Head U Gator News
January 15, 2017
A grateful heart...
My heart is grateful for....
....Lynette Hollinger, who got some parent feedback and used it to reflect on her practice and make some changes to benefit her students. That's a growth mindset!
....Julie Lee, who spent several hours this week conferring with parents about a new student. After the last (very tiring) conference, Julie said, "you know, I really think this student was put in my class for a reason, and that we can really impact him positively." More growth mindset!
....Christina, for taking time out of her weekend to make a VALOR video to include in this newsletter.
....Lauri, who not only did her job but helped fill in while Molly was gone on Thursday and Friday. Lauri has decided to NOT retire at the end of the year, and I'm extremely grateful to her for agreeing to stay at least one more year.
....Restorative Discipline, and Circle Up. This week Heidi and I talked to everyone about the fidelity with which you are using it, and the comments we got were all positive. "I can't imagine not doing Circle Up." "My kids beg to Circle Up." "We do it every day and can't imagine not doing it." As I reflect on previous years, I truly believe this practice makes a huge difference in our culture and the lives of our students. We typically have so few office referrals (with the exception of some extreme outliers) and a lot of that has to do with your acceptance of discipline as teaching, not punishment.
Calendar survey
I know that many of you have asked about the 2017-2018 school calendar so I wanted to provide you a brief update on its status. On Thursday, January 12, the district included in The LEADer, the district's e-newsletter, a link to a brief survey that asks four questions regarding the student-teacher calendar. In case you missed it, I have included a link to the survey in this email. These questions will help us determine what is most important for our parents, teachers, students and community members. The survey will be open until 4 p.m.on Friday, January 20. Once the district has collected the information, a proposed calendar will be recommended to the District Excellence Committee prior to the Board of Trustees vote on Monday, February 27. We are working diligently to finalize the 2017-2018 school calendar and we appreciate your patience as we work to create the best calendar to cultivate student success.
Here are links to the survey - it is available in English and Spanish, and there is a staff and parent/community survey. Please be sure to send the link to each respective group so that we may collect their feedback:
English Parent/Community: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQ09NGteBVQF9yEIrjJl-arC221pS925y-HafXH82i-zEEPQ/viewform
English Staff: https://docs.google.com/a/gcisd.net/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScIWPDGFCd72Gfmml_Ee0DoEuhYrbFy2_-5nYD3gUs-I4xKMA/viewform
Spanish Parent/Community: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDvpLxzFo7I9EYBjW3-HWnAZ9bceRNu5E1MbV8f7qxgevQBA/viewform
Update
We're having our second weekend visit. Friday night was bath and Lego's at Gmom and Gdad's house while Liz coached. Lots of sibling rivalry apparent.
Yesterday Liz and I took them to the Perot. The younger one ("J" for James) zoomed through, the older one (Devion) was more interested in exhibits, especially the ones that involved interactive computer activities.
Behaviors have actually not been too bad, but it is challenging with two of them. The reliance on devices by previous caregivers is a tough hurdle to overcome. However, at this point, it seems that Liz is pretty committed to them and to moving forward in the process. So much so that's she's enlisting JIm's political influence to try and hurry the process along.
So it appears that we'll be grandparents before long!
SAMR
A lot of you were working on getting your technology use to a higher level on the SAMR hierarchy this year, so I thought I would try to highlight technology applications that others have successfully utilized to do so. This week, it's an app that Megan learned about in the last digital PLC. It's called Recap, and it allows her to record a short video that she can then send to her students with a request (count to 100, read a text, etc.) In this segment she asks them about the learning they got from their study of Martin Luther King, Jr.
She stated that it's been great for formative assessment because the students send it back to her, and then she can assess where they are in their learning. It also allows her to link all the videos together, so in the case of the video you just viewed, they watched it as a class and then talked about their learning again. What a great tool! Bryan said he likes to use it too because it has built in time constraints, unlike Imovie, so it forces students to be succinct.
Megan has been able to use it to show both students and parents where gaps are occurring. In one case, a student protested that he knew how to count to 100 already. She showed him the video, where he skipped a number, to which he replied, "Yeah. That one gets me every time!"
If you haven't tried Recap yet, it's a great example of modification and something that appears to have limitless options for assessment and diagnosing. Bryan and Megan both can provide some input.
DI help
VALOR
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3eufgDUXYoQQk5lVVVOanRzd00
Sherlock Visits
Calendar
Monday, January 16
Student and teacher holiday!
Tuesday, January 17
Spanish 2:55-4:00
Faculty get together in the library- since we're doing this "on contract time" we should all be able to be there!
Wednesday, January 18
Thursday, January 19
Friday, January 20
Spanish 2:55-4:00
Bricks4Kids 2:55-4:00
Bowman Sports
Kindergarten PJ and Pizza party 6-10 p.m.