November 26, 2017
A Communication Tool for the Seven Hills Staff
Seven Hills is Managing the Whirlwind and Focusing on the Wildly Important!
Attendance is Wildly Important:
New attendance incentive… Staff versus Students! Let’s see who can have the greatest percentage of average weekly attendance! Each week if student grade levels have a higher percentage of attendance than the staff attendance rate, those grade levels will get a bonus letter on their attendance trackers. If the staff have a higher average attendance than ALL the grade levels, then every staff member will get an extra jeans pass. Listen carefully to the morning announcements to hear the results.
Also, once your class has met their attendance goal and has colored in all of the letters in the word LEADERSHIP, let us know and we will share your celebration on the morning announcements. Please include how your class will be celebrating reaching this goal.
Thank you for your efforts to promote attendance. Student and staff attendance has a significant impact on achievement and learning.
Lexia:
- At this time, all students should have completed the initial assessment and been given a recommended amount of time to be on Lexia each week.
- Because we are a pilot campus, there is an expectation that we implement with fidelity. Please make sure your students are completing their recommended minutes each week. The recommended minutes must be completed at school. Extra minutes can be completed at home. Students can complete minutes during morning work, during LEAD Time, and during the work period.
- Lexia should be added to Lead Measures for students with reading WIGs. The Lead Measure could be, "I will complete _____ minutes of Lexia each week." Students can indicate completion of the minutes on their weekly scoreboards for lead measures by writing a "L: ____ min." in the box. So, for students with reading WIGs, their lead measure scoreboards will be tracking their 1st lead measure AND Lexia. In younger grades, you might consider a class scoreboard with each student's name listed where they can put a sticker each day indicating they have completed Lexia for that day.
- For students who do not have reading WIGs, a Lexia scoreboard will be sent via email to all teachers. This can be printed and placed in the "My Learning" section of the Leadership Notebook for students to monitor progress.
WIGs, Lead Time, Scoreboards, and Celebration Boards:
- Are student WIGs winnable and worthy?
- Are WIGs written in the "from x to y by when" format?
- Are lead measures predictive and influencable? Will work on this task or activity predict success with the goal? Do all students have one lead measure they are influencing specifically? For tier 2 and 3 students, are the teacher influencable lead measures included in the WIG?
- Is LEAD time happening at least 3-4 times per week, providing students an opportunity to put first things first and work on lead measures? Are you tracking progress with LEAD time on the class scoreboard?
- Are students consistently tracking progress on their lead measure scoreboards?
- Are students updating scoreboards regularly?
- Has your grade level team reflected on the grade level public scoreboard feedback and made the necessary adjustments? It was communicated to Lighthouse Team Members and ILT Members that any adjustments should be made by Monday, November 27.
Have students selected a celebration or work that is a point of pride from the 2nd grading period to showcase on celebration boards? Have students written or recorded a response stating why their work is a point of pride? Please makes sure that the work displayed reflects high quality work. The celebration board purpose and expectations document is linked here for your reflection. We will walk these boards as an ILT and LHT, providing feedback to grade levels. https://docs.google.com/a/nisdtx.org/document/d/10yaKU67RIHzl3pabsDAms8RXKcj1K19zFc8Kx02zOBU/edit?usp=sharing
And, an important reminder...we can only focus on the wildly important when the whirlwind is running effectively and efficiently. Time, effort, and energy must be given to the whirlwind...the day to day tasks, classroom management, teaching the 7 Habits, and most importantly the core content.
Aligning Academics Professional Learning:
4Dx With Staff:
- Several staff members need to complete the 2 reflection on scoreboards. These were due Friday, November 10. Make sure you are staying up to date on our professional learning.
- Reread pages 77 - 102 in 4Dx. This chapter is all about creating a cadence of accountability and the WIG session. The ILT worked to create a PLC Learning Cycle that included components of the WIG session, and teams have used the cycle for 2-3 PLC sessions. The cycle is pictured below. Thank you ILT for your work on this. As you reflect on the reading, what connections do you notice in the PLC cycle?
- Complete your next blog post By Monday, November 27, 2017: http://7hillsleads.blogspot.com/
- We will move into part 2 of the book next. Read pages 105 - 117 by December 6. Continue reading part 2, as we will use in PD and post on the blog in January.
4Dx With Students:
- Don’t forget these awesome 4DX readers theaters from The Leader in Me Website. This will help students see the connection between their work on their WIGs and the scoreboards! :) If you haven’t already shared these with students, this week during Habit Huddle would be great! https://theleaderinmeonline.org/en/student-learning/readers-theater.html
Winter Social is Friday, December 1:
All professional staff need to be at the Eaton High School PAC by 5:15 pm on Friday, December 1, 2017.
Staff Will Help:
- Direct parents and students to back stage rooms/the cafeteria for grade level performers
- Sign students in and out of back stage rooms/the cafeteria
- Manage student groups in the grade level back stage rooms/cafeteria. We are guests at the PAC and Eaton HS. The rooms need to be left in the same condition they are found.
- Manage student groups for the program - more details will be shared with teachers by Tiffany Howe
- Grade level teachers need to plan and prepare activities for students while back stage. Activities might include books for read aloud, activity pages, games (great time to practice sight words and computational fluency).
Parent Communication:
Communicate with parents by the end of the day Monday regarding important information about Winter Social. Please do not assume all parents know about the Winter Social. We have lots of new families at Seven Hills, and there have been several questions about the event. Please communicate with your parents. The "blurb" in the parent newsletter is below. Please feel free to use this and any other important information from Tiffany Howe in your communication with parents this week.
From Star News Update:
Seven Hills invites you to our annual holiday program on Friday, December 1st at 6:00 pm at the Eaton High School Performing Arts Center.
The Winter Social is a time honored tradition at Seven Hills Elementary. All students in Kindergarten - Fifth Grades will be performing a selection of holiday songs from around the world. Our Third - Fifth Grade Dance Teams will also perform. We are very excited to have the opportunity to perform again this year at the Eaton High School Performing Arts Center. The PAC is located at the back of Eaton High School. Please park in the back of the school and enter through the PAC doors.
Important Student Information for the Winter Social:
- Students need to arrive at 5:30 pm. Seven Hills staff will be there to direct parents and students to the rooms for different grade levels.
- Students need to wear blue jeans and a shirt in holiday colors (red, white, green). Girls may wear dresses in holiday colors. Dance teams remain in their costumes for their singing performances.
- Questions about attire, etc. for the program should be directed to Mrs. Howe.
- Questions about Dance Team should be directed to the Dance Team sponsor.
- To respect performers, parents will only be allowed to pick up their child after intermission or at the end of the program. Parents will pick up in the same location they dropped off. We will have activities for students while they wait.
- To respect performers, the doors to the PAC will only be opened between songs.
Habit Focus for the Week: Habit 4...Think Win-win
Wonder
3 -5 Grade Teachers...There wasn't much time after the movie on Friday to complete an in depth discussion or engage students in a meaningful reflection activity. Please make sure you have planned for this. The reflections would be an excellent thing to share in leadership notebooks and even display in the halls.
Student Activities:
As a follow up activity to the field trip, you and your students can make their own customizable Wonder face and select the precept! To complete this activity, visit here:
- https://create.wonder.movie/ 3-5th this would be fun to do during Habit Huddle and post on door of your classroom with their favorite precept shared to date.
- Students could then write a reflection from the movie and book study. The reflection could focus on the qualities of leadership found in the movie. What connections to the habits can your students make? The activity can then be placed in Leadership Notebooks in the My Leadership section.
- There should be some follow-up activity to the movie and completion of the book study and read aloud. What other ideas has your grade level had?
Precept for the Week:
What this world needs is a new kind of army - the army of kind. - Cleveland Armory
Note: We will change to one precept each week. The precept should be shared in Habit Huddle. Students can write about what they think the precept means, turn their ideas in to the office, and we will select student reflections to read on the announcements.
Speeding to Read:
Our campus Wildly Important Goal is that all students will meet or exceed end of year expectations in reading. In order to reach this goal, Seven Hills Leaders need to be reading every day! For Turns 2, 3 and 4, the minimum goal is 25 books per turn for Kindergarten–2nd-grade students and six (6) chapter books for 3rd–5th-grade students.
We encourage students to set high goals and read over the minimum number of books each turn. We had many students read over the minimum and we’d like even more this time! Turn 2 ends on December 12! Make sure your students are logging all of the books they read! Please remind parents of the importance of reading every night and logging their books.
Note: Each turn starts over with the count of books. The books read in turn 1 do not count in turn 2.
Staff Meeting Prep Work:
Staff - we will use this information in our staff meeting on November 30! Please make sure you have carefully considered these questions.
Bring the reflections you completed in our last meeting. The reflections were written on a piece of white folded paper. If you lost this paper or were not in attendance at the last meeting, the questions that you need to reflect on before coming to the meeting are:
What would our school look like and feel like if everyone were inspired by the same core set of beliefs (think about our campus beliefs)? What if everyone was on the same path to those beliefs and the Wildly Important?
What if everyone on your team had a common purpose?
What matters to you most about our school?
What do you want MOST for your students?
What do you want most for your team?
Could you make decisions and solve problems based on what matters most to you?
What will it take to make what you want MOST a REALITY?
Campus and District Announcements and Updates:
Recess Monitoring: Staff on duty at recess MUST actively monitor all areas of the playground. One staff member needs to be monitoring the field and another needs to be monitoring the playground and blacktop. The best places to stand are down by the backstop, between the chickens and the backstop, and at the top of the hill on the backside of the playground. If you have three staff members, the third staff member can stand on the blacktop side of the playground. Thank you for your active monitoring to ensure student safety.
Just a friendly reminder that if your grade level/team is signed up to clean the lounge for the month, please ensure that it is happening. This could be done at the end of the week or throughout the week when you team is eating? Its up to you. Please remember to clean the microwaves and leave the lounge the way you would want to find it! :) Thanks so much for holding your end of the respect agreement! Please check the schedule below and set a reminder on your calendar or phone! :) Thank you!
Please ask students to check the lost and found.
New changes to STAAR! ALL students are now allowed to use both a dictionary and thesaurus on both the reading and writing STAAR tests!!! WooHoo! In order to make sure we have enough supplies for testing days, ALL teachers please complete the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeYFemNFDEpERL4pWW9I9S5zBLW87Vt53GvzKFSfcSzpo0XAw/viewform
From the Lighthouse Team...Leadership Jobs Primary- https://docs.google.com/a/nisdtx.org/drawings/d/1nXdn7yiz3twtz9Z-WfsVB0Mk-QGO-c2g--D4leDXQCQ/edit?usp=sharing 2nd-4th Grading period job reflection
https://docs.google.com/a/nisdtx.org/drawings/d/1Vvmm3ea_lT5UnWnXccapQg5_xKHs-1Hri22tT4tFn34/edit?usp=sharing 5th and 6th Grading Period job reflection
Save the Date:
Habit Focus: Habit 4: Think Win-Win
- LHT Meeting, 3:15
- Grade Level PLCs
November 29:
- Lunch and Learn with the Math Coaches
- GT Professional Learning, 3:30 pm in GATES room
- Fundraising incentive...staff may wear jeans with the black polo shirt
November 30:
- Staff Meeting, 3:30 - 4:30
December 1:
- Sharpen the Saw Clubs
- SST C
- Winter Social - all professional staff needed to support backstage and student monitoring. Staff need to be at Eaton no later than 5:15 pm
- December festivities and calendar begin...more details to come
Happy Birthday to You: