Anchor Weekly
A newsletter for Alta Vista Staff~Week of August 27, 2018
Don't Forget! Next Week's Calendar
- Transformation Zone School Board Meeting on Tuesday, August 28 at 5:30 pm at Carver Middle School Library
- Faculty Meeting on Wednesday, August 29
- Reading PLCs on Thursday, August 30
- National Eat Outside Day on Friday, August 31
Coming Up: Labor Day Holiday on 9/3; Open House on 9/11
Back to School Checklist
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G6QXKgZcFI2srpq08Tbu3pOIcNo_PjWIung2vHIJaVU/edit?usp=sharing
ELAR K-5 Planning Protocol & Lesson Plans
**Sign up in Eduphoria**
The ELAR team will be training teachers on the lesson plan template for reading and answer grade level questions.
ELAR PLCs
For PLCs, bring low/medium/high writing samples. Also, bring your lesson plans and planning resources for ELAR.
From Your Captain
National Eat Outside Day is Friday, August 31. We encourage everyone to take their students outside to eat at lunch, but this is optional. We will be passing out popsicles to students outside during this time.
Makerspace
**For new teachers, please note this optional!
ELL Checklist
Enrichment Groups!
Enrichment Opportunites
- Destination Imagination (Problem-solving, creativity, performance)
- Girl CODE (Social-Emotional lessons with STEM for girls)
- Boys to Men (Mentoring for boys-meet on Wednesdays)
- UIL (Including: Art Smart, Music Memory, Chess, Spelling, Creative Writing/Ready Writing, Dictionary Skills, Maps/Charts/Graphs, Number Sense, Oral Reading, Storytelling)
- MakerClub (creativity, STEM, coding)
- What would you like to get started?
BEAR Project
Communities In Schools
CIS will begin meeting with students starting the week of ____.
Ms. Hernandez will be sending out more information as it's available.
Education is a Team Sport
From www.ryansheehy.us
"There is a blind man in New York City that everyday wakes up and heads to the subway station, where he sits and begs for money from those riding throughout the day. Day in and day out this man heads to the same place, with only his knowledge of the area and his probing cane.
On the morning of September 11, 2001 this man was on the subway station platform when the first of the two towers fell. The power instantly went out and everything went dark. The subway riders started to panic and were in complete hysteria, they did not know how to act and could not find their way out in the complete darkness.
At that moment of time the man had a choice: he could get out of there and avoid the mass exodus/confusion or he could stay and help others find their way out of the tunnel. With a loud voice, he got others attention and said “I have been walking around this station for years in the dark and I can lead you out of here now, but you need to follow me.”
He suggested that others would build a chain of people behind him, allowing for the chain to get longer and longer, making sure every trip was maximized. This man kept on leading groups of people out of the darkness and into safety until the last group reached the daylight.
Too often in education we see others around us struggling and we do nothing about it. For a variety of reasons, we focus on ourselves and our students, without always making sure that the other educators around us are doing okay.
Education takes everyone working together to make sure that we are all strong and moving in the right direction. Be like the blind man in the subway, don’t be afraid to teach and lead others around you. Help everyone find the light and make sure they can finish the year as strong, if not stronger, than when they started it. It takes everyone to make sure that education is as amazing as it should be.
This year a goal of mine is be purposeful and look around for others to help. Education and life is a team sport and together we can change the game."
Safe Schools Training
To access the SafeSCHOOLS platform, use any of the links provided in this document or type in the URL:
1. Access SafeSCHOOLS: http://wacoisd.tx.safeschools.com/login
2. Username will be: Employee ID# (8-digit)
3. Password: First Initial (Uppercase) + Last Initial (lowercase) + @# + last 4-digits of Employee ID#
4. Required courses will appear on your home screen
5. All course completions will be tracked by WISD Human Resources and the Office of Professional Development.
See document below for more details.