Team and Family Launcher
Goal-oriented and intentional.Intervention.Authentic Team.
Ubuntu. I am because we are.
Throughout the many universally shared feelings this weekend of exhaustion, burn out, fatigue and frustration that we and our staffs feel/have felt, one thing that grounds us all is that we are ALL - our teachers, staff, students, families and ourselves - steadfastly committed to the end goal of (in the words of our Dean of Leadership Programs, Jesse Rector) of "righting" history so that we our students are able to successfully "write" their futures. For every success we experience in our roles as educators, we have multiple times when our actions didn't meet the bar of success; yet, we all still keep going for our students because "if not us, then who? if not now, then when?" What this past weekend of long hours of learning, practicing and being pushed to grow more, I recognized that we are in a movement. While I've always known this in the back of my mind, this weekend highlighted the power of all of us in a room representing thousands of staff members and students who are also elbows and knee deep in the work working towards the same outcome for students whose demographics are not valued, provided grace or perhaps not acknowledged by society's critics. Yet, here we are. We are doing the work. We are in the work. We are representing the work on behalf of our Rocketeers and their families so that, alongside their peers in schools across the country, they WILL rise to fulfill the purpose and potential that they were placed on Earth for. That's powerful. Every single day, you are literally and figuratively preparing the future of our country. Our world. Our society.
Ubuntu is a term that speaks to the power of unity and how our lives impact and are impacted by others.
On behalf of our Rocketeers, their Rocketeers cousins in California, Milwaukee and DC as well as their distant cousins in schools across the country, thank you for doing the work everyday like a boss.
Love you always,
Christa
Academic Focus
- Identify all of the opportunities students have to independently complete work in your block.
- Create/use a quick spreadsheet to record student mastery levels in a quick manner. Circulate to all students and have spreadsheet on your purple clipboard.
- Quickly scan your spreadsheet and choose one area to address whole group based on the greatest frequency of student misconception.
School-wide Goal: 100% of teachers are a 3+ on the Targeted Teaching Time rubric row on the Intellectual Prep Rubric by 10/23.
During observations of times when Rocketeers are working independently, the instructional leadership team will be observing for teacher circulation and using your clipboard to record error/mastery notes for students.
Cultural Focus
Culture Focus Areas
Positive Narration
- For every negative/consequence you give, highlight at least 3 positive examples of students being excellent models! You have a ton of examples in your classrooms, so shout students out! This is also a shout out for you for doing an excellent job in impacting great student examples!
- Create a chart that simply says "3:1" to post in the back of your classroom/somewhere easily seen by you in the room to serve as a reminder for you. Positive Narration comes with muscle memory; the more you use it, the easier it comes to you when in front of students.
- Check out this blog resource about the impact of positive narration in the classroom.
We will also be looking for all classrooms to display the LiveSchool Leader board at multiple times throughout the class period and to give out LS points consistently throughout the class period. You should have your LS Board displayed for Rocketeers to check their balance at least three different points during your class period so that students remain aware of where they are in regards to their points balance. Write on your whiteboard agenda the specific times when you will display the LS Board for students.
School-wide Goal: 100% of teachers are at least a 3:1 ratio by 10/23.
Another great way to acknowledge the positive in your learning space is to make a big deal out of publicly bragging on your students to show them off for the great things they are doing in class to others! Check this resource out on the interplay between positive narration and bragging.
Tight In-Class Transitions
- Our students have several academic gaps to overcome this year and we only 7 months to do it, so we have to ensure that every moment is class is efficient and focused. Sweating the most intricate details of our day - most notably transitions - in shaving down on wasted time will help us to allocate our time towards academic growth for students. Well-planned and efficient in-class transitions also helps to prevent misbehavior that arise as a result of poorly executed and chaotic transitions to/from the carpet and desk-to-door.
- Use "stand, turn, transition" to transition students tightly to their next destination in the classroom.
- Check out the video below of a strong example of a tight in-class transition.
School-wide Goal: 100% teachers are at a score of 3+ on the Transition Between Activities row of the Student Culture Rubric by 10/23.
Student Tracking
- We're solid as a school with student to teacher tracking, but need to strengthen our focus on student to student tracking when a classmate is speaking.
- Use a quick statement "Everyone tracking __________ in 3-2-1" "__________ (student's name), make sure that you're getting the respect that you deserve before you speak" "all eyes tracking________ (student's name), students repeat "all eyes tracking ________ (student's name)"
School-Wide Goal: 100% of teachers are a score of 3+ on the Tracking row of the Student Culture Rubric by 10/23.
Upcoming Events
October 21st:
- Kindergarten/1st Grade Field Trip
October 27th:
- DC Tour Group Visiting RNNE| Arrival - 11am; this tour group will consist of donors who are interested in donating to Rocketship and support for our DC campus opening next year. The tour groups will visit classrooms and observe teachers and students in action.
October 30th:
- Parent Coffee: 8:30am
- Fall Fiesta (formerly known as the Fall Festival/Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration): 6:00pm
- Please plan to attend at least a portion of our Fall Fiesta next Friday hosted by our Parent Leaders. Our parents have been excitedly planning fall festival games as well as celebrations to honor National Hispanic Heritage Month during this time!
LiveSchool Parent Portal
Parents/families are now able to check positive points, cultural breaches as well as see any comments left by staff.
Comments are always great to leave for both positive points and cultural breaches so that it helps the student and parent to understand why they earned a point or had a point deducted. Of course, you don't need to leave a comment for every single point or breach. Also, be cognizant when leaving a comment to be sure to only include the facts and to leave out emotion (typing in ALL caps, using exclamation marks, etc.) from the comments.
Here is the letter that Mr. Song drafted that went home with students last week.
Resources
Updated username! I forgot that I'd created two different trial accounts (talk about cheap!), but I only paid for an actual account which is below :)
- username: chickey@rsed.org
- password: rocketship
ActivelyLearn: Engage Your Students in Reading Scaffolding, peer learning, and assessment come together inside a text, exactly when students need help and motivation.
- username: cthomas@rsed.org
- password: rocketship
Operations Updates from April, Business Operations Manager
1. To decrease the amount of paperwork you have to keep up with during breakfast, there will now be only ONE roster to check for both breakfast counts and attendance.
2. Copies in the copy room, please be sure to pick up your copies the day you do them. Teachers can also put a sticky note on the 1st copy with their name and room number on it and it can be delivered to their classes, concierge style. We've wasted too much paper on unclaimed copies.
3. Recess- If a teacher decides to take away the entire class recess time, the teacher must come and be with their class the entire time. They can send students that should still receive recess but no longer having a whole class sit out of recess w/o teacher support around the discipline action.
4. Moving forward, Support Staff will complete all lamination tasks for teachers. If you need a project laminated, please let the Support Staff member assigned to your grade level know.