Bay Lane Staff Bulletin - 1/16/18
Every student learning, growing, succeeding.
Staff Commitments
I believe all students are capable of achieving proficiency.
I am capable of fostering proficient readers.
I will use results to drive my work.
News and Updates
MNS Bi-Weekly
Please remember to read the district bi-weekly for important information and to-dos.
Passes for Students During Lunch
Please make sure to write students a pass before lunch if you need to see them. Otherwise, they do not have permission to leave the Commons. Thank you!
CST Process Revision Update
Thanks Laura Tsakonas, Heather Duerst, and Stacey Malek for leading the revision process for CSTs at Bay Lane. Look for updates to come and some sample tools for problem solving around students.
Box Tops Update
The PTO wanted to thank those of you who collected Box Tops in December! So far from one month alone, we earned $125.30 toward this year's Staff Wish List! (A fun fact is that $45,726.74 is the grand total that Bay Lane has earned for Box Tops throughout the history of the fundraiser.)
Stoplight Report from Roudning
Dawn and Rachel had a chance to round with every staff member during Quarter 2. They ask a set of questions to ensure staff members feel engaged and supported. Based on staff responses, they put together a Stoplight Report of their actions based on rounding. Please reach out to Dawn or Rachel if you have any questions.
STAR Administration
Now that we have reflected on our winter STAR, a few of you have asked if you could administer the early spring STAR assessment to get an idea of student progress before the spring STAR is administered. The answer is yes, you can, BUT please make sure you administer it closer to March (or in March) so that the SGP for every student is calculated using the December STAR test. STAR uses three assessment scores to determine SGP-fall, spring, and one that is given closest to January 15. So, while we can give STAR at any time during the year, we want to try to be consistent so that our SGP can be comparable between students and testing sessions. Our spring STAR window is at the end of April/Beginning of May.
In addition, many of you have asked about small group testing for STAR. Kristin Bigley and Kim Crosby have done some small group testing on an as needed basis and will continue to offer that. In the past, we encouraged STAR to be administered the same as you do all classroom assessments. That has not changed, but if you strongly feel a student would benefit from small group testing, please ask Kristin or Kim C to support.
Congratulations
Bay Lane teacher, Megan Bernhardt, is one of Wisconsin's 126 educators that earned national board certification in 2017. Wisconsin is one of seven states to increase National Board Certified Teachers by more than 10%. Congratulations to Megan for joining 1,082 Wisconsin teachers who have earned this certification!
High Leverage Practices
Thank you for sharing artifacts with your colleagues and engaging in conversations about student learning in connection with these HLP's. We look forward to more learning together!
Highly Functioning PLCs
"Making the Most of Professional Learning Communities" by Jay McTighe offers next steps for educators looking to move from collaboration to high impact within their PLCs. He offers the following approaches to consider in your next PLC:
Critical Friend
Exchange a common formative assessment or unit plan with another grade level in your content area. Seek feedback, suggestions, and input and provide the same kind of feedback in return. PLCs can become too close to their work and their to see weaknesses that a critical friend could offer. Also consider each member generating a common assessment for a different skill. Then, swap within the PLC to serve as critical friends. Sometimes generating lessons, units, or assessments together does not allow for the same kind of critical feedback others could provide. It is human nature to want to avoid what feels like criticism of our colleagues. However, we know that feedback is necessary for continuous improvement.
Analyst of Student Work
By consistently sharing and comparing the results of classroom data, your PLC can better gauge gaps and adjust instruction accordingly. Furthermore, regularly sharing and analyzing common formative assessments within PLCs allows for opportunities to celebrate short term success.
McTighe suggests, "continuous learning is a hallmark of professionalism in any field and especially relevant to a profession devoted to learning." McTighe goes on to clarify that part of continuous learning for teachers involves learning how to evaluate the results of their teaching. PLCs are powerful vehicles for examining your the impact of your teaching on student learning.
PBIS
Students who are Oppositional or Defiant
With emerging new mental and physical abilities, adolescents want to have a say in their world. They want to influence what happens and have their opinions considered. This desire, mixed with a lack of life experience, and a not-yet-fully-developed frontal lobe (the part of the brain that helps us to recognize danger and fully feel empathy for others), especially in boys, often results in them wanting a longer leash than parents and educators feel it is wise to give.
When children are defiant, their goal is not to annoy, disrespect, or frustrate us. Rather, their goal often is to feel significant. Yet their defiance threatens our own similar need. As we both strive to feel significant, we can easily get enmeshed in a power struggle.
- Stand side-by-side when confronting a student about something. Many students, especially boys, dig in their heels for a fight when confronted in a face-to-face situation. It's a natural reaction. If you can have the same conversation side-by-side, it changes the feel of the situation (for both of you, actually) and can often result in a better exchange.
- Be brief. Avoid lectures, sarcasm, and lengthy verbal exchanges when addressing problem behaviors or when addressing defiance. Use short, direct statements. Avoid questions when a student is escalating as well.
- Seating matters. Avoid seating students facing one another unless your classroom is highly structured. Putting desks in pairs with all desks facing the front is the optimal seating arrangement for middle level learners.
Assembly Expectations
With the upcoming assembly, please remember to go over assembly expectations with the class you'll escort to the assembly:
- Walk your class down to the gym as a class.
- Sit as a class in a row.
- Monitor and address student behavior as needed for the class you escorted to the gym.
- Maintain level 0 voice when anyone is speaking in front of the audience.
- Do not shout out unless called upon by the speaker.
- Do not have side conversations with other students when an adult is speaking up front.
Quarter 2 Celebration Date
Just a reminder that the Quarter 2 celebration date has been changed to February 16th.
Behavior Data for December
See the link.
Increasing College Going Culture at Bay Lane
Thank you to all homerooms that participated in the December College and Career Awareness activity to further develop our College and Career going culture at Bay Lane. Winning teams for our crossword challenge will receive prizes in their homeroom on Wednesday, January 10th!
College Wear Wednesdays
Reminders about College Wear Wednesdays will continue on Tuesdays with a Career, Tech, or College fact. Our first student participation homeroom contest will be held on Wednesday, January 17th. Be sure to remind students to participate to be the winning homeroom!
Current Baseline data for student participation is as follows:
- 5th Grade- 8% of students participate
- 6th Grade-2% of students participate
- 7th Grade-11% of students participate
- 8th Grade-2% of students participate
Career Cafe:
Our first career cafe on January, 23rd, will be a virtual experience using Google Expedition. During this cafe, 7th and 8th-grade students will have the opportunity to explore the following areas:
- You Belong in College
- How Do I Pay for College?
- Where Do You Live at College?
- May I See a Typical Student’s Room?
- Inside a College Dining Hall
- What Are Classes Like In College?
- What do College Students Do Outside of Class?
- Do You Play a Sport? Or Watch Sports?
- Inside a College Library
- College Landmarks and Traditions
We are still looking for speakers/presentations for future College and Career Cafe dates, please share the following Sign-up Genius Link in your grade-level bulletins or with anyone you know that may be interested in speaking!!!
BLMS: College and Career Cafe Guest Speaker
College and Career Week
Student Council will be presenting College and Career week at Bay Lane Middle school during the week of January 22nd. Please be on the lookout for upcoming information regarding the school-wide activities week filled with contests, challenges, and fun student engagement activities!!! Thanks Nancy and the amazing Student Council team!!!
Engaging Parents
Update from the Parent Engagement Team
Parents often find technology in the classroom to be a roadblock to helping their child with their classwork. There are a lot of different tools teachers use, and those that are used parents get very little training, if any to use them appropriately. Remember that technology in the classroom ranges from the basic of Chromebooks, google classroom, email, district resources (Pearson, Moby Max, etc.), etc. and parents might need assistance with daily technology questions.
Like our students, parents don't always feel comfortable reaching out about their confusion, so they struggle for a while and ultimately might give up helping the student. With that also comes either the disinterest or pushback against the tools being used to further/communicate the learning in the classroom. This can be resolved or avoided by simply helping the parents understand the technology in the classroom.
Here are some ideas from the Parent Engagement Team on how you can help parents understand the technology being used in the classroom:
- Create a video/handout showing how to long onto and use the school website, classroom website,Infinite Campus or class blog.
- Provide a troubleshooting handout for parents/students about the technology.
- Create a brief overview video to the new technology being used, and highlight it's main parents, and goal.
- Offer parent learning sessions (before/after school, online webinars) about the topics learning in class or the technology
- Provide examples/models for parent access (it's sometimes easier to use a program when you have an idea of how it works)
- Showcase the different technologies used at an open house night
- Provide parents a "Tech Tip of the Week" for your class, and encourage parents to talk with their students about it.
Student Agency at Bay Lane
Correlation between Motivation and Sense of Purpose
When thinking about building student agency in your classroom, it doesn't have to be restricted to standards and curriculum. "Research suggests that students’ sense of agency in the world correlates with higher academic performance. Surveys of 6th to 12th graders by the Quaglia Institute for School Voice and Aspirations have found that students who feel a strong sense of purpose are far more likely than others to say they are highly motivated academically. Seeing that their ideas, opinions, and attitudes can make a difference in the world, beginning with their own school and locality, can be a powerful driving force in young people’s learning experience." (XQ Superschool Module, 2017)
Questions to Consider
- Do you know what kind of community involvement your students currently have?
- What are topics are your students passionate about?
- How can you work in service learning to your content?
Cabin Fever Game Night
Friday, Feb 2, 2018, 07:00 PM
20680 Chadwick Lane, Brookfield, WI, United States
Bay Lane's 4th Annual Dodgeball Tournament
Friday, Apr 27, 2018, 03:30 PM
Bay Lane Middle School, Hilltop Drive, Muskego, WI, United States
Important Dates Ahead
- Tuesday, January 16, 8:15 gr 5 & 6, 9:30 gr 7 & 8 Assembly on Cyber Safety
- Thursday, January 18, 7:00 pm - BL Winter Choir Concert at MHS PAC
- Sunday, January 21 - Mary Amaya & Stacey Malek's Birthday
- Tuesday, January 23 - Joel Snavely's Birthday
- Wednesday, January 24, Quarter 2 Report Cards Mailed Home; 5-8 pm MHS Course Information Night Gr 8-11
- Thursday, February 1, 7:15 am Staff Meeting
- Thursday, Feb 1 - Donna Rokvic, Rachel Wagner & Stacie Capstran's Birthday
- Friday, February 2 - Cabin Fever Game Night - 7 PM at the Zandt's Home
- Monday, February 5, 3:15 pm - EOTG meeting
- Thursday, February 8 Joe Britt's Birthday
- Friday, February 9 Heather Niemiec's Birthday
- Monday, February 12, 6:30 pm PTO Meeting
- Friday, February 16 - Quarter 2 Celebration Day
Important Links
Help Desk - Technology or Custodial
Positive Contact Log- Core Teachers
Positive Contact Log- Encore Teachers/PPS/Administration
Student Team Bobcat Nomination Form
Staff Member Team Bobcat Nomination Form
*Please email Dawn or Rachel if you'd like us to add an Important Link.