Speer Weekly Email #4
September 18th, 2023
Upcoming Birthdays!
All Staff
Staff Meetings this week:
Please refer to the staff calendar for future meetings.
DEI
Hey y’all,
We are continuing our celebration of Hispanic/Latin(o/a/x) Month! I hope that we can continue to show recognition and love for those who are a part of this community from this month and beyond. Below you will find some updates and reminders. As usual, if you have anything you would like to see happen this month, please reach out. Last, but certainly not least, thank you to the following people for collaborating on a great start to the month: Munive, Ortega, Miranda, Roman, Dorsey, Lesser, Corvino, Chesak, Hannah, Kosiba, and Sharkey! It couldn’t have been done without you.
Upcoming:
9/21: Continue to Dance w/MMOR. Sign ups are outside of RM114
9/27: Come out and Craft w/Ms. Talavera. Sign up to craft Ojos de Dio outside of RM107
9/29: Wear purple or teal/turquoise in support of Suicide Prevention. Expectations have been shared with advisors.
10/13: Wear RED in support of the community to reflect Prosperity, Progress, and Power. Expectations have been shared with advisors.
Ongoing:
Dance w/MMOR-A Dance Experience
Resources:
How to Celebrate HHM in Chicago
Field Museum-Latinx Heritage Month
The National Puerto Rican Museum
National Museum of Mexican Art
Bookshop-Hispanic Heritage Month
operations
Drill will occur in the AM - during 3rd period (please do not share that with students)
Clipboards in your room should be up-to-date - make sure to locate yours!
Please make sure you have reviewed procedures with your advisory and feel comfortable with them yourself - send any questions you may have to Isca.
If you know of any students with mobility limitations, send their name to Isca so we can ensure safe evacuation.
Culture
Expectations Reminders:
Teachers at Door:
Great job of greeting our students in the mornings, lets keep this energy at the end of the day and stand at the doors at dismissal and make sure we are seeing our students off safely.
Uniforms:
- Students should have IDs around their necks on school lanyards. We have seen an increase of students with them in their pockets or not wearing them. Staff as reminder as you are doing uniform checks for students as they are entering spaces make sure they are wearing ID’s. Remember any student without and ID around their neck on school issued lanyard is out of uniform and you should call for a uniform escort and you should also be logging it.
Students in Hallway:
Students should not be in the halls without an escort unless on e-hall pass. Culture team has noticed a handful of students at the printers in the hallway. This is NOT allowed, and students will be sent back to class if seen at the printer.
Behavior Log Notification:
There has been some advisor/advisee feedback that students are not being told when they are receiving a behavior log. This conversation should happen every time a student receives a log, so they are aware of their behavior, consequences for behavior, and how to positively move forward in class. A surprise log can come off as if we are trying to set the student up for failure (student words), and we only want to offer high expectations and support.
Tier 3/Tier 4 Logs:
Reminder that all Tier 3/4 logs should be reported to Culture immediately
Weekly Reflections PS:
Advisors/Teachers, if a student asks you for the reason for getting a Weekly Reflection, you can go to Log Entries>Reflection Sessions in Powerschool. The "description" describes the reason for their weekly reflection. The "consequence" line names whether or not they attended.
Calendar:
- 9/18- AIP Begins
- 9/25-9/29- Speer-it Week
- 9/30- Homecoming Dance
- Upcoming Testing
- 10/4 Interim #1 (9th-11th)
- 10/11- SAT (12th)
- 10/24
- PSAT 8/9 (9th)
- PSAT/NMSQT (10th)
- 10/25
- PSAT/NMSQT (11th)
Culture Data:
School-wide Attendance
Key reasons for misses:
-consistency --not following through 100% on given expectations in the classroom (example: if a teacher says "I am waiting for all students to put pencils down", then the expectation is that 100% of students put their pencils down. The auditor will deduct points for each student that doesn not put their pencil down.)
-trash found in the hallways and on classroom floors
YTD Weekly Reflection Attendance Rate 73% 128 Students earned a weekly reflection session for this week 5 Students earned a R^3 session for this week Top 3 Behavior Logs: Tardy to School: 641 Tardy to Class less than 3 min: 551 Not Meeting a SchoolWide Expectations: 146
Academics
AIP:
AIP is beginning this week
Someone will be coming by classroom during 6th period to escort students with AIP to the gym for an all school announcement.
Students will be dismissed form the gym to office hours and AIP.
Use the 9/18 AIP Attendance form to take attendance of students once AIP starts.
AIP Weeks 2 and 3 (9/25-10/4)
Thank you for voting for the weeks 2 and 3 support system.
83.3% of the votes voted for students to be picked up from 6th period classes.
We will continue picking students up during 6th period until the Q1 interim on October 4th.
AIP for the remainder of the year
Students will be dismissed regularly with everyone else and be expected to get to office hours on their own.
Academic Approach PD (9/22):
We have hired Academic Approach to come this Friday to run a PD around the new digital (P)SAT. If you are teaching a class aligned to the (P)SAT, please complete the section of the Quarter 1 interim aligned to your class.
Academics Data:
Schoolwide unweighted GPA
Textbooks:
We were informed by the fire marshall that the room where we used to store textbooks and books that we are not currently using. As a result, we must store all books and textbooks on the bookshelves in our classrooms. If there are books/textbooks you no longer want, please reach out to your DoI to see if someone else may want to use them in their classrooms.
Commitments Corner:
The Noble Network has highlighted our 6 commitments to our families under the following buckets: Academics, College, Operations, School Culture and Climate, Staff Experience, Student and Family Experience. A full description of each commitment can be found here: Noble 6 Commitments.pdf
Shout Out --Swain, Sivaja, Bassett
Swain, Sivaja, and Baseett created a new and updated mentorship program. In taking over this program they designed it to ensure that our new staff members have a great experience at Speer during their first year! Two weeks ago they held their first mentorship lunch in order to support our new teachers answering questions and giving snapshots of what is to come. Thank you three for taking on this amazing program and tweaking it to ensure that Speer is the best place to work!
specialized services
IEPs/504s: The following students had IEP/504 meetings last week. Please review the list below and update your documentation with these students’ accommodations if you have them in class.
9th: n/a
10th: Dayrin Tirado, Myles Tenard
11th: n/a
12th:n/a
Helpful links: Care Solis; Don Jonston one pager; Upcoming IEP/504 Meetings; SW referral link; Crisis FlowChart
ML Department
advisory
Advisory Announcements:
- Check the Weekly Reflection Attendance Tracker here. Check in with students that did not attend and remind them that 2 missed Weekly Reflections and they will have to attend a Quarterly Self– Discipline Course.
- Please review students Weekly Reflections sessions plans they are placed in advisors mailboxes every Friday by 5pm
- Check in with advisees that have less than 90% attendance rate. Let’s figure out how to support these students.
- Please remind students with AIP of the days they are set to attend.
network updates
*Action Item* The SY24 Requirements Checklist is now past due. (HR/Compliance)
If you have not completed your trainings and sign-offs in Paycom, please do so immediately. HR will be following up with individuals and their leaders. All mandatory requirements are listed below and available here: