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!