Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thank you for the time and effort you put into preparing for conferences this week. Hopefully you were able to enjoy a little more time compared to previous years for prep. While the majority of your conferences are probably pretty easy-going, natural conversations with parents, there are always a few here and there that can be tricky so please know that I understand that challenge and I am appreciative of how you handle it with grace. The extra day is probably not nearly enough to compensate but I will wish you a restful and restorative 3-day weekend to recuperate. Smile often and make excuses to laugh at every opportunity, even if it means watching funny youtube videos or a silly sitcom. Laughter is a powerful cure and smiling will directly impact your current state of mind.
THANK YOU
I want to say a quick but sincere thank you to Brad, Tim, Scott and Rob. Thanks to their hard work we have several sets of shelves assembled in our storage areas of the gym. The shelves are 200 lbs each so it was not an easy task to get them unloaded and assembled. The spaces-saving of these shelving units will be extremely valuable for our storage needs. We still have a ways to go before these rooms will be fully functional but this week marks some significant progress. We also have our chair racks assembled and half of those chairs assembled and racked.
District Equity Policy
I want to draw your attention to our District Equity Policy. Please take a few moments to read this document and think about ways we can make these statements more than words on paper. What are the everyday things we do to promote equity? What are everyday things or behaviors that serve as barriers to equity?
Apple TVs
I have a solution in hand (or in my office)! Now it will take me a little while to get them installed but I hope to get this done myself in the next week or so. Thanks for your patience.
Mandatory Standard Protocol Response Training
Jimmy Krauger (SRO) will be here on Tuesday 10/30 for our SRP training. This is a mandatory training for all staff. We will start at 8:00 in the library. Please observe one of our first staff agreements and be on time (on time is defined as in your seat ready to begin). Although we usually start our morning meetings at 8:05, we will need to start right at 8:00 since we have a guest speaker and we are required to have the full time for the training.
Fire Drill
This has been the month of drills, but we are not done. We still need a fire drill for October so we will do this on Monday afternoon. I will give a quick heads up with the PA and then we will pull the alarm. This would be a great time to go ahead and use an alternate route for your class if it makes sense for your evacuation, just be sure to have a gate key ready to use.
PTO Release Days
As you should already know we did increase the amount of PTO funding for release days for grade levels. The spirit of this funding is to provide the time for teams to collaborate on storylines and this needs to be a priority for us all, however there are sometimes request to use these individually. Since we did add a day to each grade level, I feel it would be reasonable to leave the decision to your teams to use that third day as an individual versus a full team release time. I also want to stress that we really need to work on spacing these days out to help with the number of needed subs each time. Let’s try to put all these release days on the google calendar to make it visible and easy to work around.
COSA Presentation
While we were not pleased with the turnout, we were really pleased with our presentation and you should all be proud of our presenting team – they did a great job representing our community. It’s safe to say we agree this was a great first step…we are not entirely certain where these steps will take us, but the possibility and potential is exciting. Sharing Storyline expertise with others not only benefits others, it benefits us as it is a form of reciprocal teaching. One of the most important objectives of my job is to promote and develop leadership which enhances the experience we provide for our students. Any and every opportunity I have to push you or support you in this area is an easy decision for me. Whenever that objective can line up with promoting Storyline outside of our own community, that seems like a no-brainer.
While we are on this topic, I want to explain the timing. There was a call for presenters at the annual principals’ conference in the spring (May). I felt pretty strongly that we should promote Storyline at this conference and after a brief conversation with JJ I submitted a proposal for our Mars Team to present and I shared this at a leadership meeting on May 25th. Shortly after submitting the application school ended and we all went our separate ways for summer. Although summer felt like a blink of an eye, when we returned to school in August we received confirmation that our proposal had been accepted it still seemed like it crashed on us suddenly. I shared the acceptance with JJ and after we exchanged a nervous laughter, we started the prep for the presentation. We knew the timing would be challenging but we felt strongly that we should make it happen. If this caught anyone off-guard, I do apologize but I hope everyone is able to recognize the intentions.
SBAC Data
The following was shared with principals on Friday afternoon from Gary Timms, so I wanted to pass it along to you as well;
SBAC Opt Outs- First off, I wanted to thank you all for your efforts around stemming the tide of SBAC opt outs last year. We had a couple schools make a significant difference with a few intentional efforts. As a result, elementary still had over 90% of our students participating last year. This year we want to continue to encourage participation. With that in mind, please use this Smarter Balanced FAQ any way you like to help inform parents of the importance of the tests for our schools.
More Smarter Balanced- I know that SBAC and other testing data is not the end all be all for our schools. At the same time, they are a measure of the work we are doing and one substantial indicator of how well our students are learning the standards. In addition, test data is what is shared with the world via ODE and the press. ODE report cards will soon be released. I had a chance to view them all this week and what I saw was extremely encouraging for all of us. Here are a few highlights:
- 17/18 schools equaled or improved % of students passing ELA.
- 17/18 schools were above the state average in ELA.
- 13/18 schools equaled or improved % of students passing math.
- 16/18 schools were above the state average in math.
- A new graphic places schools at either LOW, AVG. or HIGH on individual student growth based on growth percentiles. 9/18 schools were rated HIGH on student growth while 7 others were AVERAGE and only 2 rated LOW.
- 15/18 schools equaled or improved % of students passing Science.
- 15/18 schools were above the state average in Science.
- 65.3% of elementary students passed the ELA. This is our highest ever and 3.2% higher than last year. The state average increased less than half as much.
- 58.7% of elementary students passed the math. This is our highest ever and 1.6% higher than last year. The state average increased less than half as much.
- In addition, most schools are outperforming their comparison schools’ average in most grades in both math and reading.
Overall, the SBAC data is very encouraging and reflects the efforts you are making every day. Keep up the great work!!
Nutrition Services Announcement:
-Nov 9th Friday Veteran’s will be honored with a complimentary lunch. This is open to all Veterans of student and staff families.
VETERAN’S DAY
Spaghetti & Meatballs
Italian Breadstick
Chocolate Chip Cookie
House Salad
-Nov 15th Thursday Holiday dinner
HOLIDAY DINNER
Roast Turkey
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Holiday Stuffing
Roast Vegetables
Pumpkin Bar
-Nov 16th Friday College Day (coloring contest elementary only)
| COLLEGE DAY! |
Beef Chili Dog
Tater Tots
Football Sugar Cookie
Caesar Salad
Click below to see the Highland Staff Calendar.