Husky Times
Leading the pack in education
HHE Mission
CALENDAR
DATES
April 4-20 Open enrollment period for students out of district or out of "zone"
April 11 House Meeting (Activity #4) and Campus Teams
April 12 Dr. Clark Visit to see Tier 1 Priorities and Standards Based Instruction
April 12 3rd Grade Musical 2:00-2:30 and 7:00-7:30
April 15 Doughnuts with Dad 7:30-8:30 Outside Gym
April 15 End of the 5th Six Weeks
April 18 Faculty Meeting
April 19 Grades Due in Skyward for 5th Six Weeks
April 20 LOL in the Afternoon
April 21 PLC/Art Day
April 22 House Celebration Meeting
April 25 House Meeting (Lesson) and Campus Teams
April 29 Care Team Day
May 2 House Meeting (Activity #5) and Faculty Meeting
May 5 Dr. Brown Visit HHE
May 6 Muffins with Mom
May 9 3rd & 4th Math STAAR (5th retest)
May 10 3rd & 4th Reading STAAR (5th retest)
May 11 5th Science STAAR
May 13 RHS "Alice" performance for 1st, 2nd, 3rd from 1:40-2:30 in cafeteria
Husky Harmonics
Here are links to the live Periscope from Friday choir performance. Thank you Mr. Dvorak!!
https://katch.me/michaelwamsley/v/176e9c62-fc2a-3992-8131-d8ebb6cece58
https://katch.me/michaelwamsley/v/235386d1-e2e4-3729-8eca-7b8c831a90e6
Proactive at Recess
Please review on the expectations you are setting for students and make sure to reflect with them on their progress in meeting those. Just bringing these to the forefront is a powerful preventative to curb poor choices.
Recess is an area we are seeing increased student reports of misconduct. Please make sure your team is spread out across the playground and using the four comers if possible. At no time should teachers be clustered together in one area.
If a group of students wants to play a sport make sure you do the following:
- Make sure everyone who is playing earned the privilege. I want to keep recess from being used as a punitive measure as much as possible. It is very appropriate to inform a student they have not been responsible enough to play sports, but can still have free play time. Let them know they can earn sports and tell them clearly what they will need to do to play sports next time.
- Review the rules and conduct expected for the sport. There is no contact in elementary sports.
- Assign a teacher as a referee/monitor of the game. If there are not enough staff to do this or if the staff who is the referee goes inside then the game cannot proceed.
Thank you for your role in making every aspect of our school a safe, caring, and accepting environment for student to excel.
Locked Gates
If you go through the gate you must lock it after you, no exceptions to this.
CAMPUS ACTION:
All locks are keyed to your building’s master keying system, so the head custodian’s key and the teachers’ classroom keys will work the locks at your campus. It is very important that during the day the padlocks remain LOCKED. All visitors must enter through the front doors and check in with the office while gates are supposed to be locked. We all need to adjust to the new normal and adhere to the cowboy gate rule of “you go through it, you lock it back”.
HEAD CUSTODIANS ACTION:
Every school day, LOCK the pedestrian gates at the start of the day. For HHE this will be 7:15 AM
Every school day, UNLOCK the pedestrian gates at the end of day. For HHE this will be 4:00 PM
Pedestrian gates are to be UNLOCKED anytime school is out and LOCKED anytime school is in.
Do not unlock the wide vehicle gates. These are for B&G use only.
Dismissal Changes
No student should be dismissed or walking in the halls before the bell rings at 3:25. When the 3:25 bell rings you should walk your class out to the dismissal area just as you would going to specials or any other area in the building. The walkers should come out with your class to the dismissal area and leave from there. Day care riders should leave the room at the end of the school day.
IMPORTANT CHANGE:
Students meeting up with younger siblings in 1st, Kinder, or Pre-K will need to go through the building and out the front doors by the office. The gate by the Kinder rooms are locked at dismissal and students are not able to get outside the perimeter. I know this is a big change and will need you help with communicating this directly to the student effected. All students doing this should go down to the hall by the library and then up the second grade hallway (even the classrooms at the far East end of the 4th grade hall). This will avoid counter traffic from the masses of 2nd graders trying to get their dismissal spot.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Let students know they are not to climb the fences before or after school. Any student doing so should be immediately referred to the office. It takes the 2nd grade teachers at least five minutes to get to their gate and if a student is riding a bike they must wait appropriately for the teachers to come and unlock the gate. 2nd grade teacher will correct students as needed and will notify us of any student who is not following expectations. Please be proactive is sending this message to your students.
Please let Erin or I know if you have any questions.
Spring Cleaning
Thank you for helping the lounge look so nice!
There are cans of Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Cherry Coke in the refrigerator by the couches. Please help your self to them!
April 18th Faculty Meeting
I have asked technology to come in and share some information with us.
Jeff Samuelson is coming to present the information about the resources we will receive from Technology Bond. He will also talk to us about what supports will be available next year to fully integrate the resources into our practice. At the end of the presentation he will answer questions and address any concerns you have.
There will also be a short presentation on a serious computer virus that we need to make sure does not infect our systems (or your home). Please be careful about opening attachments in emails- even one that appear to be official. If you scroll over a link and it appears not to be from the site it is claiming, treat this with extreme caution. We will have more detailed information on the 18th, but if you have any questions please come to me personally and I will be glad to assist in any way possible.
Retention Considerations
We are now midway into the 5th six weeks and it is time to start collecting information to see if it might be beneficial for students to repeat a grade. (Note: student must not have been retained previously or currently receiving services through special education for academics)
If a parent has raised the concern of retention, you have spoken with the parent about the possibility, or if we have met on a student in Care Team this year and they are still not showing the progress that would make them successful in the next grade level and you are referring them to the Grade Placement Committee for consideration of retention as a possibility, please do the following:
- Any time starting Monday April 4th, pick-up, and sign-out for a Light’s Retention Scale from Mr. Wamsley’s office.
- Gather copies of information on student’s performance/grades, interventions, attendance (including tardies), conferences, CARE team minutes, discipline/conduct, and testing information.
- Fill the Light’s Retention Scale out and return it to Mr. Wamsley’s office in a folder along with the above information. He will score it, share the results with you, and give you some informative documents that explain the research behind the instrument.
- Contact the parent and update them on their child’s continued struggle during report card time ( April 19-29). Let them know that a grade placement committee meets at the end of the year on students who are not promoted to the next grade level and they make a decision on what grade the student will be placed in the following year. Tell them that we use a comprehensive instrument that looks at the whole child to help determine the best course of action to increase their child’s long term success.
- Share these results with parents in a conference (Mr. Wamsley has a parent information page that can help facilitate this).
- The folder will be kept in the office and will be used as part of the data in the decision the grade placement committee makes this year.
Please let Erin or I know if you have any questions.
Dr. Clark Visit
ELAR Priorities Presentation
http://www.birdvilleschools.net/cms/lib2/TX01000797/Centricity/Domain/3660/Elementary.pptx
If you do not have the 3 Kinds of Thinking Poster, please let me know
Math Priorities Presentation
Science Priorities Presentation
Social Studies Priorities Presentation
Online Campus Transfer Requests: March 21 - Summer
I have 2 primary goals as a principal and I see these as overlapping priorities: for every student to receive the best possible education and for every adult I serve to love doing this. If you for any reason would like to transfer to a different position, grade level or school- please let me know and I will do everything I can to help you. Please come ask me if you have any questions. Thank you
http://birdvilleschools.net/cms/lib2/TX01000797/Centricity/Domain/3450/eTinstructions_staff2016.pdf
Genius Hour: Where Passions Come Alive
Recently Mrs. Dunahoo, with a team from BISD, visited a school where students persued their passions for one hour a week and used this passion to make meaningful connections with all their content on a daily basis. This learning has been called "Genius Hour" and has been proven to be very positive for students on many levels.
Genius hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school. Below is a short video with some basic information on this concept and a link to their homepage.
This is not something that we will be doing as a whole school next year, but from what I have seen it seems very student centered and well worth further examination. If you would be interested in looking into this more with me, please send me an email and we can get together to discuss how we can learn more about this practice.
Open Enrollment Information
Applications for open enrollment for the 2016–17 school year will only be accepted April 4–29
Click title for additional details or go to www.birdvilleschools.net/openenrollment
TAGT on Demand
TAGT On Demand is now open for teachers who are interested in getting started on their annual 6-hour update for 2016-2017. If there are teachers who did not complete their 30-hour or the 6-hour update for this year, they may also continue working on that task. District guidelines require that it be completed by December 31 each year, but the logins BISD paid for will be available until June 30. Please finish hours for this year as soon as possible. Courses are being posted in Workshop as quickly as possible once teachers submit their certificates to Katie Waldrip.
Reminders and Focus
The gates will be locked during school hours and can be opened by your key. During the school day (7:30-4:00 on none Aspire days: 7:00-6:00 on Aspire days) these gates are to be treated like an exterior door. Adults and teenagers should not enter these and should go through the main doors, even at dismissal.
- Our goal is to be level 3 (or moving close to it) in most areas on the district rubric for TEKS centered teaching. I have seen many great examples of students interacting with the TEKS in class. Be sure to not only post them, but have discussions so that students understand the goal of their learning.
- Continue to build strong, positive relationships with all the students. Smile often. Choose to see the good and positive. Focus on growth and celebrate often. Nothing is more helpful in the learning process than the effects of trust and joy.
- PLC's should be meeting weekly to answer the 4 questions. Common Formative Assessments should done after mapping out the six weeks, then planning for learning should take place. If you need any support in this, please contact our coaches, Erin, and myself.
- Rigor, relevance, and engagement strategies should be focus on when planning student learning tasks.
Husky Pride
Location: 5221 Susan Lee Ln, North Richland Hills, TX, United States
Phone: 817-547-2600
Facebook: facebook.com/bisdhhe
Twitter: @twitter_bisdhhe