Rountree Report
January 4, 2016
Welcome Back!
2016 promises to be an exciting year! I hope you were able to enjoy special time with your families and friends over the holiday break and feel rested and recharged. As we begin the second half of the year we will need to spend time reviewing essential agreements and classroom routines. Remember relationships, relationships, relationships! You may be the main human connection for many of your students. Make those relationships count! A renewed focus on creating engaging learning experiences with students and having high expectations is so important.
I would like to announce our Ignite model classrooms. Nikki will be our upper grade model classroom and Jennifer will be our model for the lower grades. They will be receiving training once per month and will be sharing their learning with us. Their classrooms will receive devices in February and each of you will have an opportunity before the end of the school year to observe. Thanks to both of these ladies for being willing to serve in this capacity.
Talent show feedback is needed. A few ideas about our Talent show have been proposed and I would like to seek your input. Do you want to proceed with tryouts as we have been or would you prefer to have students try out in your classrooms and submit the names of chosen performers to the talent show coordinators? One thought was to host the talent show during lunch instead of having a separate assembly. Any thoughts?
I hope you are planning on applying for the Imagine SPS grants. 2 teachers per week will receive $1000 each to use in their classrooms! Send your ideas of how you would reimagine your classroom to imaginegrant.spsk12.org. Grants will start being awarded in January. There will be 2 grants per week for the rest of the school year.
REMINDERS
- Grade level meetings this week -- Our agenda for our meeting time will be set by you. I will be meeting with you and will be ready to listen and discuss topics or items of your choosing. Our meeting can be as brief or as long (within reason:)) as you need. This might also be a good opportunity for you to work on your book order list.
- Grade level book order -- I still need your grade level lists of books you would like for PTA to purchase for you. It would be terrific if I could have all lists by Friday so we can move forward with placing our order.
- Site observations -- I am requiring all classroom teachers to do a site observation visit. Coreship created a user friendly google reflection form for you to complete after your observation. This form is also nice because you can use it to upload as evidence in your growth plan under our site indicator 9.2 or any other indicator you are working on. If you don't know where to go or want suggestions I am happy to help you set up the observation. Here is the link to the google reflection form. https://docs.google.com/a/sps.org/document/d/10uiGFy-YPOh-wiOLyfBKxDaM_yHySk5YGeCCe-rhSxQ/edit?usp=sharing
- Don't forget to use the Friday Feedback form in Google. I appreciate those of you that are using this form. It helps me to be aware of issues and to provide the support you need. https://docs.google.com/a/sps.org/forms/d/1pbn9VK85q0AQIQnIJPl92MbuBIQnsFlFPn63jFj4OV0/viewform?usp=send_form
- Don't forget to recognize your colleagues by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. It has been so wonderful reading these. What an awesome, supportive team we have at Rountree!
Watch the video for tips in case you need help with your New Year's resolution to exercise more!
Please note on your calendars that this month's staff meetings are scheduled for the 14th and the 26th. The meeting on the 14th is on a Thursday as it was set by the district for our staff device deployment. The meeting on the 26th will be a time to spend collaborating with each other around artifacts or evidence you would like to include in your growth plan. You will have time to add artifacts and to review your progress so far.
Monday, January 4
Welcome Back!
Tuesday, January 5
Nothing yet
Wednesday, January 6
TNT
Thursday, January 7
Nothing yet
Friday, January 8
Nothing yet