Mustang Messenger
January 25, 2016
Congratulations on a successful online learning day!
I continue to be impressed with your expertise as you prepared for the possibility of bad weather. You and your students were ready!
Important Dates
- January 25-February 5: Professional Learning Rotation in Krosner's room
- January 26: Grade Levels meet with Brian Lack during planning in conference room
- February 1-5: Counselor Appreciation Week
- February 3: Grade levels meet with Steve Straughan during planning (HMH) in conference room
- February 6: EdCamp at Lambert HS
- February 8-11: Grades 2-5 Post-Interim Window
- February 12 & 15: Staff & Student Holiday - No School!
- February 16: Professional Development Day - No Students-District Collaboration Day schedule will be sent separately
- February 18: Oratorical Contest for 5th Graders
- by March 8: turn in grade level APTT activity purchase orders to Daisy
From Daisy's Desk
K-1 teachers: please be on the lookout for a survey from Gloria Vega.
2-5 teachers: if you have any input about Mustang Moms, please email Gloria Vega @ gavega@gmail.com
itslearning Reminders
· All work from 1/22 will be due by midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 27th.
· The electronic classroom data collection form will be sent out to you by either your ITS or Administrators later this week.
· Attendance is not tied to completion of work.
· If you created an assignment or test, you can send reminders to students who have not completed it. Unless changed by a student/parent, their account is tied to a parent’s e-mail so parents would get a copy of the reminder for their child to complete the work. I have attached directions to this e-mail.
· You can give bulk feedback for students on assignments. I have attached directions to this e-mail.
· We have turned on the setting so that students who submit assignments will receive a confirmation e-mail for submission. They can also check to see if they submitted by clicking on the assignment itself.
During PL this week and next, we will be working on itslearning things including team planning in the planner, and preparation for and itslearning walkthrough. For PL, you will need your laptop.
Math Courses for Educators (info from Brian Lack)
The Friday Institute at NC State is offering Massive Open Online Courses for Educators (MOOC-ED). This spring, there are two mathematics education courses:
1) Fraction Foundations (designed for grades K-5 educators)
2) Teaching Statistics (designed for grades 6-12 educators)
The courses will launch on January 25th. Registration is FREE. It may be a great opportunity for teachers to work in teams or PLCs to complete the course together!
You can see a more detailed description of the courses here:
FCSS on Instagram
Adult Spanish Class
EdCamp Forsyth-February 6 [REPEAT]
EdCamp Forsyth is a half-day, professional development opportunity to learn from and share with your classroom peers. EdCamp Forsyth is an unconference - there is no preset agenda, no vendors, no calls for proposals. The discussion topics are set by the participants themselves at the beginning of the day, and knowledgeable participants serve as their own facilitators in the breakout sessions.
There aren't many rules, but there is one important one: the Rule of Two Feet. If you're in a session and you're not getting something worthwhile - or you feel like you're not contributing - feel free to use your two feet to go to another session. All session information - topics, room locations, etc. - will be hosted online, so you can easily figure out where to go next.
Interested? Want more info? Check out our About page for where and when, and make sure to Register!
GA Milestones [REPEAT]
The administration dates have changed for the GA Milestone in April. Testing will now begin on April 14th. Here is the revised schedule. *schedule is saved as a Google Doc, so when you click on the link, it might ask you to log in to itslearning-make sure you aren't logged into your personal Gmail account :)
We have also changed the faculty meeting and IST/DATA team meeting dates in March to allow for staff training. Here is the revised Midway Meetings calendar.
EOG Content Weights: http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Assessment/Documents/Milestones/Content%20Weights/ContentWeights_EOGbyGradeCharts_2015-2016.pdf
Information regarding online testing: Students with read aloud accommodations as well as all of 4th grade will test online. This link is the practice site for online testing. Please watch the tutorial & make sure your students are familiar with the testing format. http://gaexperienceonline.com/
Parent information to add to itslearning:
-Here is a parent Q & A Brochure: http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Assessment/Documents/Milestones/Parents/2015-16_Parent_Brochure.pdf
-The DOE website....if you have very curious parents, you could direct them to this page to reference EOG materials: http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Assessment/Pages/Georgia-Milestones-Assessment-System.aspx
Lollipop Moments
~Thank you to Ashley Zatorsky and Sheila Phillips for their marathon meeting!
~Thank you to Kim Benton for covering Mrs. Phillips' class while she was in a meeting!
~Thank you to Jessica Abernathy for being flexible and meeting with a parent instead of eating lunch!!~Sharla Woodring sends a big thanks to Danielle Brown! She went over and beyond organizing 1300 books from Paperback Swap as well as distributing them to the entire school last week. When I went to see if I could help her, she had already taken them out of the boxes and sorted them by grade level. She also put together a sign up genius for teachers and spent most of her morning with the company owners which I am sure kept her from her regular job. She’s a doll!
~Sharla Woodring also sends a huge thank you to the Custodians for bringing down all the boxes of books for the Paperback Swap to the media center!
~Thank you to David Krosner for supporting teachers to making sure itslearning planners meet expectations for inclement weather plans and TKES walkthrough!
~Thank you to Rebekka Valdivia for helping in Mrs. Zatorsky's classroom!
~Thank you to Michelle Stuparits for assisting with translations when Daisy was out of the building!