Twin Peaks Middle School
Home of the Rams
A Message from the Principal...
Dear friends,
I want to begin by thanking those content teams that shared your minutes from Thursday's meeting with the admin team. It is great to be able to quickly look and see all that was accomplished. You are doing amazing work in support of our school-wide initiatives. Thank you for that!
In reading through the minutes, we felt it appropriate to review our "charge" for the year to see how everything we are doing (and you were discussing in last week's content meeting) fits into The Big Three:
1. The Student Experience/Ram Way
- No Place for Hate - So far 8 students, 3 counselors and Rod have been trained. We will be soliciting volunteers for the larger team comprised of teachers, staff, students and parents beginning this week. The Anti-Defamation League will train our staff on the October 26th non-student day. Our first, student-led school-wide activity will take place during the first week of December.
2. Response to Intervention
- School-wide Common Practices - We have committed to the following four strategies which are published in the student planner. Focus notes/C-Notes, MLA Format, RACE, Marking the Text. These all help to ensure equitable learning opportunities for our students. Another best practice we would like to ensure is used school-wide is the essential question. These should be posted visibly in the classroom as learning targets for students. This was work the Instructional Team launched 3-4 years ago and Laurie Johnson reinforced as part of her RTI work.
3. Professional Learning
- AVID WICOR Wednesdays - These communications and subsequent staff development facilitated during our Ram Way Meetings target wonderful research-based structures to support student engagement. Our most recent structure is inquiry and we launched that with our training on Costa's Levels of Questioning. Additional structures will be shared soon. Ideally, you will bring these strategies back to your classrooms so all students will have an opportunity to experience them.
I would also like to clarify the status of our Schools to Watch application, in case it was not made clear in your content meeting this week. While we noted some areas for improvement, overall, our survey results were very strong. This is a tribute to all the hard work you have been doing with your students. We have so much to celebrate. However, after speaking with the administrators of the Schools to Watch Program, we felt it best to delay our application for at least another year. We know the site visitation team intends to visit each and every classroom in an effort to validate what we write in our application. We feel that many of us could benefit from more time to understand, implement, and perfect our school-wide practices. This is especially true for our newest staff members. We need time to teach them our common practices so they too will embrace them as their own. We can revisit applying next year. As I said when I shared the initial idea with you, while the recognition would be nice, it is the self-study process that is most beneficial.
Thank you for all you do. I hope you have a great week!
Upcoming Events & Activities - October 15th - October 26th
Monday, October 15th
- Butter Braid Fundraiser continues
Tuesday, October 16th
- O-Team Meeting, 7:30-8:15am, PCR
Wednesday, October 17th
- El Ranchito Band Fundraiser, all day, 13654 Poway Rd
- New Parent Night, 5:30-6:30, LRC
Thursday, October 18th
- Professional Time, 8-9am, Grade Level
- California Shake Out, 10:18am, Duck & Cover Drill
- El Ranchito Band Fundraiser, all day, 13654 Poway Rd
Friday, October 19th
- Pinkout Day, wear pink for Breast Cancer
- Staff Breakfast, 7:45-8:30am, Work Room SPED/Electives
- Cross Country Meet, 4-5:30pm, TPMS
- 1st Quarter R.C. grading window opens
Saturday, October 20th
- Marching Band Tournament, PHS
Monday, October 22nd
- Last Day of Butter Braid Fundraiser
- Red Ribbon Week, Crazy Sock Day
Tuesday, October 23rd
- Hawaiian shirt day
- Joint Team Meeting, 7:30-8:15am, PCR
- CJSF Meeting, 3:15-4pm, Room 713
Wednesday, October 24th
- Favorite team jersey day
Thursday, October 25th
- Wear red day
- Professional Time, 8-9am, Teacher Discretion
- 8th Grade Hearing & Vision Screening, 12-1:30pm, Room 201
- Movie in the Quad, 6-9pm, TPMS Quad
- Last Day of 1st Quarter
Friday, October 26th
- Non-student Day
- Band Performance PHS Football Game, 5:30-9pm, PHS
Our Social Contract
TEAM RAM KUDOS & NEWS
- Let's give it up for the Food and Nutrition team as they scored 99% on their Health Department inspection last week. Final Grade: A. Well done!
- Thanks to our WEB Team and Amanda Repking for a successful launch to Readers with Leaders, our 6th grade reading mentorship program. We appreciate you empowering our older students to support their younger classmates in their efforts to become better readers.
2018 Cross Country Team Send Off
California School Staff Survey - Please Complete
Thank you!
Quarter One Professional Time
18-19 Progress Notice & Report Card Timeline
Click Here for the 18-19 Timeline
Annual Mandated Reporter Training
Using your web browser, go to the Keenan SafeSchools website for Poway Unified School District: https://powayusd-keenan.safeschools.com/
Use your employee number as your user name
Please complete by October 20th.
Instructional Team Meeting Minutes- October 9th
Game Room for Students
Lunch Splits Trimester One
Daily Tweets to Build Community
Got Ideas, Resources or Shout Outs?
It's GREAT to be a RAM!
Twin Peaks Middle School
Email: chamilton@powayusd.com
Website: http://tpms.powayusd.com/index.html
Phone: 858.748.5131
Twitter: @TwinPeaksRams