First Reflection, then Adjustments

Last week, we reflected on The Why we choose to do this work of educating students.  This week, empowered with our reflection, we are moving towards adjustments.  Actually, we have been reflecting, adjusting, and acting all year -- each time with more purposeful use of data.  Please continue the process of analysis, reflection, and adjustment as you review student work and plan next steps.

Near the beginning of the year, Dr. Pollio asked all principals to set goals for culture and climate, deeper learning and organizational coherence.

       Culture/Climate:  We will work to increase the percentage of teachers who agree “…there is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in this school,” as measured by the TELL survey in 2019 and with interim surveys to be completed by staff in December 2017, May 2018, and December 2018.  (70.4%, TELL 2017)

• According to the survey from Gold Day (1/2/2018), 75.7% of staff agreed their is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in this school, this is an increase of 5.3%!
• Additionally, 75% of staff members agreed that students in this school follow the rules of conduct.  This is an increase of 50% from the 2017 TELL Kentucky Survey.
• As we continue to have high expectations for ALL students, we should celebrate our growth and continue to scrutinize our processes.

       Student Learning: Instruction / Deeper Learning:  During the 2017-18 school year, the principal will solicit two teachers to increase PBL in their classroom and present products to community members, school staff (faculty meeting), students, and parents.  Additionally, we will implement student led conferences with the February PTC day.

• At this point, we have not met this goal.  Student led conferences will give parents the opportunity to hear their student explain and demonstrate their progress and growth.  As part of this deeper learning initiative, it is to our benefit to create opportunities for students to articulate their learning and growth needs.  This allows our students to understand and utilize goal setting strategies and measurements to deepen ownership of their learning. 
• Parent -Teacher Conferences will be in the evening and must take place between February 26th and March 9th.  We will vote on days in the faculty meeting this week.  You must work both evenings to be paid for conferences.
• I'm still looking for teachers to increase project based learning in their classrooms and present products to community members, school staff, students, and parents.

      Organizational Coherence:  Support for Classrooms / Support for Teachers:  During the 2017-18 school year, we will implement a Google environment to streamline school communication, reinforce school initiatives, and support the learning and feedback processes in our school.  

• We have created a Google environment for streamlined communication.  The Lions' den weekly blog provides information to all staff members, including instructional resources, a living calendar, the daily announcements, and daily school updates.
• Online classroom profiles provide a common place to store student data, accessible from your computers and visible to administrative staff and resource teachers.  This shared environment creates a platform for real time collaboration and planning.  This will be the more efficient data wall.
• Online PLC resources such as minutes and learning calendars create a shared environment for teachers to collaborate with team teachers, ESL, ECE, resource teachers and administrative staff.  Learning calendars are updated to reflect pacing and sequence and their continued updates will keep these relevant for future learning. Since we won't have to reinvent the wheel, we can better critique our practices and increase our pedagogical efficacy. 

     Faculty Meeting

•        Safety plan review 
•        Share walk-through feedback
•        Review the walk-through instrument
•        Begin discussion regarding our student backpack of skills
•        Schedule Parent - Teacher Conference dates; reschedule MLK celebration; schedule upcoming events

PLCs (2/1/2018)

• Trauma Informed Care; K- teachers, please attend on your planning.
• Special area teachers will begin at 9:15 in the library; the remaining sessions will be in room 104.

Have a productive week!

The Why...

In the day-to-day of coming to work, our routines sometimes obscure why we choose to educate children.  The daily and weekly gathering, analyzing, and reporting of data can be cumbersome and seen by some as "additional."  The student who disrupts our carefully laid plans and brings discomfort to our peaceful environment can be annoying and cause distress to our ideals of teaching.  As we move forward, we must keep focus on "the why" we choose to educate children and why we must be successful.

Every student that enters Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School is our student.  I stated in our holiday letter that together we are the amalgamation of the perfect adult, the perfect role model for students.  It is our job as education professionals to be certain of our craft and use strategies that support learning.  Our demographics are known; students come to us from generational poverty circumstances, some have been exposed to traumatic situations, some come to us without knowledge and fluency in  the English language, and some come from perfectly stable situations.  But ALL students come to us each day to learn and challenge their knowledge, building on concepts they have previously experienced and connecting it to new learning.  It is our job to engage students in learning and support their learning through challenging activities and opportunities to incorporate their interests, culture, and talents.

We are the foundation for their future.  We do this work to place students on a trajectory for success and post secondary achievement, this means each student leaves King with the requisite skills for middle school so they are ready on day one of that next level.

I challenge us all to revisit our beliefs about student success and make absolutely sure our expectations are high for every student, every day, and every minute within a school day.  If we expect nothing, we get nothing.  If we complain and blame children, we are ridiculous and not the professionals we pretend to be.  If we expect to have perfection each day and collapse if we don't, we need to go work in bubble or find a position that keeps us in total isolation.

Every student will be successful at King and there will be no exceptions and no excuses.  Be great today and better each day, our students deserve our best work.  

Reminders

• The iRead representative will be here Tuesday (all day) visiting classrooms and meeting with teachers during planning
• Check the living calendar and daily updates throughout the week
• I have principal PLC Tuesday morning at 8 AM, there will be visitors in the building

Teach - Assess - Re-Teach/Intervention - Re-Assess

• Doug Reeves (researcher) discussing  90/90/90 schools ...

Coming off the long weekend...

• Please be sure to provide a booster session for students, setting expectations for learning and behavior within the classroom and common areas.

• As you teach and use exit slips to check for student learning, what strategies are you using to re-teach (something different - change the prescription), then re-assess these particular students to be sure they understand (did the prescription work).

• Post the daily learning targets for students and refer to them throughout your lesson (classroom instructional framework)

• Continue to implement guided reading groups with fidelity

• Keep your assessment data updated on the google doc

Faculty Meeting -- Social Emotional Learning follow up

Professional Learning Communities

•  Response lessons  (K-2)  Mrs. Stith will review results from Response Lessons and next steps
• Updates with student progress towards the standard, bring exit slips, your laptop, and next steps/strategies for instruction.

Items to be rescheduled:  Donuts with Dad, Spelling Bee, and the celebration for MLK Art Contest...be sure to check the living calendar and daily updates throughout the week.

Think Medical Model

Teach -- Assess -- Re-Teach/Intervention -- Re-Assess

• Per our conversation in our professional learning communities, think of the medical model for students.  As you teach and use exit slips to check student learning, what strategies are you using to re-teach (something different -- change the prescription), then re-assess these particular students to be sure they understand (did the new prescription work).  Keep this method in mind as you plan intervention instruction for students.

• Share and track student progress among all parties -- homeroom teacher, ECE teacher, ESL teachers & instructors, and ESS.

• Review academic progress with students and set goals for improvement.

• Implementation of guided reading groups -- On the right side of the blog, there is a new link for guided reading resources (lesson plans and videos).

Professional Learning Communities

• Kindergarten -- Meet with White -- bring laptop, a lesson analysis sheet you've completed for a previous PLC
• First Grade -- bring exit slip from 6.5 to discuss next steps -- drill down to specific students
• Second Grade -- bring pretest results for topic 7 -- next steps -- drill down to specific students
• Third - Fifth Grade
  1. Current student progress with learning targets
  2. Creating flashbacks for students
  3. Differentiation based on current learning targets 
  4. How are we using Reflex Math

Culture 

Kelsey Schuhmann shared this video.  How do we start students on a positive trajectory each day?

https://m.facebook.com/steve.forsythe.35/posts/1139748936103794

Faculty Meeting

• Review feedback from Gold Day
• Writing -- review student work 
• Integrating writing in math instruction (students understand the criterion for their explanations)
• Reluctant writer strategies

Celebration

These are the images selected as winners for the MLK Stamp Art Contest sponsored by the MLK Post Office.  All the student art work will be displaced in the MLK Post Office starting on Monday, January 8^th thru the end of the month.  Parents and other JCPS students invited to stop in the post office to see all the entries.  Winners are Desiree Miller, Hamza Khamis, and Evelin Rangel Calderon.  Students will be recognized in a ceremony Friday, January 12th. As a prize the students art work image was used to create postcards and real postage stamps Each of the three winners will receive 12 postcards and real postage stamps of their Art work.   Shout out to Mr. Sollman!

Have a great week!  Be sure to check the living calendar and daily updates throughout the week.

Moving Into 2018

Preparing for the second half of the school year, this posting will detail items for your information and planning.

Gold Day -- January 2, 2017 

The agenda is attached for your review.  We will begin in the library promptly at 9:00 AM.  Please bring your laptop, guided reading data, relevant MAP reading data, and Journeys materials to plan for one of your guided reading groups.  Prior to Gold Day, please review the video below as Jan Richardson discusses guided reading and her video series for effectively teaching guided reading groups.

Team Planning on Gold Day

• During your three hours of team planning (cycle 3), be sure to update the PLC calendar (listed under teacher resources) for your grade level with standards and dates for common formative assessments.
• The next three hour team planning (cycle 4) will take place February 28th, March 1st, and March 2nd.
• FYI:  The winter MAP window is January 8-February 28th.  ACCESS testing for ELL students will take place during the month of January as well.

Report Cards and Grading

• The grading window will be open January 2, 2018 in Infinite Campus.  The window will close on January 8th.  
• Printed copies of report cards are due to White January 9th and report cards go home with students January 11th.
• Be mindful of grading procedures and the number of grades in each category.

School-Wide Spelling Bee

• Every homeroom teacher will conduct a classroom spelling bee by January 8th.  Each teacher will submit the name of the class winner to Mrs. Stith by the end of the day January 8th.  The school-wide spelling bee will be held on January 12th @ 1:00 PM.  Parents will be invited.

Two Days of Instruction

Over the next two days, hold tight to instructional practices and maintaining high expectations for teaching, learning, and behavior.  I know it's rough that we come back for two days, but use the time to push student learning.

• Introduce several books students could read over the break.  Give students a reading log to track their reading and extend their learning.  Offer an incentive towards their grades when logs are completed.  This also prepares students moving forward to read and track their progress.

• Provide practice worksheets, use pages from old workbooks, and ensure each student has their login information for technology programs such as iRead, Study Island, Prodigy, and Reflex Math.  Challenge students to meet and exceed goals set in class or set individual goals with them.  

• This is an awesome time for goal setting!  Take opportunities to conference with students and discuss their current progress and what is needed for their growth.  Provide some extra credit work or a project to boost student performance and engage them in learning while at home.

• It doesn't hurt to add time for technology learning as well -- iRead for 30 minutes instead of 20, every student scheduled for time on Study Island (30 minutes) aligned to MAP results.

PBIS Survey-- reviewing the data

• According to our SRT school-wide survey data (you took the survey a month ago), the statement,"Booster training activities for students are developed, modified, & conducted based on school data," was rated by staff as 37% in place, 56% partially in place, and 7% not in place.
• Booster training activities include the following that takes place in your classroom and school-wide.  
• In your classroom -- this includes, but is not limited to-- teaching the Second Step curriculum with fidelity, reviewing school-wide ROARS & classroom expectations, reviewing weekly SRT data that is posted on this blog site, reviewing your Class Dojo data and reviewing the trends for color changes (behavior) in your classroom and using this data to increase student engagement and on-task behavior in your room.
• School-wide -- this includes but is not limited to--- reviewing weekly SRT numbers, referrals (ABC forms), bus referrals, and transition data, as well as, supporting students and instruction in the classroom.  
• Tier 3 behavior students -- Based on data for individual students who have been identified as consistently displaying inappropriate behavior -- these students receive additional support through counseling (third party agencies and Luney) and direct social skills instruction (from ECE resource teachers and Dr. Parks).

• Booster training activities are ongoing as professionals, we set the tone for the learning environment at King.  We will continue to strengthen our use of data to create and uphold a safe and positive culture for all.

Have a great week, no faculty meeting...

Writing and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Just a couple of reminders...

• This week students will complete informational writing pieces.  This is the time for students to make adjustments based on teacher feedback.  Consider mini lessons to review chunks of student writing -- lead, evidence/examples, transitions, and conclusions to move groups of students through the revision process. Please be mindful to have students use the writing rubric (see notebook) to review their work and ensure they have all the components in place and have edited their work.  Writing pieces should be complete by Friday, December 15th.

• We have MTSS meetings this week, please compile, summarize and graph your data for students for whom you have been providing interventions.  Be sure to have your information organized and ready for your meeting.  You should bring information to support students who have academic and/or behavior concerns.

• As the winter break gets closer and we begin to celebrate, remember that for some students and staff, this is a stressful time of year.  Bring a little extra patience to work with you daily.

• No faculty meeting this week or next week 

• Last, please check the daily updates and living calendar.  Have a wonderful and productive work week.