What's up?
April 2016 Meeting for SS Dept.
What ever happened to that Scheduling decision?
A couple of weeks before Break, Todd visited me during class with a face of concern and a request. He asked me to meet with each of you to let you know the District was looking at changing the scheduling times for next year in order to save money. Westside's crisis has become the model of what we could be facing and we are trying to save money before our budget issues grow. According to the most recent Board minutes, the proposition to change start and stop times for next year now needs to go to the parents, students and community for acceptance. If I am correct, I believe we need to get 80% of all those to agree as well. Once upon a time, Kanesville considered switching to a year-round schedule as an experiment and those were the conditions we discussed as part of the requirements.
Request from the TOP - Infusing Test Prep for IA Assessments
Per Ryan, Todd has asked the coaches to create materials featuring our discipline and infusing testing skills. These materials have been created and shall be shared with you today. Each day, starting with Monday, will have a couple of test items. Ryan has suggested that we ask students to answer them, reveal the answers, and then go over the strategies/skills that were necessary to be successful. This is an expectation for all of our classes, no matter the subject.
Textbook Counts & Requests for Replacements
While there are no guarantees for anything with a purchase order, we need to take stock as soon as we can as to our textbook/resource needs. If you would, please take an account of how many texts that you have, log your numbers on the spreadsheet for the end of year accounting, and then identify your needs for any replacements. At this point, most of us use textbooks as a resource and rarely lend them out. However books have been known to wander, be borrowed by other levels of intervention, and otherwise vanish. We are not updating textbooks, merely maintaining the necessary classroom sets. Here is the link to the spreadsheet: Link Please forward any textbook replacement requests to me and I will approach Corey/Nina tentatively.
Our New Resources
A few of you had voiced an interest in subscribing as a department to several magazines in order to enhance & update our curriculum. With the great support of Chuck & Lori, we have started to receive the first copies of The Economist and Time! We also have digital access to most of these sources as well. I will locate an organizer for them to be available for checkout - the first editions of The Economist and Time are here for anyone to borrow now.
Thanks Chuck and Lori!
Fortune - fortune.com
In These Times - first edition digital access
New York Times Upfront - first edition Sept 2016
Time - time.com
The Economist - economist.com
For your scheduling convenience:
- April 13 - Mandatory Reporter Session by CBEA @ AL
- April 16 - 2nd Annual CB Blast from the Past Pub Crawl
- raising $$ for classroom grants - April 20-21 - Iowa Assessments - Schedule TBA
- May 3 - Parent Teacher Conferences, 4-7:30pm
- May 30 - No School - Holiday
- June 5 - Graduation @ MAC
- June 14 & 15 - U.P. Economics Conference - stipend
- June 20-21 - Best Practices in Social Studies Institute, Des Moines
- October 6 - Iowa State Council for the Social Studies Conference
- Registration opens May 1st
Lots of other Professional Development Opportunities - online also!
Iowa Core in Social Studies & NCLB
The rumor of revision in the State Standards for Social Studies is in the works. C3 will be a part of that - any updates will be passed along as they are available. Also, NCLB is evolving into the Every Student Succeeds Act. Per the IA DOE, "the new law has implications for social studies in that it contains competitive grant programs for social studies funding.