Cordata Weekly Bulletin
9/17/2018
Good morning, Cordata family!
The purpose of this weekly bulletin is to keep everyone informed of upcoming events, and to reduce the need for staff meeting time dedicated to nitty gritty details. I hope you are finding them helpful. I encourage you to save them for later reference. Be sure to read the "other news and information" section carefully, it is really full of info this week. And the learning link at the end comes straight out of the book Comprehension and Collaboration, which should be in the hands of all of our teaching staff to support our learning about inquiry this year.
The week ahead - 9/17 - 9/21
Upcoming Dates
- Sept. 25 - Individual Student Picture Day
- Sept. 25 - 2:40 - New teacher meeting, Analisa's office
- Sept. 27 - DESSA assessment window opens, through 10/7
- Sept. 27 - Open House for kindergarten through 2nd grade - 6:00-7:00 pm
- October 2 - 2:45-3:45 - Staff meeting
- October 4 - Fall spread in the staff room - stop by the staff room for some treats hosted by Sunshine Team
- October 4 - 1:00-2:00 - Data team meeting with Sound Discipline support; 3:00-4:00 Behavior Team with Sound Discipline support
- October 5 - Pumpkin Fun Run
- October 18 - Sunshine potluck
- Nov. 2 - all day parent-teacher conferences (other Thursday afternoons in November are available as well)
- Nov. 8 - afternoon and evening parent-teacher conferences
Other News and Information
- Classroom teachers, if you haven't yet done so, please put a hard copy of your classroom daily/weekly schedule in my mailbox.
Classified staff, please make sure that Minh has an up to date copy of your daily schedule as well. Thanks! - Teachers, please give some thought to emergency sub plans! You never know when the need will arise, so it is good to keep an emergency sub plan folder visible on or near your desk. In addition to your daily/weekly schedule and general plans that a sub can follow if you are not able to leave more detailed plans, it should also include the roster of student health alerts in your class. If you are not familiar with this list of life threatening health conditions of your students, please see Laura.
note: for teachers who have been at Cordata in years past, you may remember the orange sub notebook with individual health alerts for each student. This year the roster will replace the individual plans for sharing with subs. You may want to use the orange notebook to hold your emergency sub plans. - When we met with Penny and Corinna from Sound Discipline on August 27, some of you were interested in looking further at the Mistaken Goal sheet that helps us to think about the possible beliefs behind the challenging behavior that we're seeing. I said I would send that document to you - you can find it online, as well as saved in our Cordata Students OneNote notebook. We frequently use this document in Child Study Team meetings. CST's are up and running already this year! Anyone can request a CST for a student about whom you have either behavioral or academic concerns. The protocol we use is a powerful way to surface strengths and capture challenges, and to build partnerships with families as we determine the path forward in supporting a child. Just speak to Dan, Carissa, Minh or myself and we will arrange for one of us to join you to facilitate.
- This week, I will be working on arranging cross-grade-level buddy classes so that we can get started with that aspect of Caring School Communities. Thank you for your patience with this! If you have partnered with another teacher for buddy classes in the past and would like me to consider continuing that partnership, please let me know on Monday. Because we want to include all classes this year, we may need to make changes to past partnerships, but I will take your requests into consideration.
- Teachers, don't forget to add your volunteer wishes to this SharePoint document which will help us to match volunteers with our needs in the building.
- A reminder for all staff: If you have not yet found time to view the powerpoint and read the accompanying notes on your own,and sign off on the sheet in my mailbox, then will see you at our staff meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
In closing . . .
"Learning is a consequence of thinking."
Learning is a consequence of thinking. This sentence turns topsy-turvy the conventional pattern of schooling. The conventional pattern says that first students acquire knowledge. Only then do they think with and about the knowledge they have absorbed. But it is really just the opposite: Far from thinking coming after knowledge, knowledge comes on the coattails of thinking. As we think about and with the content we are learning, we truly learn it. Knowledge does not just sit there. It functions richly in people's lives so they can learn about and deal with the world.
What will the thinking look like around Cordata this week? Will it be visible in reading, writing, drawing, viewing, talking, listening, doing, dramatizing, investigating? and what knowledge will grow from it?