What's Happening
Week of December 17th, 2018
SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEK
Monday, December 17
12:30-1:30 Level 1 hearings
1:30 ALT school meeting
2:10 Level 1 hearing
2:25 Level 1 hearing
2:50 PLC/PD time
Tuesday, December 18
**Ugly Sweater Day
**Walk throughs when I have open time
8:00 Preschool Team Meeting
9:30 CT Meeting
10:50 K/1 Read Aloud
11:30 Level 1 hearing
11:45 Level 1 hearing
1:15 4/5 Read Aloud
2:30 2/3 Read Aloud
Wednesday, December 19
9:00 ESSA training
10:00 IEP meeting
4:30 Beauty Shop
6:30 Volleyball
Thursday, December 20
8:00 SPED team --F2/F3
9:00 Problem solving IEP meeting
10:15 Parent meeting
Friday, December 21
8:00 Safety Committee Meeting
1:45 Sing Along
2:30 Early Dismissal--Please remember to fill out your shut down forms and prepare your room
Unleash their creative side
Safe School Mandatory Trainings
Don't forget to be working on your safe school's trainings. Here is the link: https://siouxcityschools-ia.safeschools.com/
PBIS
We are almost there! Nice work! We were given some dollars to support PBIS which could not be used for incentives. We have ordered new PBIS tickets to match our new posters. We have also ordered magnets and are working on the addition of student pictures and/or vinyl wording throughout the building. Stay tuned!
Please click on the 1 question quiz about our PBIS Winter Bootcamp. https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=IMeQnOaQ_UaJi3jlVNe31EOdDKqj5EdMrEZO1_AnU2ZURjJHQlU1U0hSS0FBSEFJMjEyOUpRM1ZFWi4u
Behavior/Engagement Part 3 -Dr. Terry Scott and Dr. Holcomb and Mandt :)
Here are some additional insights from Dr. Terry Scott. These are good things for us to reflect on.
We are follow steps of the crisis cycle. It is important for us to know not only where our students are at but where we are as well. If we are heightened, chances are pretty good that the students will continue to heighten as well.
Baseline--how the student acts on a regular basis. Remember, our session this fall showed us that for some students their baseline is already in a heightened state due to life circumstances. What do we do? Keep on doing what we were doing.
Agitation or stimulus/trigger--something or someone is agitating the person. You will start to see little "tells" that something is just not right. This could be noises, finger tapping, pushing the desk back, folding of the arms, face getting red, etc. What do we do? Figure out what it is that is the stimulus or trigger and remove either it or the student. Many times this might be a break or a move in seating. Sometimes you can also distract a student
Escalation--when this happens it means we likely missed the signs and the student is moving up in their stress level. What do we do? At this level we offer options and set limits. A total of 3 choices is optimum unless that is too much for your student to handle. Often times two choices feels more like an ultimatum than a choice. As a teacher you are still in control of the choices but the student feels like they have more control at a time when things are rocky. Maybe this is you can work at your desk, on the floor, or at the beach. Maybe this is you can complete the task with your pencil, on the white board, or with a pen. It really depends on the stimulus/trigger.
Crisis-- this is when you see students either out of what we would call "instructional control" or they completely shut down. What do we do? At this point we want the least of amount of interaction for safety. We know that stress levels and adrenaline are most often high. Students are not able to rationalize or problem solve at this point. The biggest thing we can do is monitor for safety. The only interaction we should be doing is giving them the same direction repeated every couple of minutes.
De-escalation--students are beginning to calm down and get centered again. What do we do? At this point we listen. This is NOT the time to talk about consequences or finishing work. This will just escalate the student again. You should have a pretty good idea from the type of conversation you are having where the student is at emotionally.
Stabilization--students are not agitated or angry anymore. What do we do? This is the point where we can start processing the event, completing missed work, etc. We also want to make sure that we are still actively listening.
Post Crisis--depending on how intense the crisis, students might sleep. They also might not remember what happened. What do we do? Allow them the break. Listen and watch them.
When students are in baseline we want to teach or reteach the expectations. We want to remember that the student is not directing things at us even though it might feel like it. It is important for us to remain calm during this process, otherwise the escalation is doubled. Often times, I am involved at Crisis time. Hopefully this provides some insight into what I am doing.
All the work you do creating your community will help you along the way. Students need to know we are on their side and that we are trying to help them be successful. It is also helpful for us to know the function of the behavior. That gives us insight into how we respond. This connects to the work we do on CARE team.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Dec. 21 Sing Along 1:45
Jan.3 School resumes
Jan. 4 Thompson Innovation here to do work on the fire alarm in the teacher's lounge
Jan. 7 FAST window opens
Jan. 7 Thompson Innovation here to test fire alarms 3:40
Jan. 15 Teacher work day
Jan. 29 Light Up the Gym Night 5:30--we will need volunteers to help with this....more to come
Riverside Roadrunners
Email: holcom@live.siouxcityschools.com
Location: 2303 Riverside Boulevard, Sioux City, IA, USA
Phone: 712-279-6811
Facebook: facebook.com/RiversideElementarySchool
Twitter: @riversidek5