Friday Focus - December 13, 2019

YOU'VE GOT THIS!!!

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*When I simply said "Glad to see you back today, are you feeling better?" to a student, his response was "I can't believe anyone noticed I was gone." Here's the secret behind this...I was also gone that day so I couldn't have even noticed he was absent, but he didn't know that. I just remembered seeing his name on the Welcome Back email and it took me that tiny moment to say that to him when I saw him. Are you taking opportunities to help students feel welcome at school?
*I overheard several middle school student conversations at lunch sharing with their friends what their job recommendations were after taking the Xello career interest survey. It was so fun to see their excitement as they talked about future job ideas. How can we keep that excitement and connect it to their learning in school?
*Students incredibly focused in their reading/writing work on commonlit.org. The teacher was able to see results right away to see what skills needed to be retaught for the next day. This is a great way to use formative assessments to inform our instruction!
*Our ELA teachers have teamed up to divide/conquer to teach Mrs. Sheeley's classes and other staff members have taken on additional students for SAS/Study hall until she returns 2nd semester. Kudos to them!!



Events Next Week:
Monday - Ugly Sweater day and photo booth fun-please find a time during the day to join a colleague (or group of colleagues) in the green screen room in the IMC (you can even use the backdoor in the ms hallway if you want). Have fun with the props for some photos using the iPad and clicker that will be in there ready to go. I will use the appropriate holiday photos to share with families on the school Facebook pages (I've done this long enough to know there will also be some funny ones that shouldn't go out on the FB page!).  ***The green screen room may have a class 8-9 and 1-2 so please plan to go other times.
7:00pm MS Concert
Tuesday -Flannel/Plaid and jeans
7:00pm HS Concert
Wednesday - MS-Frozen/Winter HS-workout Wednesday/winter/Ugly sweater (your choice!)
    3:15 MS Faculty meeting
Thursday  -Polar pajama day
Friday - Red/Green


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*I know that the final week before break can be a challenge to keep kids focused. If you stray from your usual classroom routine, please do so with a focus on learning. We cannot afford to lose a day of learning to holiday movies that don't serve learning purpose.
*Keep in mind that as you come back from break you may need to treat it as the first days of school again...reviewing expectations, practicing routines, building relationships, etc. High School staff get the extra "fun" of starting new cell phone procedures that will be good for learning!!

Tech Tip of the Week:Digital Citizenship/Online Resources. The PDF link is an interactive PDF with online resources to help with keeping us and our students safe online. Reading the Privacy Policies for social media sites can be eye opening, but also resources on where to get help if something does happen. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/124h-6CJhjhNz-AElAGLWOpMTENitNM8s/view

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*10 Ways to Stay Motivated as You Work on Student Motivation

Friday, December 6, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students self-evaluating their work according to the rubric, along with the rubric for the grade above to try to stretch themselves to a higher level.
*Department meeting focused on meeting needs of students. Great problem-solving at play!
*Mechelle has been hard at work with additional recruiting and having mentors impact students' lives. Did you know that December is national tie month, so she had our strive mentors give the young men mentees a shirt and tie and teach them how to tie it?

Upcoming Events:
Wednesday - Workout Wednesday
HS faculty meeting to discuss new plan for cell phones to start after break
*I will be out of the building on Wednesday at an ACP workshop.
There will be something each of the remaining 10 days till Christmas break for faculty. Here are the days that I'll let you know about ahead of time:

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*As we near the holiday break, please remember--the more that you deviate from the normal classroom routine, the more your students will with behaviors. We are still learning until break.


Here are your Plus/Delta comments from this week's faculty meeting (with my notes in yellow):

Reminder - HS faculty please email me if there are any concerns about finally rererescheduling (yes that was an intentional misspell!)  our PreACT results workshop for our 1/2 day on January 16.

Tech Tip of the Week:
Notability for your laptop. In Self Service (Rocket ship>Self Service>Notability>Download, when finished downloading use the Spotlight, or magnifying glass to search your laptop and open Notability) you can download Notability to use on your laptop. Notability on your laptop is similar to using Notability on your iPad. May consider it an ease of use when working with classes and projecting, especially any annotating that you may do together.

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:
*Lead with Empathy

DHouse December Memo

I hope that you all had a relaxing and rejuvenating break and are ready for the days left until winter break to slide by quickly. I will share that one of my pet peeves in the classroom is a countdown of how many days until we are on vacation, because it gives students the wrong message about school. I can also recall many years ago when one of our students (a current senior) said on the last day of school that there were 84 days left until she could return to school, the safest place for her.

As we come back from Thanksgiving break, please try to be kinder than necessary, because some of our kids (and colleagues) need it. Welcome them back, give high fives, build relationships again as if it's the first week of school. 

Some of our students (and even co-workers) had a pretty painful break and are ready to be back in a place of structure that hopefully reminds them of how loved and appreciated they are. 

For many of us the holiday season is a time of joy and excitement, but that isn't the case for all of our families. For some of our kids, December can be a very challenging time of the year as kids hear the stress of the adult problems at home as parents stress about money at this time of the year.

Events this Week:

Wednesday -combined MS/HS faculty meeting 3:15 in IMC

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

This is a repeat from last week, because I'm hoping to get some submissions soon. :)
*If we are not telling the stories about the great things happening in our schools, then people will make up their own stories. Facebook can be a place of people complaining and spreading negativity or we can use it as a place to share the good work happening here. I'd like to ask your help with this...if you ever have a moment in class that you can snap a picture of to share with me and a sentence or two. Maybe a hands-on activity, experiment, students collaborating, presenting, etc.
 In addition, I would love to start highlighting one staff member a week on our Facebook pages. This is a great opportunity for us to connect with our community and share why we work at Dodgeland. If you are interested, please share with me:

• Your hometown/where you graduated from
• Your career experience (this could be years taught, previous positions/schools, etc.)
• Family, hobbies, fun facts that you're comfortable sharing
• Why you love Dodgeland
• Picture(s) of you, your classroom, your family...again what you're comfortable with (otherwise I have to take your school picture off the website, but you probably have more fun pics!)

Friday Focus - November 22, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Problem-solving conversations among staff focusing on solutions. Together we are better!
*Students in ELA focused and hard at work to write strong essays. They were writing about big themes/claims such as loyalty, jealousy, growing from adversity and trust.
*I had a conversation with a new student this week to find out what he thinks about Dodgeland compared to his previous school. He said the biggest difference is the teachers--our teachers are very friendly to students and seem to really take time to work with individual students, "they seem like they care about us kids here."

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*If we are not telling the stories about the great things happening in our schools, then people will make up their own stories. Facebook can be a place of people complaining and spreading negativity or we can use it as a place to share the good work happening here. I'd like to ask your help with this...if you ever have a moment in class that you can snap a picture of to share with me and a sentence or two. Maybe a hands-on activity, experiment, students collaborating, presenting, etc.
 In addition, I would love to start highlighting one staff member a week on our Facebook pages. This is a great opportunity for us to connect with our community and share why we work at Dodgeland. If you are interested, please share with me:

• Your hometown/where you graduated from
• Your career experience (this could be years taught, previous positions/schools, etc.)
• Family, hobbies, fun facts that you're comfortable sharing
• Why you love Dodgeland
• Picture(s) of you, your classroom, your family...again what you're comfortable with (otherwise I have to take your school picture off the website, but you probably have more fun pics!)

*Reminder - When we go into administrative hold it is an expectation for all staff and students to remain in classrooms with doors closed. It isn't just that we want a quiet hallway. ;)

Tech Tip of the Week:
Kajeet, hotspots. Just as the students can check out a Kajeet hotspot to work or research or read outside of school, so can staff. If you fill out the form, you can pick up a hotspot at the end of the school day. Works well at conferences or if you have cellular service but limited or no WIFI. Here is the link to the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdFMTsR96WPQRSieTlkmngJSngLgOUqKv_GLvTxXVisJ1VAeQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Inspirational Thoughts:
We are at the point of "disillusionment" at this time of the year.

The best thing you can do for yourself at this time of year is take care of yourself and take care of each other. Please take time to relax, rejuvenate and enjoy your families, because I know you've been spending a lot of time here taking care of your classrooms. It's time for you all to Balance Like a Pirate! Do something for yourself to fulfill your personal quadrant in life. Do something totally fun to fulfill your passions quadrant-read for pleasure, go see a movie, craft or whatever makes you happy...do it! :)
*I will be up in the middle of nowhere northern Minnesota where the internet hardly exist so I will not be checking emails over break. 

Friday Focus - November 15, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*I was so incredibly proud of our students who were in the musical last weekend. Not only did they perform well, but they did so with some very challenging topics that many of our students face. They amazed me! Kudos to Bryce for writing a script to address these issues while highlighting the talents of our students!
*Students in small groups, using the rubric for their projects to make sure they included everything they needed and to the level of quality to be proficient. Students recorded their self-identified score on the rubric, writing notes about why they felt their project was at that level of proficiency. Wow-this means students know their target and are able to self-assess (and have time to readjust if they realized something was missing). Talk about ownership of learning!
*Staff members working with students after school for additional support/help...it's amazing to see both teachers and students volunteering to stay and continue to work. Such dedication!

Upcoming Events:
Incompletes need to be changed to grades TODAY :)
Wednesday - PreACT Results workshop for 9-11th graders
-Middle School: this means we are running periods 5-8 in the morning, then all ms/hs will have periods 1-4 in the afternoon.  Lunch/Aspires are normal times
-MS Faculty Meeting

On Tuesday, November 26 we will be flip/flopping ms/hs advisory and lunch to accommodate a middle school field trip.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
-HS course proposals are due Friday, November 22


Tech Tip of the Week:
Schoology Resource: Guide to Using Rubrics. Working through the Schoology PD course (located in your Schoology Courses) and there are some great resources! This week is a Guide to Using Rubrics, useful now but will be very useful in our future grading practices! I use them often and like that if I save a rubric to resources, I can reuse it again or make changes to something the students find familiar (the vocabulary we use, the expectations for assignments we use). https://support.schoology.com/hc/en-us/articles/201001513-Guide-to-Using-Rubrics

Blogs, Quotes and Tweets:
*The First Key to Connecting Well With All Students is to Like Them; This Often Takes Work The teacher who wrote this brings up a challenging question-when we have a student that seems impossibly behind and impossibly undermotivated, how do we communicate with them about school? The answer is in your control!

Friday Focus - November 8, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*After 10 minutes of reading in study hall, students were given 5 minutes in small groups to each share about what they were reading.  I heard several responses that showed this helped students share/get book recommendations with each other: "Ooh, I want to read that when you're done!" "What's the book before that to read first?" "If you like that book, then you would like this one..."  Lifelong readers have a community of readers and this is definitely helping to build that!
*A class activity focused on improving students' behaviors in class. The class watched a video on teachingchannel.org with the purpose of observing the students. Then a class discussion was held about what they noticed in the students' behavior in the video to compare to the behavior in their class. Students identified all the appropriate behaviors the teacher expects in class and this gave students the opportunity to voice for their peers to hear that they want to learn more and not be distracted by others!
*Teachers coming together to problem solve how to be proactive and consistent in multiple classrooms with a common behavior concern in a student.
*We have so many incredible students going above and beyond to lead. I see kids working hard academically while also having some late nights with sports. Several middle school students have helped ensure a new student not only adjusted and made friends, but have also been helping to ensure that he is safe with severe food allergies among peers. Our students in the musical have been putting in many hours this week to prepare for their 4 performances this weekend. Some of our FFA students returned from the national convention. Our HS Student Council and FFA have been preparing for Veterans Day assembly. This list could go on and on!  Even if you have some students making poor choices, don't let them overshadow all the good that is going  on! #DodgelandProud

Upcoming Events:
Today - Veterans Assembly at 9:30
Wednesday -previously scheduled HS faculty meeting. This time can be used for planning for PreACT workshop results.

Other than that, I don't see anything else on next week's calendar --what am I missing?

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Do you have parents that  you know you would better be able to communicate with by text message? We have areas where cell service isn't awesome so parents don't always receive our calls, or see Dodgeland on caller ID and maybe don't want to answer, or we are calling at a time that doesn't work for them.  Google voice is a tool that is available to us to use to be able to text parents without using our own cell phones. If you would like to utilize this, please let me know and I can quickly show you how.  Please know if you use this to communicate with parents, that you will need to make sure to save all texts back and forth (not deleting any).

Tech Tip of the Week:

Resource Week and the topic is Copyright. If “Creativity powers the best classrooms”, who is being creative? Are students creating original works or are they “borrowing” everything? And who knew that teachers and education are not specified in Fair Use doctrine? A few resources to help us learn more and a few suggested resources to find fair use photos and music. 

Quick Video: https://youtu.be/rUtGWs8VovY Resource Articles: https://www.iste.org/explore/Digital-citizenship/Find-free-and-fair-use-photos, https://www.iste.org/explore/digital-citizenship/preventing-collisions-intersection-creativity-and-copyright 

Blogs, Tweets & Pins:
*Tell Yourself a Better Story this School Year - this post was such a good reminder to myself to not create a story about what is happening and listen with curiosity rather than judgement. In some of the student/parent matters I deal with, this is such a good reminder, because we often only see the tip of the iceberg and do not know what's hiding underneath!

Friday Focus - November 1, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Continued focus in classrooms, despite the weather, the Halloween candy, and a late night of conferences. When you maintain a focus on learning in your classrooms, the students take your lead and do too!
*I heard several positive comments from parents at conferences that included: knowing that there are caring teachers to support their child, teachers offering extra academic support to struggling students, and ongoing communication about their child (not just at conferences).  Our collaboration with parents is so important. Thank you for your time and efforts to communicate and collaborate with parents!
*I pulled a handful of students from a study hall to help with something and as they were leaving one said, "We'll still need to read for 10 minutes when we come back." Another responded "Of course we will, we always need to read 10 minutes."  This conversation was so matter of fact and without any attitude. I know that some students bucked this at the start of the year, but when you stuck with it, they got over it and now it's just the way it is (and it's good for them!). Thank you!
*Class review for the upcoming test, not only reviewing vocabulary, but discussing similarities and differences. As students then completed a kahoot, when answers were wrong, there was discussion to try to clear up the misconceptions of why students chose a wrong answer so they could learn from those wrong answers.
*Class discussion about the 4C's: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity.
*When a staff member looked like she was having a bad moment, a student noticed and asked if everything was ok. Then the student took it a step further and used the same language that has been used to help her during bad moments. It doesn't always seem like they're listening or getting it, but this proved they are and have empathy for others!!


Upcoming Events:
TODAY - 10:10ish - Cross Country State Send Off
Monday - 1st Quarter grades will be posted on Monday morning.
    It's 2nd quarter--do you know if you have a Q2 duty? Check the schedule if you don't remember!
Tuesday - I will be out of the building in the morning
Wednesday - HS Faculty meeting at 3:15
 -middle school SEL lessons start during Aspire
Thursday - jeans day (instead of on Friday)
Friday - Veterans Day assembly at 9:30 -Please dress in professional attire as we will have many community members/guests in our building for the assembly.


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*If you have any students that you are giving an Incomplete grade, they will need to complete work and have the grade changed by Friday, November 15th. You will do this by turning in the grade change form to the office.  Please let me know if you have any students that will be given an incomplete.  If you've already had a conversation with me about a student, they are already on my list. :)

*Thank you all for your conversations and plus/delta input shared on our school report cards. You can read all of your post-it responses HERE. 

Tech Tip of the Week:
What is Enterprise Connect? Enterprise Connect literally connects all of your usernames together and yes, the box will appear each time you restart your laptop. As long as you are signed-in (everything is gray and only option is to sign-out) you can close (red circle) that box.

Blogs, Quotes and Tweets
*4 Teaching Mistakes that Drained My Energy (and the solutions that changed everything)
*20 Ways to Give Feedback for Learning

Friday Focus - October 25, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students creating short iMovies to culminate their research and share their results in a published format. I overheard students discussing with their partners what was most important to include, how to keep their video engaging, how could they demonstrate it visually in their video. The expectations and explanation of the video purpose really set the tone to allow those student conversations as they created them.
*Students competing in online quiz to practice their terms. They never seem to tire of this type of practice!
*Our juniors and seniors were engaged in many conversations with employers at the job fair. (You can find many pictures on the DHS facebook page). A couple of students even had an interesting conversation with me about one of the employers' interesting benefits. Thank you to Scott for coordinating this event for our students!
*Faculty teamwork in small meetings to problem solve student behaviors to come up with a team based solution. We are better together!
*On a night when they didn't have to be at school, we had many high schoolers running the pasta showdown and others sitting at a booth asking for people to sign Christmas cards that will be sent to military in Afghanistan. #KidsTheseDays #DodgelandProud

Events Next Week:
Monday - EP Training at 3:15 in IMC -ok, not actual training, but a supported time/space to work on your SLO if it's not done yet. :)

Tuesday - P/T Conferences 4:00-7:30

Wednesday - optional MS faculty meeting (see Mrs. Modaff's email from last night)

Friday - Flu Shot clinic for students


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*There have been a few staff questions about whether Mrs. Modaff or I handle discipline. By definition of our roles, Mrs. Modaff addresses student discipline, however, we are a team. When there are too many issues for one person to manage I step in to help. All educlimber referrals go to both of us so I am also aware of them. If you send an email or call about an issue it should go to Mrs. Modaff, but feel free to cc me on the email for awareness.
*If you enter an absence ahead of time in Aesop for a dr appointment and need coverage for a short amount of time (not a full guest teacher) please make sure to email Laura and I as well. I only receive notification of absences to approve for personal/flex, NOT for sick time so the notes for sick time coverage don't come to my attention.


Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*The Dumbest Intervention Ever

Friday Focus - October 18, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*I heard about a number of different conversations that teachers had with students after completing the PreACT at the high school--about how students felt they did, what they realized they need to learn more about, etc. It's these types of conversations that help students to have ownership of their learning and use assessments to move their learning forward. Thank you!
*Several different staff members helped cover for others during absences and even develop a plan for a long term coverage. You all are so amazing for your colleagues and our students!
*Classcraft magic. I mean kids were learning, they were so focused, so quiet, so on-task and having fun at the same time. I don't even understand Classcraft yet, but those kids were as hooked as I've seen them get hooked on Minecraft and Fortnite! 
*After the weekend homecoming dance I had a parent reach out and share that her child had something negative happen with their date, but several other students went out of their way to make the evening a positive experience, including students that had previously been unkind at school. It was such a great story to hear the good that our students can do for one another, just by showing empathy and being kind!

Events Next Week:
I will be out of the building Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday.

Wednesday - Picture Retake Day (this will be on the elementary side of the commons)

Thursday - if no rain: before school is the bus evacuation drill-this means all buses will drop off students behind the elementary after the drill so students will enter from the backside of the building and be later than normal.
*PM-Senior/Community Job Fair taking place in the commons/hallway. We have 17 businesses/companies that will be set up 2:00-5:00.
*Parent/Teacher Conferences 4:00-7:30 (see my details in "Nuts & Bolts" Notes) If you'd like to support FBLA and eat pasta to fuel up for conferences you only need to pay $4 and can eat as early as 3:15.

Friday - PD Day 7:30-3:00 Agenda coming out soon (it will include target based work, ACP/Xello and DPI school report card data).


"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*P/T Conferences - all staff will be in the gym. This has been most favorable by parents to be able to connect with teachers. 

Do's: Start with a positive, welcome the parent, listen actively, share examples, be objective when describing behavior, give suggestion of how to support at home. 

Don’ts: show gradebook of all students, get emotional (stay calm), complain, etc. 

Please let me know of any parents that you might be concerned about and I would be happy to keep my eyes out for them to join you when they arrive. Or give me some sort of signal that you'd like me to join. ;)

*Please remind students to use their final 5 minutes of 8th period to check emails. Mrs. Modaff, Mr. Dunn, myself and others are using email to communicate with students to try to minimize the amount of times students are called out of class.

Tech Tip of the Week:
Resource Week: QR Codes! Even easier for students to use now that we don’t need a seperate app to scan QR codes. Life has gotten one tap easier. Using the camera app, a student can walk up to a QR code and wait for the prompt to open a document or a web site. Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything, literally has everything and this page has QR code videos, book suggestions and tons of fun with QR codes! Sometimes we just need an idea...


Do you like free online learning?  Maybe you'd be interested in the Teacher Success Summit: https://teachersuccesssummit.com/

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*15 Tips for Leading Productive Parent-Teacher Conferences
*Have you listened to Ted Neitzke's podcast? He is always so inspiring and it's so easy to listen to it while I'm getting ready in the morning or while I walk my dog. I loved listening to this episode recently and can't stop thinking about mindset, what we get to do and how we can even let the weather decide our day! 102: Meteorologists, Astrologists, and Hope'rs

Friday Focus - October 11, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Despite the chaos that can become of crazy day or other events this week, I saw several classrooms continuing on with regular learning/procedures which set the tone to keep the classroom normal.  Whenever we stray from the normal, then the students do too!
*Staff modeling school pride and enjoying connections made with students throughout the week. Thank you to everything that each of you have done this week--I know some of you have spent a lot of extra time on Homecoming related stuff. Just you wait for the assembly to see what kind of monkey business some of our staff have planned. ;)

Upcoming Events:
Just a reminder of today's Friday Homecoming Schedule:

1st Hour	7:50-8:20
2nd Hour	8:23-8:53
3rd hour	8:56-9:26
4th Hour	9:29-9:59
5th Hour	10:02-10:32
6th Hour	10:35-11:05
HS Lunch	11:05-11:29
MS Aspire	11:08-11:30
MS Lunch	11:30-11:54
HS Aspire	11:32 -11:54
7th Hour	11:57-12:27
8th Hour	12:30-1:00
1:00-2:20	Spirit Assembly in HS Gym
2:30	K-12 Early Dismissal

Monday/Tuesday - 9-11th graders completing PreACT packets in Aspire
Wednesday - Workout Wednesday Attire!- MS Faculty meeting at 3:15 in Ms. Anderson's room (Topic: Social Emotional Learning for Aspire)
Thursday - modified schedule for HS with 9-11th graders taking PreACT in the morning (MS/HS lunch and aspire time is flip flopped)

Tech Tip of the Week:
I<3PDF! PDF documents are great when working in Schoology, Notability and to save formatting when sharing documents, but sometimes we need to make changes to PDFs we already have access to. www.ilovepdf.com can help you do MANY things to PDF documents. The ones we use the most: Merge PDF and Split PDF. Hint: When creating a Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document you can Save As a PDF when you are the creator the finished document.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Thank you for your patience with me being behind on this, that or anything. I'm sure you can relate! If there's something you need a response on sooner than later or need something addressed ASAP you are better off letting Linda/Laura know to catch me/leave a note on my door, because my email inbox has been swamped!

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*Don't Shoulda' On Me

Friday Focus - October 4, 2019

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*HS FBLA students leading a meeting that they had planned, along with a fun team building activity to build teamwork and welcome new members to the group.
*Students practicing matching their science terms in quizlet. They were in randomized groups and had to discuss as they tried to decide who had the correct term.
*I made it to a study hall that was close to the end and noticed that almost every single student was quiet and focused on learning -half were still reading a book and others were focused on assignments while the teacher was practicing vocab with two students. Thank you for using this time so well to keep our students focused on learning and staying on track!
*Students reflecting on their reading/writing habits and them making individual goals. Students referred back to a chart with tips for writing about reading, going from good to great.

*Students working together in teams of 4, each with a different job for solving their math problems. 

Events Next Week: There's No Place Like Homecoming!!!
Monday - Color day (staff wear pink)
Mentor/Mentee book study meeting at 3:15 in IMC

Tuesday - Twister Tuesday - Crazy dress up day
Wednesday - Munchkinland dress like a kid
HS faculty meeting 3:15 (agenda is PreACT)

Thursday - Which Witch? Twin dress up
  6pm Wizard of Oz Movie, then community wide tug of war (this eliminates the 2nd assembly that was held last year!), followed by coronation

Friday - Dodgeland Pride attire
The shortened bell schedule for Friday can be found HERE Teachers-please take your 8th period class to the gym and sit with students to help model/monitor behavior. MS/HS students will sitting with their grade levels. Advisors-please join your grade levels.  Different this year--Elementary students will be sitting on the floor in front of us so we will all be looking the same direction.


Tech Tip of the Week:
Printing from Your iPad. First, a quick reminder that pictures do not print from the Camera Roll. To print photos they need to be inserted into a document and then printed. This rule applies to students also. Second, printing from your iPad requires your username and password that is the same as your laptop login. For students, this would be their first.last Username and DSDstudentID# for Password. Finally, staff have choices in where to print. Student work will print to the Print Center that is closest.

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Reminder: Taking attendance is essential! We've had a number of students not marked absent at the start of the day, but then later showed up absent, but it was that attendance was missed to begin with.
*I will have an email to come as follow-up to Wednesday's staff meeting. Thank you to everyone fo being patient with me as I continue to learn all of the different things that I need to do at this level. :)

*Remember...even if a student is disregulated or making poor choices, keep your cool and...

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*Opening Lessons With a Bang
*7 Steps to Help Students Succeed on Assessments