The route to having students College and Career Ready

Remember that the standards serve as the road map that guides our work. Last year we spent a significant amount of time and effort on unpacking. That work does not stop. As you saw in the beginning of the year, there have been changes in the standards which will be reflected for upper grades in the EOG assessments this year.  Although these differences seem subtle, even the smallest changes can necessitate a change in classroom assessments and instructional tasks. It is important to clearly understand what the standard is asking students to know or be able to do before you can craft an assessment that will accurately tell you if they have mastered it.

K-5 the standards align. Students need to enter your classroom ready to master standards for your grade level and they should enter the next grade level ready to master those standards. To that end it is helpful to follow a strand from one grade to the next. Below is an example.

An excellent resource for understanding the progression of the standards can be found at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dSeOPgEdiU73EnfU5ZCETy4WrphZCaN4/view

Thanks for all of your support of Anti Bullying Spirit Week! Thank you to Ms. Tew for planning!

     

Orange you glad you supported Unity Day?

A student in Mrs. Henderson's class shares her thinking with her classmates. Way to gain perspective!

 Reminders

• Tuesday October 30th 8:00 am all staff meeting in the Media Center (Pierce Group Benefits- I promise!)
• Tuesday October 30th Boosterthon Pep Rally 

Grades 3-5 : 2:00-2:30

Grades K-2: 2:45-3:15

• Wednesday October 31st - Deadline for signing up for Health Insurance.
• Wednesday October 31st - Dress as your favorite storybook character!
• Remember nominations for Teacher of the Year candidates are due on the Google Doc by this Sunday, October 28th!
• Please check that you are only using approved digital resources. You can find this out on the portal by looking at "The Digital Resource Product Library. 

Hall of Fame

• Another successful Chick Fil A Spirit Night! Thanks to the cow and to our PTA and families!

• Thank you to those who stepped up to be a Falcon Friend!

• Thanks to those who nominated their fellow teachers for the honor of Teacher of the Year

• Thank you to Ms. Haywood, Ms. Tew, and Ms. Smith for presenting to us about some hard topics this week.

• Thank you to all of you for being attentive to the well- being of all students!

• Welcome Jennifer Kelly our new technology teacher!

Coming From Behind

We have definitely had a start and stop kind of beginning to the year. I know this has made it difficult to get up and running with interventions and progress monitoring.  Hopefully if the weather is kind we will get on a roll soon. Just a reminder that WIN time is to be used for providing interventions and progress monitoring.

As I have been around to classrooms, I have seen so much great discussion facilitated by teachers. Students are learning how to add on to someone's ideas and to respectfully disagree. I have seen many excellent examples of students citing textual evidence to support their positions. It is obvious to me that a lot of work has gone in to preparing students to be able to do this well. Talking about their learning builds academic vocabulary and allows students to formulate their thoughts before they are asked to answer a question in writing or aloud. This is a great way for some of our students who may struggle with writing to contribute and access the learning.

Below is an article about the power of student conversation.

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/talking-learn-harnessing-power-student-conversation

Reminders:

• Monday October 22nd at 8:00 am there will be a SIP meeting in the Media Center. 

• Also, starting on Monday October 22nd fifth grade will have specials on odd days and first grade will have specials on even days.

• Tuesday, October 23rd there will be an All Staff Meeting. This will be the required trainings from the Student Support Services Staff. 

• Next Tuesday October 30th (Also and All Staff Meeting) will be the visit from the Pierce Group Benefits representative. She will only be discussing the extra coverages. There will also be cake to celebrate birthdays.

• Please be aware that the deadline for enrolling in your basic health insurance (80/ 20 or 70/30) is 10/31.  Also, if you are a non-smoker- don't forget to do your Smoking Attestation so you are not charged more!

Hall of Fame:

Thank you to Carolyn for helping out in Media!
Thank you to the office staff who have helped out with lunch duties!
Thank you to first grade and specialists for being flexible with the schedule!
Thank you to everyone for being flexible with dismissal changes!
Thank you to all of those who volunteered to be Falcon Friends!
Thank you Ms. Tew and Ms. Armstrong for running the Falcon Friends program!

Ms. Jessica mutltitasking- running an IEP meeting and soothing a sleepy 3 year old!

Loving this Growth Mindset chart in Ms. Patterson's class

 

Celebrating READVOLUTION Day!

Thank you PTA!

Donuts for Dads was a huge success!

1st Grade enjoys Treats for Teachers compliments of PTA!

 

Can someone please tell me what this is that the students taught me, Jeanette, and Katherine to do in the cafeteria?!

We survived another storm! I mean that both figuratively and literally as we have come through a season of reconciliation with the district. As you know by now, due to our base aging out and our enrollment being low, we lost 5 months of employment. As has been communicated, we have taken months from technology in order to pay those back. Ms. Jathan has transitioned to the CCK classroom. We are hiring for the remaining months of technology. Thanks to our amazing specialists and flexible first grade teachers, there will be no interruption in the schedule.  Ms. Kouroupas will be helping Jackie troubleshoot technology issues from 9:30-11:00 each day.

As we continuously work to improve our processes, we will be having all communication regarding transportation at the end of the day come through the media center, where Sharon will be present with a walkie. This will help make things smoother and more efficient in the office at that time of day. If you have to communicate a bus that needs to be held for a student, etc. please do so by calling *301.

As we are teaching children that other people matter, understand that you can not take care of others until you take care of yourself. I don't  have to tell you that the demands of the job are great. Please try to take time for yourself and please encourage your colleagues to do the same. We need to take care of each other as well. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to make things easier or to clarify anything for you.

 

 International Walk to School Day

Councilwoman Jennifer Robinson walked with us!

Thank you Coach Gursslin for another successful event!

Thank you to PTA for a successful Family night at the Book fair!

Book Fair Family Night

Captain Jack and Polynesian Princess made for fun family entertainment!

Thank you to Mrs. Driggers for showing students that their artwork doesn't have to be any certain way to be valuable.  I know I enjoy looking at all of the students "ish" drawings as I walk down the hallway. 

Ms. Arbour's class focused on their work and using flexible seating 

Ms. Cross teaches her students how to give each other constructive feedback.

WIN at GHE

At this time as you have finished mClass and are preparing to send interims and have parent conferences, you are probably also getting to know your students and who will need intervention. If you need to, please work with your intervention team case manager to troubleshoot and find interventions that will work for those students. Steve and I are also here to help if you need us.

The WIN period stands for "What I need". This is a time that is set aside for teachers to provide interventions for students, and to progress monitor those interventions.  Although it can be tempting to see this as an"extra time" in your schedule, please do not use it for things like Positivity Project or as a "catch up" time. Remember if you have a CIA at this time, they can help administer interventions. You are the only one who can progress monitor. Inputting data is a vital part of this process as it is the way we see if the interventions are working. Please remember that if a student is not responding to interventions we have to have the data in the system to show that in order to move to the next step. You don't want all of the hard work you are doing with a student not to count because it is not adequately documented.  If you have questions about how to do this, please ask.

We are really trying to focus on our students with disabilities. Please continue to keep them in mind as you are planning instruction.

Hall of Fame

• Thank you to Mr. Taylor for all of his hard work keeping our school clean!
• Thank you to Janis Harr for serving as our Grade Book rep and answering questions at a very confusing time!
• Thank you to our Leadership and School Improvement Team members for all of their hard work on writing our plan and keeping up with our key indicators.
• Thank you Mary Buckley and Karla Cossa for leading that process. 
• Thank you to Sharon Peters for her continued note taking and communication. 
• Thank you to Mrs. Kouroupas and Mrs. Parker for their endless patience with a very busy office. 

Pierce Group Benefits
Representative Wendy Alexander will be here to go over the additional benefits at 8:00 am on our October 30th meeting. She will be back on November 1st and 2nd to speak with those who sign up for individual meetings. Please note the deadline for your basic health insurance (80/20 or 70/30 is October 31st.) She will not be here to speak about that. if you have questions about that please call Wake County Benefits Department. The deadline for enrolling in those additional things that Ms. Alexander will be talking about is

Clarification of Food Policy:
As we are no longer allowing families to send in food treats for birthdays, please also do not use food as a reward in your classroom. Please find other ways to do Golden Egg Celebrations, and other classroom incentives. Leadership Team will be discussing alternatives at our next meeting.  In thinking about the food related learning experiences that we sometimes have at holiday time, please make sure that all food is coming from commercial sources only. Please do not give out candy for Halloween. If kids partake of that at home, they will get plenty. Thank you for your commitment to helping our students make healthier choices.

Meetings and Reminders this week:

Monday October 8th-

• School Improvement Team 8:00 am Media Center
• Book Fair opens - please make sure you have signed up for a time to preview with your class.  See email from Carolyn.

Tuesday October 9th- 

• Full Faculty Meeting

Wednesday October 10th-

• Walk to School Day- Meet at Circle on the Green at 8:30 to walk to school with the kids!
• Family Night at the Book Fair/ conferences

Will it sink or will it float?

Apple Day in K!

Weighing apples

Kindergarteners running the "Caterpillar Run" in PE!