Nov. 27th
Giving Thanks
I hope everyone had a restful and thankful Thanksgiving break. Me and my wife Hope, spent the majority of the week traveling and visiting family in Arkansas. We enjoyed catching up with family, eating a lot, belly laughing, and eating some more. The only down fall of this break is my Arkansas Razorbacks lost to the Missouri Tigers on Friday. I am fully aware that for most of you, Missouri winning was a good thing. Despite that, Thanksgiving break was great but I look forward to seeing everyone of you and our students on Monday.
Instructional
PLT Team Meetings:
We are moving from Question 1 to Question 2 of the PLC Questions.
What do we want our kids to learn? (Essential Standards, Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum)
How do we know they learned it? ( Data, Common Formative Assessments, Formatives, Summative)
What do we do when they don’t? (Interventions-Tier 2 and Tier 3)
What do we do when they do? (Extensions and Enrichments)
Team meeting with Rachel Bodoin
Meetings with Rachel will resume this week.
MOY Galileo
The MOY Galileo benchmark assessment window is open from Nov 28th through Dec 16th. Middle school teachers will be giving the ELA portion of the assessment on Wednesday, November 30th and the Math portion of the assessment on Thursday, December 1st. This allows for students who may have missed any or both days of the assessment their first make up opportunity is on Friday, December 2nd. Please reference an email from Megan Lannholm for more information.
Building D/F Building Expectation
- Progress Reports will run on Thursday Dec. 1st. If a student is failing your class with a D or F, you should make contact home with the parents via phone call first. Email should be a secondary method. This is a great opportunity to make a personal connection and get them set up with Home Access Center so they can monitor grades regularly.
HERE is a link about the importance of making parent phone calls as well as a template of how to do that.
ELD Grading
If you have an English Learner (EL) student who is at risk of receiving a D/F by mid-quarter (November 18th), reach out to our ELD Specialist, Hannah Swearengin, so she can collaborate with you about grading guidance. As a reminder, per federal law, it is required that teachers of EL students provide accommodations and modifications to enable students to succeed in the classroom. Documentation of accommodations/modifications is recommended. The ELD department has created a form that will guide these conversations and provide a way for you to document the evidence of accommodations and modifications.
We want to make sure we provide support for you and your students prior to semester grading.
Operational
Alice Training and Mental Health will take place Dec. 1st 4:30-6:30 right after school in the cafeteria.
For those you can not make our Alice or Mental Health here are some other options. At this time we are the only Tier 3 School having this training until the end of the year.
Copy Machines
After months of waiting, the copiers have finally been moved into the halls for teacher convenience. Below are the names of the printers for teachers to connect.
8th grade hall: per-work-tosh2
7th grade hall: per-work-tosh
Workroom: per-work-tosh1
Events
Nov 21-25- Thanksgiving Break
Nov 30 and Dec 1 - MOY Galileo
Dec 1- Alice and Mental Health training (4:30-6:30pm)
Dec 9- Picture Re-takes
Dec 15- Elementary Winter Concert
Dec 16- Dr. Lathan Pershing Visit
Dec 19 - Pershing Choir Concert (Glendale)
Dec 20- Staff Meeting (7:50-8:50)
Band Concert 6th Grade 6pm
7th & 8th: 7:15 pm
Dec 23-Jan 4 Winter Break Begins
Jan 3- End of Quarter (Teacher Workday)
Jan 4- Students Return
Staff Birthdays
11/1 Megan Ebert
11/18 Kevin Kleiner
11/28 Lindsey Mitchell
12/1 Susan Griffith
12/9 Beth Hailey and Krysten Muench
12/18 Kathy Null
12/25 Jennifer Teal and Matt Campbell