Principal's Newsletter
March 9th, 2018
WOWs
WOW to Linda Carr, Ronna Thornhill, Katie Fazio, Haleigh Carr, Becca Lewis, and Lisa McCauley for helping me keep all of my students safe and for responding quickly when I had dysregulated students. You are my heroes! -Lindsey Stark
WOW to Becca Lewis and Haleigh Carr for helping me out whenever I needed it throughout the day! It was VERY appreciated! –Lindsey Stark
WOW to Kristy and Kelly for orchestrating a memorable Culture Night. The evening was full of learning, entertainment and delicious food. Even Molly enjoyed soaking in all the culture that evening by learning from Donna Baeten how to perform the Tinikling, enjoying "pop" (soda) from Trinidad, and learning how to eat a homemade tamale made by Gabby Lecea. I hope that was the first of many Culture Nights at The Ridge.-- Jodi
WOW to Mr. Matt for replacing my clock with a working clock! I didn't even have to ask, he just took it upon himself to get it replaced for me. You are appreciated! --Jodi
WOW to Angeline for helping me tackle middle school placement tests and for picking up headphones for students to use. Your help and support is greatly appreciated!! --Jodi
WOW to the 5th Grade Team for your flexibility over the next few weeks as we complete middle school placement tests. You are appreciated!! --Jodi
WOW to Cheryl Gerloff for taking the time out of her busy schedule to test my student.-Julie Coombs
WOW to Linda Applebaum for picking my bags up from the sidewalk and carrying them to my room. Always friendly and helpful!--Julie Coombs
WOW to Dr. OH for RUNNING my student back to get his book.--Julie Coombs
WOW to Tracy Lloyd for her support and encouragement. I need it. --Julie Coombs
WOW to Kelly Harris and Kristy Giacomarra for all their hard work for Culture Night! It was amazing to be a part of! -Haleigh Carr
A huge WOW to Tracy Lloyd for problem solving with my “recess friends”. You are working wonders. Your “on the spot” problem solving is an awesome idea. I truly appreciate all that you do. -Melissa
A huge WOW to Kristen Schrameyer for all that you do for the kindergarten team. Thank you for always keeping us on track. You are an awesome leader and truly appreciated. We couldn’t do it without you!!! - Melissa
A huge WOW to the kindergarten team. You rock! Thanks for being awesome every day. Thank you for always being a team. I am thankful for all of you!! Truf form Barf
WOW to Susan Adams for supporting a friend of mine with a reward to read to her class. I appreciate your effort and enthusiasm to help him (and me). You rock!
WOW to the 5th Grade Team for your help, support and flexibility with middle school placement testing. I appreciate you rearranging your schedules to help get this huge task accomplished. You are SO appreciated!!--Jodi
WOW to Angeline for all your help and support with 5th grade middle school placement tests...picking up headphones, testing students, helping pull reports, etc. You are SO appreciated!! --Jodi
WOW to Tony and Michele for your flexibility and support with testing students for middle school placement. It truly takes a village. You are SO appreciated!! --Jodi
WOW to Nathan, Natalie, Susan B., Kristen, Melissa, Shelley, Gabby, Katie, Angeline, and Joyce for participating in the Lucy Book Study. It is so nice to have an open conversation that brings various perspectives and insights into our learning and growth as educators. So happy to be on the learning journey with you! I hope others can come next time and join us! --Jodi
WOW to the 1st Grade Team for some great conversation and thoughts around ways to increase student motivation during reading. I enjoyed talking about the article and next steps with you all. Thanks so much for taking the extra time to have that discussion and for all the problem-solving and brainstorming you are doing around that need for students. --Jodi
WOW to the Culture Night Task Force! Thank you for all your help with planning and organizing Culture Night. We appreciate everything you did to make the night so amazing! ~Kelly and Kristy
WOW to everyone who helped the evening of Culture Night! Thank you for all you did! We couldn’t have done it without you. ~Kelly and Kristy
WOW to Janice Beermnan, Cheryl Gerloff, and Kellie Heslin for helping with accelerated math. The kids are doing a great job and really enjoying being pushed!-Dr. O
WOW to everyone who showed up, let us use computers, and helped to organize our first MAP Parent Night! We couldn’t have done it without you!--Dr. O
WOW to the art teachers for helping do the Olympic Rings to decorate the lobby for MAP testing.--Dr. O
WOW to the EDCs who are always available to chat and help out with data!--Dr. O
WOW to Katie for doing such a great job with our Friday assemblies!--Dr. O
WOW to Greg Vest for putting together the MAP Car Karaoke and Donna Baeten for changing the lyrics for us!--Dr. O
WOW to everyone for putting together baskets for our PTO Trivia Night!--Dr. O
WOW to Tracy Llyod for all of your support for two of my students. I really appreciate your time and advice. Susan Gorris
WOW to Tessa and Jennifer for your dilligent screening of an unknown visitor and to Angeline for helping out as well. Thank you for keeping an eye out! Megan
WOW to everyone who has been patient as Kristy, Candy, and I run around collecting the last needed yearbook photos. We appreciate your help and flexibilty! Megan
WOW to those who have sent us photos that we could possibly use for the yearbook. You have made a tedious task a bit easier. Megan
WOW to first grade! Thanks for starting to turn the building into a Castle for the Boosterthon!--Dr. DeWeese
WOW to the third grade team for the SMART Goal bulletin board. Parents will love to see the progress your classes are making on your goals and what a great way for the kids to track progress.---Dr. DeWeese
WOW to everyone who attend the first Principal's Round Table. I appreciate you taking the time to come and share your thoughts and ideas. It was a great opportunity for you to be with other staff members outside of your grade level.--Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Jodi for leading the Lucy book study and to everyone that attending. I am so excited to start this learning journey with you. I enjoyed the discussion and I am looking forward to the next one.
WOW to Tracy Lloyd for the time you put into parent communication and working to get a few kindergarten friends ready for 1st grade.--Dr. DeWeese
First grade hallway looks amazing! Thanks for everyone who worked on the castle themed decorations!--Dr. O
Thank you to Nathan, Betsy, Jordan, Kristen, and Becca for coming out to support and help out at our first MAP Parent Night!--Dr. O
Thank you to Gabbie, Christina, and Kristen for letting us use your chromebooks for the MAP Parent Night!--Dr. O
WOW to Shanna Bradley for your flexibility and use of the LC at the last minute to address bus safety. --Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Susan Adams and Linda Murphy for helping to address bus safety.--Dr. DeWeese
WOW to Donna Baeten and her 4th grade team for participating in the district STEM challenge at Bryan Middle. The students and parents were so excited to get to participate. Your team of students did a great job collaborating and designing their catapult. You are appreciated for being there to cheer them on! Way to represent The Ridge. --Jodi
Oops
Harvey's Hustle
Boosterthon Timeline (Harvey’s Hustle) March 9th- Announcement to Students at Friday Assembly March 13th- Staff Meeting run by Boosterthon, 8:15 March 13th- Kick Off Assembly with Students, 9:30- 3rd-5th, 10:00- K-2 Team Huddles- March 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 20th, 21st- first 10 minutes of specials March 22nd- Race Day (Kindergarten and 2nd would switch lunch times) K at 12:45 and 2nd at 11:15 9:15- 4th and 5th Fun Run 10:30- K and 1 Fun Run 11:45- 2nd and 3rd Fun Run Parents are invited to attend the event. We need parent volunteers or they can come as spectators. Boosterthon Website
Trivia Night
Class List
Faculty Meeting Follow Up
Below are two questions that were asked about data during the faculty meeting with the responses.
1. What data gets discussed at a site visit?
Below is a link to the site visit information. The agenda is set by central office and sent to building administrators prior to the visit. If you have any questions about the data or the conversation we had please let me know. If you are ever interested in sitting in on the site visit as a learning opportunity just let me know. If you are interested in hearing more specifics about the data we would be happy to come to a PLC meeting and share that with you too. We originally planned to share it with EDCs, but we had to change around our meetings. Below the link I have listed some explanations of the reports and some that we discussed about the data. I have also included our SIP goals that align with each report. In the future we will be working on a process for having teachers sit in on site visits.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHyyIUg5drJAHKdN94eB30LrtYNSogWuVK2b55Mzflw/edit?usp=sharing
Explanations/Celebrations
- Priority Standards
- SIP Goal Alignment:
- The first report is a comparison of our priority standards. It compares where we were this time last year (end of 1st semester) to end of first semester this year. All of the standards are lumped together in this report. When you view this report you should see that we have increased in almost all areas on our priority standards in the past year. HUGE celebration!!!!! We discussed this report during the site visit and administration was thrilled to see the progress we have made.
- Grade Level Priority Standard Reports
- SIP Goal Alignment: 100% of PLCs will set SMART Goals based on district priority standards. 90% of PLCs will meet their quarterly priority standard SMART Goals.
- This is the data from this year only and shows the progress we are making on priority standards in ELA and Math from 1st quarter to 2nd quarter. The reports are also broken down by subgroup and teacher. We didn't go through these reports at the site visit, but shared with district administration that when you view the reports progress is being made quarterly. We also shared that ELL and FRL are making progress and that we believe that part of the reason for that is that some grade levels have set more than one SMART goal and have set a SMART goal around their ELL or FRL kids. Again, lots to celebrate in this data, but we didn't visit each report due to time.
- SMART Goals Report
- SIP Goal Alignment: 100% of PLCs will set SMART Goals based on district priority standards. 90% of PLCs will meet their quarterly priority standard SMART Goals.
- This report will show you the percentage of teams making their SMART goals from last year to this year. When you look at the report it includes ELA and Math. So if a team has a bar that reads 100% that means they met their ELA and their Math SMART goals. If a team reads 50% that means they only met one of their goals and if there isn't a bar for a team then that means they have not met either of the goals. Both last year and this school year are included in that data. We did discuss this report during the site visit. We shared possible supports that PLC teams might need to ensure they meet their goals. We also discussed that two teams were 1 student away from meeting their goals. Even though goals haven't been met this year more progress has been made this year toward meeting those goals than last year and there is more strategic work taking place instructionally this year compared to last year. While looking at the report may not give the appearance of positive results we know that each team is achieving results and we were able to speak to all of the work taking place.
- Curriculum Implementation
- SIP Goal Alignment: Harvest Ridge NEE Indicator 3.1(Curriculum Implementation) data will show a building average of a minimum 6.1 as measured by the quarterly NEE walkthroughs.
- This report is generated by NEE. Each quarter we receive a report from Mark Delaney, the Director of Human Resources that shows our average on each of the NEE standards that we use to evaluate teachers. This report is just on curriculum implementation. As you can see in the report we have made gains in curriculum implementation. During the site visit we discussed the work we have done this year around the Math PBIL and PD teachers received around this part of the math block. We shared that our staff is using what they have learned and have made changes to instruction during that time. We also shared that we are seeing teachers work hard on giving kids multiple opportunities to practice the learning target, which leads to higher curriculum scores. Again, a BIG celebration!!
- QFIC + 1
- SIP Goal Alignment: By the end of 4th quarter, Harvest Ridge will increase the percentage of CITW walk-throughs showing QFIC objective +1 from 23% in 2016-2017 to 40%.
- This is the same report I shared with you at our last PD day. We have surpassed our SIP goal and we have seen more intentional implementation of the CITW work this year. We talked about this report and again district administration was very excited to see the growth in this area. We attributed that growth to our amazing CITW trainer and the planning that teachers are doing to make sure they use the CITW strategies. Another celebration for staff!! You are ROCKING the CITW!!
- Balanced Literacy Report
- SIP Goal Alignment: Based on balanced literacy walkthroughs the fidelity of independent reading will increase in component #1 from 60% to 80%, in component #7 from 55% to 70%, and in component #9 from 65% to 80% by the end of the year. First quarter will be used to gather baseline data.
- This report shows the three main areas we are monitoring during independent reading. We shared that there isn't growth data available for this goal because this is a strategy that we paused last year. This is the first year we are collecting the data. We shared that we have about 13 things we look for, but the three in this report are the priorities for this year to achieve some growth. During the visit we shared that we are noticing a lot of changes in the implementation of reader's workshop and how proud we were to see those changes. We discussed the continued need to have more resources in our classroom libraries.
- Gates Report
- SIP Goal Alignment: Harvest Ridge cohort students will show an increase in reading performance of 3% as measured by the annual GATES assessment, for primary grades we will have at least 85 % of students in the 50th percentile or higher on K- letter sounds, 1st and 2nd RCBM.
- The Gates report is broken down by grade level and into cohort groups. During the visit district administration shared that they use Gates to predict outcomes on MAP. We discussed this report for awhile and how we are not only monitoring reading using Gates, but we are also monitoring the standards on the MAP blue print so we are actually optimistic that our MAP scores will be higher than our Gates due to what we see in classrooms. We discussed the drop in the current 5th graders and celebrated the growth with current 4th graders. We also pointed out that the 3rd grade scores are the highest for any group of students at Harvest Ridge.
- AIMS Web
- SIP Goal Alignment:
Harvest Ridge cohort students will show an increase in reading performance of 3% as measured by the annual GATES assessment, for primary grades we will have at least 85 % of students in the 50th percentile or higher on K- letter sounds, 1st and 2nd RCBM.
- The Aims Web report is just a historical look at our scores over time. These scores came straight from AIMS Web, I just put it together in the chart to tell a story over time.
- Assessment Wall
- SIP Goal Alignment: Harvest Ridge cohort students will show an increase in reading performance of 3% as measured by the annual GATES assessment, for primary grades we will have at least 85 % of students in the 50th percentile or higher on K- letter sounds, 1st and 2nd RCBM.
- The assessment wall report is a comparison report from this year to last year, so it does compare different groups of kids. During this discussion we talked a lot about the PD and conversations teachers have been having around reading behaviors and the continuum. While in some grades is does show a decrease we believe this might be due to more knowledge about reading levels and a little bit of fear to move kids. So, for us it was a celebration because it means that teachers are using what they have learned about the continuum to really monitor students reading behaviors. District administration shared that they know this work is hard and know that it takes time for teachers to feel comfortable with this. They also shared that this is a theme across the district during site visits.
- Attendance Reports
- SIP Goal Alignment: The number of students missing 10 or more days will decrease from 119 to 96.
- There are a couple of attendance reports. In a nutshell, attendance is going well. We shared that we still need some support with students who go out of country, but overall we are flagging kids earlier and getting supports in place sooner for students, which is helping with attendance.
- Behavior Reports
- SIP Goal Alignment:Harvest Ridge Elementary will reduce the number of ISS incidents from 34 to 25 and the number of OSS incidents from 21 to 15.
Reduce the number of incidents of improper physical contact from 321 to 160 .
Reduce the number of incidents of fighting from 60 to 30.
Reduce the number of incidents of bullying from 19 to 9.
We will decrease our office discipline referrals from 1,163 to 500.
- Both reports show a comparison. The first compares ISS and OSS from this year to last year. The second report shows a comparison of the percentage of referrals that come from students who are new to Harvest Ridge. We discussed both reports for a long time and discussed the comments around behavior in the climate survey. District administration helped us reflect and provided some advice on next steps. As an administrative team we haven't made any decisions on next steps, but we will soon. We shared with district administration that trust in the behavior data continues to be a theme and how we can work to improve that with staff.
- Climate Reports
- SIP Goal Alignment:
80% of all staff will participate in the district climate survey.
Increase the % of SA/A on question #3 (open channels of communication) from 78.84% to 85%.
Increase the percentage of SA/A on question #5 (clear direction for student learning) from 71.17% to 85%.
Maintain at least 50% participation rate on the parent climate survey.
Maintain at least 85% SA/A on all questions on the parent climate survey.
- One report compares climate scores from 1st semester of last year to 1st semester of this year. The other report is climate data from just this year and one report is our parent survey from each year. We discussed the theme in the climate surveys and the drastic changes from one quarter to another. Dr. Garland shared some things that she noticed in the comments and helped us problem solve some next steps.
We always end the site visit discussing supports that we need from the Academic Team. The list we discussed is on the agenda. Dr. Garland will follow up with feedback from our visit and Mary Hendricks- Harris has already followed up with feedback for next steps. Overall, it was a great visit and there was a lot to highlight and celebrate. Site Visits are great for helping the administrative team reflect on all the work our staff has done the past three years and to think about where we are going. If you have any other questions about any of the data or our visit we would be happy to share.
In case we don't say it enough we are very proud of all the accomplishments from not only this year, but the past three years. We know that the work is hard and continues to present challenges that often seem impossible. We are proud of all the new learning staff has endured and all the intentional implementation of that learning. Our kids are succeeding and it is all because of the work you do!
You will notice an overall theme in the reports and the goals. During site visit #2 we only discuss the SIP strategies that are part of the district expectations. The agenda is provided from the district. We have other strategies that we are monitoring in our SIP, but those were building decisions based on building needs. Remember the EDCs and the administrative team write the draft SIP and PLC teams have the opportunity to provide input on the strategies and action steps. This year we will work on the draft on May 18th and present it to staff in August. This is a lot of information so if you have any questions just let us know.
2. Thanks for explaining the bus incident report on board docs now can you explain the ISS and OSS report on board docs?
I provided a link below to the report that I think is being referenced in the above question. If you are looking for a different report please see me as I am not aware of any other ISS/OSS report.
I have provided the email that all principals receive from David Brothers prior to the BOE meeting that explains the report. If you have a more specific question regarding the report please let me know or if the explanation from David isn't enough please let me know. The report is accurate and matches our data in IC where David pulls the information from. This only includes ISS/OSS and not bus suspensions. We will share updated behavior data in the next newsletter in the same format that we have been sharing it all year.
Email from David Brothers that Explains the Report
Once a quarter, the Board of Education is provided with a Disaggregated Discipline Report. This report compares student demographic enrollment percentages with the percentage of students serving ISS, single incident OSS, and multiple incidences of OSS. The District and building data can be found by scrolling through the pages of the document. The disaggregated data includes student ethnicity, gender of students, students with an IEP, and students in poverty. We will be sharing this information with the Board of Education in an upcoming Board Update. I have attached the report to this email for you so that you can see the data that will be shared. Please let me know if you have any questions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FLYr6HZrZrDuxQlb0k2KkTyxuQDDPZnN/view?usp=sharing
2018-2019 Master Schedule
You can access the Master Schedule with the link below.
Staff Updates
- Third Grade
- Counseling
- SPED- LI/Resource
Interviews for all of the positions will begin after Spring Break.
As you know the reading positions are staffed a little bit differently because it is considered a district program. The Academic Team has reviewed the trigger sheet and based off the number of students triggering for interventions Harvest Ridge will reduce by a .5 reading specialist, but Fairmont will increase by a .5. So, Bethany Miller will be full time at Fairmont next year.