Half Way Through NTI

Team,

This week marks the half-way point of NTI, with the last student day being May 27th and the last day for teachers as May 28th.  We have 22 days of instruction with each day being an instructional day other than May25th -- Memorial Day.  The Kentucky Department of Education requires 1,062 hours of instruction per school year and Commissioner Brown is allowing every school district to count NTI days  as 7 hours of instruction as opposed to the 6 hour and 15 minutes we were previously allowed to count.  As a result, we will reach the 1,062 hours at the end of the day on May 27th.

Thanks to our Instructional Leadership Team and Ms. Jones, we now have a teacher choice board for all things NTI available in our school Google Classroom.  The link to the classroom is here
and the class code is dpysfia.

Updates:

• Evaluations will be moved to next year for all non-administrative staff.  If you were due for a yearly or summative evaluation, it will be moved to next year -- pushing all summative evaluations a year.  For example if you were due to have a summative this year 2019-20, it will be moved to the 2020-21 school year and so on.

• Materials from the building -- at this time, there are no plans to have staff re-enter the building to retrieve materials or break down classrooms for the summer.  We will continue to follow the guidance of Governor Beshear and I will advise when we are able to re-enter the building.

•  Principals have been advised that summer professional development may be virtual as we are unsure of when large groups can return to the school building.  More to come on this.

• Within the next few weeks, I will schedule short meetings with all staff to have opportunity to communicate with all individually regarding progress, growth, and feedback.  Just a heads up so everyone is aware.  

Have a great week, I appreciate you all!

NTI Week 3

Team,

Thank you for your work with Non-Traditional Instruction.  As we move into week three, please continue to engage students with meaningful learning activities and provide feedback.  With the progress monitoring sheet you turn in, there are three types of feedback we want to be sure students are receiving.  When you hover over the columns for feedback they give you a brief description of the type of targeted feedback so you can enter information accordingly.

1. Wellness Check (This column is for just checking on students and their families).
2.  Learning Progress Point (What has the student told you about their learning-- is it on track, what is their biggest Ah-ha moment?)
3. One - Three Specific Feedback Points (What are 1-3 points you have gone over with students to support their learning or clear up misconceptions?)

Please keep this in mind as you provide and record feedback for students.  With the activities tab, that is for you to write non-student specific activities you have completed such as field trip planning, transportation verification, working on school plans, etc.

I'm very proud to report our student participation rate improved from 89.4% in the first week of NTI to 91.3% in the second week.  We still have 32 students that did not participate last week, so we still have room to grow.  Please continue to make effort to reach these families and refer any that you have had no success reaching to me by the end of the day Tuesday.

I appreciate all you do to support our students and families.  Have a great week!

Non-Traditional Instruction Week #2

Team,

I am so proud of our team and the way in which everyone has tackled the task of creating online and remote learning environments for our students.  I've had the opportunity to view the choice boards and Google Classrooms and thank you for preparing engaging activities for our students. 

We are moving into week two of Non-Traditional Instruction and our continued focus must be on student engagement, feedback, and communication.

Student Engagement:

• Review the assigned work from this week and pattern the next week in a similar fashion.  Students need consistency and repetition and this is achieved with developing routines and procedures for students to become familiar.  Types of activities, number of assignments, and the frequency of feedback.

Feedback

• What will be your routines and procedures for providing meaningful feedback to students?
• What is the frequency -- how often will you provide feedback?  This should be standardized with room for additional student questions.
• What format will it take - phone calls, written feedback (Google Classroom), Class Dojo, short video explanation, online meeting?  Make this a routine.
• Make sure students know they have the opportunity to redo assignments following feedback to improve their performance.

Communication

• How are you establishing weekly routines and procedures for communicating with  students and families?
• If you share students with ESL and ECE, how are you collaborating to ensure all students have contact each week from the teacher of record and the collaborating teacher?
• K-2, how are you sharing the communication/feedback duties with instructional assistants?
• How can families/students reach you with questions/concerns?
• Be sure families know this is a growth model, students are not penalized for making mistakes, but will be encouraged to improve performance.
• NTI will not impact placement decisions for next year (students will not fail the grade as a result of NTI work completion)
• Students who work with Ms. Allen (advanced/gifted) will still have enrichment opportunities, Ms. Allen will provide information this week.

Continuous Improvement

• There are learning opportunities this week from the digital learning department.  Click here for this week's schedule.

Reminder:  Report grades are due in Infinite Campus by Friday @ 4:00PM.

Have a great week.