South Middle School
Staff Weekly Newsletter: October 7th - 11th
Week at a Glance
- Annual IEP for BM (Room 4, 7:45 a.m.)
Tuesday, October 8
- Annual IEP for MJ (Room 4, 7:45)
- Principal Meeting (DO, 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.)
- Board Meeting - South Presents! (DO, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.)
Wednesday, October 9
- PLCs - Assessment (Various locations & times - See PLC Team Leader)
Thursday, October 10
- 3 year Eligibility IEP for CS (Room 4, 7:45 a.m.)
- 6 Week SMART Goal Check-In (see Special Schedule)
- Assembly - Nathan Harmon (see Special Schedule for 8:45 assembly)
- Student Success Act - Staff Forum (4:00 - 5:30 p.m., GPHS Library)
- Student Success Act - Community Forum (6:00 - 8:00 p.m., GPHS Library)
Friday, October 11
- NO SCHOOL - Please take care of yourselves!
Supervision Schedule
Supervision Schedule (8:10 - 8:25 a.m.) - 15 minutes a day as assigned.
Team 2:
6th Grade Hall: Sutton
T @ 7th/8th Grade Hall: Butler
8th Grade Hall: Kriz
Large Gym: Bigelow/Baertschiger
Parking Lot AM: Snyder
Parking Lot PM & Buses PM: Owen & Reid
Daily Supervision Schedule:
Parking Lot/Exit AM: Aguilera, Huerta, Karbowski & Admin
Parking Lot/Exit PM: Aguilera, Kindrick, Karbowski & Admin
Cafeteria AM: Miller/McCarty & Hopkins
Bus PM (3:09 - 3:25): Hopkins, Admin & Team Teacher
Staff Shout-Out
Tim Bartelt
Teaching our students is tough; teaching teachers is even tougher! Big thanks to Tim for sharing his knowledge of ELL and what those services look like here at South Middle. He is a great resource for ALL teachers, as we know and continue to learn that SIOP (Sheltered Instruction) strategies are best-practice for ALL kids in EVERY classroom. Thanks to Tim for sharing his knowledge!
Weekly Article
Staff-
I'm excited for our time together this year with Dr. Bloomquist. He'll be teaching and integrating Neuro-Sequential Model practices into our classrooms which will give us practical tools for working with students. I found this article interesting as we have many teachers already that are integrating social-emotional learning strategies into their classrooms. Consider giving these a try!
Bite-Sized Lessons in Social-Emotional Learning
In this Education Week article, Arianna Prothero reports that many educators feel overwhelmed by the scope and expense of full-blown social-emotional learning curriculum packages. Stephanie Jones and her colleagues at Harvard University’s EASEL laboratory (Ecological Approaches to Social-Emotional Learning, https://easel.gse.harvard.edu/people) saw this as an impediment to important SEL skills being taught in schools. “Folks wanted to do it,” she says, “but they wanted it to be integrated in the instructional work they are already doing. We began to think about the problem of implementation by brainstorming ways to do SEL in little bites, in small, routine, structure-based ways you could imbed in a school in a way that is harder to do with a curriculum.”
What emerged were 10-minute “kernels,” brief routines that teachers could squeeze into their busy days when the need arose – for example, students bringing recess conflicts into the classroom. Three examples:
- Magic 8 Ball, a discussion strategy building problem-solving skills (all grades) – The teacher asks, “If a person does X, what might happen?” Students then look into their imaginary magic 8 balls and give potential consequences of the action, as well responses in other situations. The teacher follows up by asking students if they see these actions as positive, negative, or neutral, and in which other situations they might need to imagine an outcome.
- Dear Abby, a discussion strategy that helps students make responsible, ethical, healthy choices in difficult situations (fifth grade) – Students read a real-world dilemma from an advice column and discuss solutions in small groups or in a role-play. Students are asked if they need additional information to better understand the dilemma, and how other characters in the scenario might see the situation.
- Belly breathing, a calming technique for emotion/behavior management (all grades) – Students breathe deeply through their noses, notice their bellies expand, then exhale through their mouths and notice how their bellies contract. Do they feel differently? When might this be a useful strategy?
“Bite-Sized Lessons Aim to Make SEL Easier for Schools to Teach” by Arianna Prothero in Education Week, September 11, 2019 (Vol. 39, #4, p. 1, 8), https://bit.ly/2mFX8Om
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October Birthdays!
- Sabrina Sheppard - October 15th
- Tanya Ward - October 21st
- Kim Hull - October 24th
- Joel Wilder - October 31st