EMS Friday Focus
September 7, 2018 (#2)
2018-19 EMS Goals
ALL EMS students and staff will feel connected to our school community - safe, respected, seen, heard, and valued.
All EMS students will find meaning in the work they are tasked with.
Weekly message from Meg
Team -
As I walk through the building and greet students at lunch I am struck by the consistency of our expectations being met by ALL students. Thank you for your work to ensure:
hats/hoods are off in the building
gum and candy remain out of the building
personal devices are away
backpacks and jackets are in lockers
Now that students have had several days to learn their schedules and we implement our tardy policy please be vigilant about logging any tardies so we can ensure clear hallways from the start of the year.
I realize that this transition to powerschool has been incredibly challenging - thank you for your continued patience. Knowing this, we have set aside next Wednesday’s faculty meeting to provide more support around the use of powerschool and Unified classroom knowing how much support is needed.
With gratitude and in partnership,
Meg
A Culture of Support
Providing Feedback and Asking Questions
Creating a nurturing Culture and Climate
Announcements and Logistics For the Week
- Powerschool announcement - As you all know - several features of the system are not working. Below is a list of what is not currently up and running. In the meantime you are welcome to continue to explore the system yourself but are only expected to update the gradebook as we await the system to be up and running appropriately and of course log attendance.
- Open House Schedule
- Joelle Van Lent (see picture above) will be visiting EMS on Monday - she’ll be observing our community in order to learn more about EMS before starting her work with us next month on fostering resilience in students.
- Quarter one duties - please remember to put these in your calendar so you are on time to support during these key times of day. Review duty expectations here in the Faculty Handbook.
- As a reminder, links to all the most important reference docs can be found here.
Tasks:
Call down to the office or text Mia when a student is missing from class. As we work to ensure all EMS students feel seen, heart, valued, respected and understood we must start by ALWAYS knowing where each of our students are. Please be vigilant in taking attendance each period!
Passes - Kids should always have passes in the hallway and sign out with name, date, location and time before leaving a classroom. You are welcome to use blue passes, hand written passes or your own unique pass but please ensure a pass is in hand before students leave the classroom.
Please have your students complete this Basic Needs Survey on team before the end of next week - 9/15.
Throughout the year we are hoping to use video to enhance professional development. Please let me know if you do NOT want to be videotaped.
If you would like to host a dance this year please email Meg - next week she’ll pull a lottery for who gets which dance date. Stay tuned.
During Morning Meetings please:
Give announcements & do the pledge of allegiance
Calendar:
Wednesday’s Faculty time objectives
SWBAT use powerschool more effectively as a student management system
SWBAT articulate their morning meeting plan for next week
Boosting Social-Emotional Learning in Schools
In this article in School Administrator, Linda Darling-Hammond (Learning Policy Institute and Stanford University) says that social-emotional learning is a key factor in students’ academic achievement and long-term life success. “When we help students to engage productively with one another, understand themselves and how they think, and better handle the stresses and challenges of their lives,” says Darling-Hammond, “we prepare them for success now and in the future.” She suggests four key tasks for school leaders:
•Designing healthy learning environments– This includes a safe, supportive climate with high, consistent academic and behavioral expectations; reaching out to families and the community; running effective advisory groups; and, when possible, orchestrating multi-year student-teacher relationships.
•Integrating social/emotional and academic learning– The best way to nurture a growth mindset and executive skills is getting students working on challenging, meaningful projects, allowing them to reflect on and revise their work in response to feedback, and building their skills at working in groups.
•Supporting the adults who work with children– “Education is a very intense kind of work,” says Darling-Hammond. “Educators must be able to relate well to a variety of students and other adults; manage relationships on an ongoing basis; remain calm in the face of emergencies; and be deliberate in situations that are unpredictable.”
•Making it an explicit mission– Social-emotional learning needs to be an explicit part of schools’ and districts’ strategic plans and something that is articulated and modeled by superintendents and principals every day.
“What Makes Social-Emotional Learning So Important?” by Linda Darling-Hammond in School Administrator, September 2018 (Vol. 8, #75, p. 20-24),
Connecting Best Practice (Brent)
I visited several morning meetings this week. Students were leaning in and teachers were taking risks. In short, we were moving towards our goal of connecting ALL students to our school community. Yesterday, I had an opportunity observe students engaged in a problem solving activity in Cinder and Ben's morning meeting. The activity not only challenged students to problem solve and collaborate, but, of equal importance, it helped to build relationships amongst the students. Students could be heard asking one another's name, soliciting input, and striving to find a solution. This very short snippet captures the essence of the experience. I felt lucky to have the opportunity to observe Cinder and Ben mindfully stand back and allow the students to do the heavy lifting. Take a look!
From The Library Corner- Carole
The Breakthrough
This Thursday there was a breakthrough in the Library/Makerspace. My friend and the Hunt former librarian Diane Pawlusiak placed the first rows of fiction books on the shelves. Sorted and colored coded by genre, the Science Fiction and Adventure books looked new, exciting and well organized. In the morning, Amanda Gustafson brought in ELL students who did a neat job of placing colored labels on the various piles of books. In addition, Mia brought in some extra help and “Sarah” finished alphabetizing the books that you helped organize at the last faculty meeting. When I shut down the lights at the end of the day, I experienced joyful relief that the cleanup and organization of over 10,000 books is possible.
Over the next few weeks, It will be really fun to bring in the creative maker technology! I hope to have the Library/Makerspace available for kids in a week and looking sharp for Open House on September 27th.