Get Whitt it!
If you call one wolf, you invite the pack.
Winter weather land..
It’s that time again, when we all hope for days off and a foot of snow. We may get some slick roads that could close schools in DFW and we need to be prepared. For this reason, Mr.Halperin sent information to parents in the WCN.
Weather & Wylie ISD.
As we head into the Spring semester, we know this is when Texas weather can be unpredictable. Our goal is to have school every day, but safety is always on our minds as we make decisions involving delays, dismissals or closings. We have a
comprehensive communications plan to notify folks when we makes changes to any school related events. Our Facebook page is usually the first place to be updated, followed by the district website. For decisions that affect a wider audience, we will communicate via School Messenger. Please be sure your information is updated.
To read more about our Inclement Weather Policy, click here.
Vinson's Position:
Plenty of Time - I want to provide parents plenty of planning time and don’t want to wait until the last minute to make decisions about school closing. I have learned a few lessons in Wylie ISD.
Weather Tolerance – We have very small margins here to have school in poor weather and this philosophy is shared by the public. I’m not a hero, but we typically don’t go out on our own, so we aren’t going to have school if there is major potential for problems resulting from weather.
We Talk – You may or may not know this, but when bad weather occurs, superintendent’s text more than teenagers. We are communicating and this collaboration is necessary because we have a lot of parents who work in other school
districts and travel.
Late Arrival/Early Release – I have discovered that late arrival/early release is not the best option most of the time regarding bad weather. We are not likely to do either.
Questions
If you have questions, ideas or thoughts about bad weather, please let me know.
You know the drill...
Fire drill went well today. Please remember to close your doors. Also, if you have a student who is on your roll, but not with you, you must tell your team member with the walkie. That's a minus one kid for you, and a plus one kid for someone else. All little wolves need to be accounted for! Once again in life, Michael Teamann told me about a fire drill disaster that he ran on, and I just don't ever want to put someone in the place of running into a burning building to look for someone who isn't there.
Thinking ahead to checkpoints...
Checkpoints are being printed and delivered to your campus. We ask that you treat checkpoint day like STAAR. Best practices are to pull small groups, maintain a testing environment, use the testing accommodations, etc.
Learning specialists are working on a voice thread version of the checkpoints for your STAAR A students. Unfortunately, we don’t have any programs that can exactly mimic STAAR A but we will have a voice thread session with paper copies of the underlined and defined words.
Our elementary checkpoints are designed to be predictive, which means that the assessment includes everything that will be tested on STAAR. For your math students, that means they will be tested on some skills that haven’t been taught yet. After the checkpoint we can pull that data apart in Aware to help your math teachers determine how students performed on TEKS that they have already been instructed and how they performed on the new TEKS.
We don’t take grades on checkpoints, but we will inform parents how their children performed. We are working on drafting a letter that you can send to parents.
Teachers will need to print their bubble sheets from Aware.
Make PD work for you...
One of the easiest ways is to listen to a podcast. A podcast is essentially a talk radio show which you can listen to online or download to take with you wherever you go.
I enjoy listening to podcasts while I’m driving, exercising, cooking, and cleaning. I think podcasts are a great way to fill your mind with positive messages while doing otherwise mundane tasks. They’re a wonderful way to learn new ideas and connect with interesting people outside your own community without having to spend more time tied to a computer screen.
Angela Watson has a "Truth for Teachers" podcast that is SO beneficial. I highly recommend you give one (if not more!) of these a listen. My personal fave right now is "How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset to Enjoy Teaching More". Let me know if you choose one to listen too, I'd like to know if you enjoy them as much as I do.
Where can I find... (All updated!)
A list of all the previous weekly smores?
Our reflective blog??? <----- GREAT new additions here!!
Readworthy for the week
1.35 Seconds by @Jeff_Zoul
3 Stages of Planning by @TonySinanis
The 1 Habit That Can Make You Healthier and Happier: Retrospective Journaling http://bit.ly/1l9oaX3
Patty's Pontifications
Happy Birthday to YOU!
Jan. 8 Michelle Frame
Jan. 14 Lynzee Benoit
Jan. 20 Sarah Filip
Jan. 29 Shawnell Bradshaw
Jan. 31 Dewawn Wiest
Calendar Comings
Jan. 18- Staff & Student Holiday
Jan. 19- District Science Fair at WEHS
Jan. 20- Wylie Way day, Early Release, Staff meeting
Jan. 21- #URLearning @Whitt- Google Classroom
Jan. 22- Student Celebrations, Mother & Son Movie night
Whitt Elementary
Website: http://www.wylieisd.net/whitt
Location: 7520 Woodcreek Way, Sachse, TX 75048, United States
Phone: 972-429-2560
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whittwolves
Twitter: @WhittWolves