Bearcat Brief
March 2, 2020
Notes from Niki
Next Monday, March 9, is our last PD day of the school year. I think more information will come from PDC, but the presentation will be about mental health. The trainings will be simultaneously in all three buildings but separate for a more intimate setting. Planning on being in the library and ready to go by 7:45. It is an 8-hour training, so we will have a working lunch and then finish as close to 3:30 as possible.
Read-In Day
The schedule for Friday is below:
8:00- 8:30- Drop Everything and Read- sustained silent reading. 4/5th-grades will stay in homerooms for this.
8:30- 9:09- 1st Hour
9:13- 9:52- 2nd Hour
9:56- 10:35- 3rd Hour
10:39- 11:00- 4th Hour (Students can keep stuff in 4th hour, out of the way if activities are in there- we will return to 4th hour classes after lunch)
11:00- 12:15 lunch and reading activities
12:15- 12:35- Back to 4th Hour
12:39- 1:18- 5th Hour
1:22- 2:01- 6th Hour
2:05- 2:44- 7th Hour
2:45- 3:12- SOM Assembly
Beth will send out rosters for the lunchtime activities and we will get you materials for those sometime on Thursday.
Professional Reading/ Resources:
Executive Functioning As a Key Skill in the Early Years.
In this Review of Educational Research article, Michelle Cumming, Andy Pham, and Jeeyun Park (Florida International University) and Elizabeth Bettini (Boston University) say that executive functioning skills are “crucial for performance in school and life.” They describe three core components:
- Inhibitory control: being able to suppress a dominant response in order to respond in a more-desirable way – for example, a student waiting to be called on in class. This facet of executive functioning develops first, accelerating during the preschool years.
- Working memory: being able to store, maintain, and manipulate information over brief periods of time – for example, remembering events in a story when answering reading comprehension questions. This ability shows gradual, linear improvement from preschool through adolescence.
- Cognitive flexibility: being able to adapt dynamically to changing task demands or contexts – for example, switching from reviewing multiplication facts to getting started on a math test. This capacity develops gradually between ages 3 and 5 and continues to mature into adolescence.
Students often need to call on different executive-functioning skills in real time – for example, using inhibitory control to tune out distractions from classmates while recalling from working memory the teacher’s directions to complete a writing assignment.
Cumming, Bettini, Pham, and Park found that executive functioning skills are partly inherited, but they are also “malleable and sensitive to both negative and positive experiences, including experiences in school.” Specifically:
• Positive experiences – Skillful parenting, a warm emotional climate, scaffolding of play and learning, and a caring and emotionally supportive school environment all foster the development of executive functioning. This includes parents and educators modeling self-regulation.
• Stress – Moderate stress is important to development, say the authors, but “uncontrollable, persistent, or extreme” stress undermines the development of executive functioning – for example, harsh parenting, violence in the home, and abuse, and at school, unsafe, punitive, and conflict-ridden experiences.
The authors say their research provides one more reason for continuously working on safe, positive, emotionally supportive classrooms and other school experiences. They also suggest universal screening of students for executive functioning deficits, because children who enter school with weak skills will be especially sensitive to stressors in school. Early identification, they say, “may enable educational professionals to intervene early and provide targeted prevention and intervention programming for those at risk of poor executive development.”
“School-, Classroom-, and Dyadic-Level Experiences: A Literature Review of Their Relationship with Students’ Executive Functioning Development” by Michelle Cumming, Elizabeth Bettini, Andy Pham, and Jeeyun Park in Review of Educational Research, February 2020 (Vol. 90, #1, pp. 47-94), available for purchase at https://bit.ly/2wDd4W0; the authors can be reached at micummin@fiu.edu, avpham@fiu.edu, jepark@fiu.edu, and lbettini@bu.edu.
Upcoming Events
March
February 27- March 6- HMS Scholastic Book Fair
March 2- 7/8 Grade Volleyball @ St. Clair, 12:30March 2- Meet the Candidates Night, HHS Auditorium, 7:00
March 3- Tornado Drill, 10:00 a.m. (We will be sheltering in the nearest place to your room, not all traveling to the 4/5 grade wing)
March 3- PBIS Leadership Team Meeting, 3:20, Conference Room
March 3- 7/8 Grade Volleyball vs. Washington, 5:30
Gate- Shelley
March 4- SOS Parent Meeting, 6:00
March 5- 7/8 Grade Volleyball @ Owensville, 5:30
March 5- BOE Meeting
March 6- Missouri Read-In Day
March 6- End of 3rd Quarter
March 8- Daylight Saving Time Begins- Spring Ahead
March 9- PD Day
March 9- Grades Due by end of the day
March 10- 7/8 Volleyball vs. Pacific, 5:30
Gate- Stephan
March 10- NWEA Spring Window opens
March 12- PBIS Training
March 12- BOE Meeting, 6:00
March 12- Choir Concert, 7:00
March 13- 7/8 PLC Group
March 16- PLC Training in Jefferson City
March 16- Spring Sports Pictures
March 17- Faculty Meeting, 7:20
March 17- Theme Day for Blue and White Night- Wear green for St. Patrick's Day
March 17- 7/8 Grade Volleyball vs. St. James, 5:30
Gate- Scheer
March 19- 4-6 Grade PLC
March 20- FIA Dance, 7:00
March 23- Extra Jeans Day for Blue and White Night
March 23- 7/8 Grade Volleyball @ Washington, 5:30
March 24- 7/8 Grade Volleyball vs. Sullivan, 5:30
Gate- Shelley
March 26- 7/8 Grade Volleyball @ New Haven, 5:30
March 31- 7/8 Grade Track Hermann MS Open, 4:00
About Us
Email: nbuschmann@hermann.k12.mo.us
Website: www.hermann.k12.mo.us
Location: 164 Blue Pride Drive, Hermann, MO, United States
Phone: 573.486.3121
Twitter: @HMSBearcats