Progress is Happening

Team,

Thank you for your diligence with supporting students through strong instruction and interventions with acceleration plans.  As we continue the work, below are some leverage items to support your work (some already do these things).  If you do the following you can say with pride that you have high expectations for each of your students.  If you say, "well, the kids can't..., if only the parents...; I'm just happy they wrote something...;for them this is..., then your expectations are LOW.  We can't do low for another second.  Together, we can be great and our students will excel.

• Nothing is more powerful than purposeful instruction and feedback.  
• Classroom Instructional Framework planning supports the "I do, we do, you do" model.  You model, you guide, you provide time for independent practice. 
• The daily formative check (exit slip) is crucial with each lesson.  It aligns the learning to the learning target for students.  It shows you how many students understood the lesson and took away the outcome you planned for.  This feedback allows you to plan for the next day's lesson.
• Providing students with immediate/timely feedback helps them fix mistakes quickly and not continue to make the same mistakes for days/weeks.  This will speed up their learning.
• Tracking progress builds motivations and allows for diagnosis of misconceptions. Just like tracking your food, weight, and exercise leads to greater personal success -- Tracking student progress towards standards, having students track their own progress, and tracking class progress leads to greater success for individual students and the class as a whole.

As always, you are surrounded by support -- if you need help, please say something.  We are growing together and our foot will not move from the gas -- we have to go and we have to build our collective efficacy.  I appreciate the work of everyone as it takes each of us.

Below is a six minute video outlining the new Showcase feature of student digital backpacks.  This is for your information -- this will become part of our work with students.

Please be sure to check the living calendar and daily updates.

Instead of faculty meeting, we have Instructional Leadership Team meeting -- we will meet in room 104.

Please have learning cycle analysis and student work samples to me by Thursday, February 28th.

Updating Routines

Team,

Thank you for your work with the acceleration plans for students.  I hope you noticed, as I did, that students who are using the technology programs and receiving the interventions on a consistent basis are making gains already  Reviewing progress, I see students are gaining fact fluency, working on mastering letter sounds, improving skills using context clues, figurative language, and comprehension in addition to more individualized skills.

We have now implemented the accelerated plans and our next check will be  March 8, 2019.  Please share progress with students and help them set a goal for the next implementation check.

This week we begin a new newsletter structure for families.  They are in your mailbox on orange paper and should go home with students today.  As you review the one-pager you will notice that we are tracking two data points with parents:  Attendance and Homework Completion.  I will update weekly totals for attendance with the help of Ms. Edmerson and I need you to keep up with how many students are turning in homework daily/weekly.  I am reporting these numbers to solicit help from parents to encourage them to set the expectation for completing and turning in homework.  Please be sure to record accurate attendance each day by 9:15AM.

Staffing updates:  We currently have an instructional assistant position listed on the job site.  We did interview a candidate last week, but she declined the offer.  We are still looking to hire two, but have to get the other position posted.  Also, we had interviews scheduled for fourth grade yesterday.  One candidate was a no-show and the other received a job offer from Byck as she pulled into King yesterday.  We will press on, but if you know anyone looking -- please encourage them to apply.

Last, as we work to provide high quality instruction to all students, give yourself a time audit.  Check the following to ensure minimal loss of instructional time:

• Are all students seated and working at 9:05?  They should be.
• Do you use timers daily for morning work, centers, activity, transitions?  This builds consistency and greater sense of urgency for students.
• Are you following your class schedule?  Stick to the times you have posted -- do not let reading run 30 minutes over -- this is really hard on students -- they are more comfortable in a structured environment -- they need to be able to predict what is happening next.
• Are you prepared and ready when your push-in help arrives?  This is crucial to maintaining a strong schedule conducive to student learning.
• Review your transitions for efficiency.  Do you use a tone, vocabulary word, music, or other signal to get students moving without you saying it?

Have a great week, I appreciate your hard work and collaboration with all staff!

Student Progress

Team,

This week is a checkpoint for student progress.  A tool developed to support this work on a daily basis is the Student Success Dashboard available within each student's digital backpack.  Below is a short (2 minute) video explaining what this means.  This dashboard allows students to see how they are doing with achievement, attendance, and behavior metrics -- an excellent tool for student led conferences.

In the blog last week, guidance was provided for the professional development day - -please refer to that for information.  Please adhere to the following deadlines this week:

Monday 2/11/2019

• Send home student progress reports -- printed from Infinite Campus
• Send home Student-Led Conference Forms so parents can sign up for conferences 
• Send home parent Comprehensive School Survey Forms -- you will receive these tomorrow.  Please hype this up with students as their ticket to the Valentine's Day classroom celebrations. If the parent has completed or completes it online have them write that in the student's agenda or send a note.

Thursday 2/14/2019

• Send confirmation of conference times home by Thursday, February 14th.  I will put some templates in your mailbox you can use for this.
• We will check in with implementation of the accelerated improvement plans for students -- implementation looks like a completed plan, evidence that it has started -- progress monitoring data, student work, report from technology program.

Monday 2/18/2019

• Please provide your conference schedule to Ms. Foster by Monday, February 18th, at 8:00 AM.

What We Do and Why

Team,

We have approximately 55 days before state assessments and about 40 days to spring MAP.  As we are working to increase student learning and achievement, let's all agree to work smarter and share strategies that work. 

School-wide norms (these things must be tight and should be already in place)

• All are planning with the Classroom Instructional Framework structure (please keep plan books on your desk for viewing during walk-throughs) We want to be sure provide a structured lesson that allows for modeling, guided practice, independent practice and assessment.  If all teachers base lessons on this structure it builds consistency throughout the building.  This also builds high standards for work quality and achievement. 

• Increasing teacher clarity --  teachers are identifying the success criteria for meeting the grade level standard and sharing this criteria with students so they understand how to demonstrate their learning (introduced on Gold Day, follow up at last faculty meeting, and professional development during faculty meeting this week).  I saw great examples of this in Mrs. Holloway and Mrs. Stith's classrooms. We must give students the information they need to be successful.  It is much easier to hit a target you can see.

• All are planning and using daily formative assessment to check student learning and make adjustments to instruction based on these results.  Daily formative assessments should be planned along with lessons - this ensures cohesion and inclusion in the lesson.  The daily formative check should measure the learning target for the day.  This quick measure provides the teacher information as to whether students understand the concept, skill, or process.  That information is used to adjust teaching for the following day to best meet the needs of the students in your classroom.  Why teach blindly when you have a wealth of data available to you?

• At each grade level, students have been identified as part of our MAP acceleration plan and have an individualized plan to support and accelerate their growth.  We will progress monitor with students to assess their growth every two weeks.  We have to teach, provide practice, set up students with technology programs, monitor reports, and assess students to see if they are learning what you are teaching.  If we don't intervene and monitor progress - how would we know if students are learning?

• In both reading and math, all teachers have a checklist by student by standard to keep up with who is meeting the standard and who needs more practice or additional lessons.  This is how we know who has it and who is not there yet.  This is the main thing.

• Communicate student progress and needs to parents and provide timely feedback to students.  We must engage families in this work.  Parents have to be informed as to what students should know, do know, or need more help to know.

 Coming up soon:

• SBDM Meeting Monday, February 4th @ 7:45 AM in room 104
• Faculty Meeting 2/5 in library -- Teacher Clarity
• Parent Teacher Conference forms should go home by Monday, February 11th.  PTC day is Monday, February 18th.
• We will send home the parent Comprehensive School Survey Monday (2/11) and push to have them all returned by Thursday (2/14) -- turning it in will be their ticket to the Valentines Day Classroom Celebration.  I will also sponsor a celebration for the first primary and intermediate classes to get all forms returned.
• Please check your professional development hours -- to be off on February 15th you must have 18 hours otherwise you should sign up for professional development sessions.  You need 24 hours to be off on the May PD day.
• Progress reports go home February 11th, these should be printed from Infinite Campus.

***If you need assistance or clarity on any of the above items, please let me know.  

****Morning meeting will be rescheduled this week -- TBD

*****Please remember to check the living calendar and daily updates