Dutch Fork Elementary
Academy of Environmental Sciences - Week of November 12th -
District Goals 2018 - 2019
- Focus our work decisions on/around our district strategic plan.
- Identify areas of achievement to improve.
- Provide Chick-Fil-A and Moes like customer service for internal and external community.
- Strengthen the structure and quality of communication both internally and externally.
- Promote a work and learning environment where students and staff feel safe physically, emotionally and socially.
DFES Goals 2018-2019
- Exceed family expectations in our communication, follow through, and sharing student progress.
- Strengthen grade level data team processes to accelerate student growth and achievement in mathematics.
- Implementation of student-led conference across all grade levels (as identified in DFES strategic plan).
DFES Beliefs
- We believe all people deserve to feel safe, valued, and loved.
- We believe all children are naturally curious about the world around them.
- We believe learning is a social process.
- We believe inquiry fosters an environment of noticing and questioning.
- We believe in learning from multiple perspectives.
- We believe in learning from authentic primary and secondary sources.
- We believe in encouraging learners to be risk takers.
- We believe reflection should lead to change and growth.
- We believe learning should lead to social action.
- We believe our actions should be aligned with our beliefs.
Shout Outs
- Shout out to Ms. Goforth for regularly donating items for my Spanish room prize basket. SO thoughtful!
- Shout out to Ms. Umberger for giving up her time and her flag to cheer up my unhappy student during the Veteran's Day Parade. SO kind!
- Shout out to the whole custodial staff for being absolutely AWESOME in every way! Especially to Miss Tamia for going way above and beyond every single day and making this an even BETTER place to work! And to Mr. Bud for helping me SO many times in SO many ways.
Literacy Team and RtI curricular conversations
- On Friday, Glenna, Christy, Claire, Lindsay, Kelly, Caitlin, Mandi, Sheila, Brett, and Sally problem-solved striving readers using observations collected in the intervention and classroom settings. They matched those observations to the What Matters list, and generated new instructional decisions for additional observations. The conversations were lively and collaborative, and they left the table with new appreciations for how they can be helpful to these readers and other readers they know well. It was a successful day of thinking about our teaching and learning.
Veteran's Day:
Many thanks to go around. We are grateful for A. Newman taking the lead role with planning/and organization. Thanks to our cafeteria staff for preparing refreshments. Thanks to our homeroom teachers for helping our small historians inquire into the armed services and the work of our veterans.
V. Valentine(4K asst) and J. Doloughty (4K):
- Over the last week the lead teachers for both classes have been out due to sickness and an untimely death. Both Mrs. Valentine and Mrs. D are commended for filling in admirably for their lead teachers. The instructional planning and teaching has been maintained and honored in both classrooms.
District Magnet Fair:
- A sincere thanks to C. Walker, D. Gibson, J. Goforth, B. Ybarra, B. Gantt, and A. Umberger for representing our school during last Thursday's magnet fair. More than 300 attendees between parents/children.
Oakdale Visit
We look forward to having our peers from Oakdale visit us tomorrow. Oakdale is a STEAM magnet school whose demographics are close to our own (70% African-American and 80% free and reduced.
They are exploring the connections between beliefs and practices. Their assistant principal, Derek McQuiston, is having their team theorize from practice. As they visit our classrooms they will think about the beliefs that led to teaching moves/practices witnessed of our DFES staff. The Oakdale team of 13 will include classroom teachers, related areas teachers, an SIC member, their STEAM coach, and an office staff member).
We meet with our colleagues in our professional development room. Their schedule will be as follows:
- 8:30-9:00 ish Welcome and school overview
- 9:00-11:30 Classroom visits (any class could be visited but will be determined by our guests)
- 11:30-12:30 lunch/debrief
- 12:30-1:30 classroom observations
- 1:30 - 2:00 debrief
- 2:15 depart
In anticipation of potential classroom visits there is absolutely no prep work or change of instructional plans necessary. Again because our colleagues are examining beliefs and practices they will not interrupt your instruction. It does make sense to share with your respective homerooms that we will have visitors in our school that may stop by.
I thank you in advance for making our colleagues feel at home.
Monday, Nov 12, 2018, 08:30 AM
DFES
3rd Grade Field Study (Garrett/Goforth
Tuesday, Nov 13, 2018, 08:30 AM
Congaree National Park, National Park Road, Hopkins, SC, USA
Grade Level Curricular Conversations with Dr. Mills
Dr. Mills is typically with us on the 4th Thursday of each month. During the month of October she was unable to meet with all teams because of the data team fishbowl. Next Thursday we are out due to the Thanksgiving holiday and we will be out for the winter break in December.
Tuesday, Nov 13, 2018, 08:00 AM
PD Room
Math curricular conversations with Erika Carledge (Elementary Math Coordinator)
During our October 9th PD with Erika we explored My Math Recommendations. We teach the state adopted standards. We plan for My Math. We use digital resources for support.
Our 5th Tuesday was focused on rigor. We developed a DFES definition for rigor that is as follows:
- Rigor is providing intensive and intentionally planned instruction that challenges students to delve into higher cognitive levels and scaffolds them into independence.
When we meet this Tuesday come prepared to discuss ways in which you have increased opportunities for students to engage in mathematical thinking (beginning of our time together).
Erika will share state department updates relative to mathematics instruction. We will also look at 2018 SC Ready Math data relative to our system and our school.
All certified staff members are expected to be in attendance. We have planned for mixed grade level breakout while reviewing SC Ready Math. This will mean 1 SPED, 1 related arts, 1 interventionist to join 3rd grade teachers. 1 SPED, 1 related arts, 1 interventionist to join forth grade and so on.
Facility Tour Tuesday (afternoon ish)
The facility tour is conducted for every school in our system and is led by Scott Carlin, Coordinator of Facilities and Operations. Mr. Epting and I will join Scott and his team to survey DFES from top to bottom to enhance our facility.
During the tour we will be looking for opportunities to improve the overall environment for teaching and learning, to include custodial and maintenance services, indoor air quality, pest management, recycling, asset management and more.
This is also an opportunity for us to share DFES identified needs for the upcoming school year. We will walk in classrooms but will not not interrupts teaching and asking questions of teachers. FYI on what to anticipate.
3rd Grade Field Study (Donald/McDermott)
Wednesday, Nov 14, 2018, 08:30 AM
Congaree National Park, National Park Road, Hopkins, SC, USA
School Improvement Council Meeting Wednesday 6:00 - 7:30 pm.
Data Team Thursday
Data teams will meet Thursday during their respective planning. As a school that embraces inquiry as a stance for teaching and learning this year is about us taking a professional inquiry into data teaming.
At the foundation of data teaming are CORE Messages.Those Core Messages include:
- Data Teams are first and foremost about improving instruction (teacher actions).
- Data Teams have a common learning goal and use: Common Priority Standards, Common Formative Assessments, and Common Scoring Guides
- Data Teams collaborate and work together to achieve collective purpose of learning for all
- Data Teams analyze student work from Common Formative Assessments to plan and adjust instruction.
Public Release of School Report Cards Thursday, November 15
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state education agencies are required to prepare and disseminate annual local school report cards. Schools can earn a rating of Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average, and Unsatisfactory. DFES earned a Good report card rating in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The report card rating was suspended the following year (2015 - 2017) and resumes this fall (November 15, 2018).
The upcoming report card rating formula is comprised of several factors including academic achievement, academic growth-all students, academic growth-students in lowest quintile, ELA proficiency, school quality indicator, student success indicator.
Typically districts and schools would receive this information (embargoed) before it becomes public. As of this writing this information is unknown to districts across the state. There is a chance that we will learn our results with the general public.
All D5 principals met with our director of accountability last week to get some updates regarding the report card ratings and the new formula. We agreed to update our faculties and key stakeholders prior to November 15. Here are the major points you should know at this point:
- This is the State's first year working with a new report card rating model. There are many issues and almost every district in the state has been working with the state department of education to correct these issues.
- We are less than 5 days away from the release of this information and we do not have have answers to multiple questions that will impact ratings.
- The ratings are and will be first year ratings. There remains a strong likelihood that the ratings once release, will be flawed. This should lead to the possibility of the formula being corrected/adjusted for the 2019-2020 school year.
We will continue to keep you updated as we learn more.
5th Grade Field Study
Friday, Nov 16, 2018, 08:30 AM
Camp Gravatt, Camp Gravatt Road, Aiken, SC, USA
K-2 Learning Celebrations
Friday learning celebrations are designed to allow small teachers (students) to make their learning public. K-2 and 3rd-5th alternate Friday's for celebrations. Students negotiate with their teachers what and how they are learning. Our vision was for this to showcase the social process of learning, building community within our school, demonstrating that we care how what others in our building are learning, and to build student capacity with public speaking.
I haven't been as explicit in sharing this with our new colleagues. Teachers signed up for their slot back in August with the goal of nearly every class and every group of students having an opportunity to showcase their learning in this capacity over the school year.
This Friday's learning celebration will be led by T. Poston's kindergarten class.
Friday, Nov 16, 2018, 08:15 AM
Mini Theater
Fox Fun Friday
Tuesday, Nov 20, 2018, 07:30 AM
DFES
Birthday Wishes!
- 11/13 K. Hill
We develop students who care about the world we live in and express critical thinking through natural curiosity and wonder!
Email: jscott@lexrich5.org
Website: www.lexrich5.org/dutchfork/cfm/
Location: 7900 Broad River Road, Irmo, SC, USA
Phone: 803-476-3901
Twitter: @dfes_principal