Principal's Newsletter
April 22nd, 2016
WOWs
Thank you to the counseling team for covering for me while I
was absent!!! It made things so much easier knowing that my students were well taken care of :)--Linda Murphy
Thanks to Debbie Pryor for collaborating with me about the students we share. These students have had more success because of her encouragement, influence and open-mindedness. --Jamie McCoy
WOW to my third grade team and all the third graders for their great effort on the first round of MAP testing last week! --Mary Scheffer
WOW to our third grade team for the MAP video idea, for Betsy's lyrics, and for Eleanna's expertise putting it all together! --Mary Scheffer
A big thanks to Ruth Zerface & Debbie Jamison for helping our school earn over $1500/year with Box Top collection. Debbie is a former parent (no kids here anymore) & comes in EVERY Thursday to collect & organize Box Tops. Introduce yourself & thank her when you see her in the lobby. I believe this may pay for our conference dinners & more.--Nancy Jeffrey
WOW to Sherry Reagan and Tracy Lloyd for helping out with some younger siblings while other school personnel met with mom and dad of one of our school families on two separate days. –LaTonya Foster
A HUGE WOW/Thank You for all the well wishes, cards, books, flowers, etc. for National Library Week. It was a very special week in our Learning Commons!!--Shanna Bradley
WOW to 1st grade at lunch. Going through the lunch line the students were amazing1 They were so polite and kind to our staff and to others. Thank you First Graders! Grandma Jean
WOW to Donna Baeten, Julia Bax, Megan Klimkewicz, Michele Kelly & Nancy Jeffrey who did their bus duty even though they had their release day. It’s so helpful to have our staff to supervise the kids and help with dismissal.
Thanks so much!
Staffing Update
Chris Rector will be teaching physical education. Chris has been with us for the last few months and has already had a positive impact on our students and staff. He has already joined the behavior committee to help in the efforts to implement PBIS. Chris does whatever he can to make students successful and has already worked to make sure students with special needs are included in P.E.
Courtney Kuhl will be joining the 5th grade team. She has previously taught 3rd grade and a variety of courses at the high school level. She writes curriculum for the district in multiple courses and has been a pivotal leader in the PLC process and student leadership. Courtney is excited to get back to teaching elementary and she will be a great addition to the 5th grade team.
Nathan Mackiewicz has accepted the position on the 4th grade team. He has spent the last four years teaching 5th grade at Independence Elementary and prior to that he worked at Vacation Station. Nathan is an involved member of the PBIS team at Independence and has helped in the implementation the past few years. He also supports teachers with technology and data analysis.
Gabrielle Lecea will also be joining the 4th grade team. She has a variety of experiences that make her a great asset to Harvest Ridge. She has taught in Chicago, Texas, and New Mexico. She was deeply involved with RTI in the Rittenour School District. Gabrielle has most recently taught Kindergarten at Independence Elementary and in the St. Charles School District. She has years of experience working with ELL students and even speaks Spanish!
A familiar face to many, Drew Moersch, will also join the 4th grade team. He just finished up student teaching in first grade and subs frequently all over our building. Drew has built positive relationships with his students and has proven he can do the same with staff. Drew will be a great addition to the 4th grade team.
Jordan Smith will join the 3rd grade team. She has spent the last two years teaching 3rd grade in her home town of Cape Girardeau at the same school she attended as a child. She has been a member of her PBIS team and helped problem solve and seek behavior interventions for students. Jordan is relocating to the area where her fiance lives and getting married this June.
We still have one more 3rd grade position to fill. We will be conducting interviews soon for that position.
Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices
Restorative Practices are used to build a sense of community and resolve conflict by repairing harm and restoring positive relationships through the use of regular "restorative circles" where students and educators work together to set academic goals, develop core values for the classroom community and resolve conflicts.
While on Spring Break I read a great book called, The Restorative Practices Handbook for Teachers, Disciplinarians, and Administrators. Below are some of the highlights I had from the book.
- "Restorative" means changing your own attitude, and it also means believing in students even when- and especially when- they seem to be behaving badly.
- Getting students to speak and find solutions is a significant shift for teachers and administrators. Usually, we educators, find ourselves constantly correcting students' behavior, which gets rather tiresome.
- During restorative practices you still address inappropriate behavior but in a way that asks students to think for themselves about their actions and to reflect on how they affect people. That shifts the responsibility away from you and places it on the students whose behavior is causing the problem.
- Asking students, "why did you do that?" is really not helpful or relevant. Young people usually don't know what they did something.
- Merely punishing a student forgoes a critical learning opportunity.
- Schools that fail to build good relationships and a sense of community will find it more difficult to respond restoratively to problems when they arise.
- Punishment allows offenders to be passive and to avoid real responsibility for what they have done. To be given a detention or some other punishment requires no active participation on the part of the student who misbehaved. It's the easy way because it doesn't ask a student to do anything.
- The belief that punishment changes behavior is the basis for school discipline policies around the world. Yet the belief is not supported by evidence.
- When we punish students by excluding or humiliating them, they do not feel connected to school administrators, teachers, or their well-behaved peers. Rather, they feel alienated and instead seek out and bond with others who have been excluded from the mainstream, creating their own negative subculture in the school.
Goals of Restorative Practices
- Trying to foster understanding of the impact of the behavior
- Seeking to repair the harm that was done to people and relationships
- Attending to the needs of victims and others in the school
- Avoiding imposing on students intentional pain, embarrassment, and discomfort
- Actively involving others as much as possible
School Improvement Plan for 2016-2017
- Current Reality- Using the data protocol we will analyze behavior data
- Vision- Where do we want to be?
- Roles for Leadership Team- Change and Resistance
- Review Previous Committee Decisions
- Review Staff Input
- Professional Development
- SIP Expectations
- PBIS Tier 1 Checklist
- Write SIP
- Plan Faculty Meeting Topics and Beginning of the Year Topics for Staff
- Prepare Resources for Classrooms
On Wednesday, April 27th the EDC leadership team have their regularly scheduled meeting and then write the achievement portion of the School Improvement Plan.
- 4th quarter report cards
- PLC pacing guide
- Writing scoring guides
- Scheduling
- Conference Sign Ups for 2016-2017
- Summer Collaboration
- Current Reality - what does the achievement data tells us?
- Vision- where do we want to be?
- SIP Expectations
- Write SIP goals and action steps
Professional Development and Parent Involvement will be embedded into each portion of the SIP plan using the 6 Keys to Parent Involvement just like we have in the past.
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the process or the SIP. Remember our School Improvement Plan is the document that guides the work that we do. It sets the direct to improve student learning and serves as the document to monitor the work that is happening in our building. It is a fluid document and can be changed as we see fit.
Room Assignments
We are finalizing room assignments this week and will send those put through email.