Report Cards- Please remember these are to be sent home on Thursday, February 10. Thanks to Becky for putting the district letter in report card envelopes.
Dibels/Reading/100% meetings- Winter dibels scores are now in and you have probably had an opportunity to review. During your next PLC (or at least one of your February PLC’s) please take a close look at your Dibels scores. We are working on a template to guide you through your review and will get that to you asap. The 1-5 star growth is a very important piece of data to look at. The stars correlate to quintile (fifths) percentiles in the following manner:
1 star growth is the bottom quintile, or the bottom 20%, 1/5, of students in terms of growth. 3 star growth is the middle quintile. Students with 3 stars growth, grew at a rate between the 40th and 60th percentile, or right in the middle. Students with 5 stars growth were in the top 20% of students in terms of growth. If students have 1 or 2 stars, they are not keeping up with peers who started in the same place. Obviously, if a student who is low to begin with scores one or two stars, they are not only NOT closing the gap, but the gap is getting wider. Students are compared to all other students that started IN THE SAME PLACE. So, yes, students who start really high, can have 5 stars growth because their growth is being compared to all other kids who started in the same place. As a general rule of thumb about a 1/5 of our students should should be in each star growth, meaning about 60% of our students should at 3, 4 or 5 stars. Approximately 52% of Buckingham students had 3, 4 or 5 stars growth at winter dibels. If you have questions or would like us to join you when you meet, please let us know.
PBIS- Character Traits. As you know, February’s trait is self control. Challey sent out a lot of information Wednesday for your reference. There will be a basket in the office for you to put self control certificates (and subsequent certificates in future months). When we get them in the basket, student names will be announced every Friday morning on announcements and Jon or Gary will come to your class to present the certificate. If you would rather we didn’t deliver to your class, let us know. We will also put names on the hallway tv monitor if we can figure it out. 🙂 Be on the lookout for a cool bulletin board outside the music room courtesy of fifth grade leadership students.
Student Support Team Changes- We have been blessed to have Kelly and Heather be able to work with so many students the first semester. They have been able to work with and help a large number of tier 2 students. As we embark on the second semester, several students have risen to the level of tier 3 due to escalating behaviors. In addition, we are welcoming a new student to our school who will spend the vast majority of time here in the SST room. The vision behind SST was to address tier 3 and help give teachers the tools to address tier 2 students in the classroom if at all possible. The SST team is currently working on triaging the students they have been working with in order to devote the necessary time to our tier 3 students to address their intense needs. This means that Kelly and Heather will not have the time to respond as they have been the first semester. We are working on what that will look like for the students they have been working with on a consistent basis and will be connecting with you to discuss options (if/when there are any). We thank you in advance for your understanding as we make adjustments moving forward.
Odds and Ends from Ed Center:
From Tami Pike: Please share with your staff as soon as possible. For staff submitting for retroactive COVID-19 credit, please do not send your school nurse the form for signature. The forms should be sent via district mail (not via email) to Tami Pike. Please include a copy of your submitted leave sheet.
Upcoming Events
February 9- SIW- Teacher Prep
February 10- Report cards sent home
February 14- Valentine’s Day
February 15- Fire Drill- 9:40
February 21- Presidents’ Day- No School
March 1- Staff Meeting- 2:30- Library