Friday's Thoughts
October 9, 2015
House Meetings
Thank you for your support and participation in our house meetings. I think they went great! How many of you had the chants in your head last night? I could not get them out of my head. :-) Our hope is that we will continually reinforce the essentials so that our students use them every single day. I cannot wait until the house council is in place, and I am looking forward to seeing who will run for President, Vice President, and Secretary of each house. This opportunity will be such a good lesson in leadership for our students.
I hope you have a great weekend and enjoy your time with family.
Kristie
We have created folders on the T Drive for you to drop in your lesson plans. This is a change from what we originally said about sending plans. Our Goal Post teachers would like to see your plans to help students who stay after school in order to help them with homework. Please locate the folder titled "Lesson Plans" and drop your plans into your grade level folder.
I want to apologize for the number of meetings that we will have to have until we complete AdvancEd and SLO's. Unfortunately, we will have to meet more than usual this school year. Please be patient and keep Tuesdays open. Thanks so much!
We will have an ALICE drill October 21st. A parent letter will be sent home October 14th. Please plan time to talk with students about this drill. I will place a form in your boxes Monday to help you as you talk with your students about this drill. Remember that we will announce "Lock Down. There is an intruder in the building." At that time, you will shut your door, it should be locked, and evacuate the building. I will send out more information as the date gets closer.
A Team
In order to ensure we attempt every instructional strategy to help a student before testing them, we are going to have an A Team at our school. We began this last year, but never moved forward with it. When a student is referred to RTI, the A Team will meet with that teacher to possibly give additional ideas and strategies to help that student be successful in the classroom. As names are given to me, you will receive an email about attending a meeting. At that meeting, we will ask that you bring work samples, reading level, and any other indicators of student performance that may be helpful. Our goal is to make sure we have exhausted all options before testing.
Update Reading Wall
Tuesday during your planning, please come to our Data Room (the room with the F & P wall displayed) to update your F & P cards.
Intervention
The district has provided money for us to add some intervention for reading. Hannah Billingsley, Amber's sub for maternity leave, will serve third, fourth, and fifth graders. She will work with those students who are reading below grade level using the F & P LLI kit. If you have not sent me any readers that you are concerned about and their reading levels, please do so as soon as possible (third-fifth grades). She will work on her schedule next week, and begin groups as soon as possible. She will work with groups in the old science lab next to Amber Greer's room. The goal will be to pull during their independent reading time so that they do not miss classroom instruction.
SLO's
I am going to send out information to you at the beginning of next week on your SLO. Please make sure you have looked at the form and completed the first page of your SLO. This will be your information, along with your objective, pre-test date, post-test date, interval of instruction, beginning instruction date, and ending instruction date. Please complete your rationale as well. Please remember that this is a learning year. I will send more information out next week. The date for the template to be complete is October 21st.
Fall Festival
The Fall Festival committee met yesterday and we are excited about the festival. More information will follow soon! It is going to be a fun night!
Parent Communication
Please remember to communicate with parents on a regular basis. Keep Parent Portal up-to-date and update your websites. Don't forget those positive communications as well!
Upcoming Dates
Oct. 13th: Update F & P wall during planning
Oct. 15th: Fall pictures (Make-Up date)
Oct. 16th: Friday with K & M during planning
Oct. 19th: Book Fair Opens
Oct. 21st: ALICE Drill
Oct. 23rd: RRW Begins!