BARBER BULLETIN
Week of August 27-31 Creating Joyful Leaders and Learners
POSITIVE PHONE CALLS HOME!
How many times have you tried calling a parent only to find that they won’t answer? It shouldn’t surprise you. So often the calls parents get from schools are negative. We call to ask for help with poor behavior. We call when homework is not done. We call to remind. We sometimes even call to scold.
It’s time to flip that dynamic and call parents when kids do something good.
Let’s call parents to share good news about their children!
Yes, it takes time, but, it is worth every minute spent and it doesn’t have to be done in one day, one week, or even one month. Make it a goal to call or text two to five families a week to share a kind word about your students. Observe your kiddos as they work and play and jot down any positives you notice.
- Does the student have a nice smile?
- Did someone get to class right on time or always come prepared?
- Did a student ask a good question
- Did you catch one of your students helping a classmate?
- Did the student finish an assignment on time?
- Did a youngster earn an ‘A’ on a difficult project?
- Did someone make great growth on an assessment?
- Did one of your readers finish a challenging book?
- Did a kid tell you a funny story?
Share it!
Once you have something specific and positive to share, start by calling the families of students who may have had phone calls home in the past for doing something wrong. Make sure you tell the students when you call or text their parents. You may be surprised to learn how much it means, to even your seemingly toughest kids, to learn that you care enough to call.
Make it a goal to call or text two to five families a week to share a kind word about your students.
One teacher I know recently shared how he goes about making positive calls:
I carry my cell phone in my pocket. I try to call at least two families per week right in front of my students. If someone does something great, I’ll pull out my phone and ask the kid to dial his mom or dad’s number. Then, right in front of everyone, I will sing his praises. The students love it and all ask if I can call their mom or dad next! It is really motivating. I get lots of return calls and emails from parents telling me how happy it made them. Later, in the year, when I sometimes have to call to share not-so-good news, I think the parents are more receptive to me because they know I care. It is totally worth the extra effort in the long-run.
An added benefit is calling to share good news is that if or when you need to call to ask for support, to remind, to share a negative consequence a student has earned, parents are more likely to answer the phone and listen to you. Positive phone calls breed positive feelings. Positive feelings are like money in the bank.
If you choose to call, but are unsure of what to say, try using a script or writing your own prompt. If you get voice mail, no problem, leave an upbeat message with instructions for how to reach you.
If you can’t call at all for one reason or another, email, text, or message parents with positive information. No matter what you do, STAY POSITIVE, and pick up that phone!
Please make positive phone calls home to all of your students' homes by Friday,September 7.
Please LOG these calls in PowerSchool using the log entry feature.
MEET HEATHER ALEXANDER
As a family, the Alexanders love to travel and take in many historical and interesting sites as possible.
Heather has been teaching for 24 years. She taught four years in 1st grade, four years in 2nd, and fie years in 5th grade in Georgia in a town right outside of Atlanta. 11 years ago, her husband's job transferred them to the Columbia area wher she taught two years in elementary resource in RIchland 1 and two years in middle school as a reading interventionist. She has been at Kelly Mill MIddle School for the past seven years here in RIchland Two as a middle school LD Self Contained special education teacher.
She has always LOVED teaching and is looking forward to teaching 5th grade here at Pontiac this year. In her spare time, she loves to cook, garden, read, and work out and road cycle! She is so happy to be at PES!
STRETCH TIME SUPPORT
Now that you have schedules of the students you can expect to be pulled out for special education and ESOL, you will soon know your RTI JumpStart students. These groups begin on Monday, September 10 (if not a bit earlier depending on BOY assessments). FALL MAP for grades 2-5 will also be administered beginning this week.
Once JumpStart groups begin, and you have Fall MAP data, you will know what students you will have to serve for Tier 1 classroom interventions and what their needs are. Remember, during STRETCH TIME, new content shouldn't be taught. You will have ALERT students to stretch and other students to support differently.
In an effort to support STRETCH time, Cami Bruns will be contacting you to push in to your grade level. USE HER! How might she provide support to your students every other week during this time.
Our Reading Coach, Sonya Ramsue, will be offering literacy strategies to provide you practical ways to STRETCH students using Tier 1 classroom interventions.
We have asked Carol Sample to provide a similar PD for math support and that date is coming soon!
What else might be helpful to you to provide appropriate, effective instruction to you during your grade level STRETCH time?
JOIN SCIRA, our local Reading Council
We invite you to join your local reading council and SCIRA for 2018-2019.
*You can now join online at www.scira.org.
*Visit our website at www.scira.org and check on the many opportunities for our members.
- Grants, awards, scholarships
- Member discounts for the Fall Literacy Workshop and the February SCIRA Conference in Hilton Head.
- Professional Development at the local reading council meetings/activities. The schedule for the local council meetings/activities will be listed on the website for your information.
- Professional Development at the state level with the Fall Literacy Workshop to be held on Nov. 10 and the annual conference to be held Feb. 14-16, 2019 in Hilton Head.
*Conference Information on the major speakers, authors, etc. is already on the website. Don’t miss Stephanie Harvey and Enrique Feldman, major authors, and concurrent sessions in Hilton Head.
A LOOK AT OUR WEEK AHEAD:
District to release state test data
8:30am RTI team to attend intervention training off campus
3:30pm Staff meeting in media center
Tuesday:
MAP window opens
8am Coffee and Conversation drop in with PTO for parents
Grade level bullying/harrassment presentation (Grades 3-5)
Wednesday:
Julie Whitney and DeAnna Savage at 4.0 NIET evaluator training
K.Barber at Elementary Principals meeting at R2I2
Thursday:
Julie Whitney and DeAnna Savage at 4.0 NIET evaluator training
Grade level Collaboration
5:30pm RTI Jump Start Parent meeting
Friday:
Julie Whitney and DeAnna Savage at 4.0 NIET evaluator training
NATIONAL COLLEGE COLORS DAY - WEAR YOUR COLLEGE COLORS PROUDLY!
Click on the link above for more details about this special national event!
Habit tickets pulled from birdcage on News Show
Do you know DYKNOW?
Last year, one of the biggest requests teacher made across the school as well as the district was to have some sort of digital classroom management software. Prior to last year, our district used a system called Hapara, however, due to escalating costs and some other concerns regarding to actual classroom use this system was abandoned. I am happy to report that this year, our district has made the decision to once again offer a digital classroom management system called DyKnow.
Dyknow is designed to be a simple device monitoring platform that will assist in keeping students on task. At a basic level, it is designed to record classes and create usage reports for teachers, but it also offers a number of other resources as well. Teachers will be able to monitor device use, prioritize content, and get attention when needed.
You can access DyKnow using this link, and by signing in using your district Google Account. Teacher rosters will be auto-populated, but this will not occur until August 22. Right now you will not see much of anything. Once school starts all you should need to do to get started is click the “start monitoring” button for your class. You will see devices in a thumbnail view, and tab changes will be seen in real time. Thumbnails only update every 60 seconds, but actual data is reported at the end of the class. At the end of the class or device usage period the teacher will end the recording.
The idea is that teachers should not need to sit and watch thumbnails when they are busy giving instruction. The focus is not about catching students, but collecting data to develop a conversion about improving digital citizenship and removing the distraction of devices.
Class analytics can be accessed at the end of a session. In analytics a variety of ranges and data can be accessed by the teacher. Student use can be viewed for individual students, and a teacher can see a report of what sites a student has visited. You can also track class trends which allows you to facilitate class and parent discussions about classroom usage.
Blocking plans allow individual teachers to determine what sites students can and cannot have access. Blocking can be done as either “allow only” or “block only.” This is done using the blocking tab. A variety of plans can be developed and used for different classroom activities. Plans can be personalized based on the type of assignment. When students attempt to access a blocked site they will get a “Blocked by DyKnow.com” landing page. There is no limit to the number of plans, but only one plan can be used at a time.
Another nice feature is that enforcement plans can be made for specific students, which allows the teachers to develop different blocking groups for individual monitoring if needed. Instead of blocking sites, the tool also allows teachers to push out websites as well. Also, teachers can focus student attention using messages. Teachers can developed locked messages using pre-made or custom messages. Locking messages turn student screens black and keep students from seeing anything else.
DyKnow includes two formative assessment features as well. Teachers can collect anonymous feedback from students using the Understanding feature that creates polls for students to respond. The other tool called Questioning allows teachers to administer MC and T/F questions while collecting info about each student’s level of understanding.
A few items to keep a note of:
- This is about classroom management not catching kids, remember to not just sit and monitor. DyKnow is designed to allow the teacher to focus on instruction and not device monitoring.
- Right now only 1-1 classrooms will receive access, so only Grades 3-5 will be using DyKnow for right now.
- Rosters will not actually populate until the first day of school, so if you check your account early you will not see any class as of yet.
- Class names can be edited.
- Additional teachers can be added to classes.
- Teachers can monitor students remotely! (Nice if you are absent or out of the room)
- Students can be added if needed. For example: if a student joins the class for a day.
- Classes be joined if needed as well. For example: if a teacher has multiple classes meeting at the same time.
Interested in tutorial videos? Check out this link