Superhero Tuesday Times
Elite 11 Portfolio, Dalia Flores Contreras - ILD
January 12, 2016
I hope you're having a great 2nd week back after a wonderful holiday break. Welcome back to school AND welcome to 2016!!! I remember when I was younger I used to wonder what it would be like in 2015/2020 and well here we are...I feel so old!
It was great to see you all last week during LDD, and I look forward to seeing you during this month's site visits.
During our next site visit we will focus on the following:
- We will engage in a mini-culture walk using the Culture Rubric as well as the Data Collection Tool. The window for the MOY Culture Walk is January 25th - February 5th.
- We will revisit the skill/will matrix for your staff. The following link (click here) will provide you with some literature behind the skill/will matrix.
As always, I am an email/text/phone call away anytime to support you!
Have a Terrific Tuesday,
Dalia
Attendance
Keeping Attendance Strong All Winter Long
Absenteeism often spikes in the winter months, as holiday travel, bad weather and illness conspire to keep students home from school. Attendance Works has developed a winter weather toolkit for schools and communities.
Some tips include:
- Celebrate individual attendance. In cold and flu season, it can be harder for a whole class to have good and improved attendance.
- Connect improving attendance to seasonal events. Make it part of your New Year's resolutions or Valentine's Day celebration. The 100th day of school lands sometime in late January or February. Celebrate the students who have missed fewer than 5 days.
- Work with public agencies. If, for example, you're expecting snow, talk to your city's public works department about prioritizing sidewalks and roads near schools. In rural areas, coordinate with snowplow teams.
- Tap your school's parents and volunteer network. Organize a snow-shoveling brigade or a four-wheel drive caravan to pick up stranded students. Collect rain gear or warm coats to help students weather nasty storms. Share these tips for families.
**Be sure to click on the two hyper-linked items above for additional resources in English and Spanish.
Congratulations to Mitchell for holding their YTD attendance at 95.13%
Supervision & Feedback
Elite 11 Leaders did a wonderful job of completing both probationary and career teacher evaluations on time. Thank you so very much for your hard work and effort in making this deadline.
Take a look at your January/February calendars and plan ahead for the new set of deadlines, which are:
- Feb. 12th - Rec. date to complete both prob. obs. supporting the relevant eval (1st or 2nd)
- Feb. 24th - Deadline for prob. evals and eval conferences
Remember to record a 6 STEP Feedback conference for the February Portfolio Meeting. Your videos are due to me by EOB on Monday, February 1st. I've added this to your calender as a reminder.
I will be asking to see your Observation Calendars during site-visits this month. Please have a copy of this for me or share your calendar via outlook. Some of you have scheduled these online in TalentEd, and if that's the case I can see them myself when I log on.
School Culture
I will forward this email to you after this newsletter hits your inbox. The original email came to us from Marcia Kennedy.
C&I - Scholastic Intervention Data
I will forward this email to you after this newsletter hits your inbox. The original email came to us from Carol Terracina.
C&I - Gearing Up for the 5th Grade Writing Test
The writing test is less than 50 days away! You can help ensure your students are ready to master the test by sharing the online Parent, Student, Teacher Guide with your 5th grade teachers. The practice test reflects the format students will encounter on the actual test. Students will read 2 passages along with a writing prompt. Included in the guide are planning pages and response pages for practice, too.
The Parent, Student, Teacher Guide can be very useful to you the next few weeks. My recommendations would be the following:
- Review the rubric and practice test with your 5th grade teachers. Have them write a an exemplar for this practice assessment. Review/discuss the exemplar as a team. Reflect on what you had to know, understand and be able to do to produce this exemplar.
- Administer the practice test to 5th graders in your school.
- Have teachers score the tests using the rubric provided on pages 7, 8 and 9
- During a PLC Meeting, or other opportunity, discuss the student writing samples in order to determine what students are doing well with, and to identify areas to focus on during the next few weeks of writing instruction. This activity along with the initial activity of creating the exemplar should help inform instruction.
- You can also, as a 5th grade team, determine what you'll focus on each week and develop a short exit ticket to track student progress along the way.
TRIPOD Student Surveys - What Next?
STEP 1 - Predict
STEP 2 - Observe & Reflect
STEP 3 - Take Action: Share Effective Strategies with Colleagues
If you are missing teacher data please email Sam Davidson and copy me. This will certainly be the case for schools receiving teachers after re-balancing.
ACCESS 2.0
- Test Item Samples: https://wbte.drcedirect.com/WIDA/portals/wida
- Training Materials: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwR2EJKY9EVCeGdrdXp6QV8zZzQ&usp=sharing
During our December Portfolio Meeting, many of you shared that you'd never seen the ACCESS test. With the link above now you can see what the test is like for your students. It would be equally powerful for teachers to see and experience this test as well. This will help them understand how language is measured in ACCESS for speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Please be sure to work with your ELD teacher to determine next steps for sharing this information with teachers at large, as well as the best plan to prepare students for this new format in testing. Allowing students to have some time on the computer to experience the test prior to testing will greatly support their transition to this new format.
Finally, remember to ensure you have adequate headsets with microphones. Should you need to order more, the warehouse numbers are:
- Headphones with microphone: IS100717
- Adapter: IS100034
National Mentor Month
I personally have benefited greatly from mentor through various seasons in my life all the way from middle/high school to the past few years of my career. Mentors can have a significant impact in the lives of children and adults.
Many of you have mentors who partner with your school in support of children so you'll want to think of how you celebrate their contributions this month. Click here for the National Mentoring Month website where you can find great tools and resources such as the National Mentoring Month Toolkit.
Important Dates to Remember:
- January 14th - I Am A Mentor Day
- January 21st - Thank Your Mentor Day
January Birthdays!
- January 2nd - Becky and she likes dark chocolate with raspberry, nuts, diet pepsi, her favorite color is green and she likes to watch romantic comedies.
- January 7th - Elmer and he likes snickers, salt & vinegar chips, diet tea, his favorite color is black and he loves action movies.
- January 18th - Tanya and she likes chocolate covered almonds, chips, diet coke, her favorite color is orange and she loves musicals.
Upcoming Testing Dates
- Jan 4 - Feb 5: Pre-K Early Childhood Inventory Assessment Window
- Jan 19 - Jan 28: 2nd Grade CogAt Testing Window
- Jan 25 - Feb 5: SRI/SMI Testing Window
- Feb 8 - Apr 1: ACCESS Testing Window
- Feb 8 - Feb 26: Online MAP & CPAA Testing Window
- Feb 23 - Feb 25: 5th & 8th Grade Writing Test
Need a copy of the updated testing calendar? Click here