RNNE Team and Family Launcher
Goal-oriented and intentional. Intervention.Authentic Team.
Thank you for your fervent committment towards working for not just sitting back and "hoping" for change, but for working tirelessly for the freedom and success of our Rocketeers each day.
Academic Focus Areas
-Coaches will observing and providing feedback on the following instructional areas throughout this week:
From before the Winter Break
Sticky Key Points
1. All key points written on an anchor chart – what, why and how
2. [Humanities] Stick Key Points chants on a chart and taught to students
From Data Day Sessions
Enduring Skills
1. Have teacher exemplars written for each question in your lesson plan. Every question in your lesson plan/double packet must have a teacher exemplar so that you have a clear vision of mastery for where you want students to be.
2. Tag your question + exemplars tagged with the key point it aligns to.
3. Review key points in each part of your lesson cycle/block. Be explicit in your model of the key points, and push student thinking throughout the times when they are sharing out whole group and/or practicing on their own. "How do you know? "How did you arrive at that answer?"
Types of Talk
Goal: 2 minutes of student talk per 5 minutes
Progress:
Based on classroom observations and walkthroughs last week, there has been an increase in cold call being used to vary the types of talk students are engaged in.
Push:
Continue to include planned turn and talk questions and everybody writes questions into your lesson plans and lesson execution.
One trend that was noticed that was that the more rigorous a question was that was posed by the teacher, the more likely that the teacher would ask for hands vs. pushing on more rigorous types of talk (turn and talk, everybody writes and cold call).
Lesson Plans -
Lesson Plan Submission: Be sure to share your lesson plans for the upcoming week with your coach by EoD Tuesday of each week.
Teacher-Facing Plans: always have the teacher-facing version of plans with you during your lesson execution so that you are referring back to what you've planned in the lesson cycle as well as in teacher exemplar answers.
Teacher Exemplars: have a teacher exemplar written out for each question that you are posing to students in your lesson plan.
Types of Talk: Code the types of talk that you are including in your lesson plans.
Culture Focus Area
Do It Again/Sweat the Details = 100%
Instill in students their ability to be excellent for themselves and for the future that they want. Do not lower expectations for them or accept anything less than excellent from them. To students, the messages that we convey to them through our words, tone and actions communicate to them the belief and confidence that we have in them to be great.
1.
Have and hold high expectations of 100% for all students.
2. When the expectation is not met fully, immediately have the class/group re-do the expectation so that they understand the value that you place in their education and the urgency in meeting expectations.
3. Use a positive and encouraging tone when having students re-do; use the sentence stems from our Do It Again session on Monday (“That was okay, but I know that you can do it even better…”, “[name of cohort], I know that you show me how to walk in HALLS in even better than that” and one that Ms. Barr shouted Ms. Weber out for – “Try it again. There is nothing wrong with doing it again, it just needs to be better.”
*Be prepared for Coaches to provide “in the moment” coaching to you if/when they recognize a moment in your class where students need to Do It Again – this helps to build your eye and development towards recognizing these moments on your own.
Sweating the Details:
Progress:
From our walkthroughs, there has been some awesome progress made in our staff and student focus on sweating the details!:
-STAR was noticeably tight throughout the building from our school leadership team as well as network visitors. Continue set strong expectations around this and "do it again" when it isn't meeting the bar of excellence.
-Posture - noticeably tighter throughout the building as compared to December's school walkthrough. Continue to set and maintain high expectations around this. I am a huge advocate for children physically presenting themselves in a manner that demands respect from others; this begins with their posture. Don't allow students to slouch or hold their heads down - teach that they are too intelligent and too phenomenal to not be seen as the regal kings and queens that they are. Kings and queens do not hold their heads down nor do they slouch.
-Student to Teacher Tracking was strong throughout the building! Students are so eager to hear what their teachers are sharing and teaching!
Push/Areas that need to be tighter:
-Shirts untucked - this becoming increasingly more apparent. Be sure that throughout your class and each transition you are noticing that all students have their shirts tucked in. If you walk past a line that is not yours, don't hesitate to give reminders to Rocketeers to have their shirts tucked in. This aligns with my philosophy on presenting themselves as regal kings and queens. By reinforcing shirts tucked in as a staff we are conveying the message and importance to them presenting themselves in a professional and clean cut way. They deserve it.
*As Mrs. Rogers shared with us during our first Data Day, if you have a student who has come to school in an unclean (food debris, marker markings, etc.) uniform shirt, please send them down to the front office so that we can give them a clean shirt to wear so that they feel comfortable at school. The front office will take care of calling home if/when a shirt needs to be replaced for this reason.
Peer-to-peer Tracking: Now that we are ramping up increasing the amount of time students are talking in the class, remember to set high expectations around all students tracking their peers when they speak and share out in class. This is one of the highest form of respect that they can give each other; to allow their teammate's voice to be heard and valued.
Thursday PD - OFF PD + Common Planning Time/Prep Deliverables
As included in last week's Launcher, this week will be our OFF PD day for January.
To continue with our focus and development via video analysis, two CPT blocks this week will be dedicated to you viewing a video of yourself through the lens of: I do/sticky key points and Types of Talk.
Common Planning Time/Prep Focus Areas + Deliverables:
Wednesday: During your CPT/prep, view the video that your coach will send to you and complete this video analysis. Send to your coach by CoB (5:00pm) Wednesday, 1/20.
Friday: During your CPT/prep, view the video that your coach will send to you and complete this video analysis. Send to your coach by CoB (5:00pm) Friday, 1/22.
Each video analysis will be independent so that you have an opportunity to view your own "game" film and identify progress and areas of focus.
Report Cards
Parent/Teacher Conferences Days are scheduled for February 4th-5th.
Report Cards will be ready to print on 1/27/16.
100% of Report Card Conferences are expected to be completed by EOD February 19, 2016. Your grade level coach will be checking the status of your conference completion.
If you would like for your coach to join a conference with you, reach out to them as soon as possible so that they can block of time to join.
All report cards must be returned (signed copies only) to Mrs. Rogers no later than 4:30pm on February 19, 2016. It is imperative that we have all signed report cards by this date as they are legal documents that must be filed in each student’s cum file. When we are audited by the district, they check for updated signed report cards.
Each grade level is responsible for printing their report cards.
THANK YOU, Ms. Barr, for creating the Parent Teacher Conference Scheduler! Teachers, be sure to use the document that Ms. Barr created to schedule your conferences.
As parents are calling in up front, Mrs. Rogers and Ms. Vega will also assist with scheduling conferences, so be sure to keep your tab updated as they will schedule conferences where there is an available spot.
Use this week and next week to call home to families to schedule and confirm conference times.
Please refer to Ms. Barr's e-mail regarding being organized and on your game when it comes to parent/teacher conferences.
IF THERE IS A STUDENT WHO HAS NOT HAD A HOME VISIT, ENSURE THAT THIS HOME VISIT AND CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE.
All signed report cards are due to Mrs. Rogers by 4:30pm on Friday, February 19th. Be relentless in communicating and scheduling conferences with parents/families so that they have an accurate mid-year picture of where their Rocketeer is academically.
ALL PARENT HOURS MUST BE TURNED INTO MRS. ROGERS BY EoD Thursday, January 21st so that she can send them in to the network by CoB on Friday, January 22nd. Any parent hours received after Thursday, 1/21, will not be reflected on the upcoming report card.
Bathroom and Halllway Traffic
Bathroom Usage:
There are still a large amount of students in the hallways going to the bathroom. However, these tend to be the same students every day going to the bathroom during the same class/portion of class (ie independent work).
We have to be urgent and dogged about preserving the time that our students are in class learning. They are taking too much time outside of the classroom during core learning times that will show up in negative growth ways on STEP, cumulative assessments, TN Ready and MAP. Preserve the sacredness of your instructional time.
During class restroom breaks, take your entire class to the break and ensure that all students are using the restroom.
Preserve the sacredness of your instructional teaching time. Students should only be allowed to go to the restroom during independent practice only/end of your block. Only one student should allowed out of your classroom at a time. Monitor the time that students are out of the classroom as well.
This week, April and Operations Team will be delivering passes to each classroom. Any student who needs to leave your classroom space must have this pass with them. There will be one pass for bathroom and one HALL pass (front office, etc.).
Operations Action Items - From April
Tuesday 1/19/16 we will have a whole school Launch. We will talk about the Cafeteria expectations.
Beginning Tuesday, January 19th, car riders: Please have car riders ready to be dismissed from class at 3:45 daily. A member of Support Staff will come to each class to pick them up and escort them to the Cafeteria. Students can or should have a book in their hand so that this transition is in Zone Zero. Please make sure that they have all their belongings and they are ready to go.
Students will not be allowed to go back to their bookbags during their lunch period to get their lunches. Remind students that it's there "core value of RESPONSIBILITY to put their lunches in the bin.
Beginning on Tuesday 01/19/16 please do not put lunch bins in the hallways. Support Staff will enter classrooms during breakfast clean up to collect them. This will help ensure that all lunches are going directly from the classroom straight to the cafeteria. It will also help with lunches they come up missing.\
If you have made plans to have students in your classroom during lunch, you are responsible for walking with each student back up from the cafeteria to your room. No students will be sent to classrooms during lunch without a teacher accompanying them.
Dress Code
Purple jackets and sweaters inside of the building,
Build in time for students to get their outerwear coats, hats and gloves when leaving for lunch/recess.
Build in time for students to put their outerwear coats, hats and gloves when coming back from lunch/recess. Be sure to check for 100% dress code compliance after the lunch/recess period with your cohort.
*If the temperature is 35 degrees or below, recess will be held inside.
Teacher Evaluations
mportant Update on Teacher Performance Evaluations (Math/Science and Humanities Teachers)
Over the summer at PD, we shared an overview of the updated teacher performance evaluation for 2015-16 with all teachers.
(1) A full 1-5 rating scale with data cut-offs for all student achievement and parent metrics is now available. (In the summer we provided the metrics and level 4 rating but not the full 1-5 scale). Rating scale may be found in this powerpoint.
(2) A complete Teaching Performance Rubric that details what a 1-5 rating looks like, in alignment with our updated instructional model is available. The categories are the same as in previous years and what was shared in the summer but there is now a full rubric. You may view the full rubric here.
Dismissal
Weekly Events
Tuesday:
Fitness Class - 4:30-5:30pm
Chioma Umunakwe, Assistant Principal at Rocketship Spark - on campus visiting classrooms and learning spaces
Weekly Reports go home
Wednesday:
I do/lesson opening Video Analysis Protocol due to Coach by CoB.
Chioma Umunakwe, Assistant Principal at Rocketship Spark - on campus visiting classrooms and learning spaces
RNNE 16-17 Intent Return Letter (for students) - must be sent home. As you receive them back, send/bring them to the front office so that we have an accurate count of student seats that are open for student recruitment. All letters must be returned by January 27th.
Thursday:
Chioma Umunakwe, Assistant Principal at Rocketship Spark - on campus visiting classrooms and learning spaces
No PD
Friday:
Teacher Candidate on campus - interviews held Friday morning
Kelly Harris Perrin - Executive Coach - on campus visiting
Landing
Types of Talk Video Analysis due to Coach by CoB.
School Closing/Snow Days
LiveSchool School Report
SHOUT OUT to the top 5 Recording Teachers with strong positive to negative ratio!
Ms. Sanders
Mrs. Harriel
Mrs. Plever
Ms. Koenen
Ms. Barr
WooHoo!!! Keep up the amazing work!
SHOUT OUT to the entire staff for a STRONG positive: negative ratio of 10:1! Let's continue this trend and increase our positive even more!
Yes!!! Let's continue to make our student culture positive, warm and joyful for our Rocketeers! They deserve it!