K-2 Team Newsletter
January 6, 2020
Principal's Message
We are so excited to welcome everyone back from what we hope was a restful and rejuvenating winter break! Semester 1 is officially a wrap and we had so much to celebrate and awesome highlights. As far as attendance goes we had an average of 92% of our K-2 scholars here on-time and ready to learn! Let’s continue to pump up on-time attendance so we can deliver on our vision to provide an unmatched education by ensuring we have scholars present to push towards college and beyond!
School Wide Focus
Priority #2: No Opt Out Academics
We are ready to jump into Quarter 3 and cannot wait to see everyone back this week! We will continue our focus on WDM, AgMo, and RTI for academics and behavior. For the month of January we are adding “build in strategies that encourage 100% participation and thinking” through HOD (see pictures below for examples)!
Focus: Increasing HOD - moving on from agree or disagree to include scholars sharing their why and pushing one another for evidence...utilize the examples below to incorporate in your class
Jan PD
You can find the link here for our finalized Jan PD schedule. The morning is broken down into work sessions and team time then the afternoon will be dedicated work time to get all your deliverables completed.
S-Teams
New scholars who are being moved into the S-Team process will be shared on Monday. Paperwork for both teachers and families must be completed and reviewed before a meeting date can be scheduled. Scholars who are already in the process will have follow up meetings scheduled after MAP testing is completed in order to collect all pertinent current data. Please be on the lookout for invites to come.
HOD Examples
Deans of Academics
Data Deep Dive Plans: Starting on Tuesday, January 7th, classrooms should begin implementing their action plans from their data deep dive.
RTI- Tier 3 scholars should be tested this Friday.
Dean of Culture
Happy New Year!!! I hope you are feeling restored, refreshed, and rejuvenated. With a new year comes a new start! This week let’s message to scholars that 2020 is a fresh new beginning! Tell your students that they have a clean slate, and offer them the opportunity to start over. Treat tomorrow like the first day of school!
In that same spirit of restarting, let’s reset our school culture the entire month of January. After listening to your feedback, renorming on our school vision of excellence, and creating a warm demanding culture starting on the first day back our culture focus is a “Strong Start” grounded in getting 100% and keeping strong transitions both in the classroom and hallways. Please read the following carefully and reach out if you have a question, because some of these things are changes that will take place effective immediately.
100% is ensuring that students follow through on a request in an immediate and visible way by setting a standard that's more demanding than marginal compliance.
Why is 100% important?
Purpose: 100% compliance, 100% of the time, 100% of the way is the expectation because it fulfills the promise that we believe in the achievement of all scholars. Every Child...
THEY CAN DO IT! SO… “Sweat the small things!”
Behavior Ignored is Behavior Endorsed!
We are still in the midst of testing season so let’s keep high expectations 100% of the time and work together to keep our hallways silent. Let's continue to focus on transitions. When scholars are walking in the hallways they must be silent, safe, and speedy. It is important that leaders, teachers, and scholars are following through on their end of the hallway transitions. We want to model these expectations to ensure a high-achieving professional testing environment.
All restrooms breaks are silent.
While scholars are waiting to use the restroom the expectation is they are waiting silently.
Scholars that are in the restroom are silently doing their business and moving quickly.
Hallway transition are silent 100% of the time.
H-A-L-L-S. (H)Your hands are at your side, (A) all eyes are tracking forward (L), legs and feet on the blue line, (L) lips are zipped, and (S) we are silent.
Teachers let’s model silence by using less invasive correction and whisper narrations.
Transitions in the classroom should be quick and seamless. As scholars go from the carpet to the table, switching from center to center, and lining up this entire process should happen quickly, calmly, and silently.
When logical consequences are not working? When you need support? What do you do?
When to Slack? “I need a #PushIN”
When you have gone up and down the ladder and other support is needed.
When you have called the scholar’s parent and have seen no change in behavior.
When the behavior is grossly disruptive to the learning environment.
Contact Culture Team (@ all of us-->Dr. P, Ms. Jones, Mrs. Rokicki, Ms. Jackson, or Ms. Fletcher-Tyson) via the “General” SLACK Channel “East End Prep (K-2)” . The message should include:
Classroom (Cohort)
Scholar Name & Grade
Behavior (include a brief detailing of behavior(s) the scholar is exhibiting)
#pushin
An administrator will respond to the Push-In alert via slack w/ an ETA.
Once an administrator arrives in class, the administrator will make the decision to either address the scholars’ behavior directly, or stand in for the teacher so that he/she is able to address the behavior in the moment.
Pull-Out
When I or another administrator comes for a push-in sometimes we will decide a pull-out is necessary
When a scholar(s) are being majorly unsafe to themselves, other scholars, or staff it is an automatic pull-out and put it in slack “#Pullout” ASAP
***If a child is pulled out of class for any reason you must notify that scholar’s parents and explain to them why they are missing learning time. Then document the conversation in Trello, and move the card to “Parent Call Complete”***
Once a scholar has received a sum of 8 grows, put in a “Office referral” in liveschool and notify parents immediately (it is not a pull out if the behavior is incidental and not unsafe to the learning environment).
Once a scholar has received 10 grows it is an automatic pull out and notify parents immediately. Put it in slack “#Pullout” scholar has reached 10 grows and “@” the Culture Team.
Check Trello for Culture Team’s intervention with scholar and whether Trello card has been moved for teacher to call and follow up with the parent.
The scholar will be re-join class once the behavior has been addressed.
***No child should ever be sent to the Recommitment room without first alerting the DOC or someone else on the Culture Team. There will be times when I will not be in the Recommitment room and no scholar should be left unsupervised.***
Repeated office referrals...
When a scholar gets to 5 office referrals a mandatory parent meeting will be scheduled
At 10 another meeting will be scheduled the process repeats
Attendance
Operations Important Information
Staffing Updates
Ms. Gamble is out due to surgery and will be back Jan 21st. In her place we are so excited to have Ms. Rose covering Art classes. Please prep your scholars for this change and plan to stay an extra 2 minutes to support transitioning them in.
Upcoming Events
Jan 6th
PD Day
Jan 8th-17th
MAP Testing
Jan 10th
Community Celebration
Kinder Teambuilder
Jan 17th
Puppet Shows
1st @ 8:30
Kinder @ 9:30
*Paycheck Cart
Jan 20th
NO SCHOOL - MLK Holiday
Jan 27th-31st
MOY Evaluations
Jan 30th
Progress Reports
Jan 31st
NO PD - Mental Health Day
*Paycheck Cart
Dean of SEL
Shout Outs
Congrats to our G.R.E.A.T. Winners of the Week and check out the Class Photo of the Week!
Teacher of the Week
She exemplifies the core value of GRIT by walking into Belmont with an open mind and heart. She goes all in with her students each day. Her passion shows when she speaks life into her students every morning with affirmations. She arrives early and leaves late to make sure her students are set up for success. She advocates for her students as well as for her team. She supports the team by sharing her expertise and resources. She uplifts her team by sending encouraging messages. You Rock Ms. Moore!
Photo of the Week
Scholar of the Week
WIG Scholar Winner with the most glows in LiveSchool last week!
Staff Absences
January 10th
Corrine Hood (1st)
Reminders
All elements of AgMo should be in place (pathways, laps, codes, data trackers, and a response to the data)
All boards should be updated with the current date, objective (SWBAT..), and the common core standard code
Grades should be updated in Illuminate weekly
All lesson plans for the week should be on a clipboard or other system (i.e. binder/folder)
Principal and GLLs should be notified of late arrivals (after 7:28 am) or "early outs" (before 3:45 pm). Please see K-5 Playbook for details.
- Use Kronos to schedule an absence in advance and input all unplanned absences in Kronos within 24 hours of your return
- All sub plans should be updated immediately after an absence