Hawk Herald
News and Notes for Teachers- Dec 17
Dear Staff
The excitement is mounting. As we know for some students it is not always a joyful time. Keep up your teaching routines to keep a sense of calm and normalcy. Extra supervision is helpful as some of our struggling students are trying to stay regulated and keep focused on school. Thanks to Jenae, Leadership students and all of you who helped with our first dance of the year. I don't say it enough, you are a wonderful hardworking staff. Have a great week.
Mary
You can also find the newsletter on the staff site: Staff Site
Self Care Tips
PLCs
Math Walkthroughs
Meetings and Events
Monday-17 Check your:Advisory Calendar
- ELD meeting 12:45
- AVID site meeting 3:30 rm 230
Tuesday-18 (Mary out after 2:00)
Wednesday-19
- PLCs
- Attendance 10:10
- Care Team 1:30
Thursday-20
Friday-21- Safety Team Meeting 9:15
- Coaches Meeting 12:45
Climate and Culture Update
This week we saw a huge increase in tardies for both grades. We will be doing sweeps random periods all next week. Stay tuned for specific times. Thank you for locking your door and participating in the sweeps. When students return from sweeps (with an adult), they should be marked tardy in Synergy, unless otherwise stated.
Next week we will likely see students in the office who are not happy about the long break. Please be sensitive to the fact that for some students school is the most stable location. Routines are good. Thank you all for helping us make it to the holidays!
New this week from the Wellness Center (Hawks Nest): In order for students to attend their scheduled appointment time in the Hawks Nest during P.E. class, they must first dress down.
Print Shop
Holiday Print Shop Schedule
Wanted to make sure you are aware of a planned disruption of service in the Print Shop over the Winter break. The print shop will be closed the entire Winter break getting new equipment installed with the new lease agreement the District has signed. Any print items that are needed immediately after the Winter break needs to be ordered no later than December 17. Anything after that will likely not be turned around to the buildings until the middle of January.
Improving Climate and Culture
In this Cult of Pedagogy article, Jennifer Gonzalez interviews UCLA professor Pedro Noguera on what it takes to get across-the-board excellence in schools. “Some of these are things we need to speak up about,” says Gonzalez, “some are shifts we need to make in our own mindsets, and others are changes we can implement in our own practices.”
• Challenge the normalization of failure. Some schools have come to accept that students from certain backgrounds will underperform and be disproportionately disciplined and assigned to special education. One way to push back, says Noguera, is focusing on students in these groups who are beating the odds and seeing what’s different about them, “because those outliers will tell you what we need to do more for the other kids.”
• Speak up for equity. Certain practices – for example, assigning inexperienced teachers to students with the greatest needs – perpetuate and widen achievement gaps. Confronting such practices can be uncomfortable, but those are important conversations: “If you want to just be nice,” says Noguera, “you’re not going to make any change.”
• Embrace immigrant students and their culture. This means giving these students access to a rigorous curriculum, school counselors, and other resources, with language never acting as a barrier.
• Tell students the secrets of high achievement. “We have to demystify success for kids,” says Noguera – study skills, note-taking, organization, time management, and other strategies can make all the difference.
• Get parents on the same page. “Partnerships have to be based on respect, trust, and empathy,” says Noguera, “– not pity, but empathy.” Parents need to know how to reinforce at home what educators are doing in school, including staying in touch with teachers, giving kids a place to study, asking about their work, and getting them to bed on time.
• Align discipline practices with educational goals. “We’re much more likely to punish the kids with the greatest needs,” says Noguera. “And how do we punish them? Typically by denying them learning time… There must be consequences for inappropriate behavior, but the consequences need not involve not learning. We have to be much more creative” – using restorative justice, community service, and other approaches that address relationships between students and adults.
• Accelerate (versus remediating). It’s predictable that labeling students as slow learners, grouping them with similar peers, and giving them mediocre curriculum materials and teaching practices will set up those students for failure. “Instead,” says Noguera, “we should be focusing our efforts and resources on acceleration, opportunities to help students who are behind to move more quickly through the curriculum – like in summer programs, for example, so they can be caught up for the following school year.”
• Focus on day-to-day teaching practices. “I think it’s a mistake when we put equity under this kind of rubric of addressing implicit bias,” says Noguera. “That’s not to say that we don’t need to do that, but if you don’t connect that back to what teachers do on a regular basis to teach their students, then you’re not going to see a change in outcomes, and changing outcomes ultimately is what this is about.” We know more than ever about what works in classrooms, and the focus should be on making sure teachers are using the most effective practices in every classroom every day.
• Work with outside agencies. “We can’t expect the teachers to be the social workers and counselors and to teach,” says Noguera. “We need partnerships with hospitals, with health clinics, with nonprofits, with churches, with any community entity or agency that can help us in addressing the needs of our students.” That includes nutrition, eyeglasses, and housing for homeless families.
• Teach the way students learn versus expecting them to learn the way we teach. “Kids learn through experience,” says Noguera. “Kids learn through mistakes. Kids learn by asking questions, through interaction.” Teachers need to get students actively involved, closely monitor their learning, and constantly improve teaching practices.
“There are lots of examples of schools that are serving kids well, all kids,” concludes Noguera. “And the existence of those schools is the proof that the problem is not the children. The problem is our inability to create the conditions that foster good teaching and learning.”
“10 Ways Educators Can Take Action in Pursuit of Equity” by Jennifer Gonzalez in The Cult of Pedagogy, December 2, 2018, https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/10-equity/
South Meadows Middle School
Email: mendezm@hsd.k12.or.us
Website: http://schools.hsd.k12.or.us/southmeadows
Location: 4690 Southeast Davis Road, Hillsboro, OR, United States
Phone: 503-844-1220
Facebook: facebook.com/SouthMeadowsMiddleSchool