Hillcrest Hawk Happenings
The official newsletter of Hillcrest Elementary Staff
Supporting, empowering, & championing every single student, every single day, in every single way.
March 1, 2020
IMPORTANT DATES
TO ACCESS THE MONTH-BY-MONTH CALENDARS for the whole year, click HERE. Please know that these are still works-in-progress, so check back often to see the updates.
PRINCIPAL'S PARKING SPOT: EMILY ESPOSITO
Last year, the monthly winner of the PBIS Hawk Hero Award received the honor of parking in the Principal's Reserved Parking Space. This year, in order to extend that privilege to more people, we will honor an individual each week who will have the honor of that parking spot for the week ahead.
This week, March 2-6, that honor goes to EMILY ESPOSITO. Thank you, Emily, for your continued dedication to our students and your colleagues! Emily has been a cheerleader for Hillcrest, working hard on behalf of her students and families, contributing to curriculum work, attending TCIS training, and attending many evening, summertime, and after school activities. And right now, in addition to carrying around her daily totes of teacher supplies, she is carrying around another human being, so I think we can all agree that she deserves a closer parking space! THANK YOU EMILY for all that you do each and every day for the students, staff and families of Hillcrest!
To nominate an individual for this special privilege, click HERE.
How do you like your HAWKS HAPPENINGS??
Let me know which version you prefer by clicking on this very quick 2 question survey.
APRIL/MAY Family Newsletter
APRIL PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES
Coming Soon: Hillcrest MBK!
ADVOCATE FOR FAIR FUNDING FOR PEEKSKILL
Help Peekskill advocate for fair funding! Any willing staff can print, sign and interoffice this advocacy letter to Laura Belfiore at Central Office by Thursday, March 5. Letters go out in the mail to the Governor on Friday.
ED-DATA SUPPLY ORDERS
Ed-Data orders due Friday, March 6th
Catalogs can be signed out in the main office
REMINDER - Apply Now : The Peekskill Education Foundation Grants
Teachers and District Staff can apply for grant money from The Peekskill Education Foundation via a 2 phase application process. All applications are reviewed by the Grants Committee based on seven criteria of evaluation. Once an application has been chosen to advance to the second phase, the applicant will receive the Phase II application via email.
*Phase I Applications for 2020-2021 school year are due on March 15, 2020
*Phase I Applications notifications will go out on or about May 1, 2020LITERACY HAPPENINGS
F&P Assessment Period
Timeline- F&P's will end on 3/18. Please make sure that ALL F&P data is in Infinite Campus in the F&P tab and on our Master Data Sheet in Google by 3/18. Christine McCourt suggests that everyone review pages 22-23 of the Assessment Guide prior to beginning your assessing.
Also, she suggests everyone have these rubric pages from the 3rd edition of the Assessment Kit next to you while you assess: Levels A-K and Levels L-Z.
MOCK ELA/TRIMESTER ASSESSMENT
Thank you all for your assistance with the 2nd Trimester ELA /Mock Assessment. It went very smoothly and we are taking your feedback into consideration for implementation for the upcoming ELA Assessment. We experimented with a new answer document that was scanable, and we are still working to resolve some glitches to see if this will be a feasible option for the future. In the meantime, ELA teachers can use the NYS ELA Scoring Rubric to score the written portions in order to provide feedback to your students and plan important instruction to meet areas of need.Thank you for your patience and perseverance! Because of your hard work, we made our goal of having all students who we were able to assess completed by the deadline. There were students who were not able to complete the ORF due to a software glitch, but that is being resolved and all of those students shoudl be done this week. If your class was affected by this, try accessing those students' ORFs again and we will continue to work with folks who are having problems.
COUNTDOWN TO THE ELA
16 instructional days until the ELA; what are you doing to make sure each and every day matters? This number includes the mock assessment dates, and the days you will be administering AIMSWEB+, so it will feel like even fewer. Who are the students, and which are the skills, that you will be focusing on in these short days?
Literacy Consultant Christine McCourt
Christine will now turn her attention to helping us with some professional development around Writers' Workshop. Watch for a more detailed description of how each day will be organized, but here are dates that Christine will be joining us:
MARCH:
Wednesday March 11, Friday March 20
APRIL:
Thursday April 2, Tuesday April 14, Wednesday April 15, Thursday April 16, Tuesday April 28, Wednesday April 29, Thursday April 30
MAY:
Monday May 4, Tuesday May 5, Wednesday May 6, Thursday May 7, Tuesday May 12, Wednesday May 13, Thursday May 14, Monday May 18, Tuesday May 19, Wednesday May 20, Thursday May 21
MATH HAPPENINGS
STUDENTS ACCESSING ST MATH FROM HOME
Please make sure that students are aware how they can access ST Math from home. Here are directions, and we will send home the instructions in our Thursday folders.
COUNTDOWN TO THE NYS MATH ASSESSMENT
23 instructional days until the Math Assessment; what are you doing to make sure each and every day matters? This number includes the mock assessment dates, the two days of the ELA, days we will be doing F&Ps....so it will feel like even fewer. Who are the students, and which are the skills, that you will be focusing on in these short days?
MOCK MATH/TRIMESTER ASSESSMENT
We will be administering the 2nd Trimester/Mock Math Assessment on March 9. We will be simulating testing conditions with all modifications. Here is a link to the current list of mods, testing locations, and testing proctor assignment (subject to change).
If you are having any issues with Zearn, ST Math, or Problem Attic, please let us know.
- Whenever possible, please have students log on to Zearn through Clever, as that is how we can see data on their progress/challenges/setbacks, and how much we are using it.
PBIS HAPPENINGS
The SEL theme for the month of March is COURAGE AND PERSEVERANCE. Please look for opportunities to connect classroom learning to the district's monthly theme, and teach our students the value of being brave and sticking with things, especially when it is challenging.
INDIVIDUAL REWARDS: HILLCREST DOLLARS
Show your class the opening video on Monday March 3. Click HERE FOR THE VIDEO and also here for the video if you have problems with the first link.
Please be sure to:
- Hand them out liberally during the initial rollout.
- NAME THE BEHAVIOR you are commending and CONNECT IT to the HAWKS acronym. (Circle the letter on the HAWKS BUCK or have the student circle it)
- Have students write their names on the back.
- Listen for the announcement for the first Friday Redemption Day.
Here is a link to the slides from the faculty meeting with additional details.
REMINDER: FIRE SAFETY
NOW IS THE TIME TO CHECK YOUR ROOM! Here are three important FIRE SAFETY GUIDELINES which we distributed previously: One and Two and Three. Please read them thoroughly, and re-mediate your spaces as necessary as we will be checking spaces soon!!!
Carmine snapped photos of some violations of our building while he walked through over break -- I will be sharing those with the individuals responsible.
SPECIALS HAPPENINGS
To submit something for this section of the Hawk Happenings in the future, submit it by clicking HERE and it will appear in the next Hawk Happenings.
WHO'S THAT?!?!?!
Last week's picture generated A LOT of buzz, with a few people guessing it was Shannon O'Grady, and an overwhelming majority of people guessing it was Jamie Rossi. However, it was Jamie Rossi herself who knew it wasn't herself, and who guessed the right answer: the baby pictured above is Karen Vogel.
For this week, I wonder if you can guess:
WHO's THAT?!?!?!
Submit your guess using this Google Form.