Friday Focus - April 23, 2021

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

*Staff collectively problem-solving student behaviors in the HS faculty meeting and some follow-up planning among colleagues about specific students to team up together to support and hold some students accountable (it reminds me of Ted Neitzke's story!)
*A teacher meeting with students at the back of the room individually to review their current academic progress and how they can improve. I heard some specific "next steps" mentioned as the teacher met with students individually. 

*Middle school students focusing on their state Forward exams in ELA and Math...and flexibility amongst all of our middle school faculty for testing and a different schedule than the bells!

*This week I got to see our high school virtual learners for ACT Aspire testing...it is amazing to see some students that I literally haven't seen in over a year. I cannot wait until they are here in the building for real! 

Upcoming Events:

Wednesday - Workout Wednesday. ACT Aspire testing for 9/10th graders (NO school for 11/12th). 

Friday - Ms. Mosher's last day with us
Friday after school/Saturday - FFA plant sale

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:
*Alternative Compensation Forms: Since we have not been using MyLearningPlan/Frontline for the Effectiveness Project this year, you will be completing your Alternative Compensation forms via a google form (we figured this would be much easier than retraining you on how to get into that side of frontine to complete the form). Please submit your professional development activities on this Google Form. It is all the same information you've submitted before. Since this is a google form, you may want to write up your reflection information in a separate document and then copy/paste to the form. This will need to be completed by June 15. Please let me know if you have any questions.

*Just a reminder: If you have a student who has been home on blended learning for a while and you're concerned about their lack of progress, please let me know. We send attendance letters when they are repeatedly absent, but if they are always online they won't get an attendance letter. If they don't seem to really be "there" when online and/or are not turning in work/assessments, let me know, because we still have warning letters for that. 

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:

*The Magic of Mistakes: 4 Ways to Boost Critical Thinking with Mistake Analysis 

Do you use any of these strategies? What new strategy would you like to try in your classroom?