FMS @ a Glance
January 22-26, 2018
Paraprofessional Recognition Week
Governor Mark Dayton has proclaimed the week of January 22, 2018, as Paraprofessional Recognition Week. There are over 20,000 paraprofessionals in Minnesota working hard every day to make sure every child has the education they need to succeed in school and life. Thank you to our FMS paraprofessionals for your hard work, efforts and contributions to our school! You are an important part of our building. Without you, we’d be lost. The district will have appreciation items on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week in each building.
Thank you for all you do!
FMS Community School Parent Nights
January 25 - 2018-2019 6th graders
February 22 - 2018-2019 7th and 8th graders
If you are interested in helping out please put your name on this form ASAP:
https://goo.gl/forms/5Lf0FiQaSCgqvH4m2
4:30 - 5:30 -- Dinner, Elective Fair, Tours
5:30 - 5:45 -- AVID Info
5:45 - 6:00 -- Block A
6:00 - 6:15 -- B
6:15 - 6:30 -- C
6:30 - 6:45 -- D
6:45 - ???? -- Registration
Quarter 3 Passes:
New Neon Green passes for quarter 3 will be in your mailboxes Tuesday morning. You will need to cut them in half (horizontally remember) and hand them out to your advisory students. Please have them write their names on the pass sheet in PERMANENT MARKER. Reminder that students are only allowed to have the following passes in the hallway: Neon green pass sheet or the Blue passes from the office. This is a reminder that students must have a pass in the hallway. We eliminated lanyard passes and others when we went to this new system. If you need a blue pass book please see Judy or Minda in the front office. Thank you again for your help with this. Having the same expectations and consistency makes a huge difference!
Please share with your Advisory students that tardies start over for QTR 3 and there is a change to the policy. At 3 tardies there will be a lunch detention and a phone call home.
New classroom moves happening for Quarter 3:
The following moves are being made for semester two to help with space concerns in ALP. Unfortunately, we do not have enough room to accommodate the behavior needs currently and need to move ALP back to the cafeteria. The Master Schedule and Infinite Campus are being updated to reflect all of this.
Ian Kleeberger will be moving from D103 to Kittlesen's classroom A136.
Deb Kittlesen is keeping her office right now and will teach out of Marcia Helgeson's room A103.
Alayna Getchell is moving her office from A136 to Coon’s/Transburg's room A121 (Transburg, Coons, and Getchell will be in that room together).
The ALP/ISS room is going back to D103 in the cafeteria.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO TELL YOUR 1ST HOUR STUDENTS TO CHECK THEIR SCHEDULES FOR ROOM NUMBERS BECAUSE SOME HAVE CHANGED -- ESPECIALLY THOSE STUDENTS WHO HAVE DEB, IAN, AND ALAYNA.
Email notices sent out this past week:
***** Schedule changes:*****
Staff,
All schedule changes are now done. There were some last minute changes that needed to be done due to behaviors, IEPs, ELL levels changing, team requests, NWEA scores allowing a student out of Reading, etc. Please understand that Brent, Amanda, and Annika did their best to communicate with all teachers involved. Not all changes were necessarily emailed out due to time constraints. They did the best they could with balancing classes and listening to all. Please keep in mind it is unrealistic to not have schedule changes at quarter end. We all are trying to make class sizes manageable, behaviors manageable, and meet the academic needs of all of our students. Thank you for your understanding and flexibility.
If have any concerns please see me regarding the changes.
Thank you,
Kelly
*****Technology CEUs*****
Take a class and earn your Technology CEU. Our dedicated Digital Learning Coaches are here to provide you with great opportunities to integrate technology into your everyday tasks. Don’t wait, sign up today! More classes coming soon.
Sign up here!
Please fill out one form for each class selection. Thank you.
Maria Hanson, District Technology Coordinator
710 17th Street SW Faribault, MN 55021
507-333-6065
Week @ a Glance
Monday, January 22
Workshop Day
SNOW DAY
Tuesday, January 23
SNOW DAY
Wednesday, January 24
Registration presentation - Jefferson Elementary
10:30 am student iPad support available in Media Center
3:10 pm Staff meeting
Thursday, January 25
PBIS meeting - Kelly out of building
8:30 am Community School meeting
4:30 pm Community School Parent Information Night
Friday, January 26
7:15 am FMS Technology Committee meeting
11:00 am Special Ed / Admin meeting
2:00 pm Principal meeting with Mr. Sesker
A look ahead:
Registration week
1/29 Student Services meeting
1/31 PST meeting
2/1 Principal PLC with Colleen C.
2/1 Welch Village Ski trip
2nd Quarter Grading Reminder:
All grades must be posted by 3:15 p.m. on 1/25/18.
The grading window will close at 3:16 p.m. on 1/25.
Please email Minda with any grade changes by the end of the day on 2/1/18.
Any Incompletes ("I") that remain will be changed to "F's".
~THANK YOU~
Flex Scheduler
Please make sure to check out the resources for our new Academic Seminar Flex Scheduler. If you were absent from the training stop by and see Kelly for copies of the materials. If you have any questions about how to use Flex Scheduler, please let Nate or Alicia know. Thank you to the both of them for preparing all materials and for training our staff!
Below is the link for the digital copies of all Flex Scheduler materials we went over on Wednesday.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GAfaIU3XsTcyJmADc4-nyIyXUzirT5bJ?usp=sharing
Reminder that ALL teaching staff are required to put in two sessions each week for Academic Seminar. Please try to do one academic and one enrichment if you can. We realize that some weeks you may need to offer two academic. If that is the case work with your team to make sure some enrichment sessions are offered for students who are doing well with grades.
Registration 2018-2019
Here is anything and everything you need to know about registration this year.
Here are our dates:
6th grade registration:
- Roosevelt: present on Jan. 23rd and register on Jan. 29th
- Lincoln: present on Jan. 23rd and register on Jan. 30th
- Jefferson: present on Jan. 24th and register on Feb. 2nd
- Nerstrand (still working on it)
- Reminder of the Rising 6th Grade Night on January 22nd
7th and 8th grade registration:
- present in Language Arts classes on Feb. 5th
- Register in Language Arts classes on Feb. 28th and Mar. 2nd
- EL students will be registered in EL courses if they aren't in Lang. Arts
All Sped students will register in Lang Arts or in their reading courses (those courses will need to team up with a Language Arts class. See Kelly for help with this if needed)
- Reminder of Rising 7th and 8th Grade Night on February 22nd
- All Advisory teachers will be expected to help their students with the registration sheets sometime between Feb. 5th and Feb. 22nd. You should guide them with their choices.
Attached is 6-8 comprehensive registration guide, each grade level registration guides, registration sheets, FMS course names and numbers, and the 6th grade reminder flyer for this week's event. (This can be found on the email sent out by Kelly on 01.22.18)
Please see me with questions. We are working on two edits to the guide. We are going to add Advanced MN studies and Advanced Global Studies. Everything should be good to go. Please let me know if you see any typos.
Thank you for all your help! I know this guide and process of registering in Infinite Campus is going to help make scheduling much more efficient.
Kelly
Coaches
Your help is needed.
Welcome back Lul! She was able to join us for one day last week. Her friends were so excited to have her back. She was amazing and had a great day!
Please help support Lul and her family. Here are the two ways you can help:
2018 Charity Ice Golf (See information below. Kelly could really use some help in pulling this off. If you are interested in helping with getting silent auction items or helping out during the event please let her know)
Sat. Feb. 24th at Winjum’s Resort on Roberd’s Lake
Ice Golf - Tee times are 11am or 1pm
Silent Auction - Open from noon - 4pm
Hammerschlagen Tourney - Winjum’s food and drink specials all day
Lul Ahmed is a Faribault Middle School student and we welcome everyone to dress in their school spirit colors.
Find our event on Facebook, “2018 Charity Ice Golf Event” For details and to register Contact maggiedemars@gmail.com ~ 507-330-8356
Silent Auction donations please contact kmcdermott@faribault.k12.mn.us or 507-330-0581
Here is what has gone out to the public:
Hello all,
This year the event will benefit Lul Ahmed who is a Faribault Middle School who was hit by a driver while crossing the street from school.
For more on her story and the opportunity to donate directly please see the GoFundMe page started for the family:
https://www.gofundme.com/csab6-lul-ahmed-family-fund
We are partnering with our friends at the Faribault Middle School. If you would like to donate a silent auction or be more involved please contact Kelly McDermott at kmcdermott@faribault.k12.mn.us or give her a call at 507-330-0581.
The theme this year is "School Spirit". You can wear gear from your high school days and/or support the Faribault Falcons by wearing hunter green:)
Online registration will be ready by Jan. 20th. It would be great if you could register online to golf, just makes things easier on the back end. Also, you can conveniently pay by credit card.
Lastly, we wanted to let you know that this is our 10th year and we are so appreciative of everyone participating and coming together for this winter event.
We've been able to give funds to many families and non-profits and we couldn't do that without your participation. Many of you have done so much extra to help with the little things and we can't thank you enough. You know who you are.
If you have any general questions just call Jason at 507-838-9732.
Registration questions...call Maggie at 507-330-8356.
Parent communication:
From your PBIS Committee:
ACCESS Testing
It’s that time of year to do ACCESS testing of all our EL students.
This is a very important set of 4 tests(reading, writing, speaking, and listening) that our students are required to take by the state of MN.
The ACCESS testing will be very challenging and push our students to the extent of their academic English abilities in all domains. If you’ve ever learned another language, you might be able to imagine the challenge the ACCESS tests pose to our students.
Because it is such a challenging set of tests, we will be testing our EL kids one test at a time. We EL teachers will test students during our pull-out classes and during our preps and CPT times to avoid taking our co-taught EL students out of their other general education classes as much as possible. Also, some students may be arriving late to their class with you because they needed more time to finish the test that day. We will be sending them with GREEN printed passes that say ACCESS testing on them with a date and time stamp.
Some electives teachers may experience absences due to this important, state-mandated testing. I apologize for the inconveniences this poses, it is not intentional but it did seem the best option for our students to be able to keep up. We ask for your patience, understanding, and help with either catching up students or excusing certain assignments where possible. We can help you with this if needed!
Language Arts and Special Ed teachers, please check in with me and/or your grade level EL teacher(s) to see how this affects you (comp. time rules, when students will be gone, if you need to administer the alternative ACCESS, etc.).
All testing will take place in the Media Center according to the following schedule:
Jan. 29-Feb. 2: 7th grade
Feb. 5-9: 6th grade
Feb. 12-16: 8th grade
Newcomers will test during their own class time.
Here is the link to the testing schedule. Char will email when the Media center is open.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B86Py_AAmim7wNAHHKe5dcBRRxcaKXRjpg2lftFqS-k/edit?usp=sharing
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Britta or talk with your grade level aligned EL teacher. We are happy to oblige wherever possible to support our EL students.
Let’s cheer on our EL students to achieve and succeed in their English language abilities! Thank you!
***** Reminders from past newsletters: *****
Recording your classroom
To be as blunt as possible - don't do it. I had some staff inquiries about this and so I asked our school attorney to advise and their clear message was: do not record students (or yourself) in the classroom. This does not include projects that have recording requirements, what I am talking about is setting up a camera to record yourself for professional growth or record your students to monitor their behavior.
If you have questions please visit with me.
Schoology v. IC
Please be sure to use Infinite Campus as your "official" grade book and communication tool for students, parents, and other staff members. As you know, Schoology and IC do not merge records and it is important that we have a consistent report that can be shared to report academic progress.
Your extra efforts of keeping your Infinite Campus grade book updated is appreciated.
Breakfast
Please share this with students quick today regarding breakfast. Thank you!
o Need to have your breakfast by 7:48 a.m. when the music starts and head to class.
o You can bring your breakfast to class.
o We won’t be handing out passes to class if you get your breakfast late.
o On Block days you have to have your breakfast by 7:40 or get it at Second Chance Breakfast time.