The Next 77 Days

Team,

We are more than halfway through the school year, celebrating our 100th day on Wednesday and being 77 days away from the last day of school.  With that said, we have about 60 days before KPREP and about 50 days before the next MAP test -- we all must have a great sense of urgency for maximizing student learning.

Tomorrow (Monday), I am looking for the list of students your grade level has identified for targeted support as part of our school-wide MAP reading and math accelerated learning plan.  You have electronic and paper copies of the student plan template.  Please be mindful of the following:

• Take inventory of what you are already doing to work with and intervene with struggling students (some questions to prompt your work).
• Are they in Reading Recovery?
• Do they get additional guided reading groups during the week -- more than 3 days?
• Do they receive one-on-one instruction from you or an assistant?
• Are you leveraging technology (iRead, Reflex, Prodigy, Xtra Math, etc.) daily?
• Do they receive ESS support, ESL support, ECE support -- discuss with teachers and support staff to properly document what is in place?
• Have you assigned lessons from Study Island based on student need?
• How do you differentiate learning for students?
• Are you using the learning continuum (MAP) to see what students need?
• Have students completed goal setting?
• Have you collaborated with special area teachers to support growth plans?
• There is no putting this off -- we are going now -- next week we will discuss initial results and evidence of implemented plans.  The admin and resource team is here to support you in this process
• This can include helping with goal setting, conferencing with students, planning activities to support learning, providing feedback, etc.
• Additionally, we have the support of district resource teachers to assist with walk-throughs, improving teacher clarity (providing clear success criteria), increasing student engagement, managing student behavior, planning for deeper learning, and increasing cultural proficiency and relevance to daily lessons.

With our additional support, there is additional accountability -- be aware that we will have district resource personnel visiting classrooms on a regular basis.  They are part of our support team, be sure you are prepared and providing strong instruction structured by the Classroom Instructional Framework.  

WE are moving forward and growing TOGETHER.  I believe in you, our kids are depending on us, and we will be successful.  Dig in and trust the process.

Remember to check the living calendar

We have ILT meeting Tuesday instead of faculty meeting (team leaders, department chairs, resource staff)

Intentional Planning, Strategies and Growth

First, let's welcome Baby Schmidt to the King family!  Jessica had the baby this weekend.  Both Mom and Baby are well and recovering nicely.

Moving Forward with Purpose

As we prepare students for standards mastery and the next grade level, we must be purposeful with our planning and use of strategies to support learning at high levels for each student.  I placed a copy of the accelerated plan for student growth for your review.  If you have suggestions or comments, please be sure to get those to Jones or I ASAP.  As a Targeted Support School, we are part of the Office of Accelerated Improvement -- which means the expectation is that we accelerate improvement for students and our practices to ensure student learning.  As compensation for your recognized difficult work, teachers in our building receive additional funds quarterly that are not allotted to teachers who do not work in Targeted or Comprehensive Support Schools.

Non-Negotiable:

• Use of the Classroom Instructional Framework for planning -- This framework must be evident in each of your lessons -- anyone visiting your classroom should be able to recognize where you are in the lesson based on this framework.  Again, this is the framework expectation for evaluation as well.  -- be mindful of strategies to increase engagement for boys and be inclusive of cultural connections -- 

• Evidenced use of high leverage strategies - Summarizing and note-taking; communicating high expectations for all students;  identifying similarities and differences; reinforcing effort and providing recognition; homework and practice, non-linguistic representations; cooperative learning; setting objectives and providing feedback; generate and testing hypotheses.  

• Use of the MAP Learning Continuum for Planning -   The purpose of this tool is to help instructional staff plan lessons according to where students are ready to learn in the areas of reading and math.  As you plan for instruction -- consult this tool.

• Use of exit slips aligned to the daily learning target to assess student learning and use this information to make adjustments to instruction.

• Progress Monitoring -- by student, by standard  and Goal Setting

• Weekly PLC minutes turned into White by the end of the day.

Our work is important and with all of us working towards a common goal of increased student achievement, we will be successful.  Every person in our building plays a crucial role in the learning lives of each of our students.  We are the model, we set the tone, we are the professionals tasked with educating our students.  Let's remember our love of children, our collective commitments, and our own personal drive to make a difference in the lives of children.

Go Team King!

Halfway Mark - Time for Celebration and Planning

Welcome back!

I hope you all enjoyed your break and spent time relaxing and refreshing yourself.  As we move into the second half of the school year, I want to pause a moment to offer my gratitude.  I am very proud to be the principal of Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School and I greatly appreciate each and every person that works in this building and collaborates with us as a partner.  Working at King you have one of the most challenging jobs in this school district and I am thankful for your dedication to our students.

If you have friends or family that work in other schools with demographics different from ours, you already know you have completely different work environments and different challenges.  However, it is not by accident that you are here.

You have a greater purpose and a mission to to impact the lives of our district's most at-risk students.  You have power in your words, impact in your highly effective practices, and opportunity to change the trajectory of students -- empowering them to achieve at the highest levels.  It is no secret -- the best thing I can do as a principal is to put a highly effective teacher in front of every student in every classroom and put support personnel that are effective and efficient in place to support learning and building operations.  I believe in our power as a staff and I believe in our ability to achieve continuous improvement.  Thank you all for being here.


We are welcoming two new members that will join us after the break.  Please be sure to introduce yourself and give them a positive start to their year at King.

• George Houtchens -- Behavior Coach (Starting January 7th)
• Sydney Butler -- Third Grade (Starting January 7th)

Last, I wanted to provide some reminders for school norms and expectations as we start the second semester.  All meetings and events are listed on the Living Calendar.

Professional Learning Communities (PLC)

•  We have PLCs each Monday.  At the conclusion of each meeting, the team leader or designee is responsible to turn in PLC minutes to Dr. White by the end of the school day.  For learning check analysis meetings - -a high, med, and low student work sample from each teacher in each content area should be turned in attached to minutes (please make copies of work so I don't have to return them).

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Meetings 

• These meetings are scheduled for the last Monday of the month (remember to consult the living calendar).  The purpose of this meeting is to discuss students who are in need of additional assistance to meet grade level expectations for learning and behavior.  Each teacher should bring data/progress data on their lowest three students with academics and behavior.  During this meeting you will collaborate with resource/support staff to assess progress and identify next steps.

Classroom Instructional Framework, Daily Learning Targets and Exit Slips (non-negotiable)

• Lesson planning should be in the form of the classroom instructional framework so that all components of the lesson are addressed.  This is the expectation for evaluation and walk-through feedback -- all will be based on the framework.  A copy of the template is attached to the blog update email for your use.

• Each day students will benefit from a posted learning target that you review and check back throughout the lesson to ensure students are moving towards the target.  Targets should be posted.  If you use PowerPoint or project your learning target -- be sure to have a daily posted list that can be referenced during walk-throughs.  Learning targets should say what students are learning to do and how they will demonstrate this new learning.  For example:  We are learning to identify the main idea of an article and provide text evidence to support our choice in a short answer response.

• Following each lesson, students will complete an exit slip to assess their learning and provide the teacher with real time information to adjust plans for the following day.  Each exit slip should have the learning target on it and a prompt for students.  An example is here.  There should not be a time that we are not assessing learning daily.

This Week...

1.  We have PLC Monday to discuss data from your analyzed learning cycle checks.  This Friday, teams will meet with Dr. White to discuss the data and next steps.

2.  Student grades for cycle 2 are due in Infinite Campus by Thursday, January 10th.  A printed copy of your completed report cards are due to White by Friday, January 11th.

3.  We will have faculty meeting this week:  Vision/Mission; PBIS booster session