Inspiration
If you have not already done so, please click on the link and take a moment to read this article about a student at Lava Ridge for a little inspiration. article
Fire Drill
Great job on the first fire drill of the year. Just in case you were not aware, we are required to complete our first fire drill within the first ten days of school. Hopefully the heads up in the weekly update combined with the PA announcement prior to the alarm helped everyone feel ready to respond in a comfortable manner. With everyone evacuating through the back doors we managed to clear the building in 2:34 and we had everyone assembled with a few seconds after the evacuation. In fact, resetting the alarm took longer than the evacuation itself, so sorry for making you stand out there a little longer than usual.
Emergency Sub Folders
Thanks for taking the time to brainstorm and plan you emergency sub folders. We will be providing one folder for each of you to serve as an emergency sub folder to be kept in the office. To take this concept a little further, you may also want to keep a copy of this same information in a folder/binder in your room to be used with your emergency response. On Tuesday please bring your materials and we can use some of the meeting time to put it all together and share with your group. The next step will be remembering to revisit these each year to update and refresh everything.
Amy Nary’s Work
FYI – Amy is going to start her classroom work with the 2/3 classes next week. We will send out a google doc to the 4/5 team next when we determine the start date for those classes. If anyone would like to share some successful experiences you gained or used in your class from the workshop, I would love to relay that to the PTO or better yet, if you are willing to share the experience in your classrooms at the next PTO meeting I am sure it would be appreciated.
Power of Positive Talk
As I made my way around the school this week, I was struck by the heavy emphasis of positive talk aimed at our students across several environments to address behavior concerns. Rather than reacting to negative behaviors and telling individuals or groups to stop the undesired behavior, I heard (very consistently) you calling out and celebrating the positive, desired behavior. The impact was fairly obvious in several different experiences I observed for both the individual displaying the negative behavior and the whole group. I know there is a saying that we need to use 7 positive correction to every 1 negative correction and I feel we were close if not exceeding that ratio this week – that’s not an easy task, so great work!
2017-2018 SBAC Results
The SBAC results for our district were shared with admin last week, so I will share the same graphs with you. Results Graph Links: ELA and Math. As in the past, schools are listed in order of F & R with highest on the left and lowest on the right. Please keep in mind that as our participation numbers go down, scores become a little less valid.
Overall, district-wide we saw a nearly 3% increase in students passing the ELA and a nearly 2% increase in students passing the math assessment. Great news and great work by you!
This year will bring yet another change that will certainly provide a challenge. Beginning with this year’s SBAC, all students who opt out will be counted as ‘does not meet. (play ominous music in your head as you read this again….)
Grant Opportunity
One Class at a Time Grants- Just a reminder that Mid Oregon Credit Union is continuing their partnership with KTVZ to present $500 monthly awards for innovative, sustainable classroom projects that are worth being recognized in the community. The program identifies the classroom efforts and awards the teacher/school the funding plus they do a news story that airs on KTVZ to provide a spotlight on the good things that are happening in education. Click here for more information and to see some of the work they have done; https://www.ktvz.com/community/one-class-at-a-time.
Design Team Notes
Academic Excellence
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIX5xASbuI-HJ7TnS0v2X0OjF7gKWlC7yWQESVK61EI/edit?usp=sharing
Thriving Citizen
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GIYh-TzCfV-7swUfiq6bPWazeFz-AgBUDD360QnbgEY
Future Ready
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1idNZUUufycECXwzs90vXetuSqClEGJtmmAR1kn-zvZU
Click below to see the Highland Staff Calendar.