Highland Updates

Assembly

Once again, thanks for your patience and understanding for the length of the assembly. We’ll get the time down next time.  Thanks to everyone for their contribution.

PTO funds

I just wanted to take a moment to share some information regarding PTO funds.  From what I hear, some of you or many of you may be concerned that your classroom materials & storyline funds are disappearing more quickly than previous years due to additional (possibly unanticipated) School Wide Storyline expenses.  This prompted a request to the PTO for more funds for each teacher.  Before we go down the path of asking for more money I want to make sure you are aware of the following;

First, you will be getting more money applied to your individual balances as the PTO budget was fully funded so you can expect to get the full amount for the year ($1374.67).  Last year, we only had three teacher reach 0 or negative balances and the rest of you rolled over money from last year to this year.  Right now, most of you still have significant balances in your accounts.

In addition to the individual teacher funds provided, we also have a line item from the PTO Tier 1 priorities designated for Schoolwide Storyline.  If you are purchasing something that is for Schoolwide Storyline (grade-level or school-level benefit) use, then please be sure to let Shawna know so we can code appropriately and then it will not subtract from your classroom account balance.  We will do our best to ensure this is equitable.

Please see me if you have any questions.

PLC

Tuesday 12/19 is our next PLC date.  This time is intended to be dedicated to math lesson planning with your team.  Once again the intention of this time to design lessons for the “edges” rather than the middle.  Empathize with those students who either grasps concepts easily and quickly and the students who tend to struggle.

Site Council Report

We met last night night.  Misha provided a quick overview of our Academic Excellence Design Team work for the group.  Site council members will be exploring topics for the annual parent survey in the spring.

Recess Duty

This is just a friendly reminder to please be on time to your recess duty each day.  It can be stressful when you are out there all alone.  Thank you so much.

More visitors

Just a quick heads up that we will have some more visiting teachers (Kindergarten teacher, 4th/5th grade teacher, & art teacher) in the new year.  There are only a few teachers this time, but I will narrow down some dates for them soon and let you all know.

Calendar

Please take a moment to glance at the calendar. – Calendar Link

I cannot emphasize enough just how much I appreciate everything you all do for our school community and especially each other.  The effort you put into culminations, your lessons, recess, assemblies, clubs, and the time you make for each child creates a culture of support and inspiration that cannot be quantified.  Thank you.

Enjoy your weekend and be sure to steal a little time for yourself.  May the force be with you!

If you ever feel like you are having a bad-hair day, then feel free to use this image to make yourself feel better…. or simply use it to give yourself the opportunity to laugh (at me or with me, whichever helps).

School Design Visit

Our school design visit did not go as planned.  Some significant student issues at both Ensworth and Pine Ridge threw a few wrenches into our plans.  Dana Pederson was able to make it over here for a little while, but we spend the majority of our time supporting one of 1st grade buddies here.  We are chalking it up to full-moon residual after-effect.

Hallway Behavior

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge your work on managing the hallway behavior.  It’s a challenging task as you have a lot of uncontrolled variables working against your goal, but I want you to know your efforts are obvious and the impact is there.   A huge thank you to Lorin and the Thriving Citizen team for coming up with a fun way to promote the behavior we want to see with the tickets!

Field and Playground improvements:

• Wood border replacements – As you probably already noticed, we replaced the borders of the play equipment to get rid of the large, sword-like splinters and metal spikes.  As fun as those items were, it was time for them to go.
• Border Configurations – We also changed the shape of the border and the pattern of irrigation to enclose the space between the big toy and the fitness structure within the bark area.  Prior to his change, the area was either dusty, dirt bowl or a mud/ice nightmare on a day to day basis so this change will allow us to utilize this space for a new purpose.  That new purpose is explained below.
• Ga-Ga  – Our 4th/5th graders were able to get a little experience with a Ga-Ga Pit while at camp this past Fall and this sparked some interest in bringing the game here.  We (district maintenance) are researching the materials and costs associated with this structure and looking to use the $1500 from the energy savings contest toward this fun addition to the playground.  There will be some training involved with the Ga-Ga pit and I’ve asked Scott to do a little research and plan on training all our students on the rules of the game and expectations during PE.  I have not been sharing this with students, as I feel it would be a fun surprise, but I wanted to give you a heads up once I knew it might be a reality.  I still don’t know the exact timeline for installation, but it’s in the works and it should happen relatively soon.
• Field Lines – We also added some field lines to provide some more appropriate boundaries for the different games.  We are hoping this will increase the safety and also decrease the balls launching over the fence.  We will change the orientation of these lines every few months or so to change the wear patterns on the field, but the visual boundaries are already helping tremendously.

Gym Plans

If you are curious to see the plans for the gym, I have an updated set in my office.  The design was pretty much decided and set in the spring, but I realize it’s been awhile since many of you have had any opportunities to view the plans or drawings, so if you would like to take a look please let me know and I will pull them out and share.  I put yellow sticky notes on the pages that give you the best views of the building from different perspectives.

Construction is rumbling along… it’s rockin’ and rollin’…in fact you could say, we are movin’ and shakin’….  Sorry, my head is getting a little rattled lately. 

Everyday Math

The following information came to me from Everyday Math, so I am just passing it along.  Click on link below for the pdf.  Digital News & Updates – The digital newsletter outlines the updates from the November release, which includes updates to Reporting features, Data Dashboard, and ePresentation bug fixes.  The newsletter and pop-up will appear for all  grades within ConnectED.

Update Link

TAG Students’ Needs

The following article was shared with all TAG coordinators, so I thought I would pass it along in the interest of sharing.  It’s a tall order to ask teachers to individualize education for so many diverse learners and wide range, so please know I appreciate every move, effort and thought you put into designing lessons for all our students’ needs.

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-scientists-learned-about-genius-2016-9

Free Books– Free always gets your attention.

The Literacy Empowerment Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, invites your school or other literacy project to apply for FREE books for Read Across America Day. During the past year, LEF has distributed over 3,000,000 books to schools all across the country for Read Across America Day and other literacy projects.

These books are free. Educators only pay shipping and handling. Resources are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Orders must be received by February 12th, 2018.

Please share this information with your fellow educators!

Free Books for Read Across America Day: Order Form at http://www.lefbooks.org

Calendar

Please take a moment to glance at the calendar. – Calendar Link

So I did my annual shift at Santaland this evening playing the big guy in the red suit.  It was a fairly typical run for the couple hours I sat in the chair, except for one family….This family placed 12-day old infant in my arms and I think my heart stopped for a few seconds.  This five-pound scrunched up bunch of skin and tissue had a pair of eyes in her face that would turn anyone into putty.  It quickly brought me back to a time when my own children were that small.  What made the scene even cuter was her five-year old sister looking down at her with me with nothing but pure pride and happiness in her eyes.  I know this description does not do it justice, but it was just such a humbling and joyful experience I wanted to try and share.

Design Process Update

On Thursday Kevin Gehrig, Ned Meyers (Pine Ridge Elementary), Dana Pederson, and Gina DeLasantos (Ensworth) will be visiting our campus for a couple hours in the afternoon.  All the schools are organized into trios to work together on supporting design process at each of the schools.  Earlier this week we visited Ensworth and next week is our turn.  I will be asking them to interview some of you if they can catch any of you for a few free minutes.  This is not meant to be a “gotcha” so please do not worry about the questions or your answers.  In general, I have done my best to make the school design work fit the work we already do.  Although we have three main areas, it’s safe to say the majority of our energy this year has been poured into the Future Ready Team for the All School Storyline, The Shoshone Visit, and the International Storyline Conference.  While we may not have ready-made student-outcomes to measure from this work, I feel (and I think you will agree) that Storyline provides incredible opportunities for our students to learn and grow with the 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.  Given this assumption, more work placed in the area of Storyline will provide more opportunities for these skills to be developed.

To simplify the intentions around the Academic Excellence team goals, I would say that we want to provide some protected, team time to focus on math lesson development.  We struggle to find that time and it will never be enough, but we do have to prioritize.

Our Thriving Citizen Team focuses the efforts providing a safe, fun and engaged environment for all students.  Our PBIS work makes up the bulk of this work.

Staff Meeting on Tuesday

For our staff meeting this week, we have a quick presentation for the United Way Giving campaign and the rest of the time will be set aside for work with your All School Storyline Science groups.  Ideally we should have another half hour to collaborate on that work.  It’s not much, but every little bit counts – right?

Assembly Plan

The December Assembly Plan is under development and it will be shorter than the last assembly.

Snow Recess

We are going to approach our Snow Play differently this year.  We would like to embrace the snow when it comes and enjoy the experience whenever possible.  This means there will be times when we allow students to play on the snow berms.  This will create some ambiguity as we will need to adjust where and how students can play in and on the snow as conditions change, but it just doesn’t feel right to constantly tell them to get off the snow.  Snowball fights will still not be permitted.  More on this later, but I just wanted to provide a heads up.

Heads up: the week of 12/18-12/22 will be a Spirit Week;

• Monday – Crazy Sock Day
• Tuesday – Superhero Day
• Wednesday – Crazy Hair Day
• Thursday – Ugly Sweater Day
• Friday – Pajama Day

Only from the mouths of our kinders:  “Are the cookies GMO?”  Thanks Deanna, for sharing that one!

Please take a moment to glance at the calendar.

Calendar Link

I want to wish you all a restful, peaceful and enjoyable Thanksgiving Break.  Do not work here.  Do not work at home.  Do not worry about work; it will be here when you get back.  Focus on you.  Focus on family,  Focus on friends.  Do the things that make you happy.  Do the things that make you feel healthy.

Building Shutdown

Just a friendly reminder to please try to turn off anything drawing electricity for the break, including power strips, chargers, printers, fax machines, massage chairs, and cappuccino machines (=.  

Safety

The recent shooting event in northern California got me thinking about our lockdown drills and I feel like it would be prudent to add in a couple more drills for the year.  I would like to keep them low-key and appropriate to each of your classrooms, but I do think it is important to practice the procedure of locks, lights, & out of sight more than once a year to keep us better prepared.  We all did a great job on the last one and we had just about everyone out of site with locked doors within two minutes of the announcement.  That is a great response time, so thank you.

Academic Excellence Report

Our team met on Tuesday morning and we covered the following topics;

• Prep for Math Studio work later in the winter – more on this later.
• Upcoming Site Council Report – Thursday, 12/14
• Tuesday, 11/28 PLC Focus – Lesson Design – Working as a team design a lesson that reaches beyond the average for all students.  This will vary a little bit depending upon your grade-levels.
• District SIW Series; Please be sure to look at a Math-focussed options for the 2nd district SIW series.  Presenters were asked to tailor their content to include Everyday Math material for us and since this is one of our three major goals I’d really like to take advantage of the opportunities.

Future Ready Report

We worked on two major topics for this meeting;

• Planning for Parents’ Night Out
• Planning and prep for presenting at conference

SEL

You may have seen this short piece in the Speddy Eddy Newsletter, but I thought I would share with you for two reason;

1. You all should find this incredibly validating as you put a lot of these items into practice routinely.
2. This is a great straightforward explanation of SEL without a lot edu-speak, so I think it’s a great reference for us.

https://docs.google.com/a/gapps.bend.k12.or.us/document/d/10g9PK7Gz-gWdcMNfHS1fdQE_oaZZ-swMPdeEr14Jm4o/edit?usp=sharing

Positive Words

Please read this and enjoy some more validation.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/positive-words-go-long-way

Time on Learning

If you are in the mood to challenge your thinking about our education system, please read this article.  This is from a secondary-setting perspective, but I think there is a lot to gain from this easy read.

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/21/what-a-student-learned-from-a-short-experiment-in-self-directed-learning/

Redefining Failure

Here’s a great article to help us remember and reinforce the importance of failure as a natural and important part of the learning process.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/redefining-failure-ben-johnson?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Please take a moment to glance at the calendar.

Calendar Link

Happy Thanksgiving,

Brian

I cannot believe we are looking at Thanksgiving Break on the calendar in just a week!  

Thank you everyone for a great assembly and I am sorry for the length; I figured we would be over our time, but I did not predict that much time over.

• Rob – great job preparing the kids with the different songs.  
• Brad – thanks for your help with the set up.  
• Ukiah – thank you for involving Roots & Shoots with care-package collection.  
• Alicia – thank you for the Veterans’ Poster.
• Anna – thank you for bringing Col. Brock (What a great man!)
• Scott – thanks for being flexible with your schedule and the space.
• Everyone – thank you, thank you, thank you!

Gym Construction

Although it looks like things are stalled a little, there is quite a bit happening off site to make sure things move more quickly once we can break ground.  One of the major pieces is the relocation of the transformer and the coordination of all the appropriate folks involved is challenging.  Since the power will be cut, it limits the time for this process to occur since it cannot occur during school hours.  (I might throw the idea of taking an extra day off school on the table, however I am fairly certain that would get shot down.)

I am spending as much time as possible out at the sidewalk in the mornings to monitor our drop-off.  I have several parents ask me to be as visible as possible as it seems to make a huge difference in people’s driving behavior.  If you need to find me, I am usually walking along Nashville and Harmon, smiling and waving as that seems to do the trick.

EBISS 100% meetings

You may have noticed these meetings on the calendar earlier in the year and they are no longer there.  These really should be labeled “Core Effectiveness Meetings” and the purpose of these meetings is to analyze whole group data to determine the effectiveness of our instruction and curriculum.  Ideally we would be able to display our Dibels (or easy CBM) data alongside our classroom data to look for patterns and come up with plans to address any concerns we see from a whole grade-level or class-level perspective.  It is a valuable process for a healthy RTI system, however (and I may be making a mistake here) I feel our energy is better directed on several other fronts right now, so I am not really willing to push this on you yet.  We still need to make it happen but I think we can afford to put it in the back seat for now.  I also would very much like these to serve as the SLGG meetings to streamline the two processes and make them work for us.  I hope that’s OK with everyone.

Culminations

I just want to take an opportunity to wish you and your classes well for your Fall culminations as that time is upon us.  I will make every effort to be there for as many as possible.  If I don’t make it, please know that the only thing that will prevent me from being there will be my own kids’ events.

Brightbytes Survey

The calendar shows this as the window for this survey, however the survey is not yet open.  We should get a notice soon when it’s ready .  The survey is for 3rd through 5th grade students only.

Calendar Link

Run, Lorin and Misha, Run!!

Please join me in wishing good luck and swift, happy feet to Lorin and Misha this weekend as they run the Moab Marathon.

https://tenor.com/view/tommy-ortega-run-forest-run-forest-gump-tom-hanks-gif-5306812

FYI – Lorin will also be out on Monday.

Tech Advisory Initiative

We have been asked to select a teacher from each school to participate in an advisory forum to discuss our digital conversion vision, the tech resources we have available, and options for the future.

We are looking for individuals who are passionate about teaching in a digitally integrated classroom. They should be someone who acknowledges the challenges of one to one devices, but who looks for solutions to overcome those challenges.  They should be willing to work collaboratively with our technology support services and seek improved methods and approaches to better serve our teachers and students.

The first meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 14th from 8:00-11:00.  Two more meetings will be scheduled later in the year.  If you are interested in this opportunity please email me right away and thank you for your interest.  

Staff Meeting Reminder

Tuesday 11/7 8:05-8:45

Agenda Items

• Thriving Citizen Refresher
• Veterans Day – Activities, Assembly
  • Slide-Show Link – work in progress

Middle School Move Up Day

Middle schools have asked us to save May 22 for move up day.  I put this on the Highland Staff Calendar already as an all-day event.  We just need to avoid scheduling anything that might interfere with our 5th graders visiting their future middle school that day.

Transportation

Some new things are on the horizon around transportation and parent communication.  This is a brief overview:

• GPS – These units are currently being installed on all of our busses.  With a downloadable app, parents will be able to track their child’s bus location.
• RFID – If a parent is interested and volunteers, their child will carry a card (think plastic card swipe) that will, again with a downloadable app, let the parent know when their child gets on the bus and when they exit the bus.  This should be up and running by this December.

Field Trip Forms

Please remember field trip forms should be completed and approved prior to scheduling the field trip.  The checklist at the bottom is extremely helpful to help avoid conflicts and make sure everyone is in the know.  The more we know in the office, the better we can support you.

Calendar

Please, please, please use the google calendar for planning to help avoid conflicts.  We have printed versions also available in the staff room on one of the Fridges.   Thanks so much!

Calendar Link

Have a great weekend!  Play, rest, stay off your computer and have fun.

Brian

New Gym Construction

• Assuming permitting all works as planned our start date is Wednesday November 1st.
• Once we start, the parking lot and the entire west side of the school will be fenced.
• We will work with the contractors to keep an open lane to Brad’s office for deliveries.
• We currently have one space already marked as handicapped parking.  The rest of those spaces should also be reserved for temporary parking only.
• Once the fence is up, our access to and from the front and back of the school will be limited.  Our path of access shifts to the east side of the school.

Lockdown Drill – Lockdown; Locks, Lights, Out of Sight

We will be holding an annual lockdown drill next week on Wednesday morning.  During this drill please do the following;

• Listen for the announcement.
• As you move to lock your door, calmly instruct students to hide away from the door.
• Close your door blind.  Do not worry about closing your window blinds.
• Turn off the lights.
• Stay out of sight with your students.
• Throughout the drill provide some explanation for why we are practicing this drill to your students that is appropriate for their age.

Shoshone Visit

The link below will take you to the schedule.  Please ignore the notes on the side as those are my reminders.

Link to schedule

Conferences

I hope you all enjoyed smooth conferences.  I am curious to hear what you got out of these conferences.  What did you learn?  Were there any surprises?  Were there any disappointments?  Is there a conversation you wish you could redo?  If you are feeling up to it, please have a conversation with me and respond to some or all of these questions.

Message from Dave Van Loo regarding easyCBM colors.

Recently we updated the colors assigned to different levels of student performance in easyCBM. These updates better reflect linkages between easyCBM CCSS benchmark measures and Smarter Balanced assessments. Colors from prior years were potentially confusing or misleading because they were based on the older OAKS assessments and easyCBM assessments, rather than the newer CCSS-aligned assessments.

Current color codings are:

• Green (70th percentile and above): Students performing at this level are very likely to meet grade level standards as measured on Smarter Balanced.

• Red (20th percentile and below): Student performance at this level is in the bottom 20% nationally. These are the students needing the most substantial support.

• Above Red – Below Yellow (21st – 69th percentile): This is a “strategic” zone with a wide range. For context, roughly half of students at the 50th percentile are expected to meet grade level standards on Smarter Balanced. Obviously, students performing closer to the 70th percentile are more likely to do well on Smarter Balanced and students closer to the 20th percentile are more likely to struggle.

Data from easyCBM are intended to be one piece of information to assist schools in making thoughtful decisions about their instructional practices and resource allocation. Please let me know what questions you have.

2017-2018 TAG Update

https://docs.google.com/a/gapps.bend.k12.or.us/document/d/1P8M8cbYPVnAFKNBqRxnw1SzZ7DKKaXrJmvR4Akyk9ws/edit?usp=sharing

This info was shared via email earlier but it’s linked here for future reference.

Math Thoughts

The following article is another spin on integrating growth mindset into what we do, not just say.  We have incredibly powerful evidence of the impact of feedback versus grades and yet there is little change to our system.  What’s the difference between engaging in problem-solving versus just solving a problem?  Learn more in this quick article and have a little fun reflecting on the content.

How to Integrate Growth Mindset Messages Into Every Part of Math Class

Catherine Good has experienced stereotype threat herself, although she didn’t know it at the time. She started her academic…

Read it on ww2.kqed.org

Calendar

Calendar Link

There is a lot in this update, so before you read any further please take this message to heart.  It is OK to slow down and focus on one thing; you do not need to to do it all.  Above all, you are obligated to take care of yourself first.  You are more effective, efficient and happy with your work when you make yourself a priority.

Forefront vs. Synergy

Forefront will continue to be a work in progress.  We are still waiting for the assessments to be loaded into the system and I am hopeful this will happen soon.  If your team is not going to use the preloaded assessments then you are free (and encouraged) to enter your own assessments to get your data in the system.  The 2/3 team has some really good examples of how this could work.  We will continue to tweak the system to work for our needs, but it is not likely we will have it all ready for the first Core Effectiveness EBISS meeting but that’s OK; we’ll get there.  

Synergy Gradebook is still the tool we need to use to produce report cards.  The extent to which you use this tool for progress reports is an individual choice.  Forefront is not meant to replace Synergy Gradebook.

Evaluation/Minis/SLGGs/Lions/Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

Congratulations to Becky Eriksson and Jennifer Fetrow for getting their SLGG forms completed and returned first!  Please let me know when I can meet with either you individually or your team to get these completed.

I am using the master schedule to try and catch your math instruction.  If for some reason you are not teaching math during the time on the master schedule please let me know when you are teaching math so I can time my classroom visits accordingly.  As we get closer to the winter break, I will have to take whatever lesson I can get if I am not catching you during math lessons so that I can stay on schedule but I am trying really hard to catch the math.

Conferences

Thank you in advance for all the thought and preparation you put into preparing for these conferences.  Please let me know if you would like me to join you with any conferences that you feel might be challenging or if you just want me to observe.  These can count as one of the professional minis.

Hallway Behavior

Please try to meet your students during transitions to help mitigate hallway behavior as they transition from specialist, recess, etc.  As students get further and further from their classroom their speed and volume is tending to pick up.  Both Scott and Rob have classes arriving as the other is leaving so they cannot walk the students back to class.

Pledge of Allegiance

The link below will take you to our policy on the Pledge of Allegiance.  During our Thriving Citizen Team Meeting we discussed bringing back the PA Pledge of Allegiance once a week to help us meet the policy requirement.  We will do the pledge when we do our Tuesday announcements.  It will be important to listen for the start of announcements and help get everyone in the building to be quiet and still whether or not they participate.

https://www.bend.k12.or.us/application/files/5014/5323/2910/INDB-AR.pdf

Academic Excellence Team Update

We met on Monday with Kerry Morton to discuss using Math Studios to address some our goals for this bucket.   We scheduled the following dates to ensure we have them calendared but please know we can exchange dates if necessary.  During your PLC on Tuesday one of your tasks will be to make some decisions relevant to these opportunities – I will provide more info on Monday but the dates are;

K/1 – Feb 1

2/3 – Feb 8th

4/5 – March 1st (am )

Math Anxiety

Like me, many of you are fans of Jo Boaler.  The link below is a great article from Jo about math anxiety.  Please take the time to read this article and reflect on practices that very likely are contributing to very real obstacles to learning math for some students.

http://time.com/4970465/how-to-improve-math-class/?utm_campaign=0f0e856674-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_10&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Youcubed+Updates&utm_term=0_230e567c40-0f0e856674-162588729

Future Ready Team Update

Please see the link below for the criteria being used for this professional development opportunity.

Conference Criteria

Shoshone Visit Schedule – coming soon.  I will be asking some of you to plan your storyline time at some different times of the day so that I can create 3 different “routes” for our visitors to follow.  I will sketch out a schedule and add it here soon.

Brain Highways

Please see the link below shared by Amy Nary.

Scroll down to the video on proprioception and it will help shed some light on sensory seeking and better understanding why heavy work and grounding input is so important.

https://brainhighways.com/

Calendar

Calendar Link

Great Shake Out Reminder

On Thursday 10/19 at approximately 10:19am our school will take part in the Great ShakeOut.  A PA announcement will signal both the start and the end of the drill.  During the drill please use the time to explain students will be using the table to protect their heads and bodies from falling debris and objects.  Both Lorin and I will be off campus this particular morning for the middle school cross country meet.  The races are fairly short so we should not be gone too long, but I’ve asked Becky Eriksson to be the person in charge if needed.  Gary Timms is also on call if necessary and both Lorin and I could be back here in a matter of minutes.

Forefront vs. Synergy

Once again, I am sorry that Forefront is not performing as promised.  Because of the difficulties we are experiencing I feel like we need to adjust our course to alleviate any stress this is causing.  The problem is that the best course is not very clear to me so I am open to exploring solutions that work for each of your grade levels.  Here are the factors to consider;

• The Synergy Gradebook report card is still our primary form of communication for progress to students per our district policy.  Report cards still must be done in Synergy Gradebook.
• Forefront will be the primary tool used for EBISS, formative assessment, and curriculum decisions so we will need to input our math data into this system at some point.
• While Synergy does have some similar capabilities in reporting, Forefronts reports should be much more accessible and visually superior.
• Synergy and Forefront do not currently communicate to each other, however a process is being developed to allow for Forefront to download then upload to Synergy.  (So data must be manually entered into both systems right now.)
• Our first 100% Core Effectiveness meetings are currently scheduled to start on 11/8 (data in Forefront would be required for any analysis or conversation around math to occur)..

Forefront is currently working on inputting the Everyday Math Assessments as the publisher intended.  My initial thought was this would be easier and preferable for everyone (and less work on our end) however after speaking with several of you about your concerns, it sounds as if we might be better served by creating our own assessment sheets in Forefront.  For the second and third grade levels some of this work is already done, so I am curious if this path would benefit everyone.  Please talk with your teams and circle back with me about what you need to make this process a little easier for you.

Smarter Balanced Testing

I know it’s really early to be thinking about testing, however I wanted to share one encouraging piece of news regarding the test;

• Several changes have been made to the test to reduce testing time.  The most recent information suggests that we can expect a reduction of at least an hour of testing time for each grade level for the ELA test and a significant amount of time from the math test.

Site Council Meeting

We had our first Site Council Meeting on Thursday 10/12.  The main tasks we worked on were the following;

1. Calendar future meetings
2. Quick explanation of our meeting format for the future and the role in School Design
3. Examine data from our Communication Survey in the spring.

Evaluation/Minis/SLGGs/Lions/Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

I sent most of this information in an email earlier this week, but I am including it here for the purpose of future reference.

The list below shows the people with evaluations this year.  In addition to the SLGGs, this involves a self-reflection, 4 classroom minis and 2 professional minis for the year.  (1 Formal observations for temp or prob)  You will get a prompt to complete a self-reflection later in the year.

For those of you without evals, you will have 2 classroom minis and 1 professional mini for the year in addition to your SLGGs.

In regards to mini-observations; if I don’t have a follow up conversation with you, then it’s not a mini and it’s just classroom time.  I will be in classrooms 2 to 3 days a week, and I will always try to take notes in the hopes that we find the time to have that follow up conversation, but the schedule is not always cooperative so I don’t expect every time I am in the room will equal a mini.  I am also trying to spend the majority of my time in your classrooms during math.  Our follow up conversation is an opportunity for you to reflect on the learning in your room.  

Rob

Jay

Heidi

More thoughts on Math;

Please take some time to wrestle with these questions as you reflect on your math instruction;

• Am I making it clear every student in my room can do this?  How do I know?
• Am I looking for the mistakes and disequilibrium as opportunities to learn and make brains grow?
• Do I confirm right answers or do I lead students to developing their own confirmation?
• How much do I encourage and support mathematical talk among students?
• How do I level the playing field for everyone (equalize social status)?

I’ve shared the following TEDtalk before, but it’s a good one to revisit over and over.  It never hurts to practice your power poses.

https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all

I am not sure if I have shared this one before or not, but it is anther talk I find extremely helpful to revisit.

https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend

Calendar

Calendar Link

I hope you all have a wonderful, restful weekend.  

Forefront

I apologize for not clearly communicating Kerry’s training days this week – I realize that caught some of you off-guard and disrupted the start to the week, so please forgive me.  Thank you for your patience as we get this program up and running and we will get there soon.

SLGGs update

• Still need to do SLGGs.
• No more separate scoring rubric or matrix for anyone.  Yay!!!
• For teachers with evaluation – the domain on assessment within the evaluation rubric will be the place where we address the use of SLGGs
• For teachers without evaluation this year – conversations for the BOY, Mid-Year and EOY meetings regarding the goals will meet our needs.
• For the writing goal we are using the Units of Study scoring guide for SLGG’s (a 4-pt. rubric)

The link below will take you to the goal-setting form.  I will also invite you to access a team-drive with more background information if you are interested.  Please let me know if you are not able to access it.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_alwkmh9JPvSWlFU0p6VHVuVUk

Conference Week & Sibling Conferences

Conferences are being done a little differently this year.

• Basically we have 24 hours, 16 hours for conferences and 8 hours work day prep.  8 of the conference hours should be evening.
• The two priorities are these;

1. Every parent gets a conference.
2. Every parent gets enough time.

• At the Tuesday 10/10 staff meeting we will set aside time to schedule sibling conferences.

Assembly

Thank you, JJ, Cami and Ukiak for allowing to borrow your risers.  Thank you, Brad and Tim, for moving them!  Thank you Scott for letting me interfere with your classes yesterday to experiment with the set up (and really loud music at times).  Thank you Rob for your creativity.   Thank you, Lorin for the video (I know that it was not easy).

Our next assembly is coming up relatively quickly on Thursday 11/9 so if you have any ideas or feedback please go to this google form and share some input.

https://goo.gl/forms/v3hVF3L8gB3aAUv52

Field Trip Opportunities

The following message just came to me today, so I thought I would pass it along.

We have developed NEW educational programs for your students.   No program fees for all and for many, no transportation cost.  I still have some available dates for field trips this fall to either: Tumalo, Pilot Butte, Cline Falls, or LaPine State Park on October 13, 16, 20, 23, 27, and 30.  Possible times between 9:00 am – 12:00 pm.   Possible free transportation: Title one schools can qualify for Ticket to Ride program funding your transportation cost, ask for more details.  Contact Kirsten today to schedule and/or to get more information at (800) 551-6949.  I have attached a fall program brochure for your review.

Brochure

Calendar

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