Bransford Blast
August 19, 2018
Happy first week of school! We have excitedly been preparing for your Texan to start school tomorrow! School starts at 7:40 a.m. and dismisses at 2:55 p.m.
We have some wonderful changes to our campus this school year. In addition to several new staff members, we are fortunate to add theatre to the specials rotation. The specials rotation will be PE, Art, and Theatre. There is a separate time built into the day where our Texans will go to Music once a week, along with every other Friday, and Piano Lab once a week. We celebrated the grand opening of the piano lab this past week (see pictures below)! We are thrilled to be able offer our Texans exposure to both theatre and piano!
Our staff loved seeing our Texan families at meet the teacher last week! Thank you to our amazing PTA for arranging the snow cone truck, designing spirit wear, and organizing the volunteer opportunities for our families (see below).
We hope to see each of you at our back to school coffee in the cafeteria to celebrate the first day of school. We will have a brief presentation, starting at 8:00 a.m., highlighting goals and expectations for the 2018-2019 school year
Looking forward to creating bravely this school year with each of your Texans!
Educationally yours,
Jamie Halliburton
Bransford Principal
State Accountability Ratings: An Open Letter from Dr. Robin Ryan
When I speak to groups in the community, I often ask the audience: “What makes a good school?” The responses range from great teachers to involved parents to happy, well-adjusted students, to good citizens. Not once in eight years has anyone responded: “good standardized test scores.”
Next week, the State will release its A-F ratings for school districts. These ratings are supposed to be a simple way to tell if a school is doing well. The A-F rating system is an attempt to inform us about something as complex as school quality by reducing it to a single letter grade, and that is where it falls short. As accountability expert John Tanner often states: “Simple is good unless it is wrong.” Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and explain the metrics behind the “simple” ratings. This article would become a book the size of an encyclopedia. The State’s A-F ratings will be neither simple, nor comprehensive. School accountability is important and with all we know about teaching and learning in 2018, there has to be a better way to design a more accurate accountability system.
Testing is important, for sure, but using tests as the sole indicator to label and form statistical conclusions about students, teachers and schools will be mostly inaccurate. These tests do not measure skills that many employers repeatedly describe as necessary in today’s workforce: creativity, grit, teamwork, empathy, artistic ability, endurance or compassion. In GCISD, we will examine our results and make appropriate adjustments as we continue doing what is best for students.
Standardized tests have been used to judge schools for almost two decades. Parents and students have been increasingly frustrated that high stakes testing actually hijacks the curriculum and decreases the quality of a student’s educational experience. The 2015 National Superintendent of the Year Dr. Philip Lanoue called it the “fool’s gold” of accountability. Parents have higher expectations for our schools to do more than simply mold students into successful test takers. Our goal is to make sure that every student who crosses the stage is equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to participate fully in their chosen career path and the future of our republic. That takes much more than performing well on one test. Rather than relying on a tired, recycled accountability system, as a district, state and nation, we need to adjust our views on accountability.
As part of developing LEAD 2.0, the next phase of the district’s strategic framework, we are going to develop a robust Community Based Accountability System. The whole premise behind this system is two questions: for what should we be accountable? And to whom should we be accountable? We say all the time that our students and staff are not defined by scores on standardized tests, but we also know that we need to have robust accountability that actually reflects the values and expectations of our community, along with the educational standards of the State. I am all for accountability, but it needs to be based on more than just a snapshot of how our students perform on one day. This Community Based Accountability System will provide an opportunity for our parents, community, staff and students to determine the standards that are important in this community, determine how best to meet those standards and be transparent in reporting out on those metrics.
As educators, our job is to champion the more than 5.4 million students receiving a public education in the State of Texas. More specifically, we must champion the almost 14,000 students in GCISD. One definition of a champion is “a winner of first prize or first place in competition.” We are very fortunate to win a lot of championships in GCISD, and while the hardware that comes along with it is nice, the characteristics of a champion are more important. Focus, courage, motivation, perseverance, and integrity are a few commonly recognized traits of a champion and none of these are measured by the new A-F Accountability System.
The State’s A-F system tells a story, but it is an incomplete and limited one because almost everything that happens at school is not captured in a letter grade determined by a standardized test. It cannot capture the hopes, dreams and aspirations a community has for its children. It will not tell the complete GCISD story. We can do better and we are committed to improving moving forward. Done well, an accountability system should be accurate, credible and used by all stakeholders to improve our schools. We will use the A-F information as one of many data points on our quest to provide an excellent education for every student who walks through our doors in order to continue to Build Excellent Schools Together.
Trendiest Staff Around!
Class Shirts
Back to School Coffee
Piano Lab Grand Opening!
Volunteer Background Check
First Day Coffee
* For all parents, new and returning
* Meet fellow Bransford families and celebrate the new school year
* Hear from members of the Bransford leadership team
* Learn helpful information, and have the opportunity to ask questions
Girls on the Run
LEAD 2.0: Input Needed
In April, we convened a committee of more than 100 students, parents, staff and community members to review the work accomplished in the District’s Strategic Plan, LEAD 2021 and initiated the process to advance the strategic plan into the next phase known as LEAD 2.0.
To learn more about the current strategic plan, please visit our LEAD 2021 page.
We are excited to now continue to analyze the data, thoughts and various perspectives that were discovered and presented during the first phase of the LEAD 2.0 Discovery process.
In this next phase, we need your voice! Beginning September 4, we will be hosting three scheduled parent and community input sessions on every GCISD campus. These sessions will be 45-50 minutes long and we will be capping each session at 10 people. These sessions are first come first served. If you are interested in sharing your experience with the GCISD, please sign up using this google form. Please make sure you are selecting a time slot for your respective campus.
If you can’t make it during the day, we will have three district-wide open sessions held in the evening with a specific date and time information to follow in the next few weeks.
We hope to see you at one of these sessions and look forward to hearing your input!
Nutrition Services Update
Welcome back! Nutrition Services is excited about the upcoming school year! Click the link to find a copy of this year's calendar menu, it may also be viewed on the districts website. Nutrition information may be viewed through the nutrition services website or by downloading the new Meal Viewer app through the Apple or Android store.
In accordance with program guidelines, the Free and Reduced application will be available online as part of skyward registration. The free and reduced application should be filled out electronically at www.schoollunchapp.com. For those parents that still would like to complete a paper application, they may download an application on the website www.gcisd.net or stop by the Nutrition Services office at 5800 Colleyville Blvd.
2018-2019 Calendar
Bransford Elementary
Email: jamie.halliburton@gcisd.net
Website: http://www.gcisd-k12.org/Domain/1354
Location: 601 Glade Road, Colleyville, TX, United States
Phone: 8173054920
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bransford-Elementary-School-353295401423635/
Twitter: @BESTexans