Personnel Passport
April 23rd-27th
Message from Mission Control
* Tonight is the EMS Reading Festival at Boswell. It takes place from 5:00-6:30! Encourage your students to attend and make sure to sign in! The school with the most students AND classroom with the most students will win 50 new books!
* We will have a STAAR pep rally on Friday, May 11th. We will run on Club schedule on this day in order to accommodate the pep rally. Younger grades are encouraged to make posters, signs, etc. to cheer on and pump up the 3rd-5th graders. We will have a visit from STAARMan, the CTHS drumline, and much more! We want to send the 3rd-5th graders into their weekend excited and ready to ROCK the STAAR test on Monday! Thanks to Kelly Stowe and Melanie Bradley for working to organize the event! K-1 Field Day is that morning, but it will be completed before the start of the pep rally!
* Tomorrow and Saturday is the district UIL competition. Thanks to Amarisa and all of the UIL coaches who have worked with our kiddos! Bobby will be at UIL tomorrow, and I will be there on Saturday! We are excited to watch our kids compete and show off everything they have learned these past several months! We are proud of them!
* Don't forget to electronically sign your summatives once they are sent to you. All end of the year conferences should be concluded by the end of the week. Don't forget to fill out Section II (goal reflection) and bring your evidence with you to the meeting.
* Kindergarten Roundup is NEXT Monday, April 30th. If you have students who have siblings starting kindergarten, please help us to spread the word about KG Roundup! It will take place from 3:00-5:00 after school!
Campus News
* With the end of the year comes a lot of meetings, night events, reminders, and paperwork. Make sure to read all emails and stay up to date with everything taking place!
* We will have a staff meeting on Monday, May 7th focusing on behavior intervention and strategies. Sally Christian, behavior specialist, will be there to present to the staff about BIPS, behavioral processes, and answer questions you may have. This is something that I've had several teachers mention they would like training on, so please make sure to come ready to learn and have questions available, so that she can help to give feedback and assistance where needed.
* In 5th grade, we are starting to implement a new behavior technique called Restorative Discipline. This is something that, as a grade level and administrative/counseling team, we have decided to try in order to be proactive in some behavioral actions that we've seen occurring. Dependent upon how we like this approach, it might be something we look at implementing campus-wide next year. It goes along well with the theory behind Great Expectations and really focuses on how the students' actions affect others on an emotional and physical level. It involves reflection, talking to one another and communicating about the problems and how it makes the students feel. So far, we have seen some success with the student interactions. I will definitely keep everyone updated on how it goes.
* EMS ISD teachers have the opportunity to use GradeCam for the remainder of this school year. The district will ask for feedback in May, which will help determine if this is something we would like to provide throughout the district next year. I forwarded an email you received today from no-reply@gradecam.com. Upon initial login, you will find easy-to-follow tutorials at the top of the GradeCam dashboard to help get you started. I have already heard from several of you who have tried it, and that's great!
* Friday, May 4th, we will have Muffins with Moms at 7:10 AM. This will work the same way our other events have gone. We will have muffins set out in the hall, and we will have tables set up in the hall for them to eat on. This all takes place before the 7:25 bell and will be concluded by the 7:35 start time. This is the week of the book fair, so Laura has said we will open the book fair early that morning as well! This will be a great addition and will hopefully result in a bigger success for the Book Fair as well.
* Next year, each elementary campus will be increasing their technology capabilities! We are very excited to say that every teacher will receive a touch screen TV in their classrooms. This will replace the current projectors. Every campus will also receive 1 cart (30) ipads and one cart of mini laptops! The laptops will most likely be utilized by the older students, and the ipads will be for the younger ones! The board approved this last Monday night, and all of these materials SHOULD be delivered to campuses during July. When you are signing up for summer classes, I encourage you to look at the technology classes offered, as this will be a focus next year, as more devices and resources become available district-wide.
Great Expecations
This year, we will be implementing our GE life principles during announcements, as well as having the opportunity for kids to respond using the white interactive papers in the hallway (formerly used for vocabulary).
Each life principle will be talked about during a 1 week period. You will be getting the schedule sent this week, and it will also be posted on the One Note staff portal. We will discuss on announcements, and students will have the opportunity to write (or draw) how they show this life principle. For example, the first one is self discipline. They can write on the paper how they show or can use self discipline. This will require thinking and application... so it brings in the higher levels. We will talk about the expectations of how this will be used on the announcements, so the students are familiar with what is acceptable.
Just as the vocabulary has been done in the past, the life principles will remain posted on the wall, so that the students can see them and refer back to them. The Elk of the Month will be chosen based on the life principles that have been discussed for the month. Each student chosen will not have to demonstrate ALL of the life principles, but one or more.
We will be reviewing all of our previous words we have learned and discussed throughout the year. We will discuss them on announcements and remind the students how important they are.
DATES TO REMEMBER
Monday, April 23rd:
District Reading Festival @ Boswell 5:00-6:30
Tuesday, April 24th:
Lilly's Shower: Taco Bar in the lounge
UIL 5:30 pm
Thursday, April 26th:
Kori off campus at meeting
Friday, April 27th:
Clubs today! Follow clubs schedule
Saturday, April 28th:
UIL 9:30 AM @ SHS
Monday, April 30th:
Kindergarten Roundup 3:00-5:00 pm
Thursday, May 3rd:
Kori off campus at meeting
Friday, May 4th:
Muffins with Moms @ 7:10 AM
Book Fair opens early today
May 7th-10th:
Teacher Appreciation Week
Stay tuned for the schedule!! :)
Friday, May 11th:
K-1 Field Day (AM)
STAAR Pep Rally @ 1:45
Follow Clubs Schedule Today
May 14-16th:
STAAR Testing- Campus closed to Visitors
KORI WERTH - PRINCIPAL
Email: kwerth@ems-isd.net
Website: http://www.emsisd.com/site/Default.aspx?PageID=2336
Location: Fort Worth, TX, United States