JME Staff Newsletter
November 18, 2019
Week at a Glance
Monday
- 12:00 Water Conservation Assembly Grades K-2
- PTSO Butter Braid Distribution in Gym
- 2:35 iTeam
Tuesday
- 9:00-11:00am Admin Observational Rounds
- 2:35 Staff Meeting
Wednesday
- 12:45 ALL IA Meet in Staff Room
Thursday
- 1:30 Candice Out DO Leadership Meeting
Friday
- Report Cards go home with students
- 9:30-12:30 Candice Out Equity Cohort
- 2:35 Leadership Meeting
Educators have an ethical obligation to teach accurately about Thanksgiving.
School Thanksgiving activities often mean dressing children in “Indian” headdresses and paper feathers as they sing “My Country ’Tis of Thee” or “Mr. Turkey.” Some teachers might even ask their students to draw themselves as Native Americans from the past, complete with feather-adorned headbands and buckskin clothing. These activities might seem friendly and fun unless you are aware of how damaging this imagery is to perceptions of contemporary Native peoples. This imagery contributes to the indoctrination of American youth into a false narrative that relegates Indigenous peoples to the past and turns real human beings into costumes for a few days a year. It’s not just bad pedagogy; it’s socially irresponsible.
Teaching about Thanksgiving in a socially responsible way means that educators accept the ethical obligation to provide students with accurate information and to reject traditions that sustain harmful stereotypes about Indigenous peoples. Thankfully, there are excellent online resources that can help educators interested in disrupting the hegemonic Thanksgiving story.
- Teaching Tolerance offers resources click here.
- Project Archeology provides links to resources and activities adaptable for all grade levels.
- The National Museum of the American Indian offers a comprehensive resource with teacher-facing ideas and activities for grades 4-8.
- Plimoth Plantation has a Just for Teachers section that outlines professional development opportunities, workshops, a virtual Thanksgiving field trip and activities that incorporate the Wampanoag perspective. In one interactive activity, kids are detectives figuring out what really happened at the first meal.
- The Mashpee/Wampanoag Tribe’s brief history and cultural timeline outlines the nation’s “contact experience” from their contemporary perspective.
- Scholastic’s First Thanksgiving page has teacher’s guides, activities and ideas for pre-K through grade 8. These resources include the opportunity to sign up for emailed “Letters from the New World” with the historical perspectives of a Wampanoag boy and a pilgrim girl.
- Resources from Teaching Tolerance
During Conferences
1. Family Focus Forum Save the Date
This is an incredible free conference for our community with a wide variety of topics. Please make sure all your families know about this. The best invitation is a warm verbal invitation!
2. Attendance Tracking Magnets
These are refrigerator magnets for families to use to track days absent. Unexcused and excused absences are the same- they missed a day of school. We will have these filled out for you to hand to families where children have missed 10% or more of the school year. This is our gift to families- a tool that can help them track attendance for the school year.
Conferences
Teacher login information:
https://ptcfast.com/adminlogin.php
email address: kathryn.coltrin@orecity.k12.or.us
password: superstars
- Families can now sign up for conferences. You may share the following link with families: https://ptcfast.com/schools/John_McLoughlin_Elementary
- Parent Teacher Conferences are Monday and Tuesday, November 25 & 26. Both days are 12-hr days. (Wednesday, Nov. 27 -Friday, Nov 29 the building is closed.)
- Be prepared to share STAR data report with the family during conferences (STAR Student Progress Monitoring Report for both subjects)
- Our PTSO will provide staff with lunch and dinner on Monday, Nov 25
- Lunch on Tuesday, Nov 26 will be Costco pizza, salad, cookies, and a drink. Cost is $5.00 (please pay $5.00 - cash only - to Diane)
- Conference Meal Times - Lunch 11:00-12:00 Dinner 4:00-5:00
- Dinner on Tuesday (11/26) will be "leftovers" - or you bring your own meal
Student Behavior
At McLoughlin, we believe behavior is communication and can be taught. We believe all students can meet expectations if they have the skills and if they don't we will teach them. Here are two of the most important guiding documents for behavior.
Communication with Students: Learning Targets & Success Criteria
One of the components of our evaluation rubric is communication with students. See this link for language from the rubric. Part of this communication consists of clearly defining what the lesson objective is and what student mastery looks like otherwise called learning targets with success criteria.
Self Guided Learning Opportunities:
Video: Targeting Learning with Success CriteriaBlog: Learning Targets & Success Criteria
Article: What You Need to Know to Establish Success Criteria
Dyslexia
Great things are happening at JME!
Nicky is hosting another fabulous book fair ensuring our students have access to a variety of books.
Cathy is among several teachers who spends her lunch connecting with some super happy students.
Regina continues to go above and beyond to provide the support our students need.
Dan spends the morning ensuring a special connection and positive start to the day for some very special students.
Jana had an extra 10 minutes and used that to support an intermediate student.
Rose spends extra time ensuring attendance is continuously celebrated.
Aimee connects class lessons to the Kelso Wheel making conflict resolution explicit learning.
Dianne spends 2 days testing our potential TAG students.
And so much more!