Friday Focus - April 29, 2022

 

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Our middle school students did a great job presenting their science fair projects - during the day for elementary students and in the evening with a packed crowd in the commons. Kudos to Mrs. Penterman and Mrs. Neis for coordinating this event and to the middle school teachers for being flexible to have students set up in their classrooms during the day. I heard many great comments from elementary teachers and parents!
*We completed ACT Aspire testing in the high school...with teamwork to get everything coordinated and patience when things didn't go perfectly...you know, just what you do every day! I also appreciate all the feedback collected in rooms at the end of the day. It sounds like our students want to learn how to do even better next year!
*Students were writing individual goals for the last month on their Work Habits skills in advisory...what a great way to give ownership of their behaviors for the last stretch of the school year. 

Upcoming Events:
*MS Forward make-ups are done, but I still have ACT Aspire makeups so I will be pulling 9/10th graders to get those completed.
Wednesday - District wide all staff (certified/paras) meeting regarding end of the year (this one last until about 4:00)
*7:00 Juneau Lions Padeia to celebrate our high school students' achievements (we haven't had this event since pre-pendemic!)
Friday - I will be out of the building at CESA 6 until around 1
Saturday - Prom

Nuts & Bolts:

*MS Faculty - please let me know if you have a new Fun Friday choice to add to our final month's selection.
*The IEB/Advisory doc for next week is HERE.

*Scheduling update - Remember when I said we had a plan for scheduling to be done in March? It was a great plan...until other things started happening. ;) It's just like the schedule/to-do list that seems great until the day gets started, which I know you can relate to you. I know some of you are anxiously waiting to know what your classes will be next year, especially for budgeting purposes. 

 As you know, from Dr. Thompson's information that has been shared multiple times, being a declining enrollment school district means that our budget is challenging. We value our staff and want to keep everyone, but that does mean there are some shifts in positions being made.  With every challenge we encounter, also brings opportunity to look at our students' needs and the strengths of our staff to put the best-looking puzzle together. 

For most teachers, there won't be any drastic changes in courses. For some, there will be so I'm having individual conversations with the people who are most affected by change first and then I'm scheduling meetings to get into the details of which individual courses are running and hope to schedule all of those next week. 
Thank you for your patience with me. :)

*The hiring update on counselor and principal should be coming out next week. 

Blogs, Tweets & Quotes:

End Your School Year with What Matters Most "Beginnings set the tone, but endings don't just come together on accident. There's something special about a narrative that ends really well."

Friday Focus - April 22, 2022

 

Great Things I Noticed this Week:

*Great teamwork in helping to coordinate make up testing at the middle school and collaborating to prepare for ACT Aspire testing at the high school for next week. 

*Our middle school students have been engaged and hard at work completing their science projects that they will present at the upcoming inaugural science fair. 

*We have several high school students who have been helping with the first ever elementary musical (the performance is Saturday). It is so great to see our students finding additional ways to be connected in school while supporting others. 

*HS athletes helping run events at the MS track meet. Many of you were at the track meet and could have complained about it, but I heard so many of you connecting with students and colleagues with a mindset to enjoy the opportunity of the evening (even when it got cold!)

Upcoming Events:

Monday - I will be out of the building at CESA 6 until around 1. 

Tuesday - Middle School Science Fair 5-7PM

Wednesday - ACT Aspire testing for 9/10th graders all day (no high school classes)

"Nuts & Bolts" Notes:

*We have been in the process of interviewing candidates for both the counselor and principal positions and hope to have updates to share with you in the near future. 

*Here's next week's Advisory/IEB Doc: Week of April 25

*As we get closer to the end of the school year, please do not start a countdown with your students to summer....what message would that give them about how you feel about having them in your room? If YOU need to have a countdown, how about this...after today we have 25 days left to make an impact on our students this year! Every one of those days matters!

*Dodgeland Summit info: Dodgeland is very excited to share that this summer we will resume Dodgeland Summit! Summit is a conference style professional development event to help you get a jumpstart on your year. The sessions you attend will prepare you for your amazing year ahead, as well as provide you with one checkmark toward your alternative compensation plan, all before our students even enter the building! This year's summit will take place on Monday, August 15 from 7:45am-12:00PM. Continental breakfast and snacks will be provided throughout the morning to fuel your learning brain. 

Please take a few moments to complete the Dodgeland Summit Form to indicate your interest in attending, possible session topics, and even your participation by presenting a session. 

Please complete the form by Friday, April 29th. 

It will be exciting to learn together again!

"Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:
*The Magic of Mistakes: 4 Ways to Boost Critical Thinking with Mistake Analysis

Friday Focus - April 8, 2022

 

Great Things I Noticed this Week:
*Students speaking up for a peer when they saw others being unkind.
*Use of the Employability Skills as a focus of conversation when returning back from break - looking at how they are each expected in the classroom. It was great to hear one student who recently started working and said his boss has a lot of the same expectations! This is exactly why we're teaching employability skills and using them in our conversations with kids (and also Work Habits at middle school).
*Our juniors were emailed their ACT scores. I've heard several conversations from students talking about their results - some proud of what they accomplished and some already wanting to retake it for a better score in the future. Isn't it great to hear academically focused conversations?  (For those of you just as eager as me to see the full list of scores, I haven't received it yet. All I know is what students have reported to me).
*We have a senior who spends half of his day as a Youth Apprentice for welding who is such a shining star there that they had him go speak at another school as a representative for the Youth Apprenticeship program. What an incredible spotlight!
*I heard some high school students complaining about the new IEB rules (well, they're not new, we're just rebooting them to utilize our time well!). Why do I include this in Great Things I Noticed? Because it's just like when I make choices to eat healthier and I complain about needing to eat vegetables and no chocolate...I know it's good for me, even if I don't like it. And...let's be real, when I do eat the vegetables, I do feel better! ;)

Upcoming Events:

Monday - 3:15 IMC EP Training - this one is not required and not really a training; rather the time/space/chocolate/support for you to work on your documentation log. 

*The Middle school will be taking the Forward test next week Monday - Wednesday.

Friday - No School

Planning ahead for the week of May 30th: As you know, Dr. Thompson already shared that May 31st is the last day we can be in the high school so this will be a day of packing before it is closed off for construction.  June 1st will be a day of professional learning in the IMC for MS/HS combined on our target based work. Becky Peppler from First (Garth's organization) will be with us this day to support our continued work. You will then have time on June 2nd to work on learning targets, assessments, rubrics, etc. More details will come as we get closer. 

One thing you can do is keep a folder (in Onedrive of course!) of examples of student work that demonstrates different levels of proficiency for your learning targets. This can help you in the future as you develop clarity for students in the following year. 

"Nuts & Bolts"

*Next week's HS IEB doc is HERE.

*We've been having some continual issues at both building levels of behaviors that are not being good digital citizens:

• Taking photos of others and air dropping them in class to others to make fun of others.
• Air dropping memes as a distraction in class. 
• Taking pictures on phones and posting them to social media to bully others
  

Back in my day, we had some of this, but it was with passing notes in school. Obviously it's much tougher to deal with now, but I ask you to continue to be vigilant with following through on the expectations for phones in class (they should be put away in high school and NOT at all in middle school) and to address when you notice airdropping distractions or taking pictures of others without their behavior.  I'll be looking for some videos that could be used in aspire classes to address these issues to share with you all. If you know of a good one, please share so we can help prevent cyberbullying and class distractions together.

Reminder from the Tech Department: 

• Technology Spring Cleaning (Reminder message from the Tech Department)
• Trash those old digital files before saving to the cloud!  Check out the staff resource page for more saving tips or stop by the tech department for a quick one-on-one session.
• Turn off your classroom display by holding down the power button on the board or the remote control. You can give your board a quick clean by spraying a microfiber towel with the pink rejuvenal spray and wiping it down.
• Encourage students to clean their iPad by cleaning yours too! Spray a microfiber towel with the pink rejuvenal spray to clean the screen and the case too.  DO NOT take the iPad out of the case to clean and DO NOT spray directly on the iPad.

Blogs, Quotes & Tweets:

*Why Your New Classroom Management Plan isn't Working