Head U Gator News
September 24, 2017
Grateful Heart
I am grateful for...
...Jayne, who is often the first person to sees kids when they walk in the door and always addresses issues that may come up.
...Lauri, who is most often the first backup for the nurse. Way more than she signed on for but greatly appreciated!
....Bryan, who came up with a creative solution to dealing with a behavior problem and is always affirming and welcoming to students. He also is extremely willing to help lend his expertise to colleagues!
...Jeanette, who put the Sky Ranch chaperone application on a Google form so Jenn doesn't have to re-type them!
Gatorville
I'll need to have selections ready for students by the 5th of October.
Greenback
Student voice
We now have access to a 5th-grade GALLUP student voice survey, which I'd love for our fifth graders to take.
Many of you have already incorporated some student voice into your regular practices, but I will be regularly prodding and highlighting examples to keep it visible for us during the year.
If you try something that works really well, please let me or Jeanette know so that we can share it with others. A Google form, a question or an activity that you design that gets more student input are just some of the examples you might share.
Here's a one question google form you can add to your drive (make a copy first, then add to my drive) and send to me when you remember to share something you tried. https://goo.gl/forms/oMldEw8W3IiYyA3g1
Metro Tex Grants
Do you and your student leaders have a great idea that could benefit all the students in your school? If so we have an opportunity to help make it reality. The MetroTex Association of REALTORS® is offering grants in the amount of $3,000 to fund four school projects within our service area.
MetroTex Association of REALTORS® is a professional trade Association representing over 17,000 REALTOR® and Affiliate members who live and work in the North Central Texas Region. Our members support the communities they live and sell in, and understand that our future lies in our community's youth. With this in mind, we are proud to offer this opportunity for students and faculty to develop a proposal for a grant that will assist our local schools in various projects.
We are offering four $3,000 grants to fund projects that will be a permanent part of your school. The proposal for the funding should be a student driven project that with the help of the administration and faculty will be a benefit to the entire student body. MetroTex Association of REALTORS® would like the opportunity to name the finished project.
The application deadline is October 31, 2017 and the selections will be made in November. The project must be completed within one year of receipt of the funds. We hope that you will allow us to support the school districts in North Texas by completing the online grant application.
Instructional Rounds
There were three categories on the form to provide feedback on different areas of differentiation:
Differentiation for students: 63% of the visits were at proficient or better
Differentiation of assessment: 75% of the visits were at proficient or better
Differentiation of instruction: 56% of the visits recorded proficient or better, but 14% of the visits were recorded as improvement needed.
We are NOT giving individual classroom feedback. Our purpose for those visits is to provide data both for the campus as well as for the district as a whole. What we can work on is continuing to increase differentiation for our students so that these percentages move up as we have successive visits through the year.
There were many complimentary comments about what was already happening at Glenhope, including many observations of student choice given in assignments.
Probably the "refinement" comments that most aligned with our own observations were the ones that stressed need to continue to work on providing different work for the paper/pencil tasks. If students are simply rotating to the same task at a different time, that's not differentiating for their level of understanding. We'll keep talking and working on this throughout the year!
Thanks!
Calendar
Monday, September 25
Tuesday, September 26
GTU- Meet in library first
Wednesday, September 27
Choir
Thursday, September 28
RTI meetings- grade levels meet together
Friday, September 29
Lunch with Principal