Husky Times
Leading the pack in education
HHE Mission
CALENDAR
DATES
April 4 House Meeting, Brief Faculty Meeting & Vertical Teams, PTA Board Meeting
April 4-20 Open enrollment period for students out of district or out of "zone"
April 8 Doughnuts with Dad 7:30-8:30 Outside Gym
April 8 RHS Elementary Cluster Concert 6:30-7:30 @ Coliseum
April 11 House Meeting and Campus Teams
April 12 Dr. Clark Visit to see Tier 1 Priorities and Standards Based Instruction
April 12 3rd Grade Musical 2:00-2:30 and 7:00-7:30
April 15 Community Coffee and End of the 5th Six Weeks
April 18 Faculty Meeting
April 19 Grades Due in Skyward for 5th Six Weeks
April 20 LOL in the Afternoon
April 21 PLC/Art Day
April 22 House Celebration Meeting
Patrice's Courtyard
Spring Cleaning
If you have any old items stored in the lounge refrigerators, please take them home this week.
Also there was a Diet Coke placed in the freezer last week that exploded. This is the 3rd time in the last 2 months this has happened. When putting an item like this in the freezer, please set a timer on your phone to make sure you get it out before it explodes.
April 18th Faculty Meeting
Jeff Samuelson coming to present the information about the resources we will receive from Technology Bond. He will also talk to us about what supports will be available next year to fully integrate the resources into our practice. At the end of the presentation he will answer questions and address any concerns you have.
Retention Considerations
We are now midway into the 5th six weeks and it is time to start collecting information to see if it might be beneficial for students to repeat a grade. (Note: student must not have been retained previously or currently receiving services through special education for academics)
If a parent has raised the concern of retention, you have spoken with the parent about the possibility, or if we have met on a student in Care Team this year and they are still not showing the progress that would make them successful in the next grade level and you are referring them to the Grade Placement Committee for consideration of retention as a possibility, please do the following:
- Any time starting Monday April 4th, pick-up, and sign-out for a Light’s Retention Scale from Mr. Wamsley’s office.
- Gather copies of information on student’s performance/grades, interventions, attendance (including tardies), conferences, CARE team minutes, discipline/conduct, and testing information.
- Fill the Light’s Retention Scale out and return it to Mr. Wamsley’s office in a folder along with the above information. He will score it, share the results with you, and give you some informative documents that explain the research behind the instrument.
- Contact the parent and update them on their child’s continued struggle during report card time ( April 19-29). Let them know that a grade placement committee meets at the end of the year on students who are not promoted to the next grade level and they make a decision on what grade the student will be placed in the following year. Tell them that we use a comprehensive instrument that looks at the whole child to help determine the best course of action to increase their child’s long term success.
- Share these results with parents in a conference (Mr. Wamsley has a parent information page that can help facilitate this).
- The folder will be kept in the office and will be used as part of the data in the decision the grade placement committee makes this year.
Please let Erin or I know if you have any questions.
Dr. Clark Visit
ELAR Priorities Presentation
http://www.birdvilleschools.net/cms/lib2/TX01000797/Centricity/Domain/3660/Elementary.pptx
If you do not have the 3 Kinds of Thinking Poster, please let me know
Math Priorities Presentation
Science Priorities Presentation
Social Studies Priorities Presentation
Locked Gates
CAMPUS ACTION:
All locks are keyed to your building’s master keying system, so the head custodian’s key and the teachers’ classroom keys will work the locks at your campus. It is very important that during the day the padlocks remain LOCKED. All visitors must enter through the front doors and check in with the office while gates are supposed to be locked. We all need to adjust to the new normal and adhere to the cowboy gate rule of “you go through it, you lock it back”.
HEAD CUSTODIANS ACTION:
Every school day, LOCK the pedestrian gates at the start of the day. For HHE this will be 7:15 AM
Every school day, UNLOCK the pedestrian gates at the end of day. For HHE this will be 4:00 PM
Pedestrian gates are to be UNLOCKED anytime school is out and LOCKED anytime school is in.
Do not unlock the wide vehicle gates. These are for B&G use only.
Online Campus Transfer Requests: March 21 - Summer
I have 2 primary goals as a principal and I see these as overlapping priorities: for every student to receive the best possible education and for every adult I serve to love doing this. If you for any reason would like to transfer to a different position, grade level or school- please let me know and I will do everything I can to help you. Please come ask me if you have any questions. Thank you
http://birdvilleschools.net/cms/lib2/TX01000797/Centricity/Domain/3450/eTinstructions_staff2016.pdf
Genius Hour: Where Passions Come Alive
Recently Mrs. Dunahoo, with a team from BISD, visited a school where students persued their passions for one hour a week and used this passion to make meaningful connections with all their content on a daily basis. This learning has been called "Genius Hour" and has been proven to be very positive for students on many levels.
Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. Below is a short video with some basic information on this concept and a link to their homepage.
This is not something that we will be doing as a whole school next year, but from what I have seen it seems very student centered and well worth further examination. If you would be interested in looking into this more with me, please send me an email and we can get together to discuss how we can learn more about this practice.
Recess and Quiet Zone
As testing time comes closer for 5th grade it is important that we all do what we can as a team to help them out. It will be a huge help if you could use an alternate route other than passing their classrooms to go to and from the playground. It creates significant noise in the classrooms when the door is open to have students enter or exit the building. The red area is the absolutely no talking zone. If students are playing outside, please let them know they need to stay away from this area and there should be no noise close to the building.
Thank you!
Open Enrollment Information
Applications for open enrollment for the 2016–17 school year will only be accepted April 4–29
Click title for additional details or go to www.birdvilleschools.net/openenrollment
TAGT on Demand
TAGT On Demand is now open for teachers who are interested in getting started on their annual 6-hour update for 2016-2017. If there are teachers who did not complete their 30-hour or the 6-hour update for this year, they may also continue working on that task. District guidelines require that it be completed by December 31 each year, but the logins BISD paid for will be available until June 30. Please finish hours for this year as soon as possible. Courses are being posted in Workshop as quickly as possible once teachers submit their certificates to Katie Waldrip.
Reminders and Focus
The gates will be locked during school hours and can be opened by your key. During the school day (7:30-4:00 on none Aspire days: 7:00-6:00 on Aspire days) these gates are to be treated like an exterior door. Adults and teenagers should not enter these and should go through the main doors, even at dismissal.
- Our goal is to be level 3 (or moving close to it) in most areas on the district rubric for TEKS centered teaching. I have seen many great examples of students interacting with the TEKS in class. Be sure to not only post them, but have discussions so that students understand the goal of their learning.
- Continue to build strong, positive relationships with all the students. Smile often. Choose to see the good and positive. Focus on growth and celebrate often. Nothing is more helpful in the learning process than the effects of trust and joy.
- PLC's should be meeting weekly to answer the 4 questions. Common Formative Assessments should done after mapping out the six weeks, then planning for learning should take place. If you need any support in this, please contact our coaches, Erin, and myself.
- Rigor, relevance, and engagement strategies should be focus on when planning student learning tasks.
Husky Pride
Location: 5221 Susan Lee Ln, North Richland Hills, TX, United States
Phone: 817-547-2600
Facebook: facebook.com/bisdhhe
Twitter: @twitter_bisdhhe