2.28.2020

Posted on by

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“It’s not where you are in life, it’s who you have by your side that matters.” ~ Unknown

So very grateful to have our incredible Classified staff by our side making a positive impact at HDMS everyday!

TO DOS

  • Classified Week is next week. Admin has planned a few sweet treats for our amazing colleagues each day. Please encourage our students to share their thanks and gratitude for the support these folks provide!
  • It is time to nominate amazing employees (certified and classified) who have demonstrated excellence during the 2019-2020 school year.
    • Click here for the nomination form. Please submit to Wendy’s box by March 13th.

CULTURE OF CARE – Q&A with Ross Greene

Parent: My 9-year old son has been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). We are trying Plan B in our home, however your way of understanding children and collaboratively solving problems isn’t practiced in our local schools. It is very much Plan A and I’m concerned about not only my own son’s developmental/academic progress, but also the other children in the same boat. There is a lot of demanding respect, adhering to the rules, following directions, etc., but no one’s trying to identify my son’s concerns. At the principal/administrative level, it’s almost worse. My son’s reputation is that he’s the troublemaker. He doesn’t feel he can go to an authority figure about his concerns. Please help me! I want to advocate for him and for this process. It’s worth it!! Thank You!

Dr. Greene: You’re describing an all-too-familiar scenario. That’s why I wrote the book Lost at School. The question is whether there’s a way for you to diplomatically introduce my approach to the key players at your son’s school. You might want to think about which person at the school would be most receptive to the information. His teacher? The school principal? The guidance counselor or school psychologist? You’re looking for someone who’s open-minded and can guide you on how to best advocate on your son’s behalf. You may need an educational consultant or mental health professional to assist. But I’ve also devoted several segments of my web-based radio program for parents to the topic…you can listen by clicking here. Do let me know if there are other ways in which I can be helpful.

Parent: I’ve just started reading your book and while all of this makes sense and I am inclined to attempt to do this I have a nagging question. Our daughter was recently tested for ADHD and other things. They tested for poor impulse control and other cognitive issues and all the testing came back negative. The doctors found no difficulties with impulse control, no cognitive issues, and no mental or physical problems. The findings and conclusion was that my child knows what to do and how to handle situations but is simply defiant and chooses when to do it and when not to. In cases like this is Plan B the proper approach?

Dr. Greene: Interesting question. I don’t know your daughter, so it’s hard for me to comment in a very specific way. But I can say that I’ve never come to the conclusion that a child was simply defiant and was choosing when and when not to meet behavioral expectations. Doing well is always preferable to not doing well. Sounds like you may have run into an evaluator who was wearing certain lenses. As with the parent above, I’d suggest you download the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) from The Paperwork section of this website and decide for yourself if your daughter is lacking skills that would make it hard for her to meet the demands that are being placed upon her at home and school. And you may also wish to consider seeking an independent evaluation.

PBIS

  • The student store on Wednesday was a huge success!  Thanks to the PBIS team for their planning and hard work, and a special shout out to Koop, Betsy, Teri, and Trish for running the student store this month.  Please continue to reward students you catch doing the right thing with Diamondbucks; they clearly have value for students (so much so that a few students were recently caught stealing them to sell for real money 😬).  Also, feel free to consider being creative to add your own items to the store; last month Dunn and Waritz sold school pictures of themselves (with a candy reward for purchasers) and this month Shari and her art students created highly sought after art pieces.  The students loved these items!!!

Tardies: Tardy data continues to be updated; the link on the right hand side of the home page of the blog takes you to the constantly updating master tardy page (with charts and graphs!).  We continue to follow through with escalating accountability measures for any students appearing on the report. 

AVID

  • Focused note-taking is the process of creating notes, then thinking about and beyond them, thinking about the notes as whole, and then applying them.
    • Why is focused note-taking a critical component of AVID Schoolwide? Focused note-taking empowers students to take charge of their learning. Taking notes is a life skill students must acquire to succeed in college and the world of work. Throughout their academic careers, students obtain information from a variety of sources, and they gather, process, wrestle with, think about, and ultimately solve problems and produce new knowledge using that information through the active process of focused note-taking.

HDMS HIGHLIGHTS

Hand Crafted Goods at the Student Store
PBIS Store Excitement!