'll have to ask a French student to explain.....

Farewell Amanda!

The annual egg drop contest in Physics

Tiffany and Vanessa were invited to participate in a statewide training opportunity though U-matter. They will be part of a team that trains over a 100 students from throughout Vermont Schools on youth mental health and wellness.

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Celebrations:
 

Our students playing hockey with Stowe are having an overall good experience and contributing to their teams. Of particular note, senior Max Carr surpassed a huge milestone during break when he surpassed the '100 point' mark after scoring 3 goals in one game at a Middlebury tournament. His final goal of the night, his 100th point, also won the game for Stowe in Overtime....with only 30 seconds left. (It was his second overtime goal to win a game this season. Hmm, shades of Tom Brady?) Check out the video above for some highlights of Max.


Happy Birthday: none this week that I'm aware of....