Brooks Briefing
Liberty Park Elementary
Week of January 28th
LP Week at a Glance
Monday the 28th
Tuesday the 29th
EL Site Visit - Kim Park
Wednesday the 30th
Staff Meeting @ 7:30am
Fire Drill
Thursday the 31st
Friday the 1st
World Read Aloud Day
Saturday the 2nd
Staff Outing - Bad Axe Throwing
Pass the Puddin! Who can you celebrate this week?!
- High Five to the Kindergarten Team! They each had 80% or more of their students reach their projected growth in Math on NWEA. ~Koomler
- High Five to the First Grade Team! They each had 75% or more of their students reach their projected growth in Math on NWEA. ~Koomler
- Cooksey - Thanks for helping during 4th grade lunch on Friday! ~Carson
- Garrett - Way rock related arts on Friday with 4 classes all together! You are the best! ~Carson
- Shout out to all of our IA's! They do so much each and every day to make the school day run smoothly. I appreciate their willingness to jump in and help wherever needed! ~ Brooks
- Kudos to Mrs. Cooksey and Mrs. Carnagua for leading our Robotics teams to the finals in their first competition of the year.
- 4 Thumbs up to our Related Arts team for always being so flexible when we have a shortage of substitutes.
Don't forget that a quick email to share a shout out can go along way in celebrating your team and colleagues!
February 2nd - Staff Outing @ Bad Axe Throwing!
February 6th - Late Start Day: MOY Data Dig
February 8th - PTA Family Dance @ 7pm
February 9th - Robotics Team Competition
February 11th -14th - 1st Grade CogAt testing
February 13th - Kindergarten CogAt testing
February 13th - PBIS Tier 1 Meeting @ 1pm
February 14th - Valentines All Pro Dads Breakfast @ 7:30am
February 18th - No School - President's Day
20 Tips to Help De-Escalate Interactions with Anxious or Defiant Students
ALL BEHAVIOR HAS A FUNCTION
Bad behavior is often connected to seeking attention, and when kids act out, they can see the results.* “Negative attention is way easier to get and hands down easier to understand,” Minahan said. “It’s much more efficient.” Adults tend to be unpredictable with attention when a student is doing what she is supposed to do, but as soon as there’s a dramatic, obvious tantrum, the student has the teacher’s attention. And negative attention is powerful -- one student can hijack a whole classroom.
A common teacher response to low-level negative attention seeking is to ignore the student. The teacher doesn’t want to reward bad behavior. “I want to caution you about ignoring someone with anxiety because their anxiety goes up,” Minahan said. Ignoring an already anxious student can accidentally convey the message that the teacher doesn’t care about the student, and worse might escalate the situation. Perhaps a teacher can ignore a student tapping his pencil or banging on his desk, but threatening behavior can’t be ignored. And the student learns exactly what level of behavior he must exhibit to get attention.
TIP 1:
Instead, “what you need to do is make positive attention compete better,” Minahan said. She often suggests that teachers actively engage the most difficult student at the beginning of class saying something like, “I can’t wait to see what you think of this assignment. I’m going to check on you in 5 minutes.” When the teacher actually comes back in five minutes, validates the student’s progress, and tells her another check-in is coming in ten minutes it sets up a pattern of predictable attention for positive behavior. And while it might seem unfair to take that extra time and care with one student, it ultimately saves instruction time when a teacher doesn’t have to deal with a tantrum that sends the student out of the room.
Coaching Thought(s) of the Week
Communication Updates and Info
- Thriving School Grant - Congrats to Tina Burton for leading the charge and helping Liberty Park receive the Indy Thriving Schools Grant! We are excited to announce that we will be working on creating an indoor sensory path for students! See picture above!
Student Work - "In any classroom, displays should consist primarily of the children’s work, rather than teacher-made or store-bought pieces, no matter how beautiful those pieces might be. Displaying student work sends several important messages: As teachers, we value what students do. This is their classroom as much as ours. And in this classroom, students share their work, learning from each other. Furthermore, consider this simple fact: Students will look at their own work more frequently than they will look at commercial materials."
When it comes to displaying student work, we do a good job of this as a whole but we can be better. Take a moment to review this short article that includes some suggestions for displaying student work in a classroom:
Morning Positions - Don’t forget that the most important part of our students day is when they enter our halls/pods/classrooms. Please be sure that you positioned at classroom doors (teachers) hallways/pod (support and aux staff) to welcome and monitor students each day as they enter the building.
Sound Field - Lauryn Davis, Kelley Carnagua, and Emily Halpin have been testing out a new system and they are giving 5 star reviews. If you are interested in having a wireless soundfield system w/ microphone for your classroom please let me know.
Data Dashboard - If you haven’t already, please update your MOY data with NWEA scores on the LP Data Dashboard.
Custodial - Please be sure to report spills from breakfast to the office so that custodians can address them properly. Also, please email any classroom/pod concerns to team leader Corey and CC me.
Staff Directory - Link to updated staff directory (also found in our shared drive)
Wednesday - This Wednesday we will not meet as a whole group. Teams will be diving into MOY data. I will provide more guidance for grade level team leaders soon.
Patriot Pals - If you have not signed up and selected your Patriot Pal, please swing by the office workroom. Be sure to write your name on the master sheet. My hope is that every adult staff member is partnered with a student.
WIDA Testing Update - First, we want to say THANK YOU for helping us get through our WIDA testing season. WIDA Access 2.0 is the English Language proficiency test that our students take to determine their level of proficiency. This is what gives us the information you can see in ELLevation. Students take four tests - Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. These results will also include a growth goal for next school year. With the changes to ESSA, whether or not our EL students reach that goal will be 10% of our school grade. Please let Mrs. Hiatt know if you would like to see the goal growths for our students.
Old News: Please review old items to be sure any TO DO items are completed.
- School Counselor - I'm very happy to announce that we have hired a school counselor. Brooke Tapper is very excited to be joining our team in this new role very soon. I will share more information about Brooke and this position soon.
- Spotlight PD's - Still searching for more spotlights! See below for more info/reminder.
- District PD - 3rd Quarter District PD Calendar - Please take a moment to check out the k-4 PD offerings through the district. There are some great 3rd quarter opportunities.
- Tutoring - Urgent: Still searching for 5-7 more tutors. Below is a link to a google form to fill out if you are interested in tutoring this semester. AM or PM, 1 or 2 days available. IA's are welcome as well! TUTORING GOOGLE FORM
- Lexia - Our Lexia usage is looking great! Remember that our expectation is that 90+% of students meet their weekly usage goal (minutes) each week. So far our yearly average of students meeting usage is 98% (4th grade), 98% (Kindergarten), and 99% (2nd grade)! Kudos! Keep in mind that we also want to keep a close eye on their progress of units and address any flagged lessons immediately when students are struggling. IA’s should be delivering those flagged lessons very soon after they are flagged. Remember that students go through three instructional cycles before getting flagged. Also, as a general reminder don't forget to mark certificates and booster lessons as "delivered".
- Safety Reminders:
Remember to always carry your Red Emergency Bag during any drill. This bag should contain updated class roster information.
Remind your students to never open outside doors for anyone they do not know who is asking to let them in. If they are unsure, tell them to go to the front of the building.
Always be on constant watch for unidentified individuals walking in the building.
Please be sure all doors are locked and shut. Pod doors should remain locked and closed before and after school.
Be aware of where your red classroom crisis binders and safety bags are in case they are needed.
Consistently review your red crisis binder for reminders of "what to do" during any crisis.
- Spotlight Sessions will be returning in 2019 (Late 2nd semester)! We are searching for Spotlight spotlight presenters. Do you have a strategy, program, or just a cool idea that is working in your classroom that you would be willing to share with staff? All topics and ideas welcomed.. Reading, Writing, Math, PBIS, STEM, etc. If so, we would love to have you help us all grow as professionals! Remember that Spotlight sessions are designed to be relevantly brief (20-30 min) small pd sessions led by teachers for teachers. ~~~Limited spots available so fill out the form below and Koomler or Brooks will be in touch!~~~ CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO SPOTLIGHT FORM
- Updated Class Rosters - This a good time of the year to remember that your class rosters should be updated (monthly) and included in your Sub Info Folders, Red Emergency Bags, etc. Also, reminder that during field trips electronic attendance should be taken as well as paper attendance rosters on the bus and in the front office prior to leaving.
Dismissal - Please remember that all 1-4 classes should remain in classrooms/pods until dismissed for buses.
Chromebook Cart Damage / Technology Link - Complete every Thursday or Friday
Safety Update: "Lock Down" shades have been installed in every classroom prior to break. These should be kept in the raised position and only used during lockdown situations.
Site Visit - I will be bringing several visitors from another district to visits classrooms on Wednesday morning (9-11). This is a make up for the date canceled due to weather in November. They are looking at implementing 1:1 chromebook devices and are interested in how are students utilize the technology.
Candy - Just a general reminder that candy should not be given as a reward (or for any reason) throughout the school day as part of our new district wellness policy. After school events, clubs, activities is an exception.