Wildcat Weekly
April 01, 2019
Happy Birthday!
No Wildcat Weekly last week, so this is last week's birthdays. There are none this week.
THOMASSON, DANIELLE
18-Mar
CORDER, KENDAL
21-Mar
COATNEY, BRIAN
22-Mar
MAUTHE, TAMARA
22-Mar
SIMMONS, NICOLETTA
23-Mar
Look Who Visited Sigler Elementary --
2019 March - HRS Level Teacher/Staff Survey: Please complete.
Many surveys are still needed, so the window is still open. Please complete this week.
Last year we began development of the High Reliability Schools framework by administering the HRS Level 1 Survey. That data established a baseline and provided initial evidence of the PLC process on each campus. We will now administer the Level 1 Survey again to understand the progress made across the district. The survey is anonymous and will be taken online through SurveyMonkey. The survey should take 20-30 minutes to complete. Please complete the survey by Friday, March 29.
Link to Teacher Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NXBHLNJ
Grades
End of Year Purchases
Hi Everyone!
First, thank you all for a great year of purchase orders, fundraising, checks, deposits and all the fun financial things that go on @ PSHS. Jori and I appreciate your working so patiently with us as we find our way through this ever-changing maze of financial procedures.
Let’s get down to business….
MAY 1, 2019….THE DATE TO REMEMBER AS YOU PLAN THESE LAST FEW WEEKS.
- Personal checks from anyone for any event/purchase to PSHS will not be accepted on/after MAY 1, 2019….It is cash or money order only!
- Please be done with all of your ordering of supplies, etc. before the deadline…..that includes Office Depot, School Specialty, Amazon….anything you want to order from any vendor…..please get your po request form or email to us before May 1. Please think of any items you are needing to order for end-of-year classroom and extra curricular events….such as awards, trophies, ribbons, and food. If you need to know your balance in your account, please email Jori for 911 and 865 accounts and me for 199 accounts.
- Submit all check requests before MAY 1….clinicians, expense reports, reimbursements, registration fees…..any check requests.
- Retail card…..please get your last request for month of May to me before May 1.
- Grant awards….These follow the same procedures as a regular purchase order, so if you have grant money, be sure you use it and get your requests to me before May 1.
- We know there will be last minute things that come up, and we will work with you on those.
- Please do your very best (as you always do) to take a few moments to think about wrapping up this school year and remembering this MAY 1 DEADLINE.
Let’s all work together to close this year and be done! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!
Respectfully,
Jori & Shauna
Bowling Club/Team
This past weekend they placed 2nd in the STATE!
Congratulations to
Senior Sam Dlott
Junior Leonard Trey Bevels
Junior Sean Robinson
Junior Hayden Thomas
Junior Jacob Curtiss
Junior Connor St. John
Sophomore Jake Devoe
Freshman Shawn Hardin
ASL Club
Important Dates Through END OF THE YEAR!
4/3-4 -- Choir to UIL competition
4/3 -- Dance Class Showcase, 7 p.m., theatre
4/4 -- Orchestra Spring Concert
4/4 -- Service Awards Banquet, Southfork
4/4-7 -- Band Spring Trip to Corpus
4/5 -- Three-week eligibility check
4/5 -- ROTC Awards Ceremony, theatre
4/6-9 -- Choir Spring Trip to New Orleans
4/12 -- Spring Stay Day
4/12 -- chamber Singers Spring concert, Resurrection Lutheran Church
4/11-13 -- Planoettes Spring Show, theatre
4/15 -- Run Progress Reports for all students
4/15 -- ASVAB Testing available to all interested students. See Michelle Mendoza.
4/15 -- National Merit Dinner
4/16 -- Distribute Progress Reports to all students
4/16-18 -- Band UIL
4/18 -- AVID Banquet, Cafeteria
4/19-22 -- Holiday
4/23-24 -- AP Pre-Administration, Lecture Hall
4/24 -- Faculty Meetings, lunches, C111
4/24 -- Spring Fashion Show
4/25-26 -- Sing -- Music Corp spring concert, Theatre, 7:30 p.m.
4/26 -- Blood Drive
4/26-27 -- State VASE, San Marcos
4/27-28 -- PROM
4/29 -- Three-week eligibility check
5/1 -- Senior Lunch, Gym
5/3 -- Staff Appreciation Lunch
5/3-4 -- Percussion Concert, Spettacolo, Theatre
5/6-16 -- AP testing
5/6 -- Senior Awards, Theatre, 6 p.m.
5/6-10 -- Teacher Appreciation Week
5/7 -- AP Art Show, Cafeteria, after school
5/8 -- US History EOC and AP LIterature testing, schoolwide
5/9 -- Teacher of the Year Banquet
5/9 -- Dallas High School Musicals Awards
5/10 -- Pops by the Pond
5/11 -- PSHS Automotive Classes Classic Car Show, Independence Parking Lot
5/16 -- Band Prism Concert
5/21-24 -- Final Exams
5/21 -- Graduation Rehearsal, Gym
5/24 -- Senior Checkout, Gym
6/8 -- Graduation, Frisco Star, 9:30 a.m.
8/1-2 -- Teachers return. Campus inservice on those two days.
Volunteers Needed
Please let Erin Street know if you can help asap. Thank you!
Professional Learning
I. Campus and Personal Trade Hours: Do you have your hours???
Time to take a pulse check! Wondering how many hours you have logged as campus and personal trade hours? Just email Coryn and she’ll tell you!
II. There are still opportunities to sign up for Wellness PD. Here is the form to sign. We have adjusted the form so that you can sign up for multiple activities/dates at once. Hope you'll participate in these great activities designed to encourage a little self care!
III. Here are the dates when we will have campus pdh. These will also be in the lecture hall from 7:45-8:30, 3:30-4:15, and 4:30-5:15 each day.
4/1/19 IEP Implementation -- our special ed experts will discuss this important topic, B261 @ 8:00, lecture hall @ 3:30 and 4:30.
5/16/19 Collaborative teaming (progress assessment and planning)/Ashley Helms (afternoon times in C111)
These DO count toward your flex/trade hours.
IV. Campus Restorative Team -- Next session is THIS WEEK!
The SEL / Restorative Practices team has been working to put together several sessions of Professional Development for you to attend.
Most of the sessions are available to earn PD credit towards your required number of hours.
We are offering a variety of times for the session throughout the day.
Click the link below to register for the date, time, and room you are interested in. You may sign up for one each month or just select the one(s) that interest you.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfJ9bq3XyUiivIJ0UF6spqCUXVtO44jRiynxHlZPeH4wUuFnw/viewform
We look forward to sharing these strands with you this spring semester.
IV. Our district Social Emotional Learning/Restorative Practices training sessions are now open for enrollment in MyLearning Plan. Please share with your staff members as you see fit.
April 17 --3:30-5:30- Adult SEL Competence and Wellness- Bird Center-Building A
What If Every Student Wrote in Every Class Every Day? by Craig McKinney
Sometimes I like to dream big dreams. I revel in “What if?” scenarios. What if everyone on the planet got along? What if teachers got paid according to how difficult their job actually is? What if I had a dollar for every time a kid asked to borrow a pencil and then didn’t return it?
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what might happen in schools if every student wrote every day in every class. I know. It’s a crazy idea. But, as I said, I like to dream big dreams. If teachers in all subject areas—math, science, social studies, English, fine arts, LOTE, physical education, career and technical education—made it their mission to insert just a little bit of writing into their daily lesson plans, the results would be astonishing.
If every student wrote every day in every class, here’s what might happen:
Students would become more confident writers. Writing— like most things that are worth doing well—takes practice, and the more you do it, the better you get. Students don’t have to write formal papers (which, let’s face it, should be special-occasion experiences) in order to improve as writers. Quickwrites, short answers, explanatory paragraphs, summaries, and letters to the teacher (or other students) are all ways of practicing writing within academic disciplines. The simple act of stringing words together to make sentences and adding additional sentences until something emerges that makes sense builds confidence and self-efficacy.
Teachers would have a better idea of what students know and don’t know. Asking students to explain something in writing gives a glimpse into their understanding in a way that is more complete and nuanced than a multiple choice question or thumbs-up/thumbs-down or fist-to-five physical response. Writing is an easy-to-implement formative assessment tool at any point in the lesson cycle. Having students write what they already know about a topic prior to instruction can give teachers an idea of where to begin teaching the entire class or which students will need differentiation, either enrichment or remediation. Pausing mid-lesson to allow students to explain how they reached a solution or solved a problem can provide insight into their thought processes and help the teacher diagnose gaps in understanding. An exit ticket summarizing the day’s essential question on a notecard provides instantaneous feedback about whether students “got it” so teachers will know whether to move on or revisit the concept tomorrow.
Blank pages and blank stares would become things of the past. Like a car that’s been sitting undriven for a few months, many student writers have trouble getting started when they are asked to write. Once students start writing every day in every class, their batteries remain fully charged, and the ideas emerge much more readily. This is especially true when frequent writing activities are low-stakes, ones in which getting ideas down on paper doesn’t come with the “gotcha” of a grade attached. Writing in a fearful state is paralyzing. Writing (sans pressure) to explore what you think about a topic is freeing. Not every idea that comes out of your pen (or shows up on your screen) is going to be brilliant, but putting ideas into the world every day increases the odds that you’ll produce something worth saying.
Classroom conversations would be better. Writing before talking helps us generate ideas and clarify our thinking. How often, before a difficult conversation, do we write out and rehearse what we have to say to increase the chances of it coming out as intended? Similarly, allowing students to write a response to a question before a classroom discussion has several advantages. First, it provides every student a chance to wrestle with the thinking instead of sitting back and waiting for the loudmouth in the room to answer the question orally, freeing them from any obligation to think for themselves. Second, it gives students a chance to try out their ideas, to have some “think time,” and to organize their response before being asked to share it aloud. Whether or not the student is called on to respond, the student has done some thinking, and that’s what’s most important in an educational setting.
The quality of student writing would improve, which means, among other things, that writing test scores would increase. The more you write, the better you write. If you write every day, throughout the day, you’re bound to get better. Instead of complaining that “these kids can’t write” and focusing on inadequacies, teachers should consider providing numerous opportunities for writing and offering encouragement to reinforce what’s good. Praise-hungry students will latch onto the traits that receive positive feedback, and, eventually, their writing will get better. When the quality and quantity of student writing improves and anxiety about writing withers, the writing they’re asked to produce on-demand for standardized tests will seem less daunting. It’s just another thing we’re asked to write, right? No big deal. What will be a big deal is the amount of time educators can spend focusing on exploring meaningful content rather than tedious test preparation.
The school will develop a culture of literacy. Where the written word is valued, learning thrives. When students see that all teachers—not just the English teachers—care about writing, they’ll care more, too. Soon, you’ll hear discussions about what writing looks like in various content areas, how writing in science looks different than writing in social studies or English. Disciplinary literacy will shape students to become more thoughtful, purposeful writers and more curious readers. Students will write for real-world audiences and will be eager to let their powerful voices be heard. Building a culture of literacy sets all students up for real-world success in whatever the future holds for them because those who can read perceptively and write with precision have the power to influence others, to get what they want, and to achieve whatever they dream.
Teachers would spend more time grading. Wait! That’s not true. The kind of writing I’m talking about is mostly ungraded and doesn’t require out-of-class teacher feedback. When students write daily in school, they’re mostly engaging in writing to learn (also known as learning through writing), which is about acquiring the knowledge and skills, not being assessed as right or wrong. It’s more about doing the writing (and the associated thinking) rather than receiving a reward for correctness or compliance. And there’s a likelihood that students will write down some incorrect or misguided ideas on their pathways to mastery, which shouldn’t be penalized because making mistakes is a healthy part of learning. Students should be writing more than we could possibly read anyway. Shifting the audience away from the teacher gives students a more potent motivation for writing well and communicating clearly. When, and if, teachers grade and comment on writing, many other readers should have seen and provided constructive feedback on that piece previously. Content-area teachers who fear being unqualified to assess student writing should free themselves from some of that pressure. It’s not your job to be a copy editor and fix every grammatical error. Focus on what makes sense. Question what doesn’t. When you focus on meaning, any time you spend reading and responding to student writing will be more pleasurable; it will be a conversation between you and your students about what they think about their learning. And that is fascinating.
I realize that asking teachers to add a bit of writing to their lessons is encouraging risk-taking and stepping outside of comfort zones. I acknowledge that my dream isn’t likely to come true on most campuses. I know, however, that students don’t write enough in school, and I’ve seen how learning-through-writing strategies can transform classrooms into active, vibrant, student-centered communities of scholars. You probably don’t have the power to control what goes on in others’ classrooms, but you have control over what goes on in yours. Any bit of writing you add is more than your students would have done without you. Help me make my big dream come true.
*****************SPORTS**********************
SOFTBALL
- JV & VARSITY LADY WILDCATS vs. Plano West at Plano West, Tue. Apr. 2nd. JV plays at 5:00pm and Varsity plays at 7:00pm.
- JV & VARSITY LADY WILDCATS vs McKinney at McKinney, Fri. Apr. 5th. JV plays at 5:00pm and Varsity plays at 7:00pm.
BASEBALL
- JV & VARSITY WILDCATS vs. Plano East, Tue. Apr. 2nd at Plano East. JV plays at 4:30pm and Varsity plays at 7:30pm.
- JV & VARSITY WILDCATS vs. Plano East, Fri. Apr. 5th at PSHS. JV plays at 4:30pm and Varsity plays at 7:30pm.
- JV & VARSITY WILDCATS vs. Newman Smith, Sat. Apr. 6th at PSHS. JV plays at 10:00am and Varsity plays at 12:30pm.
TRACK
- WILDCATS at District 9-6A Meet, Wed. Apr. 3rd and Thu. Apr. 4th at Kimbrough Stadium in Murphy.
GOLF
- VARSITY BOYS at Boys District - Gentle Creek, Mon. Apr. 1st and Tue. Apr. 2nd in Prosper.
- VARSITY GIRLS at Girls District - Bridlewood, Thu. Apr. 4th and Fri. Apr 5th in Flower Mound.
LACROSSE
- WILDCATS vs. Lovejoy, Tue. Apr. 2nd at Clark. Time is 7:00pm. *MILITARY APPRECIATION NIGHT
- WILDCATS vs.Ft. Worth Country Day, Sat. Apr. 5th at Clark. Time is 7:30pm