January 18, 2013

Calendar

Janaury 21 - 25:

3 day weekend :) Happy Dance
Monday:
No School MLK Day

Tuesday:
NO RTI meeting

Wednesday;
New Parent Orientation 8:00 a.m.
Choir Performance of Alice in Wonderland at 9:15 - 10:00
Discovery Family Meet and Greet 9:30 a.m. (will visit classrooms at 9:45 a.m.)
PD: Whole group in library for Portfolio plan review

January 28 - Feb. 2nd:

Tuesday:
RTI 7:15 a.m.

Wednesday:
All School Meeting

Professional Development Schedule:

January 23rd: Portfolio Discussion

January 30: Individual and team planning
February 6th: Individual and team planning
February 13th: Individual and team planning

February 15th (All day Friday): Immersion in a Writer's Workshop

February 20th: Individual and team planning
February 27th: Individual and team planning
March 6th; Individual and team planning

March 13th: Student Led Conferences
March 20th: Student Led Conferences

Put this on your calendar!

Student Led Conferences are scheduled for the week of March 18th-22nd. You will have the Wednesday of that week for conferences and the Wednesday the week before (March 13th)

Leadership Team 

On Wednesday we:

* Reviewed our school wide progress on Backwards Planning, Development of Balanced Assessment System, Restorative Practices and our writing goals for our Unified Improvement Plan.

* Developed the schedule for Professional Development based on review of items above.

* Will create a check-list, of sorts, that teachers can use to guide their use of planning time. An opportunity to look at the expectations between now and the end of the year and to map out how you will accomplish those responsibilities using the PD time that has been allocated.

* We did not get to the results of the google assessment about the District Strategic Plan. If you haven't completed that assessment, please do so. (Progress monitoring our PD)

* Identified that teams are more successful with support during planning, so please schedule some of your Wednesday planning afternoons with Noreene. Elisha is also available to support teams and will be taking on more responsibility to support teachers in a coaching/planning capacity. Schedule time with both of these ladies!

Are you using your sound system?

Are you having kids use the microphone every time they are speaking? 

Think about using it as a 'talking stick' -only talk when you have it in your hand. Use it during Morning Meeting, during direct instruction and anytime students are sharing their thinking with the group.

As I visit classrooms, we are not consistent with our use of our new sound enhancement system. It really does increase the power of sharing our thinking and does increase engagement for listeners. I know it takes an effort to incorporate this into our daily habits. I'll bet the kids can help you remember to use it! Take a minute and make sure that you have the speaker in an optimum location for projecting the sound.

Thanks :)

Anecdote shared by Brittany:

During math, I was working with a small group that was practicing interpreting remainders from division problems. One problem was about 100 minutes of computer time being shared equally between 8 students. Students had to figure out how much computer time each student would receive, and were supposed to work out that the 4 minutes of time left over should also be divided between the 8 students. However, one student finished the problem and I asked him what the remainder meant. He looked at me and said, "You get four minutes of cleanup and debrief time!" How very REMS. :)

Happy Weekend!

Deborah