Cat Tracks
Spring Shadows Elementary Wildcats Staff Newsletter
November 26 - December 2, 2018
A Wildcat Thanksgiving!
Lil' Wildcats love their lunch with parents!
Team SSE coming together!
The STAR manager of the Kitchen!
Our Vision
Our Mission
Core Beliefs
- Each student has unique intellectual, emotional, social, and physical qualities.
- We embrace a child’s individual values, interests, and personalities.
- Parents are confident in their child’s social and intellectual educational growth.
- Educators lead their craft by preparing learners in our fast changing world
Principal's Message
Dear Wildcats,
Here's to hoping you had a tremendous time with your family or friends this past week. I also hope you were able to recharge! We have four weeks until winter break and our scholars can get a lot accomplished in that time! Please see the attached December calendar with activities, deadlines, etc. This is an overall for the month of December.
What specific best practices and effective teaching strategies will we emphasize during this teaching/learning week?
As a community- we have declared our goal to improve on state accountability standards by one letter grade from 70 to 80.
If you notice, I always leave in bold our goal for this year. We want to improve one letter grade for accountability. In fact, I will be attending a meeting this Wednesday to garner a better understanding of what that means to us. I'd like to ensure that we are being strategic and giving our students all the advantage of understanding fully readiness standards they need that prove foundational for future learning. Yes, it's about good first instruction, and thorough reteach opportunities. We left the vacation with personalized plans to ensure our students are attaining these advantages.
For Kinder -2nd grade, you left with a solid plan to incorporate writer's workshop into your instructional plan. Writing is ever so important and is the key leverager as a graduate aim. Also, 3rd-5th, you left with the desire to start personalizing learning by incorporating small group instruction and blended learning opportunities for your students.
I have seen some tremendous growth in our children, all because you have paid awesome attention to your teaching craft. For the month of December and January, Cindy and I would like to meet with you to discuss individualized progress for each of your students. We will be setting up these status of the class meetings with you soon.
For this week, please remember that we have our ReDesign Instructional Round this Thursday. I will send out a schedule since we will be conducting these rounds from 10:00-12:30.
Here's to a productive and great learning week!
Wildcat Love and respect,
Rachel Martinez
Calendar
2nd Grade Extended Planning
Group 5
- Happy Birthday Karen Simpson!
- 8:00-10:00 ILT Meeting
- 1:00-2:00 Accommodation Training (2nd Grade) - Conference Room
- 2:45-3:30 Team Leader Huddle
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
3rd Grade Extended Planning
Group 1
- Happy Birthday Priscilla Green
- 1:00-2:00 Accommodation Training (3rd Grade) - Conference Room
- After School Ballet Talks 3:00-4:00
- After-School 3-4
- Nurse Meeting 3:00-4:00
- CIT and CSHAC meets 3:00-4:00
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
4th Grade Extended Planning
Group 2
- 8:30-12:00 Rachel @ Accountability Training (Board Room)
- 1:00-2:00 Accommodation Training (4th Grade) - Conference Room
- 11:30-3:00 4th Grade attends Writing Planning Session.
- 2:45-4:00 Gift of Time (Additional Personalized Planning time.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
PLC Thursday
Group 3
- 10:00-12:00 Instructional Rounds (K-2) ReDesign Team
- 3:00-4:00 After School
Friday, November 30, 2018
5th Grade Extended Planning
Group 4
- Spiral Day
- Digital Citizenship Lesson #3 Due
- Intervention List Due to Cindy by 3:00
- 1:00-2:00 Accommodation Training (5th Grade) - Conference Room
Library News
Hope you had a relaxing vacation... maybe even had time to read for pleasure!
Reading update as of November 17th
SSE Readers keep soaring!! They now have 209,338 minutes logged in! Hopefully all classes can read for minutes for the next 4 weeks and get another 100,000 before our next break!
Rank and Minutes by Classrooms. Another week of shake ups in 4th & 2nd
5th Grade Readers - Keyim (16.840), Parada (13,486) Denson (8,770) Calkins (1,189)
4th Grade Readers - Perez (13,784), Shankar (8,221), Mendoza (8,094), Hill (7,353), Dortch (4,019) Vargas (1,315)
3rd Grade Readers - Salazar (10,442) , Klauer (4,502), Lee (3,733) Carrabba -(Coming soon)
2nd Grade Readers Zetino (15,054), Alvarez (13,334), Urrutia (12,599), Hudman (4,320), Ochoa (2,120), Gutierrez (1,781)
1st Grade Readers- Gomez (27,080), Barron (17,574), Espejo (6,368), Garcia (905), Brown -(Coming soon), Castaneda -(Coming soon)
Kinder Readers - Moreno (7,100), Campos (400), Almaguer, Cabrera, & Guykens coming soon.
Top Grade Levels Top 5 Classes
1st Grade - 51,927 1. Ms Gomez 27,080
2nd Grade - 49,208 2. Ms Barron 17.574
4th Grade - 42.786 3. Dr. Keyim 16, 840
5th Grade - 41,141 4. Ms Zetino 15,054
3rd Grade - 18,677 5. Ms Perez 13, 784
Kinder - 7,500
Kindness books - Grades 2-5 as we prepare for Donna Bowman - perhaps the children could write on kindness for your class book.
Thanks again for your support!
Ann : )
Shout Outs
Team SSE decorating the gym for our families!
Incorporating writing and author's sharing in 4th grade!
Staff Community Circles!
Yum! Thanks Team SSE and SSE CNS!
Turkey Trot! Thanks TEAM SPECIALS!
What a turn out!
Remember to Sign Up for Sunshine and PTA!
Join Sunshine & PTA for $30 (certified staff) & $25 (non-certified staff). You can pay cash or check to Mrs. Berryman or Mrs. Gentry. Checks can be made out to Spring Shadows Elementary.
We are trying to get 100% participation in Sunshine & PTA!
When you join, you get an SSE Unstoppable T-Shirt, 5 Jeans Passes, 4 Late Arrival Passes, and 4 Leave Early Passes.
Please review the PDF attachment to see our SSE Sunshine Bylaws that the team revised and agreed upon at our last meeting. This will give you more information about Sunshine and what your dues are used for.
Sunshine SEMESTER JEANS PASS for $30
The one caveat is that your jeans are to be worn with a nice shirt and shoes (not a t-shirt).
See Mrs. Berryman or Mrs. Gentry to pay for your pass!
Sunshine Sponsored Events
SSE Social Event @ Yard House - October 26th (More information coming soon!)
SSE Sunshine Coffee Cart - October Date TBD
Spring Shadows Elementary
Email: rachel.martinez@springbranchisd.com
Website: https://cms.springbranchisd.com/sse2/
Location: 9725 Kempwood Drive, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: (713) 251-7100
Twitter: @twitter_rachelmartinez4