Pinkston Feeder Pattern
Week At A Glance - December 14 , 2015
Core Beliefs
Core Beliefs
Our main purpose is to improve student academic achievement.
Effective instruction makes the most difference in student academic performance.
There is no excuse for poor quality instruction.
With our help, at risk students will achieve at the same rate as non-at risk students.
Staff members must have a commitment to children and a commitment to the pursuit of excellence.
5th grade Reasoning Mind PLC.... In Action!
No Excuses University
Parker University adopts a Pinkston Feeder School
In the News
Congratulations and Shout Outs:
- Wow! - Pinkston HS Band has been invited to participate in the Thanksgiving Macy's Parade in 2016!!!!!! - Shout out to Mr. Cook and the LG Pinkston band students!!
- The feeder is proud of Dwain Simmons - Congratulations on being selected as Finalist as Principal of the Year!!!!!
- Way to go De Zavala, Arcadia Park, DESA, and Pinkston for participating in the Mayor's Race!
- Elementary ACP testing is successfully underway!
- Secondary ACP testing begins this week... Let's go, Pinkston Feeder Schools!
- A BIG Shout -out to Angela for hosting an absolutely fabulous Holiday luncheon!!! We had a wonderful time.
I want to send a sincere THANK YOU to the Team for the wonderful card and gift! I am VERY grateful and appreciative. North Park here I come.......
WAIP - Please read this week’s WAIP memos – there are VERY important ACP items. Delma creates a cliff not version to give you the gist each week to save you time. This summary is in the Google folder.
I2020 Status Report – It’s time for the I-2020 Status report. I asked Delma to pull the following data:
BOY and MOY data for ISIP;
attendance for each 6weeks;
discipline data from 2nd six weeks to current;
attendance data from 2nd six weeks to current;
Achieve 3000 baseline;
Reasoning Mind Level A, B &C and
SRI data that will show the percentage of students who moved lexile levels from the BOY
Once all the data is pulled, I will send you the completed template for your school.
Point person for I-Station; Achieve 3000; RM and Attendance for Credit
Delma will be our internal Achieve 3000, Istation, RM and Attendance for Credit expert. She is available to support you and your staff as problems or highlights arise. Please use this link to input your point of contact for each program information sheet
Reasoning Mind Report – Several weeks ago, the district conducted an audit of Reasoning Mind. The report with the finding and recommendations is in our Google Feeder Pattern folder.
Data Templates - The next Data Meeting templates are included in the Google folder for your review. You will find a sample of an elementary, middle and high school template. Once we receive the window for conducting data meetings, I will let you know. The data will be uploaded for you, once the ACP and climate data is captured.
Principal Meeting – Principal meeting schedule Wednesday, December 16th at Hulcy at 1:00 PM.
CIC & AF partnership with T&L – T&L will partner with School Leadership through the AF’s and CIC’s. The AF’s will meet once a week (Thursdays) to assist with developing the curriculum materials. The CIC’s will meet with T&L once a month to receive content training. The calendar is in the Google folder.
CIC training - The Teaching & Learning Department has scheduled a professional development session for Campus Instructional Coaches in the Intensive Support Network feeder patterns that will focus on the new curriculum documents that will align to the TEKS and prepare students for the rigor of the STAAR.
Our goal is to develop:
a common curriculum for all tested grades and subjects,
common 6weeks assessments and (mini-markers, our 3week retesting of spiraled low performing common assessment SEs and HOT SEs from the 2014-2015 STARR)
CIC PD ON NEW CURRICULUM DOCS FOR INTENSIVE SUPPORT NETWORK
Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at Buckner, room 801:
8-10am: All Science CICs
10:30-12:30pm: All RLA CICs
3-5pm: All Math CICs
CICs should register at this link: tiny.cc/cicpdnewdocs
Literacy Cadre Calendar Update - The dates I shared with elementary school for the new Literacy Cadre were revised – Please make the following calendar change: Jan 13, Feb 10, Mar 9, April 13, May 18 and June 1 - 2:00PM-5:00PM ---- The updated powerpoint is in the Google folder.
Attendance for Credit – Please make sure you discuss any concerns noted by the Coordinators assigned to your school for Attendance for credit (Jen Span, Some McGowan or Erlene Williams). I will need to review all documentation and sign off saying the suggestions were completed. Please make sure your assigned point of contact completes this portion of the review.
PD agendas – Please email your PD agendas for January 5th & 6th to Eliza Rico by December 17th
Writing ACP – Please send your writing ACP date from 4th and 7th grade to Eliza by December 17th.
No Excuses University – Please let me know if you are interested in participating in NEU. I'm working on getting the first conference funded for campuses interested. I've heard from several of you already. if you are interested, please let me know by Tuesday. The conference is March 7th and 8th in Anaheim CA. http://noexcusesu.com/events/academies/
BIC – Please let me know if there is any support you need with Breakfast in the Classroom. School Leadership is tracking the progress we are making with implementation. Once I receive a report with current percentage, I’ll send it out.
Recess Survey – Elementary principals, lease remember to complete recess survey by close of day December 14th
Mid-Year Review - Mid Year's are in full force, if you have any questions as you prepare, please do not hesitate to reach out. I will closely follow the guiding questions, so I'll place them in this week's Google folder for quick access. This document is a good way to help you prepare.
Please have a copy of the following documents for me:
- Color coded action plan
- Self Assessment with highlighted rubrics (action plan, curriculum alignment, instructional feedback)
- Observation/Feedback Data Analysis Template completed
Draft EIC Regulation and Local - Please find attached the DRAFT EIC (Regulation) and the current EIC (Local) policy that includes two options by which a school can choose to rank students. Option 1 in EIC (Local) is the default where all students are ranked and Option 2 is the option where only the students in the top ten percent are ranked. In June 2015 the Board of Trustees revised EIC (Local) to include an option (Option 2) for high school communities to be able to only rank students in the top ten percent. The attached draft EIC (Regulation) outlines a process by which high school communities could select Option 2. High school principals are invited to provide feedback on the draft EIC (Regulation).
ACP Security - I know you and your Testing Coordinator are working diligently to ensure the ACP documents are safe and secure. If there are any irregularities, they should be reported to the Assessment department. Upon receipt of any major test irregularities, Local Assessment will conduct a preliminary investigation, which may include visits to the school and interviews with staff. Their main focus in this type of investigation is to determine whether the security of the test has been breached and to make judgments about whether to score the exams based on the evidence. They are not a part of Internal Audit or the Professional Standards Office. However, they will inform those offices of any major irregularities and will give them their notes from any investigation they conduct. Before they go to a school, they do contact the principal. They will also send School Leadership recaps of any findings from their investigation.
This year in the Test Coordinator meetings it was strongly emphasized that each of day of testing they must bring those answer sheets down to Service Center to be scanned. Failure to comply would be a major test irregularity.
Job Fair Schedule – (Attend, only if you have a vacancy unless you just want to help interview:)
4:00 pm – 4:45 pm: “Meet and Greet” time with all candidates. Each feeder pattern will have one table. The candidates will browse the tables for 45 minutes. During this team, the candidates will sign up for interview slots at various tables.
4:45 pm – 5:00 pm: Each feeder pattern representative will move to their designated interview location at the event site.
5:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Interview slot #1
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm: Interview slot #2
6:00 pm – 6:30 pm: Interview slot #3
6:30 pm: Event conclusion
PEG List - The Public Education grant (PEG) list will be released. I've attached the list and memo explaining the process in the Google folder.
Achieve 3000 - I've included an article on Achieve 3000 for your review.
Field Trip Change - You do not need to complete field trip forms for athletic events scheduled and funded through the athletic departments. The athletic department will be responsible for vetting the permission to participate and the planning of the events. The campus athletic coordinators should work closely with the Athletics Department to make sure all is in order for these events.
Math Technique from a DISD teacher – Work Watching and SharingJ
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/southern-dallas/2015/12/08/dallas-math-teacher-has-formula-higher-test-scores/77009668/
Close Reading of Literary Texts - ReadWriteThink
Math Olympiad - Deadline has been EXTENDED! Just a reminder that the window for MO is still open. You may register and submit your video by DEC 18th. Visit the Math Olympiad website for all the details.
Resources
"Get Outta Class With Virtual Fieldtrips":
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech071.shtml
1st generation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72AWeUd_06k&feature=em-share_video_user
Campus Visits - Mid year Visits
Monday - Spots - (Carver 1 spot; DeZavala 1 spot; Carr 2 spots)
Tuesday - Mid- Year Arcadia Park
Wednesday - Principal Meeting
Thursday - Mid - Year Martinez
Friday -
In Our Schools
DeZavala Team participates in the Behringer Relay
Aracdia Park students participate in Mayor's Race
Pinkston Feeder's Great Principal
Article of the Week
The New ESEA Legislation and Reading Instruction
In this Education Gadfly article, Robert Pondiscio continues his campaign for a different emphasis in the reading curriculum, and sees hope in the revised ESEA bill that may soon become law. “If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, tax it,” quipped Ronald Reagan. “During the No Child Left Behind Era,” says Pondiscio, “test-driven accountability has too often stood Reagan’s maxim on its ear. Annual reading tests have practically required schools and teachers to forsake the patient, long-term investment in knowledge and vocabulary that builds strong readers, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. High-stakes accountability with annual tests that are not tied to course content (which reading tests are not) amounted to a tax on good things and a subsidy for bad practice: curriculum narrowing, test preparation, and more time spent on a ‘skills and strategies’ approach to learning that doesn’t serve children well.”
Pondiscio believes that states, with the flexibility they’re about to be granted (along with a continued mandate for annual testing) need to think through the incentives in their curriculum and testing policies. “Does what you are about to do in the name of accountability tax or subsidize student knowledge across the curriculum?” he asks. “Does it incentivize adding more social studies, science, art, and music to the school day, or does it encourage schools to do less? The sooner schools see building knowledge across the curriculum as Job One in strengthening reading comprehension, the better… You don’t build strong readers by teaching children to ‘find the main idea,’ ‘make inferences,’ and ‘compare and contrast.’ You do it by fixing a child’s gaze on the world outside the classroom window.”
The other part of the new ESEA that Pondiscio likes is the changed posture on teacher evaluation. “The best course is to abandon efforts to use tests to evaluate teachers – or, at the very least, stop using reading tests for those purposes,” he says. “The moment you attempt to evaluate teachers through reading tests, which are de facto tests of background knowledge, you’re taxing good teaching and subsidizing bad… There’s no incentive to build knowledge in a particular domain – plants, astronomy, colonial America, the Harlem Renaissance – since there’s no guarantee that those subjects will come up on the reading test this year, next year, or ever. But increasing breadth and depth of students’ domain knowledge is exactly how you build strong readers. States need to subsidize it – or at least stop taxing it.”
“ESEA and the Return of a Well-Rounded Curriculum” by Robert Pondiscio in The Education Gadfly, December 2, 2015 (Vol. 15, #47),