Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Team,

Thank you for your work, your presence, and your professionalism over the course of this school year and as you continue to provide engaging instruction for our students at King.  We appreciate the time you invest in students as well as your professional growth.  While we are not physically in the same place, the collective work of our team has accomplished the task of creating a school in a virtual space for students to thrive and continue their learning.  This is not an easy task and I thank you all for making it so.

We do plan to have a celebration for teacher appreciate once we are all in the same space.  In the meantime, please accept my gratitude and an IOU.

Our attendance for last week is currently at 95.65%,  with 16 students having no participation.  We have until this afternoon at 4:00 to make any changes or adjustments to attendance for last week.

Below is the link for today's faculty meeting.  Have a great week!

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/852157074?pwd=TzVXVDgrQndjMFVCQ0FhbzIyZUxjZz09

Meeting ID: 852 157 074

Password: 3fFkQR

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.

Grades, Updates and Next Steps -- What we know so far...

Team,

I hope you all are rested and actively practicing social distancing as a responsible citizen within the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  Today, I want to provide you with some information pertaining to how we are moving forward in the next couple of weeks.

At this time, we are still slated to be out of school until April 6th.  April 6th has now been turned into a non-flex professional development day that will happen remotely (we will still telecommute) and log  on to the PD site -- More info to come with this, the district is working on this format.   April 7th will start the NTI (Non-Traditional Instruction) days.  The board of education did approve the use of these days, but they are still not set in stone at this time.  If we use NTI days, this means that students will receive work through online platforms (Google Classroom), assignments turned in online, students receive feedback and returned graded assignments.   We will have to also have a process for paperwork as well, but the push is for online learning enviornments.

For families without devices at home, the district is working on a plan to distribute Chromebooks to households so that students can access instructional materials.  This plan/protocol is not fully in in place at this time, but is a work in progress.

Changes in pay/job functions have not been shared yet.  At this time, we should assume everyone is returning to work in some capacity.

In the meantime, please be prepared in the following ways:

• Grades are due for the third grading cycle.  The window is currently open for you to post grades.  Technically, the date they are due is four working days after returning to work -- so this would ideally be April 9th, but please go ahead and get this completed.

• If you are not familiar with using Google Classroom -- start building your proficiency - this will be the format of online learning.  Create this environment and practice uploading information and linking assignments and providing directions for turning in assignments.  I do know that Nik, Haley, Allison, Sarah, Jessalyn, Mark, and Irena use Google Classroom regularly and may be able to answer a question or two.  If I left off your name, please let me know -- I'm working from memory over here.  I have also reached out to Kathleen (Zone 2) to provide some additional resources for learning how to use Google Classroom.

• Check in with your students -- give a call (Jones sent out information on creating a Google number) or send messages on Dojo to check on students.  It would also be a good idea to ask parents if they have a device and internet access at home.  As you talk with families, please keep track of who you've talked with and whether they have a technology at home.  Today, we are sending a School Messenger message to share some family resources from the Office of Access and Opportunity -- this will come to employees as well.

• Building Access -- Currently, the building is closed.  Our custodians are in the building working daily to clean the building.  Administrators are working from home this week and will be Monday as well.  Following the inclement weather schedule, we work Monday also and then are off through Spring Break.  To reach me, use email, text, or call me 502-303-0768.  

Take care of yourself

Implementation Checks Week 2

Team,

Thank you for taking time to check your classroom systems last week.  This week, I ask you to check the level of implementation with the following; please understand these are layers and checking our systems bit by bit allow us to pull all the pieces together aligning our mission and vision to the desk of our students.

Teaching and Learning - Pushing all students to proficiency so they believe in their own power to achieve success.

Guided Reading Groups

• Every class, every grade level must implement differentiated guided reading groups for reading instruction to support student growth.   The purpose of guided reading is to move students up reading levels; students who are below grade level should have a guided reading group everyday, in addition to their interventions (the link for guided reading is on the right side of the blog).  

• 
  All of the lesson plan forms for guided reading are in this folder. Teachers, use the templates to plan each of your guided reading groups. The lesson cards that came with the Literacy Footprints book sets are just a resource/guide. Teachers should plan the lessons to meet the needs of your students -- running records, dictated sentences, and the sight words assessments from Jan Richardson's Next Steps Forward in Guided Reading should be used as tools to guide instruction.
• 
  If you have questions or issues with implementation, please see Ms. Buckley or Ms. Camp immediately.

• Math

• Current focus on measurement and geometry for the next two weeks as we prepare for MAP testing.  The goal is an increase of 15% in math performance.

PBIS - The foundation for continually improving our school-wide learning environment

• Review classroom expectations, rewards (what they get or get to do when they follow the expectations and excel) and consequences (what happens when they don't follow the expectation):  These should be posted so they can be viewed by students and referred to by you when redirecting students or providing reminders.

• Feedback-- in the event you have to write a referral, be sure to check the interventions you put into place and parents should receive a phone call -- the first call they get concerning the behavior should not come from administration.  

Progress Monitoring- Tracking and monitoring student progress towards proficient and distinguished performance

• Daily formative assessment aligned to learning target for each lesson

• Track each student's progress towards mastering the learning target

Announcements

• MTSS progress monitoring sheets were due to Camp Friday, please give math to her  and reading to Buckley by noon tomorrow.

• Marsha Ross joins us this week as our new behavior coach, she starts Monday

• Olexus Porter is now a full time employee at King as a Permanent Auxiliary Teacher

• Job postings are up to replace April Johnson and Georgana Windley (resigned their positions).  If you know anyone who may be interested, please encourage them to apply, the posting closes March 20, 2020.

• Faculty Meeting will discuss grading procedures and the upcoming MAP assessment

• ILT meeting (team leaders) will be Wednesday, March 11th.  All teams will report out on the number of students scoring proficient on the last round of learning checks _- please be prepared to discuss how you all have adjusted instructional strategies based on learning results.

• Be sure to check your professional development hours, March 27th is a flexible PD day

Implementation Check

Team,

I hope everyone had a chance to get outside and enjoy the sunshine yesterday, being in the sun is always a plus for me and this time of year, we are in the long stretch to Spring Break.  That being said, please remember staff members who are present each day from now until the end of the year get $100 added to your 2020-21 supply budget.

Implementation Checks

This week, take a few moments each day to check the level of implementation of the following three areas:

• Teaching and Learning --  Pushing all students to proficiency so they believe in their own power to achieve success
• Daily use of the classroom instructional framework for teaching, learning targets are posted, stated, and referred to throughout the lesson. 
• Use Journeys for reading and Envision for math instruction
• Students engage in rigorous work products -- what are they expected to do each day?
• There is daily formative assessment (exit slips) so that teachers can make instructional decisions for the next lesson.  
• Students receive timely feedback on how to improve their work.
• Current focus on measurement and geometry for the next three weeks.

• PBIS -- The foundation for continually improving our school-wide learning environment 
• Expectations for learning and behavior are set and reinforced with students daily -- you know it's in place when students are able to self-monitor and participate in a respectful environment, focused on learning goals and outcomes. 
• Daily use of Class Dojo -- school wide agreement
• You are able to maximize instructional time due to efficient transitions.
• Students know how to use the cool down area.

• Progress Monitoring -- Tracking and monitoring student progress towards proficient and distinguished performance
• Daily formative assessment aligned to learning target for each lesson
• Check assessments, provide feedback to tell students how to improve, make instructional adjustments to increase student learning
• Track each student's progress towards mastering the learning target
• Current focus on measurement and geometry for the next three weeks.

Announcements

• We hired a new behavior coach -- Marsha Ross will begin next at King next Monday 3/9.
• KPREP field tests continue this week for students with accommodations and those needing make up tests.
• No Faculty Meeting this week, please come to Literacy Night -- Tuesday, March 3rd, 5:00 - 6:30 PM
• Bookfair is open through the end of the week
• ILT meeting is next Wednesday, 3/11