Bobcat Bulletin
January 7, 2017
Dear Staff,
Great first week back. I know you have worked hard to "get back to business." I have had time to reflect over the past few weeks on our school climate and culture. I find we have a positive overall climate on our campus (feeling). Kids are well behaved and want to please for the most part. We have a culture (systems) of leadership and following the habits.
When I think about the student surveys and discipline data, I realize we need to focus on being more of a "community." A healthy community is a groups of people (students and staff) that work together toward a common cause. Our school cause is based in our Mission. (attached below) We work on creating this "community" in our classrooms. We do this by knowing each others interests and strengths (beyond academics), and using them in creative, unique ways. I think about my own home community. Steve and I are very connected to our community and neighborhood. We meet monthly to discuss issues and events, we know each other (professions, who lives in each house, what special skills we each have...) We rely on each other all the time. Do you live in a community that is connected or disconnected? We need to work on our "community" building. What could this work look like?
To do or know about:
- Expectations-Please find time to review your classroom rules and expectations. This is the right time to tighten back up and "reset." Go back and discuss your behavior and academic expectations you spent two weeks on in August. Arica and I will host a "rules" assembly later this month for each grade level. We will discuss some newly clarified school rules at our staff development meeting on Wednesday. This should help. Build community circles (Restorative Justice) into each day or a few times a week for supporting student connectedness to our school.
- PM Duty Schedule-MEE area-when on this duty please spread out to have one in the grass overseeing kids, one moving cars along and one up on the hill with bus kids. Front Parking lot-when on this duty one needs to be at the base of the stairs monitoring dismissal and one up on the top cross walk monitoring safety.
- STEM TOSA plan and priorities- Yvette has supported Fallbrook Math lesson for each class and she has provided a sample science lesson for each class. Now moving forward, she will move back into more of a coaching role. She will continue to teach science lessons, but on her flex days she will be supporting each of you with Number Talks model lessons, small group ELA and Math model lessons and support, and 2-6th performance tasks and IAB. She will work individually with you, as needed, as well. She will be working with each of you on a schedule.
Hope you have a great weekend!
Stephenie
Week Ahead
Duty Schedule Jan. 9-13
Front Parking Lot (2)-Smith, McSheehy
Lunch Tables (3)-Shannon, Poulos
Upper cross walk/Front Gate (2)-Polujancewicz, Corduan
Maie Ellis Parking lot grass, buses and cars)-Hilsabeck, Murray, Martinez
M
- New Shirt
- Arica here this week
- Stephenie walk through in PM/Math
- New Meet the Masters art-rotate
T
- Stephenie off Campus 9:30-4:00
W
- Vintage Shirt
- 1:30 Leadership Team in lounge
- 2:15 Staff Development in lounge
TH
- Stephenie walk throughs in AM/ELD and ELA
- 2:30 Food Pantry
F
- College shirt day
- 11:00-1:00 Lunch on the Lawn
- 1:00 Tracks Team
Instructional Focus
Try:
- Appointment clocks
- Concentric circles
- Give one get one
- Team Jigsaw
Community
- Community Circles daily (restorative justice practices).
- Greet each student each morning at the door.
- "2:10" project-spend 2 minutes for 10 days getting to know a "special" student in your class who could really use it.
- Family meetings daily to build classroom community.
- Empower Leadership jobs in the class/campus.