Artemus Ward Weekly 9/28-10/2
Every Scholar, Every Moment, Every Day!
Principal's Message
Thank you for all of your hard work this past week. It is really starting to come together. Continue to build classroom culture by encouraging student to participate, share their work, and by utilizing technology in creative ways. The expectation is in place that students are to have their cameras on and and be actively engaged during core instruction. Building a culture of engagement and trust is critical to a successful teaching and learning environment. Visually seeing your audience is a part of that. If you are having trouble with your class not participating or turning on cameras, reach out for support. The only reason a camera should be off is if you approve it to be off.
This week in PLC Mrs. Jarosky shared and excellent resource called Whiteboard.fi. Whiteboard.fi is free and allows student to have individual digital whiteboards that can all be shared and monitored at once. Take a moment to check it out. This is a powerful tool for formatively assessing students online.
Open House is next Wednesday. I will be sending out additional details in a separate email on Sunday. Much of your work is already done. The expectation is that you will have a short presentation (approx. 10 min.) to share with families as they visit your virtual classrooms. Each teacher will be in their own rooms. Spec. Ed. teachers will select the room that most of their students are in. We will post your location on the agenda so parents will be able to find you. Encores will be in their own rooms as well. We will be using Zoom for the night. I will send an update with directions on how to set up your meetings and how to properly secure all sessions.
Instructional Focus:
- Is the objective clearly evident in your materials and the dialogue or activities that are taking place?
- Are students actively engaged in an activity that will move them towards mastery of a given standard?
- Is there some type of formative assessment occurring to measure the success of a given activity or interaction?
This week focus on using technology to deliver a short formative assessment for each lesson. Schoology has many powerful assessment tools built into it. Challenge yourself to try a new one.
That's it for now. I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend.
-Mr. Myslenski
Translation Services for ESL Families
5th Grade Work!!!
Testing
The NWEA Reading test for grades 1 - 3 will wrap up this Wednesday, September 30th. All students need to have their Reading test completed by Wednesday. A HUGE shout-out to all of these teachers who have done an amazing job in working out the kinks for remote testing. You are all pros now! The window for Math opens this Monday, September 28th and goes through Friday, October 30th.
The NWEA Testing window for both Reading and Math in grades 4-8 will begin on Monday, September 28th and go through Friday, October 30th. We are excited about the plan that we come up with in that it limits the disruption of your day to day teaching schedules. (Thanks Julie!) Regular ed students will be testing on Wednesday, October 7th and 14th. These dates still give us plenty of opportunities for make-up testing. Sped Ed and ELL testing can begin at any time.
I am happy about this plan in that it gives us enough time to react for students that are having trouble using their cameras. If you are aware of any of your students that do not have a functioning camera, please let me know.
Aimsweb Benchmarking for grades K-3 will begin this coming Monday, September 28th as well. My goal is to complete grades 2 and 3 first and I will be in touch with these teachers very soon.
Special Education
Hello team!
For those Intervention Specialists who could not attend the Goalbook Seminar on Monday and Tuesday below you will find the recorded session link. It is 60 minutes long and useful for assessing and tracking students on Goalbook. This upcoming Tuesday I will be attending our second Liaison meeting . I will update you on what was entailed in the meeting. I read in the Liaison news feed that Jessica will be explaining to us what we are to do if students are not showing up and what data to input on these cases. I will be sending this out Tuesday night. Stay tuned for this information. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to myself, Mr. Myslenski, and or Mrs. Beets.
-Mr. Pempin
Technology Updates
Open House: Wednesday, September 30
Proposed schedule for the day:
8:30 - 11:00: 150 minutes of "on-stage" activities that staff normally does on a Wednesday.
11:00 - 12:40: 100 minutes to prepare for Open House. Up to 30 minutes of this time can be scheduled for a staff meeting to prepare for Open House and other relevant matters.
6:00 - 8:00: Open House
It is important to note that we will need to prepare differently this year since it is a virtual Open House such as creating links to classes, preparing videos and slides, etc.
We have the option to exchange the "on-stage" time and the 100 minutes, making 8:30-10:10 the 100 minutes, and 10:10-12:40 the "on-stage" time.
Positive Behavioral Supports & Interventions
Artemus Ward Students S.O.A.R.
They are Scholarly, Organized, Accountable, Respectful
PBIS Committee Meeting:
An invite will be sent out for our PBIS meeting next Friday October 2 @ 2:00 pm. This meeting is during asynchronous time and is completely voluntarily. If you are interested in being on the committee, please email Mrs. Beets so she can add you to the invite.
Mrs. Beets
Below is a sample PBIS matrix that can be used to state expectations using the S.O.A.R. language. If you would like a blank template to customize, please email Mrs. Beets.
Social Emotional Learning
The first source, Lalilo, has ideas for morning meetings and incentives as well as others articles around remote learning.
The second source is from Casel which is the organization CMSD uses in our SEL programs.