Wm. Adams Middle School
Faculty and Staff Newsletter • February 13, 2017
Afternoon Duty This Week
Christina Garcia - Station 1: Flagpole
Casey Haliburton - Station 2: Outside near the gym doors that face east
Gennie Lopez- Station 3: Outside near the covered walk
Seferino Mendietta - Station 4: Outside near the covered walk
Ric Mireles - Station 5: Outside the cafeteria
Destiny Pena - Station 6: Outside the cafeteria
Sandra Garcia - Station 7: Outside the gym on the south side
Emily Gonzales - Station 8: Outside the gym on the south side
Cindy Gutierrez - Station 9: Bus Stop
Andrea Harder - Station 10: Bus Stop
Dennis LaPlant - Station 11: Bus Stop
Becky Lutzke- Station 12: East Exit
It is imperative that everyone reports to their duty station promptly. We know from experience that the presence of adults prevents many student misbehaviors.
*If you know in advance that you will be absent, please alert administration in order to have someone monitor your station in your absence.
Attendance Update:
Talk to Dr. Holmgreen, Ms. Cavazos and Ms. Rising about any ideas you may have and let's get our attendance back up where it should be at 96%. Remember when you look at the photo, columns 2 and 4 are the attendance percentages for grade 7 and 8, respectively. Columns 3 and 5 indicate the number of students absent for each grade level, and the last column is the overall percentage for the campus per day.
Tutorials
Student Dress Code
Plan to have a dress code check during Advisory and/or 1st period each day next week. We will try to make an announcement to remind you.
T-TESS Reminders
Remember that the purpose of the T-TESS appraisal system is to make us better educators; it is not intended to be a "gotcha." Part of the process embedded in the appraisal system is a series of conferences. As administrators, we like to look at the pre-observation conference as a way to get a glimpse of the lesson you will present, and an understanding of the objectives of the lesson. In other words, just what is it that students are expected to know and be able to do at the end of the lesson? Where does this lesson fall in the unit of study? Do students need any prior knowledge and skills going into this lesson? The pre-conference allows you to predict how you think the lesson will go, to think about problem areas that may arise either in student behavior or in understanding of content.
It is this conversation that is so important because it allows teachers to take a moment to reflect upon the lesson content, activities, and delivery and to make adjustments based on the conversation with the administrator. Just as you work to build and strengthen relationships with your students, administrators work to do the same with teachers. What a great opportunity this is for both parties! Please know that your administrators are working hard to ensure that the process has a favorable outcome for you.
Following the observation, your appraiser will want to meet with you to review how the lesson scored, not how you scored. That is a very important distinction to remember. Again, our objective is to improve instruction, not penalize teachers.
Resources at your Fingertips
These strategies may be found at http://lead4ward.com/playlists/ and at the additional link below. Lead4ward also has an app available for your phone or tablet. This is a great way to keep the strategies right at your fingertips.
Another great resource to consult is the TEKS Resource System found at http://www.teksresourcesystem.net/module/profile/Account/LogOn
Here you can access your content area YAG, or Year at a Glance, and the IFD (Instructional Focus Document) which helps you zero in on the specificity of the TEK. This is so important because it enables us to ensure that what we are teaching with respect to the particular TEK matches the specificity that will be tested. In essence, it takes the guess-work out of planning. There are always great instructional activities found on the IFDs, also.
Did You Know...
With this app you can quickly locate the TEKS for your content area. Check it out!
Try These This Week:
Must-Do! (This is non-negotiable)
Identifying student groups and teaching strategies is part of our Plan of Action for STAAR and will be included in the presentation Dr. Holmgreen is required to make on Feb. 17 to Dr. Everett, Velma SolizGarcia and the Directors. More than this, though, is the fact that it will help students be successful.