APS Weekly Newsletter
April 5th, 2024
🗓️Save the Date🗓️
🌷April 6: Writing Fair (POC-Whitney Anderson)
🌷April 12: 2024-2025 Registration Opens
💻April 15-19: ASR Testing 5th-8th Grade
💻April 22-30: MSSA Testing 3rd-8th Grade
💜April 25: Purple Up Day
🌷April 26: Snow Day - NO School
🌷April 26: RSVP deadline for Retirement Party
🌷May 10: Retirement Party from 5-7pm @ Civic Center
PowerSchool News!
The new User Interface will be here soon...use the newsletter below to find the tips and tricks and quick videos to get acquainted before we transition.
Register for the New Interface PD and get the recording to watch later!
Teachers Launch Checklist
- Show the Student Flyer on screen and Introduce STOPit.
- You can also have a few printed, flyer will be emailed to students after everyone has gone through the training.
- Play Student Training Video and watch with Students
Middle School & High School Student Training Video (28 min)
Elementary School Student Training Video (2 min)
- Walk the Students through Downloading the STOPit App.
- Show the student flyer again so they can scan the QR code. They will search Alamogordo to find their school in the app. Additional instructions are below.
- STOPit will also be available through Clever.
Sharing is Caring! Share the amazing things you are doing!!!
APL I-II LICENSURE ADVANCEMENT FOR LEVEL I TEACHERS
New Mexico teachers,
If you are a level 1 teacher whose license expires June 30, 2025, you must begin your micro-credential course for licensure advancement THIS month of April. The registration closes on Monday, April 8, 2024.
Completing the required five micro-credentials will take 15 months. (A Professional Development Dossier is no longer an option for licensure advancement.
Go to the Advance Placement Level website for more information, or go directly to the APL I-II INTENT TO ENROLL REGISTRATION LINK to apply to register. (You must complete the Intent to enroll before you can register for the course; NMPED must confirm your eligibility.)
💥Urgent: The course begins, and registration closes on Monday, April 8, 2024—there will be no late enrollment. The cost of the micro-credentials is $60 for each.
A Level 1 teacher is eligible to advance to Level 2 via the APL II-III Micro-Credentials when they have:
- Successfully completed five required micro-credential courses with a proficiency score of 85% or higher
- Taught three full school years of teaching experience with successful annual evaluations with a Level 1 teaching license.
Professional Development
Gold Series!
Greetings!
New Mexico Public Education Department's Curriculum and Instruction Division is happy to announce that on
June 17th - 19th we will once again host the ACCELerate NM Summer Academy!
The ACCELerate NM Summer Academy will offer different learning cohorts for teachers and instructional coaches who seek to explore accelerated learning strategies in math or ELA content.
The ACCELerate NM Summer Academy will also offer a school and system leaders cohort to support administrators in understanding the importance of accelerated learning in both math and ELA content.
Please see the attached ACCELerate NM Summer Academy schedule to determine which cohort is right for you and then register by clicking here! Registration will remain open until April 30, 2024.
📑ASSESSMENT ALLEY📑
🚨DUE April 10th🚨
Testing Calendar
Walk through Practice Tests with your Students!
I want to emphasize how much information is packed into the Assessment Resource Newsletter!
This year's brand new edition has a pretty cute and encouraging otter 😍😅 I just updated it with more resources such as ASR practice test opportunities, writing tips, Istation modeling, and more...if you haven't already started, you should be incorporating opportunities to scaffold testing strategies, model question type, and exposing them to the types of test sets they may see in your weekly lesson plans. Embedding and modeling sets our students up for success and gives them confidence. There are so many resources in different places...this newsletter allows for the majority to be downloaded in one place. Your time is too precious to have to be searching all over for support.
🌞It's HERE!!!! Summer Camp INTEREST form!🌞
Flyers!
WHAT DOES
AMERICA MEAN
TO YOU?
In 2026, the United States will mark our Semiquincentennial: the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Today’s young people are the leaders, innovators, and thinkers who will shape the next 250 years — and it’s important their voices are heard as we commemorate this historic milestone.
America’s Field Trip is a new contest that invites students across the country in grades 3–12 to be part of America’s 250th anniversary by sharing their perspectives on what America means to them — and earning the opportunity to participate in unforgettable field trip experiences at some of the nation’s most iconic historic and cultural landmarks.
Students may submit artwork, videos, or essays in response to the contest’s prompt: “What does America mean to you?”
THE FIELD TRIPS
EXTRAORDINARY VISITS TO ICONIC NATIONAL LANDMARKS
Twenty-five first-place awardees from each grade level category will receive free travel and lodging for a 3-day, 2-night trip to a select historical or cultural site where they will experience one of the following:
- Tour of the Statue of Liberty in New York
- Tour and hike at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana
- Weekend at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado
- Unique tours at the National Archives or the Library of Congress in Washington, DC
- Special tours at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, National Museum of African American History and Culture, or the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC
- Explore America’s iconic financial capital, New York City, with private tours of Federal Reserve Bank of New York Museum and Learning Center and The Bank of New York Mellon, the country’s oldest bank
- Experience National Parks of Boston with a special visit to the USS Constitution and a sunset cruise to Spectacle Island
- Candlelight tour at Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge
- Costumed roleplaying experience at American Village in Alabama
Second-place awardees will receive a $500 cash award. The teacher associated with the top scoring student submissions in each grade level category will receive a $1,000 cash award.
Purple Up Day 2024
April 25th!
Yoga and Kickboxing!
Yoga, Monday and Wednesday at 4pm and 5pm
Kickboxing, Tuesday and Thursday at 4:45pm
PRE-K Round up!
April 24th, 2024
9:00am-3:30pm