Monday Morning Motivation
Central Elementary Staff News----September 7-September 11
Second Grade Students Working Hard!
Kindergarten Mystery Reader!
Connecting the Dots!
The Power of a Positive Phone Call
Dear Staff,
This past week I ran into a friend at Meijer and she was so excited to share with me some good news about her son. You see, she knows her son's strengths and her son's weaknesses. She and her husband know he could be working harder in school, so when she received a phone call from a teacher, she held her breath, waiting to hear bad news. As the teacher began to speak, my friend slowly began to exhale because she was hearing positive news about her son. The teacher was complimenting how hard he had been trying and how respectful he had been to her. This was indeed good news. My friend was so happy that she could genuinely compliment her son. At times, when raising teenagers, one often feels that all you do is point how how he or she could be better. The same is true with children. There are so many opportunities for corrections that sometimes we forget to take a moment to pause and find the compliment.We are four and a half weeks into the school year. I want to encourage you to take the next four weeks or so and look for opportunities make a positive phone call home. You have no idea the dividends that small investment can make. Here's the challenge grade-level classroom teachers---try to make contact with every parent either on the phone or by email before conferences. That's 45 days :) Specials teachers---I'll give you a little longer :) As for me, I am making more of an effort to look for more things, students, and teachers to celebrate this week.
Keep me posted.
Have a great week!
Julie
A Week at a Glance
Central Calendar
MONDAY, September 7
- No School
TUESDAY, September 8
- ELL meeting at Central Office (4:00)
WEDNESDAY, September 9
- HIgh Ability Math and ELA Curriculum Meeting at Van Buren (4:00)
THURSDAY, September 10
- Faculty Meeting LIBRARY (3:50)
- New Teacher meeting (Please make sure to set up a time to meet with me to go over faculty meeting notes.)
- School Board Meeting- Value Winner Recognized (7:00)
FRIDAY, September 11
- Pay Day Friday Jeans Day if you gave to Flower Fund
STAR 360 Managing Student Groups and Progress Monitoring
How to Manage Groups
http://help.renaissance.com/SR/Managing_Groups_PageProgress Monitoring
Question: When progress monitoring and a couple of students aren’t quite finished can we stop/pause the test and finish it another day?
Answer from Amber: Yes- that is completely okay…..as long as the kids can complete it within 8 calendar days. There is also an option to give a shorter test for progress monitoring. If you give want to talk it over, feel free to let me know…so I can explain the pros and cons.
Let me know when you would like to schedule a time with Amber. Progress Monitoring might be a good conversation.
Important ISTEP Information
http://www.doe.in.gov/assessment/istep-grades-3-8
The documents found in the link above are newly created and were posted this July on the DOE website for teacher consideration and planning for the upcoming 15-16 assessments. When reviewing the guide, it is important that teachers from all content areas understand the skills and content that will be most heavily tested this spring. Each standard in ELA and Math (grades 3-8) is labeled as critical, important or additional information and/or skills that students should learn. The critical and important standards must be included on our updated curriculum maps …. If not, the maps need to be updated and revised.
Please be sure you understand the coding of skills:
Critical Standards ….. should be covered 50-75% of instructional time … heavily tested and students must master
Important Standards ….. should be covered 25-50% of instructional time … tested not as heavily and students should master!
Additional …. 5-10% of instructional time … Don’t teach until after ISTEP is over
Announcements and Reminders
- (fyi-most recent information at the bottom)
- Legacy foundation Grants-Mark your calendars. Legacy Foundation Grant applications will be due on November 1st and April 1st this school year. This is a great opportunity to have ideas/projects for your classroom funded up to $500.00.
- Make sure to update your grades in PowerSchool at least weekly. In the rare event that you must hold onto an assignment longer than that, be sure to let your parents know that in your weekly newsletters.
- Our PTO mini-grant applications are available. These were send via email and can be found online. I encourage you to apply!
- Please spend your allowance from the PTO and put receipts in the PTO mailbox.
Just keeping you in the loop. We will have Colts Blue here on October 9th for our first Central Celebration. Also, we will have the Body Safety presentation this year on December 2 or 3rd. We are still finalizing the dates. Much of the organization of these and other school-wide events will be done through out Leadership Committee.
Thanks for the pictures. Please send more. Note that you can place them in the shared drive. However, for the school newsletter, students have to be in groups of threes. I can't send anything out with just two students. I have included twos for this in-house staff newsletter, but to go on web or whole student body, students need to be in threes.
Begin entering your data on the shared Excel Spreadsheet. All data due September 16th.
Watch STAR 360 Tutorials.
Anti-Bullying Convocation
- FYI-UPDATED TIMES We have an Anti-Bullying Convocation, Bullying: A Play on Conflict Resolution , scheduled for September 17th. It will be in the afternoon, divided by K-2 (1:30-2:15) and 3-5 (2:30-3:15) . This is performed by Arts for Learning: The Indiana Affiliate of Young Audiences. I know Diana White is working on Character lessons to connect to this performance,
CELEBRATE!
- We had a successful picture day!
- Each grade level has agreed on a Common Assessment! We are all adapting to the changes.
- We survived in the office this past week, but we did miss Margaret.
- Please send me other things to celebrate. I know there are great things happening, but you have got to let me know. :)