March 18th- 22th Peak Memo
Culture Collaboration Curriculum
Message From Director
I hope you all have had an amazing and restful spring break! I for one enjoyed just being home and doing daily things with my family! It felt good to move at my own pace! I am so excited to see everyone on Monday!
We are busting into Quarter 4, the home stretch, and now is the time to give all we have. The extra mile, requires EXTRA, it doesn’t mean what we have done wasn't good, it just means it requires some more. AND guess what, our scholars deserve it! They deserve every attempt to ensure they are ready for the next grade level and for upcoming state assessments.
I ask that you take these last few hours left in spring break to make a conscious decision to ensure that next few weeks are positive and that you are forward action driven! Let’s ensure that we see every opportunity as one to grow, adjust and move. We are stronger when we work together and I am super charged and excited about how we will wrap up this last quarter.
Some Upcoming Important Things
Gallup Survey Opens
It’s that time again! On Monday, March 18th, every employee at Uplift will get an email from Gallup to complete a 5 minute survey. If you do not see the email in your inbox, please check your Junk Mail. If it is not in your Junk Mail, please reach out to a member of the Leadership Team.
The Spring Gallup Survey window will be open from the 18th until the 29th. Please keep your eyes peeled for the link to complete your survey. It takes about 5 minutes to complete and allows for us as managers to know what we can work on to ensure that this is a place that you WANT to be at. It also allows us to take the feedback and make intentional actions steps that directly impact our staff. When you complete the survey, please send a screenshot of the “completed” screen to me to earn a week’s worth of jean’s days.
Panoroma Survey
It’s time again to measure our scholars’ social and emotional development through the Panorama survey. The Panorama survey will be administered to all 3rd-12th grade scholars from March 25- April 8, 2019. In This document , you will find survey administration instructions, proctor instructions, a mini vocab lesson for scholars, FAQs, and information on next steps.
Mr. Bearfield will print out your scholar’s individual access codes and put in your box before March 25th.
Action Steps-
Check-out the Chromebook cart for at least 30 minutes sometime within the window.
Read through all the instructions in the attached document beforehand
NEW EXPECTATION- present the vocabulary lesson imbedded in the hyperlinked document with your scholars before they take the survey.
Curriculum Feedback Survey
FROM CMO: The spring semester is the time of year when the curriculum team begins to look ahead and finalize curriculum for the next school year. Currently, we are diving deeply into our writing curriculum, and as part of this process we would love to gather feedback on the documents, resources, and supports we provided this year alongside our new writing vision. You are all experts on the implementation of these, so it is incredibly important to us that we hear your thoughts and suggestions as we set out make upgrades to both the documents and the supports we offer. The survey should take about 15 minutes and will close EOD on Tuesday, March 26.
Here is the link to the survey. We thank you in advance for your feedback!
Grades are Due tomorrow
Parent Teacher Conferences
EOY MAP Window Opens
BLACKOUT Day Reminders
April 1st, 18th, and 22nd
May 21st-24th
AND ALL STAAR testing dates for EVERYONE
EOY Observations
Instructional Focus
TWO THINGS: With us going into the home stretch, I would like us to reflect on the work we are having our scholars do and ask yourself these questions:
- are scholars being asked to do the heavy intellectual lifting (i.e., are you waiting for scholars to respond even if there is a lull in responses, is the teacher fully releasing scholars to do independent practice on their own or are they continuing to narrate how to analyze a text or solve a problem, etc)?
- Are you reminding and holding scholars accountable for using their annotation strategies for reading and their showing of work in math every time they independently practice or do homework so it becomes a habit that they will naturally draw on in any situation?
Congratulations Mrs. Boff!
Celebration of Scholars and them moving to new reading levels!
EOY
ESL Certifications
ESL Certification: Below is information regarding ESL Certification training sessions. Please keep in mind that for the 19-20 school year, all content areas will need to possess their ESL Certification. Please reach out to Kadoria if you have any questions.
Wednesday PD
STAAR Training
* Everyone is required to attend.
Camp Read A lot
Shirts will be delivered on Wednesday!
Texting all of leadership
Birthdays
Teacher/Staff Absences
None
Tuesday
Hamilton
Wednesday
Boff
Thursday
None
Friday
None
Data Dashboard
A brand-new network assessment dashboard is now available. This dashboard will refresh throughout the year to include data from our two network assessments (TWA and CA).
An admin version of the dashboard can be found here
Important dates/announcements etc.
Grading: teachers please ensure that you are keeping up with grades weekly. As stated in our policy , at least two grades per week should be put in the grade book. Keep in mind that CA's and TWA grades should always be included in report card grades when necessary. These are important assessments and scholars and parents need to be aware of them. However, these grades should not fail a scholar if you have more than enough grades in your grade book. Below are some examples to help you as we move forward in Q2.
Math & Reading grades
· At least 2 tests/project grades in each content area
· At least 6 minor assessment grades in each content area
· At least 8 classwork grades in each content area
· At least 3 homework grades in each content area
Science, Humanities, &ELA
· At least 2 tests/project grades in each content area
· At least 4 minor assessment grades in each content area
· At least 4 classwork grades in each content area
· At least 2 homework grades in each content area
Grade reporting periods
Q3 checkpoint 2/8 – end of Q3 3/7
Q4 checkpoint 4/19 – end of Q4 5/24
*Schedule for when reports will be distributed:
Progress Reports:
- February 5th
- February 20th
- March 5th
- April 9th
- April 30th
Report Cards:
- March 22nd
- May 24th mail home
* VOLY is our Parent Support Posting Form for Peak Website- Want volunteers then submit completed form to Nora Apolinar and MariCarmen Corona. Also this is how they track our parent volunteers at PEAK and we wan to make sure our parents are recognized for their volunteering so please fill these out.
Chrome Cart Schedule/Peak Monthly Calendar
Chrome Carts
Please find the updated Chrome Cart schedule below. If you would like to reserve the chrome carts outside of your regular time, email Melissa and she will approve or deny the request based on availability and send you a calendar invite.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-OPxcY2gn7tdqmGG5P2UzJAhdLEKdMLZLn-yHYAeNzw/edit?usp=sharing
Peak Primary Monthly Calendar: Please see attached links
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pq26-fEBDEsqbJrolUFiwDgIKyKYTqAjAh1U9I61lHA/edit?usp=sharing
Scholar Attendance
Upcoming News
We're Listening....
How can we continue to Grow
Upcoming News/Survey
At Peak we will foster a Game Changing Growth Mindset! Feedback is crucial to timely and continuous growth. Please use the survey link below to let us know what we can continue to work on to improve and what things we are doing well and should continue to push to higher levels of excellence. Suggestions are key! *the greatest room on earth is the room of improvement!