October 7, 2011

Happy Friday Everyone!

Can you believe this marks the end of 10 weeks together! 

So many things to celebrate as we leave to rejuvenate for two weeks!  A very heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you and the unique role you have played in creating this powerful start to a great year! Your passion for teaching and learning inspires and motivates not only your students, but also me.

 As always, feel free to skim and read what interests you. 

Over break, give yourself permission to relax. You deserve it!

*

 October 24 - 28th:

Monday Oct. 24th:
*No students
*Time for teachers to reground themselves, collaborate, plan....
*Meet in library at 3:00 to reconnect with one another

Wednesday, Oct. 26th:
*All School Meeting
*Professional Development (1:30 CITE standards, 3:00 Technology)

Thursday, Oct. 27th:
*Mary's field work rescheduled

Saturday, Oct. 29th:
*OLE Work Day


October 31 - November 4th:

Monday, October 31st;
*Halloween Parade @ 9:00 a.m.
*Parties in classrooms after parade

Tuesday, November 1st:
*Girl Scouts will be collecting candy before and after school through Friday
*REA meeting 2:30 p.m.
*OLE meeting 4:30 p.m.
*SAC meeting 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 2nd:
*Parent Orientation @8:00 a.m.
*Professional Development (Technology)

System Tweak:

We are going to try implementing a new process for entering the school before or after hours.

This process will take affect after Fall Break.  If parents are entering Renaissance DURING school hours, they should enter through the front doors and sign in at the front office.  If they are entering Renaissance BEFORE or AFTER school hours, they should enter through the back doors near the Art room via the playground.  (These are not the doors into the cafeteria where Camelot is.)  These back doors will be unlocked during the times there are before or after school programs.  It is not necessary to sign in outside of school hours.  It is important to note that children are not allowed to play on the playground while Camelot is in session (6:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.).  Hopefully this will alleviate some of the challenges parents experience trying to pick up their kids from after school activities.


Open enrollment:
The open-enrollment window will be a larger/longer window this year and begins November 1st. We have been conducting New Parent Orientations which also means I have begun having conferences with all perspective families. This is an important process but does consume a good chunk of my time. You will be seeing visitors strolling through classrooms for the next few months. You need not stop what you are doing to talk with visitors, they are there to observe and get a feel for our school. I just want you to know you'll be seeing more of them.  Also, our projected budget student number for this year was 410. For October count, our number was 410!! That's a wonderful thing because if we are 5 below that number we have to pay money back from our budget, so we are good! 


Halloween Plans:
Halloween party/parade plans will look like what we have done in the past. Students will arrive in costume and we will have a parade through classrooms. I will start the parade with Ms. Jody's kindergarten class and parade through each classroom. When we pass through your classroom you should join the parade as we leave your classroom until we bring you 'home'. Sixth grade needs to come in from the lodges and station yourself in the cafeteria. 
Ask parents to use common sense when it comes to costumes. Nothing too scary or any weapons...
Once you are back in your classroom kids can take their costumes off, store them away, and you can begin your 'breakfast' party. This need not last a long time. Likely, you have been hearing from your Crew Parent about plans. 
Having the costume parade is a big hit with parents and also a high value to them. This is an easy way for us to support our families. If you have any students whose parents do not want them to participate, I recommend just asking them to arrive to school late that day. See me if you have questions.
Also, the Girl Scouts will be collecting candy before and after school, beginning on Tuesday. They give the candy they collect to a dentist and are paid by the pound for the candy. The funds they raise are donated to the school. You can let your students/parents know about the collection should they not want to keep all of the candy they collect while trick-or-treating.


Genre Book Study Mentor Text:
Genre studies are part of our action plan for our Unified Improvement plan. Each grade level has identified different genres that they will explore this year. Please keep track of the mentor text you are using and those you would like to have. I am going to ask that funds we earn from the Energy Program (see details below) be allocated toward purchasing those mentor texts for classrooms. Rather than guess what texts we want to use, lets agree to keep a good list so that when it's time to order you know what has worked for you. Hopefully, this will eliminate time in the future you have spent gathering those texts. At the conclusion of the year, you should know whether the genre study was a good fit and worth repeating. You should also know what revisions you'll want to make the following year. Sound like a good idea? Other suggestions? Other resources we need to consider purchasing? 


Energy Program:
The district is launching a new energy management incentive program.
The payouts this year will be as follows:
Elementary Schools - $8,000
Repeat Participants - If you have already surpassed the 10% reduction, then you must maintain your current baseline usage to earn the full incentive.(We reached 7% so have 3% left to cut.)


The incentive payouts are from the utility budget - from funds created through positive energy management!


The same expectations apply as last year:


1 - Designate an Energy Champion to lead the student group and efforts within your building.


2 - Designate a student group to lead your program.


3 - Promote the importance of the energy management program for DCSD.


4 - Model the behavior you expect - this has proven to have a big impact on how our site will perform.
*If we can earn the $8,000. we'll use it towards purchasing genre book study texts for each classroom!!


Eric has agreed to be our Energy Champion in partnership with Neil. Neil's fourth graders are going to target this Energy Program as their Service Learning Project! We can look for information coming to all of us about their strategic plan and how we can reduce the energy consumption in our building. Thanks Eric and Neil!!


Professional Article:
One of the things that makes our school so special is that we make such an intentional effort to notice every student and to connect with them. I think sometimes we forget to notice the wonderful things about ourselves that contribute to our strong school culture. The fact that no student goes unnoticed is not an accident and something you should take a minute and celebrate about yourself! Here's an article from Responsive Classroom that validates the time and energy you put into developing those important relationships. Small gestures make a difference!


http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/blog/invisible-children


Seven Technology Tips for Younger Elementary:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/technology-tips-younger-elementary

Saw this on a blog:

 "I drank the Expeditionary Learning kool-aide 5 years ago while preparing for an interview.  For over 20 years this comprehensive school reform model has successfully impacted district, private & charter schools across the US.  They've shattered the longitudinal data around under-performing schools in impoverished areas.  What they've built is a network of ground-pounding leaders who use time-honored inquiry based learning to teach critical thinkers.  They're work is for the strong and the faithful."


Professional Goal Setting:
Just a reminder to take a minute once a month (minimum) to add your progress, learning, reflections, etc. to your journal in Halogen. If we don't document while we work towards the goal, it will be difficult to capture how your thinking has changed.


My goal this year is to work on my Leadership, Standard 4: Professional Development/Learning Communities: Ensure that the school is a professional learning community that provides opportunities for collaboration, fosters teacher learning, and develops teacher leaders.  (Leadership Evaluation through Analysis and Development LEAD). I also am focusing on the 4 C's of the District Strategic Plan.


I welcome feedback and input about my leadership and how I can be more effective and supportive to you in your role. I'm taking a Leadership class (Learner is one of my 5 strengths) and have been doing an extensive amount of reading and reflecting. I'm making some intentional shifts (I have a long list!) and one of those is the way I allocate my time. As I think about the things I believe to be core to effective leadership I notice that my calendar does not always reflect what I think is a priority. I have tried to be available to all and that has worked against me and I think not made me all that available to you! I have tried to avoid asking people to schedule time to meet with me, and yet, I think that might be a better idea. So...if you would support me in making some shifts I would appreciate it if you would either talk with Andrea or Julie about scheduling a time to talk, or email me to arrange time. I'll arrange to meet with you in this new way. We'll see if it works!
I'm hoping you'll notice some improvements and also provide me feedback to let me know if I'm on the right track for being more effective.




Grade Level PLC's:
One of the tasks I asked you to do at our Professional Development session on Friday, September 23rd was to designate at least two planning times for a grade level PLC where you will work collaboratively with your grade level team to look at student writing within genre studies. As you look at student work you'll also be making some decisions about assessment, expectations and selecting exemplars. Please let me know if you would like me to be present during any of those work times. What ideas do you have for documenting the work you do within your PLC? It will be important to note the dates your PLC meets and the focus of your work. A next step will be to think about how we can share what we are learning with others. Hmmm?




Friday Flash Featured Folks:Coming Soon!
If you find you have some time over Fall Break to write a paragraph or a page about yourself I'm anxious to begin to include this component in Friday Flash.
The guidelines for writing about yourself is to write a paragraph to a page about yourself. You might talk about why you chose education; what teaching means to you; how you like being at Renaissance; and so forth. OR you can be more biographical and talk about your children; how long you've been married; where you have lived; hobbies; and so forth. Additionally, you might talk about a powerful experience. That might be a story about your path to become a teacher; touching moments from your past;  funniest school moment; share a success story; contact with students; - really, anything! This is really wide open and everyone will likely approach it in a different way and that will make it all the more interesting.


A Peek Into the Life of our School:

Look at all the happy people!

Can't you just feel the energy?!

Wouldn't want to be anywhere, but right here.

As I passed by the health room I took a double take.
No students...Julie!
Here is Kristin, our beloved nurse, providing kisses for Julie's hurt foot!

Ever notice how Lisa never stops smiling?

Where does Cheryl find the energy to keep every Crew rockin and rollin?!

Brittany and her Crew singin' and swingin' first thing every morning!

Passion comes in quieter moments too.

Growling pirates? Nah...just our passionate Diana at work in the library!
Are they not the cutest thing!
Talk about engagement!

9 Essential Skills for the Love and Logic Classroom:


Skill Number Two:
Delayed Consequence
(Immediate consequences work really well with rats, pigeons, mice and monkeys. In real-world classrooms, they typically create more problems than they solve.)


The problems with Immediate Consequences:
1. Most of us have great difficulty thinking of one while we are teaching.
2. We "own" the problem rather than handing it back to the child. In other words, we are forced to do more thinking that the child.
3. We are forced to react while we and the child are upset.
4. We don't have time to anticipate how the child, his/her parents, our principal, and others will react to our response.
5. We don't have time to put together a reasonable plan and a support team to help us carry it out.
6. We often end up making threats we can't back up.
7. We generally fail to deliver a strong dose of empathy before providing the consequence.
8. Every day we live in fear that some kid will do something that we won't know how to handle with an immediate consequence. 


Take care of yourself, and give yourself a break! Here's how:


The next time a student does something inappropriate, experiment with saying, 
"Oh, no. This is sad. I'm going to have to do something about this! But now now...later. Try not to worry about it."
NOTE: With very explosive students it is probably wiser to say nothing to the student until you have a plan and the situation is safe.

Quotes from Kids:

"I've been at Renaissance for five years. It will never get better than this."
-Alena Newhouse, 6th grade

Quotes from staff:


"You know you're getting old when you get sick on a swing."
-Ms. Andrea

Thoughts to Ponder:

"Go outside and face the east

and greet the sun

with some kind of blessing."

- Byrd Baylor