RNNE : Team and Family
"If not us, then who? If not now, then when?"
Team & Family
We have completed our first 4 weeks of school! During this time, we have ushered in a new year with Rocketeers from last year as well as those joining us this year, began to establish strong relationships with families through home visits and daily communication as well as leaned on each other with our days seemed to hard to bear. During this time, we have been on a roller coaster of emotions - excitement about the beginning of a new year, anxious about creating a strong classroom culture with our new cohorts, despair when it seemed even our best laid plans seemed not to be adequate and still, a sense of hope at what our true calling as educators in our field of education is.
We are blessed to work in a sector of education that not only transforms the lives of the Rocketeers that we impact on a daily basis, but one that transforms entire families. Transformation takes place when a Rocketeer becomes confident about who they are for the first time, when they recognize that we will love them through their trauma and hold steadfast to the belief that they can and will become great. Transformation happens when a parent who is fearful of being blamed for their child's misbehavior is now welcomed as a valued partner towards a better educational experience for their child. Transformation takes place when we support and continue to be a positive beacon of light for our teammates even when our days seem darkest. Transformation does not happen overnight. This will be my 9th year in education and of the many things that I've learned, I've learned that transformation takes time - dedicated time - to come to fruition. Each year that I've been teaching and/or coaching in schools, I've hit roadblocks when it seemed that student misbehavior and cultural breaches seemed to emotionally drown me. It never fails - I always hit this point, but now I've recognized that this is okay for me to feel this way. I know that this is okay because out of all of the hard times, mountains and low valleys that I've been faced with as an educator within schools where trauma is at its highest, I know without any doubt that this is where I want to be. The daily grind of figuring out how to problem-solve around this truly pays off when we are able to see students who came to us brokenhearted and downtrodden by past educational experiences bloom, shine and take off on an entirely new trajectory.
I share that with you only to name that if you are feeling frustrated or in despair about student culture in your classroom, it is okay. This feeling is underscored by a love and passion for the future that you want to urgently actualize for your students. Your purpose for being here with our Rocketeers serves as a daily reminder of the reason why YOU were divinely chosen to be in their lives this year at this school and in your learning space.
Give yourself grace for mistakes that you make and continue remember that your Rocketeers are depending on you to value who they are, believe in them and never give up on them. Think back on a school staff member from your own educational experience who has made a lasting impact in your life. Now, work to emulate this same positive impact in the lives of your Rocketeers. Our Rocketeers pick up on how much we value them, love them and believe in them by analyzing our choices and actions with them, the words that we use and the attempts that we make at authentic relationship-building with them. I am going to commit to allowing my days to be guided by this thought throughout this week.
Thank you ALL for being steadfastly committed to loving, believing in and valuing our Rocketeers on a daily basis!
Love you always,
Christa
Focus Areas
Cultural Focus Areas
The Instructional Leadership Team will be observing for each of these focus areas during walkthroughs and classroom observations this week:
In order to maintain a positive culture in your classroom/with your students, positively frame any correction/consequence with students. This does not mean that you need to become "Pollyanna" and only see your classroom through rose-colored glasses (this is a misconception of Positive Framing). Positive Framing ensures that you are always maintaining the dignity and respect of students even if they have failed to comply with your directions. You are still "with it" in your classroom by noticing all behaviors - compliant and non-compliant - but you send a message to your students, just like the one that we want society giving them, that they while they made a mistake, they are still valued.
We recognize that this can be difficult at times. Coaches will observe for positively framed statements given to Rocketeers as well as "in the moment" coach for it to help develop staff skill around this. Positive Framing comes through in our facial expressions, choice of words/statements and voice tone (even toned vs. yelling).
As Danny stated in a previous e-mail, we intentionally walked into the "trap" and internalized what we were going to see this year. We prepared for this. We planned for this. We can handle this and show how a school can handle our level of challenges while honoring the students that we serve without becoming militaristic and negative. When we choose to actively use Positive Framing with students, we are taking on step closer to dismantling the "prison to pipeline" educational experience for low-income students.
When we negatively frame corrections/consequences for students, while it may seem that it "fixes" the problem in the moment, it actually leads to a long-term fracture in your classroom where students began to emulate the teacher's negative tone with each other and oftentimes, back with the teacher themselves. Creating a negative culture this early in the school year will, unfortunately, lead to a ongoing battle of negativity within your learning space for the next 9 months.
Great article that helped me to reflect on my own practice this weekend: Positive Framing
"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." - James Baldwin
Student Culture Rubric: Positive Framing
Non-verbal Signals
At this point in the year, as we are diving deeper into our academic content, it is prudent that we preserve our voice for instruction as much as possible. The use of non-verbals allows for us to correct/remind students without having to use our voices to do so and to use the most basic form of least invasive correction when a behavior can be fixed with it.
Here is a list of example non-verbal signals that you can use with your students to remind/correct when needed.
This is also a great article on one teacher's powerful use of non-verbal signals (we saw her in our PD during the summer) and she strategically uses them while maintaining the pace of her instruction.
Shout out to teachers on the upper school floor who have increased their use of non-verbals to cut down on their bathroom break timing! 2nd grade has now decreased their bathroom breaks to only take 6 minutes!
Positive Incentives/Narration
Use the various tools at your disposal to highlight students who are complying with your directions.
This acknowledgement helps students to become invested in complying with directions because you are highlighting what you value. Also, positive narration and incentives is a celebration for you because it is a clear visual to show that you did a great job in setting students up for success!
Specific strengths in our building to use a support:
Positive Incentives: LiveSchool Positive Points
- Kindergarten Team: over the course of last week, they collectively gave 4,194 LiveSchool Positive Points to their Rocketeers! Ms. Barr currently is the top LiveSchool Positive Point distributor with 2,064 LiveSchool Positive Points given to students.
- First Grade Team: over the course of last week, they collectively gave 3, 845 LiveSchool Positive Points!
- Kindergarten and 2nd Grade: they are currently tied for the Core Value Rocket Grade Level Reward Party on Wednesday! Check out their bins at Launch tomorrow and Tuesday. Tuesday is the LAST day to add in Core Value Rockets to go towards your grade level possibly earning the reward party this Wednesday.
- Teachers taking their tablets with them on class bathroom breaks to give and show LiveSchool Positive Points to students!
- Kindergarten and 2nd grade are currently tied to win the Core Value Rocket Grade Level Reward! All grade levels, be sure to increase your grade level's chances of earning the party this week by making it rain in class, in the hallways, at the bathroom with Core Value Rockets! I've found it easier for me to attach a blinder clip to my lanyard and clip Core Value Rockets to it so that it is easier for me to carry and serves as a visual reminder for me to give them out.
Academic Focus Areas
STEP testing begins this week! I'm excited about this because instilling a love of reading and literacy in our students through their growth in learning to read is one of the most powerful tools we are charged with equipping them with! This data, along with MAP, will help us to better understand our students' strength and areas of instructional need.
Be sure to enter your STEP testing schedule into this doc by 6pm. This will help to map out your testing responsibilities and create a clear path of action for you. Take a look at Ms. Barr's and Ms. Koenen's if you would like an example on how to complete it. As always, reach out to your coach if you need more support in completing it by the deadline.
Upper School
Double Plans - Teacher Exemplar Responses
Exemplar Responses: Be sure to include the exemplar responses for each question that you have included in your double plan. The instructional school leadership team will be checking for these in the submission of next week's IPs.
Exemplar responses helps to ensure that you have a clear vision of mastery for anticipated student answers as well as a plan of action on how to bridge the gap between a student's misunderstanding to the level of mastery you have planned for them to reach by the end of the lesson.
Double Plans on Student Desks
Have all student double plans out on their desks before Threshold begins so that they get started with their Do Now as soon as they finish greeting you at Threshold. Be sure to narrate students getting started with their Do Now right away once they get to their seats.
The instructional leadership team will be observing for this in classroom pop-in observations, scheduled observations and walkthroughs this week.
Efficiency Tip: I used to have a student from my previous class stay behind and place the double plans on each student's desk. This allowed me to transition my class and have the double plans out and ready when I ushered my new class into the classroom.
Student Desk Cleanliness
Student desks can become collectors of trash, debris and clutter really quickly! This sends a message to students about your level of radar within your classroom.
I know how difficult this can be to manage on top of everything else. I used to leave the last 5 minutes of class as a time for them to ensure that their desks were straightened in the row/with the group, there wasn't any extra paper in their desks and that they picked up any random paper on the floor around them. We heavily followed "leave a place better than you found it." This helped to send the message to my students that I was aware of every single thing that happened in our classroom - from behavior to the smallest pieces of trash on the floor.
Be sure to check out your student desks and have either every student or assign it as a job for a student in every class to check for clean desks inside/on top/around it on the floor at the end of each class.
At the end of each day, wipe down student desks/have a student wipe them down before your first class (an early arrival student would be great for this) to help 1) cut down on health issues like colds being passed and 2) to rid the desktops of any pencil marks so that your room presents clean and crisp at the beginning of each day.
Community Meeting
Our first Community Meeting is Tuesday, August 25th. Dinner will be served in the cafeteria beginning at 5:00pm.
Parents/families will convene in the gym for the information portion of the meeting. The meeting will cover: MAP, school-wide systems and routines, report card overview, parent/family engagement and parent leadership at RNNE.
Almeta has also included information about the Community Meeting in the Rocketship Report and OneCalls sent to families. Tomorrow, there will be stickers to go home on each student also publicizing the meeting as well as again in the Rocketship Report. The stickers will be delivered by the front office in your bins.
There will be childcare offered for families. A movie will be shown to students during the Community Meeting. If you are interested in supervising students during the movie, please reach out to me to let me know!
Data Day
Friday's schedule has been communicated to you by the specific deliverables per your coach. Follow up with them directly if you have any questions about Friday's schedule for your specific content area.
Dress is casual on Thursday and business casual on Friday (for interactions with families and local area schools).
PBIS Cohort Trackers
PBIS Grade-Level Incentive Tool
GLTs will receive one cohort tracker as a visual tool for challenging and incentivizing LiveSchool point earnings for your cohorts. Shout out to Teresa for the design!
The Cohort Trackers will delivered to each math classroom.
These laminated posters should go up in the GLTs math classroom and be updated each week. I'll send you current totals before school Monday. The PBIS team created a goal of 2,000 points per cohort. As a GLT, you decide what the reward will be when a cohort reaches that goal. Reach out to me or your grade's PBIS liaison if you'd like help with ideas!
Core Value Rocket Grade Level Reward
Please be sure to bring down all of your students' core value rockets collected at your last designated Launch this week on Monday or Tuesday. Tuesday morning at 8:30am will be the last day to turn in collected Core Value Rockets.
I will send out an e-mail naming the grade level winner by 12:00noon on Tuesday so that the winning grade level has a heads up about their schedule for Wednesday. As a staff, let's be sure to congratulate the winning grade level!
August's Core Value Rocket Grade Level Party will be held on Wednesday in the cafeteria beginning at 2:45pm and ending at 3:30pm. If you are the winning grade level, be sure to have your students seated in the cafeteria by 2:45pm.
Check out the monthly Core Value Rocket Grade Level Rewards for the year here.
Home Visit Tracker
Be sure to keep the Home Visit Tracker updated as you complete your home visits so that your home visit completion can be updated and recorded accurately. As of now, it seems that most teachers are on track to meet the 47% completion percentage benchmark goal by the end of this week! That speaks to the dedication and value you have each placed on the importance of building strong relationships with students and families.
Currently, the following teachers have met their Home Visit Completion Goal for this point in the year (last benchmark was the August 3-4 PD Days - 37%)!:
- Barr
- Potter
- Koenen
- Johnson
- Davis
- Arnold
- Mays
- Plever
- Frazier
- Harriel
- Bing
- Linehan
- Crosthwait
- Coach Elmore
- Sanders
- ILS Team (Bowen, Weber, Newsom, Franklin: even though they do not have a specific number of home visits to complete, they have all joined in to accompany teachers on home visits!) #authenticteam
The following teachers have already met the September Benchmark Goal!:
- Barr - 80% completed
- Potter - 76% completed
- Plever - 71% completed
Rocketship Education Physical Space Vision
As a school, we are zooming in on teacher and student organization rubric rows for the next two weeks.
As of a point of celebration, our hallways with backpacks have looked really amazing! All backpacks are always placed on hooks, no loose papers on the counters above the backpacks and the floor underneath the backpacks are consistently clear and free of clutter. This speaks to your level of radar and honing in on this with students at arrival and throughout the day!
Focus Area: Be sure to use organizational trays on your counters to keep them free of clutter and piles of paper (student handouts, collected student work, etc.).
RNNE Staff Picnic
Huge shout out to Almeta for thinking of the idea for it and planning the logistics of it and to Almeta and April for meeting at Sam's Club yesterday to purchase the meat for the BBQ!
Below, is the breakdown of what each team is responsible for bringing. Also, if you know someone (or you!) who is great at grilling, please reach out to Almeta so that her husband can have some support on the grill!
As stated before, this is a FAMILY event! So, please bring your family members! We know how much of a huge time commitment it is to be a spouse of a Rocketship staff member, so we want them to know that they, too, are a beautiful part of our family! It is our goal as a leadership team to ensure that there is always a balance of family-planned events so that your spouse and little ones can be involved! We're so excited to meet them! I've heard that we might even get a chance to meet the Song boys!!
Location: Percy Priest Lake
Campground:SEVEN POINTS
Address: 1810 Stewarts Ferry Pike, Hermitage, TN 37076
Site Type: GROUP SHELTER NONELECTRIC
Date: Saturday Aug 29, 2015
Arrival Time: 9:00 AM
Ending Time: 7:00 PM
# of Occupants: 150# of Vehicles: 65
# OF PETS: 0
Rocketship will supply all the meat and coolers for the event. In order to make this event a success, we are asking that each grade level/department provide something for the event. I have broken up the grade levels/departments up to ensure we have enough food for everyone.
Kinder Teachers
First Grade Teachers
Second Grade Teachers
Third Grade Teachers
Fourth Grade Teachers
Learning Lab Team
Enrichment Team
ISE Team
Support Staff
Listed below are the items we will need: Please note we want to have enough food for 200 people.
Paper plates, cups, pans and utensils (disposable) (Learning Lab)
Waters, juice, sodas and ice (no glass bottles) (ISE Team)
Chips and Dips (Support Staff)
Desserts (pre-cut) (4th Grade Team)
Bread, buns (hot dog and hamburgers) (Support Staff)
Condiments and napkins (paper towels) (Support Staff)
Hand Sanitizers (Support Staff)
Several Side Dishes: (1st, 2nd, 3rd and Kinder Grade Teams)
Cole Slaw, Baked Beans, Spaghetti, Salad and dressing, fruit tray, veggie tray, Cheese Tray, Potato Salad, Greens or String Beans....Please get together and decide who will bring what. Other ideas will be great!
Table cloths and garbage bags, foil (Learning Lab)
Charcoal and Lighter fluid (5 bags and 2 fluids) (Enrichment Team)
Extra Grill....If possible (Learning Lab)
Insect Repellent (Everyone)
We will begin barbecuing at approximately 9am. For those interested in helping on the grill, please let me know asap. We are asking that everyone arrive 11:am. There will be a location for families to swim or explore this beautiful location. Please make sure you bring your own towels if you will be swimming.
Student Support Team (SST) Meetings
Be on the lookout from Caity about SST Meetings scheduled for your students so that you are prepared to attend with the necessary paperwork completed. If you have any questions about completing any of the paperwork, please don't hesitate to reach out to her.
Daily Round Up
In this early part of the school year, it is important that we keeping culture tight so that we can begin to dedicate our time to academic development. These daily round ups will be a way for us to close the feedback loop in a much tighter way so that you can see ways that you have improved throughout the course of the week as well as quick hit areas to focus on.
Being a school leader allows me a bird's eye view of everything taking place within the school in order to determine if we are on/off track towards meeting the promises we've made to families, our vision for this year as Freedom Riders as well as quantitative network goals to ensure that we are aligned with our network's vision. These e-mails are a way for me to provide you with daily updates about our progress towards these areas.
These e-mails will go out no later than 8pm each evening. These daily round ups will not be present every day for the rest of the school year; they are just a way for us to tighten the foundation of our school year.
RNNE Events Calendar
If your grade level has not designated field trips or grade level events for the year, please work with your coach this week to do so.
Be sure to check out the Staff Events tab for the many amazing events that the Sunshine Committee has planned for this year! They also have planned for even more exciting, joyous events to take place throughout the year! Shout out to the Sunshine Committee!
Weekly Inspiration: Deonte Bridges' Valedictorian Speech
This week, I've reflected on the difficult behavioral experiences and trauma that have been represented mostly by our African American boys.
My own nephews have also had issues with behavior in school, so it has always been both a pain point and a source of inspiration for why I remain in this tough work. I know that this is also one of the many purposes behind your work as well.
That's the power of an authentic team who is ready to do whatever it takes to provide an excellent, high-quality education for all of our students.
This video of Deonte Bridges, an African American male high school valedictorian, has always provided me with inspiration on my fervent prayers for the success and many blessings to poured on their lives throughout their educational experience. His reality of success is what I pray for all of our students.
#goal-orientedintentional
#intervention
#authenticteam
Shout out to our amazing Operations Team!
Thank you to our Operations Team for the AMAZING #authenticteamwork that you all show everyday!
Thank you April and David for your wonderful leadership!