North High School
Staff Bulletin - March 16, 2020
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Literacy Goal: North High School will raise the percent of students proficient on the Open Response from fall to spring by 10% in 2019-2020.
Actions Being Taken to Improve Literacy
- Daily Writing - Writing activities every day to boost our student writing
- Departments with different responsibilities in teaching areas of the OR Rubric
- Advisory students tracking their progress on OR
- Working on quality task creation and examining student work from those tasks
Math Goal: North High School will raise the percent of students proficient on the High School Math Assessment from fall to spring by 10% in 2019-2020.
- Understanding and applying the Common Core's 8 Mathematical Practices in all classrooms
- Advisory students tracking their progress on the BME Assessment
- Develop an auxiliary leadership team to focus on math data assessments
- Working on quality task creation and examining student work from those tasks
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COVID-19 Information
Sioux City Community School District Information
Iowa Department of Education Main Page for COVID-19
Information for Schools
Current Guidance from Iowa Department of Education - This is the main guidance being used to make decisions.
Center for Disease Control School Guidance - This information is the source of the IDPH resource above.
Travel
- All SCCSD staff, students, and families who have traveled or are planning to travel are urged to register their travel plans using the SCCSD Travel Reporting Form. This form must be completed no later than Friday, March 27, 2020.
- Upon the return from travel, please notify your supervisor before returning to work.
- Please take extra precautions when traveling and follow travel guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel website.
- Students and staff returning from travel and who may have been exposed to COVID-19 must follow guidance from public health regarding voluntarily self-isolate.
- Trips planned by staff and students to destinations that are now affected areas are being postponed or canceled.
- Starting Monday, March 16, school field trips will be suspended for the foreseeable future.
Limited Building Access
- Starting Monday, March 16, only District personnel, members of the Community Provider Network, and students will be permitted to enter school premises. To limit non-essential interactions, the District is restricting volunteers, mentors, and visitors from entering the school facilities. Parents will have restricted building access with the exception of normal pick-up and drop-off routines. The Beyond the Bell before and after school programs will continue until further notice.
- At this time, school facilities will no longer be available for community use. Any non-District event scheduled to be hosted on school grounds will be canceled or moved. Please contact the hosting organization for updates on any non-District or non-school events.
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Ryan Will be Gone More...
Tuesday - COVID-19 Update Meeting - AM
Wednesday - Principals Meeting - PM
Thursday - Kind World Scholarship - PM
Friday -
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Last Week's Average Daily Attendance: 88.88% (-1.85 from last week)
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Tardy Policy
Here is a reminder of our school’s tardy policy and expectations for each semester. We are going to inform students through email and canvas announcements as well.
PBIS Expectations for Attendance:
• Successful- Students will attend and be on-time for all of their classes.
• Trustworthy- Students will use classroom passes appropriately.
• Accountable- Students will communicate with their teachers if they know they will be gone from school.
• Respectful- Students will be in the classroom and ready to learn when the bell rings.
• Supportive- Students will encourage their peers to attend all classes and be on time.
Consequences:
1-3 Tardies Teacher Warning including conference with student reviewing attendance expectations; document in PLP
4-6 Tardies Teacher issues classroom detentions for each tardy (length of classroom detention at the discretion of the teacher); document in PLP
7 or More Parent and student meeting with teacher; possible office referral; dance eligibility implications
If a student fails to show up to a scheduled detention, contact the parent and set up an appropriate date for the makeup detention. If the student fails to appear for that makeup detention, refer that student to the grade level principal. The students will automatically receive an hour detention for failure to serve the detentions with the teacher:
Swenson – 9
Bemus – 10
Koch – 11
Dumkrieger – 12
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CPR in Advisory
Week of -
16-Mar Monk-AW (Rm 335); Malone-Mason/Banks/Bush-Hanson (A-L)-JPL (S209)
30-Mar Malone-Mason/Banks/Bush-Hanson (M-Z)-JPL (S209); Malone-Mason/Banks/Bush-Hanson (A-L)-AW (Rm 335)
13-Apr Malone-Mason/Banks/Bush-Hanson (M-Z)-JPL (S209); Seniors-AW (Rm 335)
27-Apr Seniors/ELL-JPL (S209); Seniors/ELL-AW (Rm 335)
11-May Seniors/ELL-JPL (S209); Seniors/ELL-AW (Rm 335)
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Best Practice Spotlight
Strategy - Reject Self Report
Reject Self Report - “Everybody understand?” or “Everyone got it?” I was the king of that statement in class - I bet it can still be heard in PD and meetings! When we get into a hurry, we accept silence or a few nods to affirm our understanding of whether a student is learning. For those of us who had APL, this is simply "Check for Understanding." When we check for understanding, we are collecting data and acting on it.
Here is a sample of how we can adjust our approach to increase expectations for students while we check for understanding:
What does self report look like:
Mr. Dumkrieger: The accounting equation has three components. It is Assets = Liabilities + Owners Equity. Does everybody understand that?
Poor Unfortunate Student: Yes.
Mr. Dumkrieger: Good. Let's move on to your packet.
How can we adjust to reject self report?
Mr. Dumkrieger: Let's talk about the accounting equation. Remind me, what do we know about the equation? Fortunate Student 1?
Fortunate Student 1: There are three parts.
Mr. Dumkrieger: That's right. Tell me more about the three parts, Fortunate Student 2.
Fortunate Student 2: One of the components is "assets".
Mr. Dumkrieger: That's right. Tell me more about assets. Fortunate Student 3.
We need to be able to ensure that our students completely understand what they are learning and the directions that we are giving. When we allow students to self report learning, we have no idea if student are actually learning. We are teaching - they aren't learning. Here are a few challenges for you this week regarding the rejection of self-report:
- After giving directions: Catch yourself asking if anyone has any questions or if they "got it." If you hear yourself doing that, stop. Practice it whenever possible. Change your question to something like this: "I just gave directions on the assignment. Share with a neighbor what those directions are and I will call on some of you to repeat them for me." You can then use the cold call strategy to pick those students to share. If a student doesn't know, use last week's strategy of No Opt Outs to keep everyone accountable.
- During complex tasks: The more you invest in a task and the more a student must do to complete the task, the more important it is to check for understanding. Have multiple students report out to paraphrase what they heard from others or expand on what they heard.
I was the teacher who sometimes became frustrated when I had to repeat directions. In reflection, it was most likely my fault. If I took the extra 14-20 seconds to check for understanding, I would have saved a lot of time and frustration - for me and my students.
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Department and Safety Meeting Notes
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Advisory Calendar of Events
Tuesday:
Share a video with your advisory - https://www.youtube.com/cnn10 is always good and can be shown daily.
Wednesday:
"Why Don't You Do It In Your Sleeve?" https://youtu.be/CtnEwvUWDo0
Cheesy video teaching people how to appropriately sneeze/cough.
Thursday:
Study Time
Friday:
MVP Lesson
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Upcoming Dates
Below are currently scheduled events that will take place during the school day. These will interrupt academic work.
- CANCELLED Denison High School Mariachi Band - Advisory, March 27 during Advisory
- Tuesday, April 21 - ACT for Juniors - No other students in attendance
- Tuesday, April 28 - ISASP Testing - Writing and Language Tests - The ISASP testing dates will have alternative schedules. It will be similar to last years with a testing block in the morning and shortened blocks in the afternoon.
- Wednesday, April 29 - ISASP Testing - Math, Reading, and Science
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Monday Morning Music
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Reminders and Checklists
All Staff:
- Safe School Training is released. Here is the link: https://siouxcityschools-ia.safeschools.com/ There are five training's on this year's module. Total time indicated is 129 minutes. Due dates are varied.
- All New Course - ACES
Certified Staff:
- Sign up for duties with Chris. If you sign up now, you will have a choice. If you wait, you will be assigned to an open duty.