Pam's Pages
Week of March 28 - April 1
NEWSLETTER TOPICS
CAMPUS NEWS
STAAR Testing
3 week meetings (Primary teams - Looking at Student Work)
Summatives
Response to Intervention / GPC
DISTRICT NEWS
Summer School
Early Childhood Conference
Impacts of Poverty
RELFECTION
Lean In or Back Away? Accepting Critical Feedback
CAMPUS NEWS
STAAR Testing
Tuesday, March 29th - 4th grade Writing and 5th grade Math
Wednesday, March 30th - 5th grade Reading
Please remember to keep the students quiet when they are in the area near the stairs.
NO VISITORS OR VOLUNTEERS ON TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY. NO EXCEPTIONS.
It is a testing irregularity for students who are testing to come in contact with parents or other volunteers.
3 Week Meetings - Primary Teams/March 31st
The purpose for looking at student work will be based on these guiding questions and will be based on the Rounds Protocol:
1. Is the work good enough - does it meet our expectations for high quality work?
2. What is "good enough" and how can we illustrate good work for students?
3. In what ways does this work meet or fail to meet a particular set of criteria or standards?
Rounds Protocol
1. Statement of the Objective for the Lesson (1 - 2 minutes)
2. Discussion on what would be considered "good enough". (3-5 minutes) If there is a rubric, please bring that with you. Otherwise, you can decide in the discussion what "good enough" would look like.
3. Agreement on what is good enough is written and posted (1 minute)
4. Review of class set of papers (5 - 8 minutes) **** Use sticky notes
5. Round 1 (8 - 10 minutes) Each person states a general conclusions about how many of the class produced work that was "good enough".
6. Round 2 (8 - 10 minutes) Each person states the reason for their general conclusion about the work, i.e. overall, the work was good enough (or not good enough) because ...
7. Round 3 (8 - 10 minutes) Each person makes recommendations/suggestions for how to improve the work.
8. Debrief (5 - 10 minutes)
Summatives
You will be receiving a calendar invitation for your summative. 3/4/5 teacher summatives will be held the first part of April so that we can have this finished as soon as possible before STAAR.
Everyone - teachers and paraprofessionals - should submit your end of the year goals through Eduphoria to your appraiser as soon as possible. For teachers who did the pilot evaluation, there is no need for you to submit anything through PDAS.
Our discussion at your summative conferences will focus around the following:
3 things you are doing well and want to continue
2 things you want to stop doing
1 thing you want to start doing
You will receive an index card to write down your responses. As we discussed, I will also prepare responses and we will review both of our responses. This information will be used as a starting point for goal setting for next year.
Response to Intervention
Elementary School Skills Checklists (from SBISD Teaching and Learning)
The following links will take you to skills checklists that have two purposes; Guide interventions for RTI and GPC documentation, and to provide information for summer school.
Instructions:
Complete the appropriate skills checklist for any student with a failing 3rd 9 weeks grade and/or risk for not passing for the year.
Select the option at the end of the form “Send me a copy of my responses” for documentation.
Use this information to inform intervention planning for struggling students.
ELA
Grade 1 - http://goo.gl/forms/CpKdg3eTEm
Grade 2 - http://goo.gl/forms/hWWEChLRQa
Grade 3 - http://goo.gl/forms/jyPy5kifzt
Grade 4 - http://goo.gl/forms/IETUsTM91m
Grade 5 - http://goo.gl/forms/TC0E3EGWjT
Math
Grade 1 - http://goo.gl/forms/xVyS0IkIMr
Grade 2 - http://goo.gl/forms/oPdZyP3n9e
Grade 3 - http://goo.gl/forms/acvIuPn3to
Grade 4 - http://goo.gl/forms/Q5tyJYUzEY
Grade 5 - http://goo.gl/forms/Fp7WVoC7DU
Science
Grade 5 - http://goo.gl/forms/fNhClJhlZ2
In May, you will complete the checklists again for any student who might be assigned to summer school. The links will be resent from the district with further instructions at the beginning of May.
DISTRICT NEWS
SUMMER SCHOOL
In Summer 2016, the District will offer several summer school programs.
The summer school website is now up for parents. Because we are still working on the logistics for the SSI programs (5th & 8th), there is no posted information on these. For the other programs, there will be general information for students & parents about program dates, times, etc. There is also be an employee page that lists available positions and describes the application process. Please help us recruit excellent teachers to work with students in our summer school programs.
The link to summer school information is: https://cms.springbranchisd.com/summerschool/
EARLY CHILDHOOD CONFERENCE
Below is a fabulous opportunity for not only our PPCD teachers but all primary and early elementary teachers as well. They will get their 18 hours, acquire new knowledge & strategies, and many fabulous materials from Lakeshore are given to each participant. It is the best opportunity for teachers for the money.
Calling All Preschool Educators:
Join talented classroom teachers, professional preschool consultants, and nationally known speakers for the Region 4 Preschool Summer Institute :
July 19 – 21, 2016, Houston, TX. Session 976009
Fee: $135.00
HOW POVERTY AFFECTS CLASSROOM ENGAGEMENT by Eric Jensen
Students from low-income households are more likely to struggle with engagement—
Just as the phrase middle class tells us little about a person, the word poverty typically tells us little about the students we serve. ... if poor people were exactly the same cognitively, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally as those from the middle class, then the exact same teaching provided to both middle-class students and students from poverty would bring the exact same results.
But it doesn't work that way. .... Are children from poverty more likely to struggle with engagement in school?
The answer is yes. Seven differences between middle-class and low-income students show up at school. By understanding those differences and how to address them, teachers can help mitigate some of the negative effects of poverty.
Click on the link below for more information:
COMMUNITY AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Beginning with the 2013–14 school year, HB 5 included a local evaluation requirement that is referred to as the Community and Student Engagement (CaSE) component.
The statute provided nine factors for which the district and each campus must be evaluated: Fine Arts, Wellness and Physical Education, Community and Parental Involvement, 21st Century Workforce Development program, Second Language Acquisition program, Digital Learning Environment, Dropout Prevention Strategies, Educational Programs for GT Students, and Statutory Reporting and Policy Compliance.
The process for evaluating CaSE in SBISD has recently been refined to address the role it will have in the next State Accountability System beginning in the 2017–2018 school year. In this new accountability system, the ratings from the community engagement component will directly impact campus and district state ratings and account for 10% of the overall ratings.
The timeline for conducting this evaluation will be late April through mid-May.
RELFECTION
Feedback: lean in or back away? |By Jennifer Porter | Mar 18, 2016
A colleague of mine, whose opinion I value deeply, recently gave me some feedback that was hard for me to hear.
Once I got over my discomfort, I learned two important lessons:
1) I had a behavior that needed fixing, and
2) feedback has three stages — and that “ouch” I felt is the first stage!
The “ouch” stage is where the feedback stings. We may feel hurt, embarrassed, shocked—any range of painful emotions. Occasionally this passes quickly, but more often, this discomfort can linger.
In stage two, we believe (and often say!), “It’s not me, it’s you.” Stage two gets our defenses up. We see the feedback as the giver’s problem, not ours.... It’s not that we’re consciously trying to dodge the feedback; we really do see the other person as the problem.
If we’re lucky, we get through this second stage and move on to stage three: learning. This is where we can actually see the truth in the feedback—and there is almost ALWAYS some truth in the feedback—and think about what we can learn from it.
Sometimes we get through these three stages quickly, but more often, it takes some time. With the feedback I received from my colleague, the process took me about two weeks. I’d like to tell you I flew right through or even skipped stages one and two and got right to the learning, but it just isn’t true. My ego was wounded. I was a little embarrassed. And yes, I blamed my colleague. It took me a little while to get through that and move to a place where I could truly—not just pretend to—learn from the experience.
For the entire article go to .... https://shar.es/1YtzR4
Jennifer Porter is the managing partner of The Boda Group.
Meadow Wood Elementary
Email: pamela.redd@springbranchisd.com
Website: mwe.springbranchisd.com
Location: 14230 Memorial Drive, Houston, TX, United States
Phone: 713-251-6200
Facebook: facebook.com/MeadowWoodElementarySBISD
Twitter: @Pam_Redd