Just Do Your Job

Good morning Team,

We have a new baby to celebrate in our King Family -- Nora Kelly Lamb was born last Thursday!

 Mrs. Lamb and the baby are doing well.


This week, I am keeping it short, we all know what we need to do.  If everyone does their job, we will have a productive week.

Field Tests - We will begin KPREP field tests for grades 3-5 on Tuesday and will test throughout the week.  Mrs. Mozier has sent/is sending information and updates.


Staff Meeting:  Bring a copy of your MAP class breakdown report by GOAL, laptops, and Envision Volume 1 -- we will discuss covered math standards thus far and preparing for the end of the year and KPREP testing.

Staff Incentive:  All staff who are present each school day from March 2nd - May 28th, will have $100 added to your supply money for next school year!

Feedback and Parent Communication

Team,

Thank you for attending Gold Day and participating with our activities.  So far, 17 staff members have completed the feedback survey.  Please click on this link and complete it if you have not already done so. This information is crucial to support our efforts moving forward.

Monday is Parent-Teacher Conference Day, please ensure the following:

• Provide the front office with a copy of your schedule
• Be sure to call all parents that you do not meet with in person
• Complete the form documenting how many conferences you had (will be available in the office)
• Input the number of conferences in Infinite Campus under the "Parent-Teacher Conference" tab
• Turn in the form to the office before you leave for the day

Professional Learning Communities -- be sure to create and stick to your agenda

Faculty Meeting

• K-2 -- please bring a copy of your "Section Summary" from the last grading cycle printed from Infinite Campus for content grades (if you are not sure what this is, bring your laptop). We will discuss grading and report card grades
• 3rd - 5th -- You will meet with Mrs. Mozier to discuss the KPREP field tests

We have an Alternate Leadership Team meeting Feb. 20th at 4:15 PM in the conference room to discuss budget.  Please feel free to stop by my office Monday, 2/17, if you have budget input, questions, concerns, or feedback.

Have a productive week!

Individual Education Plans and Accommodations

Team,

In our work to support all students, we must be aware of a student's Individual Education Plan and follow the guidance of these documents to promote student success and follow federal law.  Currently, we have approximately 60 students who receive services as part of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  These students have identified disabilities that qualify them for additional services to support their success in school.

We MUST read, understand, and follow a student's IEP completely.  This means, we have to...

• Read it and understand it's contents
• Collect data to support student goals with fidelity
• Implement accommodations and special designed instruction with fidelity and provide evidence of this implementation
• Adhere to minutes of instruction for special classes and mainstream classes

Last week, Mrs. Gutterman sent a sheet to all homeroom teachers to ensure that all are aware of IEP contents and mandates.  It is the expectation that all staff who work with students with IEPs have knowledge of plans and follow the plans explicitly.

Our staff must collaborate to be certain we understand these expectations and know how to implement actions with purpose and fidelity.  If you have questions or concerns please consult the ECE teacher with which you share students and/or Mrs. Gutterman.  Please check your classroom systems to ensure you are up to date with student IEPs and how you accommodate students to meet their learning goals and needs -- what evidence do you have to support implementation within your instruction -- 

Please welcome Susan Vialpando, who begins today as our new Reading Recovery Teacher

We currently have the following positions posted on the JCPS Website -- Resource Teacher (behavior coach), 2 Instructional Assistant Positions, Permanent Auxiliary Teacher

Faculty Meeting Agenda

* PBIS Reboot

Team Leader Meeting

* Transforming to the Instructional Leadership Team

Gold Day Agenda

* PBIS rollout based on PBIS team work and feedback

* Turnaround Plan for King Elementary -- our new School Improvement Plan - draft and feedback

* Team collaboration time

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Team,

Last week all teams had extended planning time to work on upcoming units for instruction.  This is the important work for System One of our Six Systems for a Strong Learning Climate which is to ensure we provide instruction based on  Kentucky Academic Standards.

This week, we will have meetings to review the progress of students previously identified for academic or behavior Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS).  This work supports System Five which is to provide academic and behavioral supports for students, including acceleration and System Four -- progress monitoring and analysis of student work.  Please refer to the schedule Ms. Camp linked to The Living Calendar.  

It is imperative that you bring progress monitoring data and student work samples to support progress made by the student since the last meeting.  The purpose of these meetings is to ...

• Identify students who are in need of additional support/you have concerns about their progress or growth (This was done previously this year unless you are identifying a new student)

• Bring collected data and work samples for identified students to the meeting to discuss progress and next steps with a team. (If you do not have this information -- there is no point coming to the MTSS meeting -- let me know if this is your situation ahead of time) 
• 
  
• For academic students -- this would be progress monitoring data based on interventions such as running records, lessons provided for remediation, skill building results from Study Island, iRead, or other technology programs, etc.
• 
  
• For behavior students -- this would be frequency data, point sheets, evidence of interventions provided and results.

Thank you for your diligence with supporting students.  Please be sure your lesson plans are out on your desk/table and that you are using a daily exit slip that aligns to your learning target for each lesson.

Have a great week, if all certified and classified staff have completed Comprehensive School Surveys and Impact Surveys (certified only) we will NOT have faculty meeting this week.  We will check results Tuesday morning.

Feedback Was Lacking

Team,

I hope all enjoyed the weekend and are preparing for this week of learning.  I gave out copies of the Diagnostic Review results last week (additional copies available in the office) and I trust that you reviewed the document to examine the three improvement priorities and documented evidential observations we received to serve as high leverage objectives to accelerate our growth as a school.  Summarizing the findings, our priorities include (paraphrased):

• Improved two-way communication with all stakeholders to support academic and behavioral success for students
• Improved systemic clarity for delivery of core instruction based on Kentucky Academic Standards, bell-to-bell instruction, clear systems for analysis of student work and assessment data, and systemic next steps all to include high yield strategies for instruction and next steps for intervention
• Improved systems for school-wide behavior to minimize disruptions to the learning environment to maximize time for differentiated instruction to support student achievement

These improvement priorities impact the work of each staff member in our school, each student in our school, each family that our school partners with and supports and our community who supports us and we give back to.  These are contractual obligations that we accepted when we signed our employment contracts.

From a leadership standpoint, a blaring shortcoming was the implementation of consistent feedback and use of walkthrough and evaluation data trends to support staff improvement needs and professional development.  While I thought this was moving in the correct direction, I accept that this has to be an area of more intense focus.  This is being corrected immediately.  I want to apologize to those who have not received the attention to instructional and behavioral growth needed to maximize instructional time and increase student proficiency.  In the day-to-day details of managing the building, I have neglected to consistently follow up and ensure that everyone is getting the individualized feedback to succeed and the model to give this same attention to students.

I'm owning it and moving forward with great purpose in this work.  I expect us all to approach this with the same growth mindset and provide feedback to all stakeholders as well as support our two-way communication.

This week we have extended plan times for collaborative teams and I am committed to providing this time at least each six weeks.  I recognize this is a step and I hope we find ways to make more time available for this important work.  If you have ideas to implement this even more frequently than the six week interval, I am open to suggestions (but do be mindful of the barrier with sub coverage).

Faculty meeting is for committee work this week.  

Be purposeful and collaborative,

Dr. White

Progress Monitoring and Next Steps

Team,

Thank you all for your work with summative assessments last week.  When you meet as a PLC this week, you will discuss the progress your students have made and plans for next steps.  Attached to the email with this blog update is the Lesson Analysis Form that is used to analyze summative assessments.  You should have one sheet completed for reading and one completed for math.  This helps to analyze student work and make plans for next steps in instruction.

In team leader meeting, we discussed how we respond when students have not learned the information. The following were the notes we discussed in our deep dive into PLC question #3:

Question #3: How do we respond when they haven't learned it?

• Identify the two most common misconceptions in each class and across the grade level. Students must show their work at all times.
• What mistakes are students making -- is it understanding, process, calculation, text evidence...?
• What feedback do students need to understand their misconception?
• What learning has to take place (what do they need to know) for students to successfully answer questions on the re-test?
• When will the re-teach and practice happen? Can the practice be differentiated homework?
• What strategies will you use to re-teach differently?
• Plan the day for the re-test
• Review results and repeat this process

One of our biggest conundrums is often based around moving on when we don't have everyone at the same achievement level.  Please understand that some students will move forward and some will have to be re-taught and re-assessed until they have understanding.  This dilemma is exactly why the Learning Continuum will support our work along with Tiered Response Lessons. 

• The Learning Continuum tells us where our students are "ready to learn" according to specific standards.  You have set this lesson plan up to support three groups of students.  As students gain proficiency, the only planning that you are switching is your high group.  
• Your lowest group progresses to the mid-level group and your mid-level group progresses to the activities for the high group.
• Providing students feedback will tell them exactly where they are and what they need to move forward
• Goal setting is crucial -- share the goal and have them participate in this process -- this could also be homework to have parents assist with the learning goal.
• Have students track their progress -- why do you have to do all the work -- this also provides ownership (part of our ROARS expectations)
• Remember, the learning continuum supports gap closure -- so please USE IT!

Our goal as a school for the Winter MAP Assessment was to increase the number of students meeting the grade level benchmark by 10%, moving from 24% in reading and math to 34%.  We did not meet our goal.  We actually decreased by 6% in reading and 4% in math.  

We did see our growth in both subjects grow with 49% of students showing growth in reading and 57% of students showing growth in math, increasing from 34% growth on the Fall assessment.

The more specific we get, the better our results.  Last, in team leader meeting we also discussed daily formative assessment and had a breakthrough -- there was a misconception with daily targets and daily formative assessment.  Think of the daily target as the success criteria for the standard -- which small part are you teaching today?

• Each day you have a learning target.  This target should be explicit for the DAY.  At the end of the lesson, what should students be able to do/understand and how will they demonstrate or prove it to you?
• For example:  Target - We are learning to add fractions with like denominators.  The lesson you teach is on adding fractions with like denominators.  
• At the end of the lesson, give students one problem where they have to add fractions with like denominators (collect the student responses).
• Did they work the problem and get the correct answer?  Remember they have to show their work so that you can understand why they got it correct or what their misconception is.
• Sort the responses -- who got it, who didn't, who is waaaaay off?  This will inform your instruction for the next day when you work on fractions.

Updates

• Mr. Oliver is no longer with the Simmons program so he has left King
• Natalie is official as our Academic Instructional Coach
• Report cards go home Tuesday
• We have a parent engagement event Thursday -- Zoo Night -- we will have chili for families (5PM-7PM)
• Faculty Meeting Tuesday is dedicated to providing time to upload backpack artifacts
• SBDM meeting Thursday @ 4:15PM

Report Cards and Using MAP Data to Guide Instruction

Team,

Thank you for inputting student grades in Infinite Campus for report cards.  I re-opened the window and it will close Monday morning at 8:00AM.  All grades were due Friday, so there should be no issue with having everything complete.  Please be sure you print out copies of report cards by Tuesday evening so that we are prepared and all have plenty of time to ready report cards and envelopes.  As always the expectation is that you have completed grades and provided comments to guide parents in supporting their students.

Please know our cycle 2 celebration for honor roll and perfect attendance will be February 4th in the evening.  Teachers will provide a list of students who have earned honor roll so that we know how many certificates we need.  Please submit your list to Mrs. Perkins by Friday, January 24th.

In faculty meeting Tuesday, it is a final opportunity to collaborate and get assistance with your Tiered Response Lessons.  Each teacher is responsible for completed a plan for one upcoming reading and math standard.  Ms. Allen put together resources to assist with creating plans -- this was shared via email and included on the email with this blog post.  At the end of faculty meeting, you will turn in your tiered response lessons as your exit slip.

Friday, we will participate with embedded PD with Athena Hill, our MAP consultant.  Our sessions will focus on growth and the use of the ASG Quadrant Report.  Please come prepared with your laptop.

I appreciate your focus on student learning and growth as we work to close gaps and push students to proficiency.  Our PBIS work for this week centers around gathering feedback on the behavior matrix and solidifying our literature and school-wide expectations.

FYI:  We currently have two positions posted on the JCPS Employment Page:  Resource Teacher (PBIS Coach) and Instructional Assistant.  If you know anyone that may be interested, please encourage them to apply.

Please remember to post learning targets - link daily formative assessment to learning targets -- have your lesson plans out on your desk for viewing during walkthroughs and observations.

Have a great week!