In the spirit of the holidays, I would like us to acknowledge all that is good within the Public Schools of Robeson County. After a twenty-five year plus career as an educator there really are many reasons to be thankful during the holiday season.

1. Teachers. Most teachers are there because they genuinely care. They believe in children. They are excited about learning and want to instill that same excitement in their students. They didn’t choose this profession for the paychecks (or summer vacation). Most teachers become teachers because they felt a calling and a desire to make a difference in a child’s life.

2. School support staff. It takes a team effort to make a school run efficiently and effectively. Everyone plays a part in your child’s academic experience. Every adult on campus has the number one job duty of keeping each child safe. Don’t overlook instructional assistants, school secretaries, office technicians, library aides, school nurses, custodial staff, bus drivers, child nutrition, and support personnel.

3. Exposure to diversity. Our children are learning that not everyone speaks the same language, wears the same types of clothes, or eats the same types of foods at lunches. And that’s all okay.

4. Life lessons. Schools don’t just teach our children academic curriculum. Schools are also helping our children develop into respectful world citizens. It is at school that our children are presented with life lessons they may not have learned at home.

5. Community. Public schools do their best to foster a sense of community. Within a school setting, a child quickly learns the importance of teamwork and cooperation. A school requires a joint effort to be safe and clean. That’s when our children learn first-hand that everyone can make a difference and everyone’s efforts are important.

6. Belief in a well-rounded education. Despite decreased budgets, public schools continue to acknowledge the need for an education that extends beyond the traditional 3 “R’s.”

May the holiday season fill your home with joy, your heart with love, and your life with laughter. Thank you for taking care of the boys and girls we have the pleasure of serving each and every day.

Happy Fall from the Early Years’ Program! With the changing of weather, also comes changes to the Public Schools of Robeson County. This month, Shining Stars’ broke groundwork on construction for a newly expanded PreK program for our county. Within this reconstruction, PSRC looks to add 3 new PreK classrooms, 1 transition Kindergarten classroom, an indoor Gym, and multiple Therapy and Psychological/Educational Testing rooms. The goal of PSRC is to address the increasing need for more PreK classrooms with our growing community. Along with creating more room, PSRC would like to establish a more efficient way of testing and providing therapy for our Special Needs students. We are thrilled at the collaboration of different agencies coming together under one roof to assist the babies of our county. We would like to say THANK YOU to our Superintendent, Board Members, Maintenance Department and ALL those who have helped to make this possible!!

No Stopping Us Now! PSRC School Library Media Coordinators are on the move!!

Coming soon at our schools

the

Bookworm Vending Machine!

(Free Books for our students.)

Social Studies Supervisor Comecya Scriven and K-2 Literacy Specialist Zach Jones held a Leveled Literacy Intervention workshop at Southside-Ashpole Elementary on November 30!

Robotics have been delivered to teachers who will be utilizing the Curriculum in the next few weeks. We have expanded to offer LEGO discovery at Shining Stars Pembroke, East Robeson, Townsend, and Rosenwald. Continue with LEGO League explore in Townsend, Tanglewood, Prospect, Piney Grove as well as EC Self Contained Classrooms at Lumberton Sr. High and St. Paul's Middle and LEGO Challenge sets at Tanglewood, Orrum Middle, and Lumberton Jr. For the first time we have a robotic club at Red Springs High School and one starting at the Career Center. I am looking forward to watching these groups in the spring.

We celebrated STEM/STEAM day across the district on November 8th with STEM lessons in many classrooms. I have also been modeling STEM lessons in several classrooms across the district in hopes of getting these lessons added to our pacing guides.

The K-8 Department has been BUSY this Fall!

Teachers have been busy with Professional Development! K-2 teachers continued Keys to Beginning Reading with session four, 3-5 Teachers have worked with Sue O’Connell with Math in Practice. The administration is preparing for LETRS training in the Fall of 2022.

Math in Practice professional development sessions continue with Sue O'Connell, one of the Math in Practice series authors. Sue continues to give math teachers in grades 3-5 great strategies and hands-on experiences to help students understand the math concepts being taught. She models how to teach using manipulatives and the questions teachers should ask to help guide students to their own understanding. The following dates remain with all meetings from 4 pm - 6 pm:

3rd Grade

December 2, 2021

January 11, 2022

February 3, 2022

March 3. 2022

4th and 5th Grades

December 14, 2021

January 27, 2022

February 17, 2022

March 1, 2022

Productive Math Struggle professional development continues with Kevin Dykema, one of the book's authors. Kevin continues to model great strategies and ways to use manipulatives to help students in grades 6-8 understand math concepts. The following dates remain with all meetings from 4 pm - 6 pm:

January 13, 2022

February 10 and 24, 2022

March 10, 2022

Common Formative Assessments, CFAs, have begun in grades K-8, and in high school courses NC Math 1 and NC Math 3. CFAs follow the pacing guide and are no longer than 12 questions. Desmos calculators will be embedded where needed. If you have any questions please contact Dr. Sandra Evans for grades K-5 and Catrina Bailey for all other grades/courses.

Marcus Garvey once said “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” It is vital to know our history without the knowledge, you put your mind and physical being in danger. Self knowledge ensures better development and well being of who you are and what you will become.The month of November celebrates the beautiful and heroic history of Native Americans. Throughout the schools of PSRC I have seen such amazing displays of Native American history. I saw students creating and learning about this remarkable culture. Learning history and all aspects of history is a needed piece to become a knowledgeable citizen in our society. The Social studies and history department can assure you that the students of PSRC will leave High school with the knowledge they need to become a productive citizen.

Last week we had a professional development on Inquiry based learning and incorporating literacy into our Social Studies curriculum. We plan over the next couple of months to equip all Social studies teachers with the tools needed to push literacy and reading skills into their daily lessons this will help improve ELA test scores which is considered a short term goal but also these skills will prepare students to become college and career ready with appropriate literacy skills to go to the next level of their choice ( long term goal). As we know, most careers after high school have a writing or testing component, these literacy skills that are being developed in Social Studies will also be used to ensure students are able to pass these needed components to reach their goals and become productive citizens.

North Carolina DPI rolled out new Social Studies/History standards this summer and all teachers should be using these new standards in their lessons. If you need assistance please don’t hesitate to reach out. I can’t wait to come out after Thanksgiving break to see all of these new engaging lessons pushing the new statewide standards!

I want to give a shout out to one of my Social Studies teachers at Littlefield Middle school. Her name is Courtney Strickland and she is working hard as a beginning teacher to learn all the skills to be an effective teacher. She is passionate and eager to learn as well as teach. Keep doing great things at Littlefield.

Office hours for all Social Studies teachers are every Monday from 3:30-4:30. If you did not receive the video meeting from last week please email me at comecya.scriven@robeson.k12.nc.us

December 8-11, 13-16, 2 PM: Our winter holiday program Season of Light will be shown. Google meet link:

1. https://meet.google.com/smo-qqjw-aay

other times are available by request.

Also, the planetarium's rebuild was included in this year's state budget. Stay tuned to see what happens next!

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) Department of the Public Schools of Robeson County is proud to announce the conception of a District Career Development Center. Currently, the center houses three district career coaches who are empowered to enlighten students in grades 6-12 about the vast number of career choices and how to navigate their own passion into a career. The district career coaches are Tonya Chavis, Felicia Hunt and Audrey Strong. They have completed career interest inventories for all eighth and ninth graders in the district, and all students in the Learning Acceleration Program and at the Robeson County Career Center.

Newsela. PSRC has renewed its Newsela Pro subscription. We are in the process of scheduling professional development sessions for teachers to explore the many ways that Newsela can support instruction in the reading standards.

Common Formative Assessments. Standards pacing documents for the district’s ELA common formative assessments for Grade 6-8 and English II are linked within the Instructional Pacing Guide Canvas Course. This pacing represents a balance of the reading informational text and reading literature standards. In addition, the standards are spiraled (repeated) in order to allow for instruction with increasingly complex text.

Patio PD. Join me for a 6-12 ELA Patio PD session on Thursday, December 9, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. for ELA curriculum and instruction updates. The Meet link will be sent to schools next week.

NCDPI ELA #Setting the Standard Series: Save the date! The ELA team at NCDPI is hosting their second session in this year’s PD series on January 13, 2021. This session will focus on Learning Progressions and PLCs. The Learning Progressions documents are linked in the NCDPI ELA Livebinder and linked within our grade-level ELA district pacing guides.

Congratulations to all the students selected to be included in the 2021 Holiday Card Series. There were 79 submissions from K-12 and 27 artists were selected. The holiday cards will be shared throughout the district and across the state. Congratulations to each winning artist!

Arts Education classroom libraries are being expanded with the support of Title I. Books related to art, music, theatre, and dance will be added in classrooms for students to read and for teachers to read to students. Arts Education continues to support increasing student literacy opportunities in all our classes.

Important Upcoming Test Dates

December 6-10, 2021: North Carolina Check Ins (Math 1 and Biology)

December 7, 2021: North Carolina ACT Workkeys (12th Grade Only)

December 7, 2021: North Carolina Pre ACT (10th Grade Only)

December 7, 2021: CCRAA Grade 10

ACCESS for EL Students: January 26-March 4, 2022

NC Check Ins #2: (4-8 Reading/3-8 Math/5 & 8 Science): January 31-February 4, 2022

NAEP (National Assessment for Educational Progress): February 15-17, 2021 (Only for Prospect, St. Pauls Middle, and Parkton).

Students across the district are participating in CFA (Common Formative Assessments). These assessments allows teachers, administrators, and district leaders to assess progress throughout the year for students in reading, math, and science. These tests are created through Schoolnet and allows for review and instruction. Reading/Language Arts, math, and science CFA's are given every other week.