FLE Staff News
1.28.16
January/February Dates to Remember
- Co-ed volleyball began Jan. 25th
- Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) Evening, Tonight- Jan. 28th at 6:30
- Valentine Grams Feb. 8-11th
- PTA Movie Night (Good Dinosaur), Feb. 18th 6 pm in room 226-227
- Parent Teacher Conferences, Feb. 19th
- Mat-Su Speech Festival, Feb. 27th
AMP & SLO Update
Please read the attached press release from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. It is official; this will be the last year we have to take the AMP assessment. We (district office) will continue to advocate for MAP to be our new state assessment and keep you updated as we hear more information. On Monday, DEED put forth the recommendation to the state school board that we postpone the pilot of SLOs. It is currently out for public comment; Gene Stone gave testimony in support of the recommendation for MAP. The state board will vote on the agenda item in March; however, we are proceeding as if it will be approved.
UAA Field Placements
Four students are interested in completing a 30-hour practicum at Finger Lake Elementary School for their EDEC A205 (Becoming an Elementary Teacher). If you are interested in hosting a practicum student, please contact Erin Brooks.
Erin Brooks
Student Success Coordinator
College of Education, PSB 218
P: 907.786.4306
Mandatory Classified Professional Development Day
All classified Special Education staff working in the MSBSD must attend professional development. This year it will be held on February 19th, which is a Parent Conference Day. There will be three separate sessions divided by grade level. Please read the information below to know where and when you should attend:
Elementary Staff – 12:15pm to 3:45pm
Colony High School Auditorium
BP Teachers of Excellence
Please go to BPTeachers.com and nominate your favorite teacher by February 1st. Winners receive a $500 grant to be designated by the teacher.
Budget Open Houses
If you’d like more information on the 2016-2017 Budget for Mat-Su, you are invited to a budget open house. Budget open houses begin at 6:30 each evening and include presentations by district leadership and question/answer time with the Superintendent. The schedule is as follows:
· Feb. 9- Willow Elementary
· Feb. 11- Mat-Su Central
· Feb. 16- Redington Sr. Jr/Sr High
· Feb. 18- Valley Pathways
At this time, there is a lot of doubt. Dr. Paramo has asked that we embrace that doubt and join the conversation for coming up with solutions. We will know more in the weeks ahead about budgets; however, there is a 3.5 million-dollar deficit. Generally, if oil were at $106 per barrel, the budget could be balanced; however it’s at $30 per barrel. The Governor is proposing a plan, which includes a state income tax as a solution among a few others to balance the budget.
Upcoming Technology Security Changes- Passwords
Click here for a document from Mike Brown about upcoming technology security changes.
· In short, a new password policy is going to require new passwords for all employees two times a year beginning March 1st. At this time, students are not required to comply with this requirement. This is to protect hackers from getting in and stealing our banking information, identity information, etc. that is accessible through employee accounts. There will be a self-service password reset button so you won’t have to wait on the helpdesk if you forget your password.
Focused Learning Team (FLT)
Meets on Tuesday mornings the following dates: 1/12, 1/19, 1/26, 2/2, 2/9, 2/23, 3/1, 3/8, 3/22, and 3/29 at 7:45 am in Marcy’s Room for Foundations 1. Each week we watch Sprick’s instructional videos for homework and participants take turns facilitating a lesson about the content using Kagan or other instructional techniques. All staff are welcome to join anytime even if they aren’t taking it for credit.
Teacher’s Lounge Website
http://www.matsuk12.us/employees/pd
We invited Brett (Ed Tech from Instruction) to come to the last staff meeting to share more about resources in the Teacher’s Lounge. If you visit the teacher’s lounge and go to professional development, then project red, you can view a presentation on technology with nine keys to student achievement.
1st annual MSBSD Technology EXPO
DO has requested TAG participate. If others from FLE are interested and have cool things to highlight about 21st century ways technology is being integrated in your classroom, please let Juli Hardy know by Thursday Jan. 21st so we can work together to showcase our school. Information was sent in the postmaster 1/14.
eTextbook Expectations (All)
The Office of Instruction has had parents requesting access to math and language arts eTextbooks in ThinkCentral to help their students with homework. However, this access is controlled by individual teachers. Parents and students can see the etexts from home if teachers first create a class within ThinkCentral and then add students and books to the class. At this point in the year, all teachers should have their classes created so that parents can help with homework. Parents use their student’s ThinkCentral userID and password to gain access through our District website under Students K-5 Quicklinks. The District will begin an outreach campaign via iParent in February to inform parents about math and language arts etexts available on ThinkCentral and my.HRW.com.
Parent and student login information follows this convention:
Elementary (K-5)
Website
Thinkcentral.com
Programs
GO Math! K-5
Journeys K-5
Username
networkID
Password
Gomath@studentNumber
Example
jr123456
Gomath@123456