Chancellor News and Notes
April 25, 2016
Rain, Rain, Rain, Flood!
May is almost here! (and STAAR...)
Yes, STAAR Wars has begun, and the 5th Grade Elephants group plans to Strike Back on round 2 of math and reading! You may have NO IDEA what I'm talking about right now, so listen and learn my dear grasshoppers. :)
5th grade has the opportunity to take STAAR for reading and math up to 3 times in order to pass (and not be retained in 5th grade). When you walk down the middle hallway, you will notice some elephant footprints on the wall with names: these are our STAAR retesting kiddos, who failed math, or reading, or both on the first round. They will have a 2nd chance to retest in a couple of weeks, and will be receiving heavy-duty intervention until that time.
Having to retest is of course stressful, so doing everything we can to support these great kids is where we are now. Special thanks to our ILT members who have developed targeted instruction and are turning their schedules upside down to meet with the Elephants 90 minutes a day for math and 90 minutes a day for reading!
STAAR Buddies Round 2!
3rd, 4th, and 5th graders will have STAAR testing on the following dates:
STAAR Buddies will need to start getting organized for Round 2 if buddied with 4th or 5th grade, and STAAR (for the first time) if buddied with 3rd grade. Get with your buddies and plan out what you will do for your class! Contributions that are awesome: water bottles, snacks, individual tissue packs, good erasers, and letters or posters of encouragement. Talk to your STAAR buddy teacher to find out what would be great to have if you are not sure, and verify the number of students in the class (might have changed since the first round). If you forgot who your STAAR buddy partners are...I still have the list and will leave it with Lisa in her office.
Monday 5/9 STAAR: Math 3rd-4th, Math retest 5th
Tuesday 5/10 STAAR: Reading 3rd-4th, Reading retest 5th
Wednesday 5/11 STAAR: Science 5th
Recycle your pop tabs for charity!
Last week you received an email about recycling the tabs off your cans to help Ronald McDonald House raise funds. We will be sending a flyer home this week to get our students involved too! Buckets will be passed out for each grade level at team leader meeting, and to place around the building, in order to have lots of donation areas. We will collect at the end of each week, and take in the entire donation at the end of May.
Ronald McDonald House is a great local organization to support, as they provide free housing for families with children who have serious medical needs in the Houston medical center area. Some of you may remember Sabrina Tremayne, a teacher who used to work at Chancellor. Her family, like so many others, benefitted from staying at RMH during her son Charlie's first and second heart surgeries. Being able to be right next door to the hospital, and have a place to rest and recuperate, and not having to worry about meals or driving, took a little bit of stress away, and allowed her family to focus on being wholly present for Charlie. In volunteering at RMH, I have met families from all over the world that apply to stay here during serious and/or long-term medical situations for their children. Some of these families would not be able to afford to stay without the existence of RMH. This is an awesome place that runs on donations, and collecting pop tabs are an easy way to give back (since we recycle or throw them away anyway!).
Are you happy with your job?
If the answer is "Yes, I love what I do!" then you are doing the right thing! If the answer is "No..." then you need to reflect on why. If you are stressed every day, unhappy, and count down the minutes each day until you get to leave- what should you do next???
Take a few minutes and talk to a colleague, friend, or family member about work this week. What comes out? Is it lots of positive talk about what you enjoy about your work, or is it negativity and complaints about your work? If you find yourself complaining, get to the root of why. Do you genuinely not like your job or is it a matter of fixing some problems that are going on? If that's the case, what can your coworkers or your leadership team do to help?
Lots of questions, but let's get our thinking caps on to finish out our year in a productive and reflective way! Complaining only goes so far if there's no solution-searching to back it up! :)
Textbook Check-In is coming...are you ready?? (and literacy lab and library...)
I will be out all of next week due to my mom having back surgery (and she's about 4 hours away), and I will return the following week ready to start preparations for textbook check-in. What do you need to do? Start locating and gathering up all your textbook resources, and I will send out an email when I get back with schedules for check-in. Yes, I know Math in Focus is not finished. Yes, I know you might still be using some of your stuff. This is just a heads up that IT IS COMING. You don't want to be caught with a few hundred dollars of textbooks missing on May 25! Better to start rounding up now and getting your kids to locate anything they may have taken home! (You might want to start doing this for literacy lab books and library books you've checked out too...)