Global Gazette
Week of October 7 - October 11
GLA Educators... When Our Scholars See Us..They Should See Greatness!
congratulations to our employees of the month!
Mrs. Forrest and Mr. Montgomery!
Start with Hello Week was great! Thank you to all staff who pushed this initiative with scholars.
Weekly Challenge: Each week we will give scholars a weekly challenge to complete. This week's challenge is Acts of Kindness. Encourage scholars to complete one act of kindness this week. On Friday in morning meetings/circles, please have scholars share out about their acts of kindness. Teachers are asked to capture footage of these conversations on video and send footage to your Academy Leader and Principal Tyler. Thank you to Ms. Sanchez and Ms. Wilson for sending footage last week!
Weekly Anti-Bullying Classroom Activity: Each week we will focus, as a school, on one assignment/activity to encourage scholars to think about bullying (see attached). For this week, we are asking all classrooms to have scholars complete the second handout in our anti-bullying packet. This week, scholars will work on affirming each other. They should write their name on the top of the worksheet. Inside of the ME letters, scholars should write one affirming thing about themselves. In the activity, scholars should pass the paper around and take turns writing affirming things about their peers. Push your scholars to write qualities/compliments that don't include physical appearance. Teachers are encouraged to adjust the rigor based upon your grade. However, we are expecting to see evidence of the final products posted in classrooms/hallways.
School-wide Mentoring Through Reading Buddies: Reading Buddies is underway and is a huge hit. Last week, all classes were assigned reading buddy partner classes. Thank you to those teachers who have already started. By the end of this week, please make sure you have scheduled your first reading buddy date!
Attire: School Spirit Day: GLA Button Down Shirt, Professional Bottom
- Cultural Arts Cycle Two Begins
- Morning Huddle 7:50a
- Annotated Lesson Plans Due 8:00a
- Off-Site PD Assignments Due 8:00a
- Support Staff Morning Huddle 8:15a
- Staff Salad Day!
Terrific Tuesday
Attire: Professional Dress
- Legendary Academy Harambee
- Instructional Strategy Meetings - Math
- Sister to Sister Fashion Show Committee Meeting 4p
Cultural Wednesday
Attire: Cultural Wednesday Attire
- 1p Dismissal
- Cultural Wednesday
- Staff Meeting/Professional Development 1:45p - 4:45p (Co-Planning and MTSS)
Thrilling Thursday
Attire: Professional Dress
- Rising Stars Academy Harambee
Fantastic Friday
Attire: FItness Friday T-Shirt and Jeans
- Fitness Friday
- GLA High School Fair 9a-12p
Teaching and Learning Corner (with Ms. Snyder)
Instructional Look For:
As we continue our components of a lesson looks for, this week’s focus is strong modeling/think clouds.
- Clear Steps: The teacher clearly breaks down the task into manageable steps.
- Modeled Thinking: The teacher describes their thinking out loud.
- Examples & Non Examples: Provide examples and non examples.
- Engage Scholars: Scholars should either be copying notes as you model or answering questions in order to demonstrate engagement.
Watch the video below to continue to build your teacher toolkit.
WePac: After a successful week 1, WePac will continue with B week. Please reach out with any questions!
This week's Iready champions!
iReady:
Our highest usage classrooms in Reading this week were:
- Wolff
- Forrest
- Wilson
Our highest usage classrooms in Math this week were:
- Stocker
- Sanchez
- Thompson
Culture and Climate Corner
See below for an important message from our PBIS Champion, Mr. Kennedy!
GLA West colleagues, six weeks in school has passed and our acceptance and implementation of our Global Greatness program has been phenomenal. Staff members have been great in speaking positively to our Scholars daily. Academies and individual homeroom teachers have begun to roll out LiveSchool incentives, which will no doubt strengthen the positive culture and climate in our environment.
Colleagues, always remember that learning new skills both behaviorally and academically requires lots of teaching…and re-teaching! We help our Scholars by continually and consistently teaching and re-teaching Global Greatness expectations. Remember to provide feedback, and allow opportunities to redo a skill correctly while strengthening our relationship with our Scholars. When guiding Scholars to improve behavioral skills, we as a staff can also reflect on ways to prevent unexpected behavior. What routine or procedure do I need to reteach? Do I need to increase my active supervision? Am I acknowledging Scholars frequently enough for showing the expected behavior?
Here at GLA West, we will be steadfast in focusing on various prevention strategies to increase the likelihood of appropriate behavior.
Global Greatness Tips:
· Re-teach Global Greatness lesson plans in appropriate area when necessary
· Focus on WHAT you are giving out LiveSchool dollars for, rather than just utilizing system.
- Use LiveSchool dollars to reward expected behaviors - not as coercion
- “If you don’t do this, I’m not giving you a LiveSchool dollar.”
Our Theme for October is "Don't Burn Out Before You Are Fully Lit!"
This Week in Health and Wellness!
All Week - =Recruiting and Identifying New HYPE team Members, announcement on Friday
10/7 - Staff Salad Day, 10:30-2 in the Community Room
10/7 - Perfect Attendance Staff Raffle, $25 Gift Card to Honey Grow
10/9 - Staff Exercise Club Kicks off on Wednesday after PD 4:45 - 5:30p
10/10, 12:30-2:30 - Yoga in Monson, Thomson, and Hatcher's classroom*
10/11 - Garden Club begins (participants and times TBD)
* working on alternate location
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Program:
M: Apples
T: Honeydew
Th: Grapes
F: Banana
Kudos to the Rising Stars Academy for a great Farm Truck Visit
Kudos Corner!
Thank you to all staff who donated toward and/or attended our 7th Annual Golf outing. Despite the weather, a wonderful time was had by all!
Kudos to all staff who earned awards for the month of September. We see your greatness! Be sure to hang your ribbons on your door!
Way to go Mrs. ZImmerman for your love and patience with our scholars in 1st Grade. Your small groups are running effectively and our scholars responding well. Your daily presence in Cafe' B is also appreciated and has not gone unnoticed. Your rock!
Special Kudos to each Champion Educator in Rising Stars for continuing to take on the day to day challenges. This is a great work that we do. However, we sometimes feel it is in vain. Fight the good fight and don't give up. You all are winners and your presence is valued an appreciated each day.
Let's talk about resourceful and creative! Ms. McGregor, continues to find ways to engage and motivate scholars to reach their full potential. Her Handy Dandy toolkit is working quite well and behaviors are changing because of it. Please continue to be a shining star in our academy. You are definitely here for it!
Important Reminders!
Timeliness: As professionals, please ensure that we are being mindful of arriving on time to posts, meetings, etc. Support staff please remember that we need you on your post on time to assist with our Morning and Dismissal process. Teachers, please be on time to morning huddle, professional development and when picking up your scholars.
Recess: It is imperative that all grades are adhering to the recess schedule. You must leave the yard at the conclusion of your recess so that we avoid extra scholars on the yard.
Dismissal: Please dismiss scholars according to the announcements and not on their own. Bathroom and water use ends at 3:00p. Scholars should not be sent out of the rooms for any reason after 3:00pm. Getting water is not an emergency!
PCOM: 6th through 8th grade scholars will be turning in PGSEP paperwork for our medical science program with PCOM, please encourage your scholars to turn in their paperwork to participate in this amazing program in the health and sciences field.
Committees: All staff are encouraged to sign up for at least two committees. If you did not sign up for committees on Wednesday with Mr. Fleming, you will have one more chance to do so this week.
october calendar
Happy Birthday to Our October Babies!
Ms. Wilson - 10/2
Mrs. Greene - 10/3
Ms. Griffin - 10/3
Ms. Simpson - 10/6
Mrs. Anderson - 10/7
Ms. Thompson - 10/8
Mr. Montgomery - 10/17
Ms. Martinez - 10/18
Ms. MacElvaney - 10/18
Ms. Thomas - 10/19
Mr. Webster - 10/23