April 9 - 'When it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade'
Charles Dickens was referring to March when he wrote, "When it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." That feels so much like how my backyard feels right now. It also feels like a good metaphor for how school feels. We can see and feel a huge weight beginning to lift. But, we know we have lots of work to do and must remain restricted in our actions and diligent with the COVID guidelines.
As we enter that glorious time of year when the earth begins to awaken and teen spirit heightens, we need to lean into our collective effort to help our students stay on course and stick to the COVID rules. You are doing an amazing job with keeping the learning going and school safe. Keep up your focus, continue to encourage your students to do their work and ask important questions, and carry on with your emotional support. It is working! A break is coming and your deserved rest awaits.
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Did you know that YOSKO is an author (....and track coach)?
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This Week's other Link:
Student Led Racial Equity & Justice Group Survey. This survey is for period 2 on Mon/Tuesday. It will be emailed to students and should only take a few minutes to complete. This a blurb for you to read to students at the time your choose during period 2. The blurb will be shared again this Monday morning.
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Updates:
Schedule Update: Thank you all for getting the program of studies information to the guidance office before February break, and for taking the time to talk about your course offerings with students. Lindsey and Carrie have been meeting with students, and most course registration forms are complete. We are in good shape with our scheduling timeline. Sheila is working hard to set up courses in powerschool. We will run the schedule - (probably many times) during April break to figure out what works best.
Although the computer does much of the work for us, in figuring out course conflicts, there are some things we know will not work. It comes down to this -
We do not have the capacity to run as many classes year long as teachers have requested. If we honor the request for year-long classes, student choice (for 9th and 10 graders especially) will be limited to core classes + 1 elective (which might be their language class). This has a huge impact on not only students, but on our unified arts and world language programs. We can not create a schedule that puts important subject areas at risk of extinction.
Choice is important. In the recent survey we put out to students, many of them commented about lack of choice in the 4 block schedule. If we were to create a schedule of mostly yearlong classes, that would equate to significantly less choice for students. (Act 77 (flexible pathways, proficiencies and personalized learning) was intended to broaden choice for students. Determining how to do this on the ground is very challenging.
Choosing which classed to run year long are difficult decisions to make. For this upcoming year, will continue to prioritize year long classes for 9th and 10th grade Literacy and math classes and possibly beginning language classes (if we can make these work in our schedule). Most other classes will need to be semesterised. This will foster student choice and allow us to run all those awesome elective courses that your department created. And there is good news here, students are excited about the options in this year’s program of studies.
We understand and appreciate the dilemma departments find themselves in. It takes time for students to reach proficiency, and for some departments the proficiencies are numerous- it feels impossible to get to everything.
There is work we need to do in order to make our schedule work with student choice and proficiency expectation. We need time to rethink and narrow our proficiencies.
Perhaps, building in things like Humanities and other cross-curricular opportunities, could prevent proficiencies from being isolated to specific department and courses. This is where we need to put our energy over the next couple of years. We have a few inservice days at the end of this year where we can dedicate time for this important work.
However, adding more shorter classes to our schedule is not the solution. We know from our work with Bill Rich, Christian Jernstedt, and others, that the brain doesn't work at it's fullest potential we it's pulled in many directions in a single day. And, we have seen first hand this year, that many students have improved with fewer things to focus on.
* We will leave time at the end of BP on Wednesday for Q&A on this topic
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| Speaking of student learning form this year, definitely check out these reliefs in the hallway by the library - they write up's are very unique. |
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Calendar
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| SBAC'in |
4/13 - In School SAT Testing for Juniors
4/14 - Best Practice
4/19-4/23 - Vacation
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TA (Teacher Advisory)
Celebration of Woman Video & Announcements
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Schoolwide Happenings:
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| If only class could always be like this? |
Celebrations:
Happy Birthday
Jim Calhoun April 17
Margo Warden April 20
Chris Player April 20
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