PONY NEWS MARCH 20th
Resilience
I have never run a marathon, but my daughter is training for one and just ran a half marathon. As I was talking to her during this break, her experience made me think about our own race.
Marathon runners will tell you, it’s all about the training and resiliency. Runners have to ask, “When do I need water; when should I take a walk break; what is the best gear; how do I deal with hitting a wall, what are the roughest miles for me?"
Most of the answers to these questions come from training and trial and error.
According to one marathon blogger, “You can run a marathon just by increasing your mileage each week and not thinking much more about it." In his experience, "a marathon will go better and will have lots more meaning if you take stock and self-examine along the route.” Ask yourself, 'What works for you; what should you do when you start to get “crispy”, what are the signs you should take a walk break; how do you reward yourself?'
How can we apply this metaphor of running a marathon and staying resilient on our journey?
Our marathon is long, but we are making strides and great gains everyday. You are all doing wonderful things for our students everyday. April and May are months in which runners begin to get tired. The STAAR begins adding pressure to our race. But remember the end goal is to finish the race successfully testing the limits of the human heart (love for our students), which means students learning. We are not running alone. Each staff member, teachers, STUDENTS, and parents are all marathon runners. Let us keep working together, supporting one another and focusing with the end in mind, and at the end, we will get to the finish line.
Don't forget to celebrate the mile markers along the way always keeping the finish line in view.
A Minute with the LASes...
The focus this week will be on writing. We know that writing can be a difficult task for our students, especially for our ELLs. According to data from the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 28% of fourth graders, 31% of eighth graders, and 24% of twelfth graders performed at or above a proficient (i.e., competent) level of writing achievement for their respective grade level (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). Also, with an increasingly diverse population in our classrooms, teaching to write can become a challenge. Below there are five links to videos that show different strategies that can be used during writing workshop and regular content instruction to motivate the students to write and to successfully apply the 6 traits of writing.
Vocabulary is an important component of effective writing. Don't forget to share with us the strategies that work for your students to learn vocabulary, and/or the way we can better support the use of the AVP in your classroom.
Click HERE to add your comments. Thanks!
Using data to provide with feedback
How are your students data folders going? What kind of feedback have you provided to your students? How are they responding to this feedback? How is this feedback helping them grow?
Please tweet your reflection using #Feedback @Learning Ponies during the week of March 20th to the 24th. The grade level/ department with 100% participation will have a free duty day (lunch/ recess/ before or after school duty) during the week of April 3rd.
A message for K,1st, 2nd and 3rd grade teachers: We will begin building our Data Wall using our April Istation data and students' current Running Records from your guided reading.
Please sign in on one of the available slots to visit with me so we can build our wall together and develop a classroom goal for reading growth. You will be able to wear jeans with a university shirt on the day you sign in :-)
Example of classroom goals: Mrs. Anguita's class just celebrated that 60% English and 67% Spanish of her class are in Tier I or II according to I Station. Their next goal is for 70% of her class to be on Tier I Spanish and 67% in English.
Sherri will give you your class index cards with students' names and pictures. You will add current ISIP score (April) and Guided Reading Level from your most current Running Record. (Dual Language teachers- use dominant language)
Bring your cards to our check in meeting.
Click here
Congratulations to Ms. Sayers class
Congratulations to MRs. Anguita's class for Achieving their Reading Goal!
Think on ways your own class can be motivated!
Professional Learning Communities - Collaborative Planning
Focus:
- TELPAS Calibration (LEP students) and Writing samples calibration (Non LEP).
- STAAR training.
Please take a minute to review the following STAAR Pre- Training to build background for our conversation on Thursday.
Click here for the PLC agenda.
Calendar for the next 2 Weeks
Bond Presentation
Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lori Rapp will be visiting Lewisville ES on March 20th beginning at 3:10 for the bond presentation and to answer any questions the staff may have.
POSITION INPUT FOR 2017-2018
Please take a moment to provide your input about your preferences for next year. Requests to change assignments within Lewisville will be considered, but not guaranteed.
Please complete this survey by March 22nd.
Early Release
We have a student early release day this Friday, March 24th. Below is a reminder of the general campus early release schedule.
STAFF SHOUT-OUTS
- Mrs. Oden for always having a positive attitude and a willingness to help.
- Ms. Pierce for being an awesome Writing Club partner, who is flexible and willing.
- Mrs. Morales for stepping into any role asked of her and doing a superb job!
- Mrs. Naik for collaborating honestly and openly during PLCs and is always searching for ways to truly serve students in the most effective way possible.
- Mrs. Isham for partnering with Instructional Specialists to create a learning plan that will help students grow drastically.
- Vicki Butler, for taking care of the Staff Luncheon.
- Belinda Rubio, for keeping up with the office supplies and always telling me when we need to order so that we never run out of supplies for the staff.
- Mr. Thomas for putting on a great 2nd grade performance on Open House Night!
- Ms. Shuntel Green for working hard every day behind the scenes to help our students have access to food, clothing, shelter and encouragement! She quietly puts her heart and soul into helping others.
- Ms. Echevarria for using innovative and creative ways to reach students in distress and help them find balance at school! She's a true asset to our school!
- Ms. Urban, Ms. Jones, Ms. Isham, Ms. Naik, Ms. Harper, Ms. Rodriques, & Mr. Perez for supporting me with my car issues. Each one of you made it much easier to deal with. Thank you.
- Thank you to the Instructional Specialists, LASes, Dyslexia Interventionists, and Counselors for supporting the RTI process (Mrs. Oden, Mrs. Rutherford, Ms. Pierce, Mr. Perez, Mrs. Michael, Mrs. Schwartz, Mrs. Echevarria, Ms. Maurier, & Mrs. Rowland)! -Mrs. Simpson
- Thank you Mrs. Wier for bringing breakfast to the office staff!
- Thank you Nurse Erika for taking excellent care of our teachers and staff!
- Mrs. Rutherford for doing an amazing job at training us on how to dig deeper into I-Station!
- Thank You Coach W for helping me with the table this week.
- Thank You Mrs. Vando for coming to the rescue and helping me out!
Thanks for the Shout-Outs!
Submit a Shout-Out to someone else HERE and we will share it in future Monday Messages.
PDAS TSR II and III
STAAR Training
Wednesday, March 22nd, STAAR Training for Paraprofessionals and Building Support
3:15-4:30Awards Ceremonies
- 2nd to 5th April 7th
- K and 1st April 10th