The Wash Update
5/19
May Calendar
EOY Schedule
On this May day at Washington….
Monday, May 22nd
8:00am: Grades Due
Grade Level Celebrations
11:00am-1:00pm: 2nd Grade Lunch at Two Trails Park
1:30-2:00pm: Movin’ Up
Tuesday, May 23rd
9:00-10:00am – 1st & 2nd Success Assembly
10:00-11:00am – 3rd & 4th Success Assembly
11:30am-1:30pm: 3rd Grade Lunch at Two Trails Park
Wednesday, May 24th
12:30-1:30pm: 5th Grade Lunch at Two Trails Park
2:30-3:30pm: Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony
Thursday, May 25th
8:30am: 5th Grade Breakfast
9-9:45am: 5th Grade Individual Awards
9:45-11am: 5th Grade Promotion
11:15am: 5th Grade Honor Walk
Noon: All Staff Luncheon and Awards
Friday, May 26th
8:00am – Noon: Certified Staff Must Report
Changes on the Checkout List
-No Blue Sheets
-No Honor Roll Sheets
From the Office
Schedule Committee
Starting at noon on Friday the 26th, we will host a scheduling meeting for the 2017-18 school year. We will look at some current proposals based on our new time allotment for subject areas and craft a schedule that will best serve our students and staff members we will have next year. If you would like to participate in this meeting, please let Angela know and I will provide a pizza lunch for the meeting. (Up to 10 staff members for the meeting)
Planning Day Meetings
Monday, June 6 we will have a meeting day that you are invited to come share your ideas about various procedures throughout the building. Here is the agenda for the day:
10am- Arrival and Dismissal
1pm - Calendar- Parent Nights/ Assemblies
Success Assemblies on the 23rd:
We will host our Minute to Win It success assemblies on May 23rd. The first round will be our 1st and 2nd graders at 9 am. We will follow with our 3rd and 4th graders at 10am. Please make sure that you complete your Champ Star list, so that we know who to invite, also let us know shirt sizes, so that we can get that prepared for you.
IPADS AFTER LAUNCH DAY
7. Technology is in the process of evaluating APPlications and will announce the list of Apps in the next two weeks along with a date on which discontinued Apps will be removed from the iPads. This date will be before you receive your new teacher and student iPads.
8. Between the date you receive your new student iPads and the last day of your contract, you are highly encouraged to download apps and set up the iPads the way you want them in August. You may still download more apps when you return in August, but by downloading them in May, the server will not be as busy, and you will likely have a smoother experience.
9. If your building has purchased apps, those apps will continue to be available to you, as well as all of our foundation apps. If you see that an app is missing, or if you know we are discontinuing an app that you need for the rest of the year, please contact me or Technology.
10. After preparing them for next year, please return the new iPads to their packaging and lock them away safely in the hallway closet in the office going into the work room. There will be shelves designated for the different grade levels. Since they don’t have cases, we don’t want them in student hands before August.
11. Continue using your current iPads with your students. Technology will not pick them up before the end of the year.
12. On the last day of school, please return your current (older) teacher and student iPads to the conference room. Please also remove them from their cases. You do NOT need to wipe, refresh, or restore these. But if you have a passcode to unlock the device or are signed into iCloud, these MUST be removed by you.
AUGUST
13. When you return, your teacher case and student cases should be available. The cases will be identical except teachers will have red cases and students will have black cases. Teachers may also keep their old case.
14. We know that there will be some adjustments needed since our 2:1 ratios may not be the same next year. I will manage classroom-to-classroom redistribution and will work with Technology if we need additional iPads or have extra iPads. I know that this will be somewhat inconvenient (especially if you get more iPads and have to set them up), but we anticipate that the work required will be far less than if we had refreshed in August.
Grade Level Celebrations
Currently Grade Level Celebrations are scheduled for the 22nd. As with each time, many grade levels have chosen to celebrate success at other times and locations, please let the office know, so that we can inform parents correctly.
Rules for DJ's Discovery Den-
1) All books stay here. (There will be a check out system developed over the summer for teachers only. There are a lot of class sets of great books in there.)
2) Leave this space better than you found it. (We will post pictures on each bookshelf to remind students and adults of how it should look.)
3) You must have an adult with you when you visit.
4) Please eat your lunch at a table to avoid spills on the furniture. (If a spill happens, please call the office immediately.)
From the District-
General Administration:
PURCHASING CARDS – Personalized purchasing cards will remain active for Elementary Principals and Secretaries for the 17-18 school year. All remaining cards will be inactivated on June 15 (except for Care & Concern). Generic check-in/out card sets will be available on July 5. Business & Finance can issue a generic card to your building for use between June 15 and July 4 if you will have staff need during this time period. Please notify Cassy Osborn of this need ASAP.
Free Lunch: See attached flier from the Olathe Public Library. It also has efforts with our district food production free lunch sites. Please consider printing and sharing with families.
District App
Olathe Public Schools in launching its district mobile app in July and we’re looking for your feedback! Before we release the app to the public, we’re looking for insight from district administrators. To download the app, simply visit the Apple App Store or Google Play store and search “Olathe Public Schools.” We won’t be unveiling the app to the public until July during enrollment so we’re hoping to finish development quickly so please hold off on sharing with your school community.
Please direct app feedback or questions to Cody Kennedy – ckennedy@olatheschools.org
Science Resources
A friendly reminder, the K-5 science samples (McGraw-Hill, HMH, and Pearson) reviewed April 14, should be sent to Debbie King at the IRC. There are several options in returning: talk with your courier on options OR your school enters a work order for pick-up (they are predicting these would not be picked up until the last week of school) OR someone from your school may deliver them to the IRC. Please have these sent before your last day. Thank you so much for all your help during this process!
Twenty Solar Eclipse posters will be arriving to each elementary school building on July 13th to display around your building for students and parents to see starting on registration day. Solar glasses for each student and staff member will be delivered to your building in August.
T&L Elementary Source Updates
KESA Survey Reminder
Please remember to complete the Quarter 4 KESA Accreditation Survey sometime between May and June. Thank you so much!
Site Council District Survey Reminder
Please do not forget to have your Building Site Council complete the Site Council Survey. District results will be shared at the July Board of Education Meeting.
EDMODO Security Breech
EDMODO investigation has now confirmed that user names, email addresses, and hashed passwords were acquired by an unauthorized third party. The passwords were “hashed” (or encrypted) using the strong and robust bcrypt algorithm, and they were also “salted,” which adds an additional layer of security.
We have no indication at this time that any user passwords have been compromised, but we strongly recommend that all users reset their passwords as soon as possible.
To reset your password:
1. Go to the Edmodo website and log in to your account.
2. Click on the “Password Reset” link in the notice at the top of the page.
3. Enter your current password, and then create a new password.
If you used the same password on any other site, we encourage you to change your password there as well.
Leadership Summit Reminders
- Principals please report at 7:15 to drop off your things and make the tunnel to welcome teachers
- It can be cold in the ONW gym, so encourage your team to dress in layers!
- We will take team pictures at the lunch break—please be sure your team does get their picture taken!
- Don’t forget your treats!
- Please be sure your team is familiar with Kansas Can
- Please be sure you team has a device and is familiar with logging in to Google Classroom
- Preliminary KAP Data: Please find attached preliminary District Kansas Assessment Performance compared to the State KAP data. Reviewing and comparing building and district growth compared to the state will be a good topic to discuss at Leadership Summit. An explanation of the data is embedded in the report.
- MAP to KAP: Please find attached the MAP state assessment projection data compared to our actual state assessment performance. Reviewing and comparing building and district growth compared to the state will be a good topic to discuss at Leadership Summit. An explanation of the data is embedded in the report.
Assessments
Elementary End-of-Year Assessments
- The Assessment Department will collect the data on an electronic spreadsheet through a Microsoft Classroom. A link to the Microsoft Classroom spreadsheet has been sent to teachers (either as a group or through the principal).
- The window for elementary End of Course assessment of READING is now closed. The Assessment Office must have all data entered through the Microsoft Classroom Spreadsheet by Thursday, May 25th. PRINCIPALS, PLEASE REMIND YOUR TEACHERS.
State Assessment Results…are in!
- Student Reports are to be sent home with students before the end of this year.
- Buildings should have received Student Reports and copies of Parent Letters (both an English and Spanish version, front-and-back)
- Reports came in alpha order, by grade level.
- Each student that was tested has an ELA and a Math report (each will be double sided).
- Science and ELL scores will be available by August.
- As the Assessment Office compiles Data Extracts for each building, we will forward those on to each building, along with a District Summative Report produced by KSDE, through email.
MAP Results: Printing Student Reports for Spring
It is expected that buildings print MAP Student Progress Reports in color and send home.
1. If your building sends report cards home in the mail, please add the student progress report to the mailing.
2. If your building is going to send report cards home with students, please add the student progress report to the report card and alert parents that both are coming home.
3. If your building is not sending report cards home, please send the MAP student progress report home with the student before the end of the year and alert parents to expect it.
Attached are directions for printing MAP Student Progress Reports as well as an optional example of a student progress report to help parents understand what the report indicates about the growth/progress of their student(s). There is an English and Spanish version.
- A couple of notes that will also be in the directions
- We want to show our progress with a Bar Graph
- To show growth over the second semester, we want to choose a Growth Comparison Period of Winter to Spring. This time period will also show all previous scores, but focus on second semester growth.
- These two documents are also in the Dropbox, in the folder “MAP for Administrators”
- Dropbox/MAP for Administrators/Directions for Printing Reports/Directions for Printing Spring 16-17 MAP Student Progress Reports (Administrators)
- Dropbox/MAP for Administrators/Parent Communication/Spring 2017 Example of Student Progress
MAP Results: Printing Building Reports
- The Olathe window is closed. If you have students who have not tested, you may do so, but please let Rich Wilson know.
- There are two reports buildings may choose to use to look at the growth of their students over the course of the year
- Student Growth Summary. This report will show how each grade level performed overall, with Mean RIT and Percentile Rank. Under the Student Norms, you will also get the overall number of students at each grade level who met their projection as well as the Percent Met Projection.
- Term: Spring 2016-2017
- Growth Comparison Period: Fall 2016 – Spring 2017 Growth Summary Report
- Achievement Status & Growth: Projection or Summary. This report must be run by teacher (you may run it at one time by choosing all of the Gen Ed teachers), but it gives the RIT growth of each student, their Percentile Rank and whether they hit their Projected Growth for each of the students in your building. Additionally, on the last page of the report for each subject test, there is a Summary that gives the overall Percentage of Students who Met or Exceeded their Projected RIT.
- Term Rostered: Spring 2016-2017
- Term Tested: Spring 2016-2017
- Growth Comparison Period: Fall 2016 – Spring 2017 Growth Summary Report
- Contact Rich Wilson if you would like to discuss your results or if you have a question.
Older Information
Zones Tips of the Week--Notes from the behavior conference (not associated with Zones)
Conference Top Ideas and Considerations
1) Many students (especially of poverty) do not have a running visual of what they are reading.
Considerations: Have students close their eyes and visualize while you read aloud, ask them to write or draw what they picture immediately after reading, or model your visualization with them.
2) Working Memory Brain Breaks- Students whom have suffered trauma or have ADHD tend to have lower working memories. However this is something that can be built back up. (analogy- Some students have a five gallon bucket and some students have a thimble. If too much information is given to them, the thimble will run over the sides and all will be lost.)
a. Assign a letter to a task: K= Running in place, H= 3 jumping jacks. Then ask the students to perform a series of tasks by just giving them the letters. Start small and grow to larger series. You can do the same thing with icons, or gestures. (You can make a game out of this like Simon Says.)
b. Basic visualization hits the same location of the brain. (Stories, being successful on the assessments/ tests, their dreams, etc)
c. Teach mnemonic devices to help memorize things.
d. Matching games (Vocab with definitions, like-words, etc)
3) Organization- It is important to teach and reinforce organizational skills. Students whom either had trauma or ADHD will not typically have these tools in place, so having specific guidelines and teaching them the relevance is important.
4) Chunking Directions- For our ADHD students and students that come from traumatic situations consider chunking your directions in smaller 1-2 step pieces (then work of working memory to help build the muscle). Video recording the directions for Daily Five or Guided Math is also beneficial as students can go back and look at the directions.
5) Building up Stamina- Students whom are struggling with completing a task because they are overwhelmed, you can hand them an assignment with 80-90% of the work already done for them. They can complete the assignment and have some success you can move them to 70% and so on.
(The presenter showed us a "Where's Waldo" picture and gave us ten seconds to find Waldo. Only one in the crowd found him. He them wiped out the white noise and showed us how easy it was to find him without the extra stuff.)
6) Unified Learning Model
-Working Memory
Central to all current models of learning.
The focus is to reduce the amount of cognitive load.
Requires attention to material.
How we process information and move to long term memory.
-Knowledge
What is stored in the long term memory
How we scaffold and make connections.
-Motivation
Goals
Emotion
Interest
Rules of Learning:
a) New learning requires attention.
b) Learning requires repetition.
c) Learning is about making connections.
d) Learning is learning
7) Engagement from the learners perspective:
-How do I feel? ( I have a ton of slides on how to affect the mood.)
-Am I interested?
-Is this important?
-Can I do this?
8) We were challenged to think of 5 different ways to assess a student without a generic test. We came up with a few ideas:
Project Based Learning, Anecdotal Notes, Labs, Listening, Games, Oral Presentations, Connecting to Metaphors and similes (DOK 4), podcasts, videos, websites, blogs
9) Using random number generators to decide how many of something (problems) they get to do... (Dice)
10) Transitions-
Keep steps to a minimum.
Provide a signal on when activities will begin and end.
Provide reinforcement when they are done well.
Use a visual timer or a count down.
54321- Helps students on the spectrum
10) Arguing by appointment only. I love this one, my wife uses it in her class, and tries to use it on me (however I am a 1%ter).
11) Provide choices and give students the power.
12) "GO Brain Dead" and repeat your expectations over and over again. (Broken Record) Simple responses, such as "I know", "Okay", "Thanks for sharing"
13) Hero Procedure- Making a deal with one student in the classroom (talking, work completion, disrespect, etc) and rewarding the whole class when they have completed the goal.
14) Consider the feedback, based on what you want to see-
Instead of:
You're smart.....You worked hard
Great job....You prepared well.
Well done....You were focused.
Way to go....I can see the effort you put forth.
15) Blurt Tally-
a) Find the baseline data (How many blurts happen in a ten minute span.
b) Set a goal for the # of blurt outs (Example less than ten)
c) Students meet the goal one tally
d) Students do not meet the goal no tally (10-15 blurt outs)
c) Over the 15 they lose a tally.
16) Positive Phone Calls Home- Sending pictures and messages about your students via email.
17) Casinos- What can we learn about engaging the ADHD mind by watching Casinos (Going to a casino is not a job requirement.) Big noisy rewards with lights keeps people trying.
18) IRIS Center This has a lot of modules that can help you work through student situations. (Click on Behavior and Classroom Management)
19) Everyone has reasons for their behaviors and 9 out of 10 of them will break your heart. Also, if you saw physical scars from internal trauma you would most likely treat them differently (Scrolling marquee each student has).