Happy Holidays -- 5 Instructional Days to Break!

Team King,

Thank you all for your work and perseverance in this first half of the school year.  We have come a long way and have met our challenges head on and through our dedication, we are making progress.  There are three things we must accomplish this week and we need everyone all in to make it happen.

1.  Complete MAP assessments -- Ms. Camp and Ms. Allen have been working to complete MAP testing with all students who need make ups.  Please remember... (1)  that you can have them take the assessment in your classroom ( you all know how to pull up the testing session) and/or (2) please be sure to communicate to Ms. Camp the students you need help testing.  We expect to have 100% of our students complete the assessment and we are looking to meet our goal of 10% increase in the percentage of students meeting the grade level benchmarks in reading and math.  After all your students have completed the assessment, please review results with your class using the PowerPoint that was attached to last week's Weekly Blog Email.

2. Students will complete Learning Checks this week (Friday deadline).  Start today by letting students know this and set the goal of having it done with high quality so that we can celebrate at the end of the week.  Please make copies for students who receive accommodations and provide that to ECE and ESL teachers TODAY.  Per feedback in team leader meeting last week, this is the best way to ensure all students have their needed accommodations and accommodators have adequate time to administer assessments.  Please communicate with ECE and ESL staff with whom you share students.  Friday is also the end of the grading period, be mindful of this.

3.  Time to reflect and celebrate -- Reflecting on the winter MAP assessment, we will begin discussing strategies for analyzing data at the class level for next steps and focusing on how we use MAP to guide future instruction.  Ms. Allen will visit teams today during the first 10 minutes of planning to provide some information/resources to guide your thinking with this process.  Celebrations -- we have the following things happening this week, stay tuned for logistics:

• Secret Santa starts today -- morning items Ho Ho Ho...only four more days to go! (after today)  Donut Holes & Coffee
• PBIS rewards -- Thursday -- Hot chocolate and cookie decorating -- 200 dojo dollars, staff hot chocolate bar
• Arts Integration presentation (Ms. Martin, Mr. Williams, Ms. Stivers, Ms. Johnson)
• Thursday -- Yearlings Club -- evening holiday party -- 50 students receiving bicycles (students are not aware of this)
• Friday -- class parties -- Texas Roadhouse (students are not aware of this) -- and staff party @ 4:30 or as soon as you get to Bambi 2701 Bardstown Road 40205 -- significant others welcome -- no kids

Next 10 Days

Team,

Thank you to all who represented their teams and role groups at our PBIS meeting Friday.  Together, we can revise our school-wide expectations for teaching, learning, and behavior to improve consistency and decrease problematic and unproductive behaviors.  We will have some new faces in the building over the next couple of weeks to support our efforts:  Kim Linkhart (supporting Ms. Coke's class), Josh Konczal and Adam (doing walk-throughs, helping to lead PBIS reboot), and Rebecca Despain (MTSS academic support - has been supporting fourth grade)-- visited PLCs last week.

Please know that we are all about supporting professional growth with all staff members and the people you see about the building and in your classrooms are in our building on purpose to help us accelerate our growth.  Our goal is to increase student achievement and accelerate all growth at King.  Be open to support, feedback, and growth.

Faculty Meeting -- Tuesday, we will discuss and review on-demand writing across grade levels (link to writing goal for CSIP).  The second grade team will present a strategy at the start of faculty meeting as well.

MAP Assessment -- As we work to complete MAP assessments, we have created a short PowerPoint for all homeroom teachers to share results at the class level.  After all students have been tested in your homeroom, use the PowerPoint to share results with students.  It is imperative to share results and have students reflect on their own growth with their individual goal sheets.  If you would like assistance when you review these results, please let us know, we are all happy to help.

Team Leader Meeting -- We will have team leader meeting this Wednesday at 4:00.  This is how we develop the PLC process -- all team leaders are expected to attend.  We will discuss PLC questions and backpack of success skills.

Staff Reminders:

• Be sure to update learning targets daily and provide success criteria
• Feedback is the name of the game -- how do students in your classroom know if they are meeting the learning targets and understanding the concept/process/ content being taught?
• PLC minutes due Wednesday morning by 9AM to Lisa Perkins
• Friday is Breakfast with Santa in the cafeteria (pictures)

The Next 15 Days

Team,

I hope all had an opportunity to relax and recharge with family and friends as well as take some time for yourself.  As we return from break, be diligent with setting expectations for learning and behavior with students for the classroom and all common areas.  Remember, setting expectations is a daily, hourly, and every transition activity.  This is true of all students; do not expect older students to "know better."  Students do well when they have specific expectations and understand the boundaries in which they must operate.  Students also excel when they know what they are expected to learn.  Stay diligent with posting daily learning targets and success criteria to scaffold student learning.

MAP Assessment --- Our school-wide goal is to increase the number of students meeting the grade level benchmark on the MAP assessment by 10%, moving from 24% to 34% in both reading and math.  This happens through our purposeful planning and supporting students with engaging instruction that is challenging but attainable.   We will begin our MAP assessments Tuesday, December 4th -- please see the schedule on the Living Calendar and be sure that all Chromebooks are charged and ready to go for Tuesday.  Please take a few minutes to review class and individual MAP goals with students prior to the assessment.

Spelling Bee --  Ms. Allen (Jammeh on email) sent out information for classroom spelling bees.  Each homeroom teacher in grades four and five should host a classroom spelling bee and send the name of your class winners to Ms. Allen by Friday, December 6th.  The school-wide spelling bee will be held December 10th and from there our school representative will be chosen.  Last year, Jersey Hill was our representative.

Faculty Meeting -- This week, we will discuss classroom libraries and have some time to work on the set up in your classroom.  All libraries should be organized by genre and Ms. Flener will provide some strategies for having students assist with the sorting of materials and using the classroom library to support instruction.  We will also briefly discuss challenges to getting student artifacts in the digital backpack so we can improve our implementation. Backpack Artifacts -- We currently have 371 students and 196 students have at least one artifact in their digital backpack. 

Restorative Practices --   On December 11th, we will have Cheng Fisher from Behavior Support to visit our school and do 10 minute classroom observations to gauge our Restorative Practices implementation thus far.  They have provided a copy of the walkthrough and look fors so there are no surprises.  This is an implementation check and the email I received will be forwarded to you for your review.

Have a great week!