Practicum Observations
Southwest Early College High School
Mr. Richard Lucero Assistant Principal
May 30, 2016
The morning started with a two hour administrative meeting to discuss the Elvis J. Ballew student relocation list. Approximately 20 students are allotted per each PSJA ISD high school campus to finish high school in a smaller environment. These are students who are lacking credits to graduate on time and who are behavior problems. Mr. Lucero will contact parents for a formal meeting. He will have the students attendance record, transcript with credits, and referral documentation to communicate to the parent that this is the best environment for the student to finish out high school.
NEW HIRES FOR ENGLISH
BIG IDEAS for a SUCCESSFUL NEW TEACHER TRANSITION
MENTOR-MENTEE by Content
Organize information for your STUDENTS!
Think of the stubborn kids in your class as "Prodigal Students"
Summer School Schedules need to be created June 2, 2016
We Only Have THREE Counselors, according to Gina Saenz
Location: 300 E. Rancho Blanco Rd.
Phone: 956-354-2480
Head Custodian-Mr. Zuniga
SLO's still NEED signatures! Angelica Martinez
3:59 pm
Today is the last day to finalize all SLO's, and teachers on the list must sign.
Mrs. Angelica Martinez-Dean of Instruction
June 1, 2016
Mrs. Martinez said that help may be needed to call teachers who still needed to sign their SLO's. She said to check with Tanya Castro for further instructions. Mrs. Castro was in the meeting room updating the phone list from a master binder. Castro told me to check back with her in room K103.
Counselors in the Library
Mr. Ranulfo Marquez-Principal
June 2, 2016
Mr. Marquez welcomed me to observe and gave me a brief description of the next few days events. LPACing in the library, DC and summer school schedules, and the teacher workshop in Thursday.
BIG IDEAS for a SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL CULTURE is using HOG TIME to teach CORE VALUES!
Mr. Lucero has a BIG IDEA for teaching our students core values. Teachers make a huge difference in teaching and modeling the behavior our students need. At Southwest Early College High School time is set aside to teach these four core values!
RESPECT- Treat others the way you want to be treated
INTEGRITY- Who you are when no one is looking
COMMITMENT- A promise
HARD WORK -Be your best
Student Privacy!
Shredding papers is a part of student privacy. Two years of collected papers, took two hours to shred. According to Mr. Santa Maria, nine students were almost eligible to exit out of the LEP program, but their STAAR accommodations prevented them from doing so.
Summer School Begins!
June 6, 2016
Summer School starts with staff ready and students learning the new routine. Core classes are offered, TSI Prep for incoming 9th graders, TSI testing for others, an APEX program is being piloted in the library for ELLS, and in the afternoon curriculum writing is taking place. Mr. Lucero is following up on an alternative storage solution for dictionaries. The ideal storage would have the dictionaries already in the classrooms so custodians can minimize transporting them throughout the school year. He walks the campus halls to assess that the doors are locked and that students are in the classrooms.
Parent Liaisons
June 7, 2017
Parent Liaisons are cross referencing attendance rosters to those students that did not show up the first or second day of school for call outs. These are the students that missed passed the STAAR exam by just a few questions and need a little help to pass the STAAR in July. The goal is to clear as many students as possible to have as few students as possible testing in December.
Parent Meeting
June 13, 2016
I shadowed Mr. Lucero in a parent meeting regarding a cheerleading incident. He was very calm and listened for an exaggerated time to the parents concerns. He did a great job with his soft skills, and was firm and direct with the parent that the issue would be resolved.
The English Schedule
June 21, 2016
The English schedule was created with re-testers in mind. Two English teachers still need to be hired. Mr. Marquez started from scratch using DMAC data to see what the re-test numbers are to match the teacher to the need. In attendance were Mr. Marquez, Ms. Schelstrate, Mr. Lucero, and Mrs. Williams.
STAAR Testing
July 6, 2016
The tedious work of preparing for the Summer STAAR exam began a few weeks ago with the roster of restesters for Eng I & II, Algebra, History and Biology. The school receives answer documents and test booklets.. Answer documents are verified one at a time to make sure the students name, social security number, and date of birth are correct on the form. If an error is found the answer document is voided and a new one is created by hand. After the answer documents are checked, they are sorted for alignment with the teacher and room where the test will take place. My 6 hour job was verifing the English II answer documents.
STAAR Testing Preparation
July 7, 2016
The tedious work of verifying answer documents continued from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm. Afterwards I was assigned to verify that dictionaries were in all of the testing rooms, and that each room was labeled with a room number on the outside of the door.