The CIA Report
August 2017 Edition
Happy New Year!
So, Happy New Year, and welcome to the August 2017 edition of The CIA Report!
Just a quick note about this newsletter: The CIA Report is the primary source of communication from the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Department. We use this as a "flipped" approach to sharing information at administrator meetings. Here is how that will work:
- These monthly newsletters will come to you approximately a week prior to admin meetings.
- The expectation for you is that you read the newsletter prior to the admin meeting and if you have any questions, post them to the Google Doc linked to that particular newsletter.
- All questions posed on the doc will be addressed at the administrator meeting, and the resulting answers will be posted on the doc.
The purpose of this approach is to scale back the amount of time we spend sharing information at the admin meetings. If it can be put in a newsletter - that's what we do.
Please take some time to read through this prior to August 3rd (that's when CIA is on the agenda). If you have any questions, please post them to this Google Doc.
Learning Today... Feeding Your Professional Soul
What is "Learning Today"?
At our upcoming admin meeting, this learning takes the form of continuing our learning with NCCJ. In the following months, the learning may take on several different forms and may serve a variety of purposes.
Regardless of the content or purpose for our learning, we value spending the time learning together. We know that the path to becoming the best possible administrators is paved by learning all that we can - and learning with our colleagues can only help make it better!
Feeding Your Professional Soul - Today...
It's a new year! What will you do with it?
As educators, I think it's very easy for us to get sort of bogged down by the immense responsibility of teaching students. The pressure to ensure that our students learn all that the curriculum requires this year is palpable, and it can easily overwhelm us - especially as we begin to plan out all of those lessons and assessments for the year.
Yet - as educators, the impact we have on students is far greater than the curriculum they will learn this year. The relationships we build with them, the smiles we exchange, the caring questions we ask - those things stick with students and the impact can last a lifetime.
The same goes for our relationships and our exchanges with colleagues and our staffs. The relationships we build are so important, and the exchanges we engage in with each other may have a lasting impact - that we'll never really even know!
If you were in attendance at last year's back to school admin meetings, then you likely remember this short little video. I think it's worth watching again because the message is so important - for those we serve and for ourselves!
Drew Dudley - Everyday Leadership
Here are my two questions for you to consider:
1. How can you help create lollipop moments it the lives of your staff and students this year?
2. How can you become more aware of the lollipop moments created for you by others this year?
Take time to celebrate the small moments and to appreciate the impact they have - personally and professionally!
Changes in the CIA!
First - we welcome Jeanne Sivewright to our department. She will be working to help support Dr. Hill and Dr. Skeeters this year. We are so thrilled to have her!
Movement -
The CIA Department is now divided among only two buildings (instead of the 4 we were spread among at one point last year!). Just in case you are unsure, you can find all of us in the following places:
Administrative Center: Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith, Dr. Carrie Schwierjohn, Billie Defriese
Berrey-Place Center: Mr. Greg Lawrence, Katie Kruchowski, Dr. Karen Hill, Dr. Keri Skeeters, Jeanne Sivewright
The Content Leaders and District Coaches (for both literacy and technology) are also now located at Berrey-Place Center.
Teaching & Learning
What's on Tap for Curriculum This Year?
- All curriculum (including student growth assessments) for all content areas is now located on Team Drive! Curriculum is no longer accessible on the P Drive or through the website. We will go over this in more detail at the admin meeting.
- Our primary focus for curriculum development this school year is K-12 Science. Meghan Aydelott, Science Content Leader, will be working with her curriculum teams throughout the school year to accomplish this task.
- Kelly Manning (ELA), Nichole Nolan (Social Studies), and Katherine Schack (Math), will be spending time in classrooms in a coaching capacity this school year. Additionally, they will be pulling their curriculum teams (a maximum of 4 times) to review the recent changes to curriculum to ensure things are going well and to address any issues.
- Solar Eclipse - we are very excited about this event that will take place on the third day of school! Meghan Aydelott has been working with teams in each school to help plan the day. Please don't hesitate to reach out to her if you have a question or if you need assistance!
Dr. Keri Skeeters - Director of Teaching & Learning
Save the Date! 2nd Annual WSD Film Festival!
Assessment
SGA’s link to all SGA directions & protocols 2017-18 SGA Protocols
High School:
The expectations is that all high school teachers give the SGA in Canvas this year. The Canvas program will auto-grade tests and auto-send score reports to Pulse. Teachers will have a Canvas training on Sept. 1st. The testing window for high school SGA’s is Sept 5-15th. If a teacher attended a summer training or is familiar with Canvas they may choose to give the SGA earlier.
Middle School & Elementary:
SGA Testing Window- The assessment committee feedback suggested that Special Area Teachers have a longer testing window because they often have larger rosters and longer gaps of time between when they see students. Elementary teacher feedback suggested a later SGA date in order to better establish classroom routines prior to beginning of the year assessing.
Therefore the SGA testing window for Middle School & Elementary is:
Aug 21-Sept 15: SGA Pre Test- All Special Areas Window
Sept 5-15th: SGA Pre Test- All Core Classes
Please see the attached link for directions on how to enter SGA’s into SISK12 (MS & ELEM). All high school teachers will be trained on Canvas SGA on Sept. 5th.
2017-18 Student Growth Assessment Directions-PRE TEST- MS & ELEM
Assessment Calendar:
Please see the attached link for the 2017-18 Assessment Calendar. Please share this with all certified staff. There is also a Google Calendar for assessments that has been shared with all admin. ASSESSMENT CALENDAR LINK
Literacy Handbook:
Please share this Literacy Handbook with all Elementary Grade Chairs and MS & HS ELA Chairs. There are important updates to: elementary ELA SGA’s, elementary testing windows (DRA), and elementary protocols for DRA level movement. Please have your grade chairs review the 2017-18 Literacy Handbook with their teams.
Dr. Carrie Schiwerjohn - Director of Assessment
Professional & Program Development
Action Items
Everyone -
PD Planning - Your Building PD Plan (example) should be finalized by the first DPDC meeting on 8/29. These will be forwarded to the BoE.
PD Workflow (Please forward to your certified staff.) - Please follow this process to get your PD Requests approved:
Contact your District PD Chair to determine if there is space on the Professional Leave Calendar (aka “sub calendar”).
a) Fill out a Form 4420, b) get your principal’s signature, c) get your BPDC approval (if requesting building funds), d) and send to billiedefriese@wsdr4.org. If requesting District PD funds, the Representative Team will likely take 1-2 weeks to approve or deny.
Once approved, Billie DeFriese will put your subs on the Professional Leave Calendar and notify you.
Elementary / MS -
Todd Whitaker will be presenting on the 9/1 PD Day to the following:
LOCATION: Liberty HS Auditorium
AM group: 7:30 to 11:00a --- GTE, PVE, LVE, DUE, WMS, SMS, FMS
PM group: 12:00 to 3:30p --- BTE, HP/HI, PRE, DRE, CRE and Wabash
Here is a link to the 17 things in his book What Great Teachers Do Differently. Here is a video.
HS - Canvas Implementation for all teachers, principals, librarians, and others (Please forward to your certified staff.):
Amanda Moody will be visiting your building prior to 8/17 to give an overview of Canvas and make sure everyone can log in from the district website.
If you are having issues with Canvas, please contact Amanda Moody.
Courses and student enrollment will be automatic from SISk12! If you have another need for a “course” (ie. Building Admin / DC Group, committee group, etc.), please contact Amanda Moody. (You are not able to enter yourselves.)
9/1 from 12:00 to 3:30p - All teachers, principals, librarians, and others will be instructed on how to 1) pull your SGA into your course, 2) give the SGA in Kiosk mode so students cannot access the internet during the assessment and 3) pull SGA scores into SISk12 with the click of a button!
Take a minute to recognize someone who has helped you out recently. It’ll make their day! Energy Bus award
Updates
Everyone -
PD
DPDC Representative Team - 1st meeting on 8/1
A District PD Representative Team has been developed to 1) respond to items needing a timely response (ex. DPDC expenditures) and 2) develop ideas and plans to present to the DPDC for approval (ex. structure of PD Days, regulation updates, etc.).
Building PD Funds - These will be finalized in August by the DPDC Representative Team. You are likely to have funds similar to last year.
HS Ignite!
We just partnered with SSM St. Joseph West Hospital to have 10 of our students participate in a HealthCare Academy in the afternoon (12:10 to 2:10p). This gives us a total of 24 in our HealthCare Academies and 11 in our Startup / Business Solutions strands.
Our Startup / Business Solutions students will be working on authentic business solutions.
Do you or someone you know have a business project that has languished as the 10th item on the to-do list? If so, send it our way! Or are you an early-stage enterprise in need of support? Ignite! can provide your solution at no charge. Please fill out this Ignite! Project Request Form.
Dr. Karen Hill - Director of Professional & Program Development
Technology
Grade Cycle Dates...
The Grade Cycle for SISk12 have been set for the School Year. See the attached dates here.
Upgrades…
Over the summer, the Technology Department upgraded many services to continue to provide a secure and reliable network for the faculty and staff of the Wentzville School District. Our firewall and filter were upgraded and we switched to Charter for our main Internet Service Provider (ISP), which included an increase in our bandwidth to 10 Gbps (last school year we were at 1 Gbps).
Novell and Windows 10 Upgrade…
As we continue to move technology and learning forward in the Wentzville School District, all new computers will be running Windows 10. Novell was also upgraded over the summer to support Windows 10. Novell has undergone a name and icon change. Novell is now called “MicroFocus”. The new MicroFocus icon is blue and two squares together.
Moodle Learning Website…
With our continued transition to Canvas. We will have started a process to turn off our Moodle Learning Website (moodle.wentzville.k12.mo.us). Starting January 1, 2018, the Moodle website will only be accessible within the Wentzville School District and will not be accessible at home. On July 1, 2018, the Moodle Learning website will be turned off and not be to be reached. Please make plans to move any files that you may need to the new district website, Google Drive/Classroom, or Canvas.
Mr. Greg Lawrence - Director of Technology
School Improvement
Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment
Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith
Twitter: @GTKling