Conrad/Thomas Jefferson Tribune
WEEK OF JANUARY 6-10, 2019
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP/NORTHWEST GOALS & CORE VALUES
A MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Illustrious Leaders,
Happy New Year to each and every one of you!
Now that ACP data is in, you and your administrative team and teachers are able to target the areas of highest concern and create a plan of action for those areas. What instructional adjustments will you be making for your campuses? How often will you progress monitor to see if improvements have been made? Please make necessary adjustments to your previous ACP action plans and resend to me by the end of the week. I look forward to reading them and visiting your campuses to see those plans in action mode!
Please continue to work on the 2nd-semester spots. Reminder: Do not wait until May to get them all in as teachers need their feedback to ensure that they are making the necessary instructional adjustments for our scholars' academic success. It is key that you plan out those spots and do extreme coaching (coaching in the moment) for optimal success utilizing the waterfall.
January is always about fresh beginnings and positive change. The promise of the New Year and all the possibilities that exist for our children and their future is surreal. John F. Kennedy once said, "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." Here is to a New Year and new possibilities for ALL of our scholars!
I look forward to attending your campus Professional Development day on Monday and be a part of your learning.
Happy New Year to each of you! Let's make this year the year for our cluster and network! NOW IS THE TIME!
Have a wonderful week of teaching, coaching, learning and instructional adjustments!
As always...."WE ARE IN IT TO WIN IT...GO FOR THE GOLD!!
Ms. Torres
Emmett Conrad/Thomas Jefferson Executive Director
DALLAS ISD INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT RESOURCES
PRINCIPALS OF LEARNING FOCUS
WEEKLY UPDATES
MONDAY, JANUARY 6
CAMPUS PD for all teachers and staff
ED various PD visits
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7
- Saldivar camps visit w/ED
- Joe May campus visit w/ED
- TIP plan review w/ED @ Joe May-2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.-(Medaris, Billups, Potter, Deboskie, & Pratt)
- Student Transfer Window for 20-21 Opens
- Early Learning TX-KEA and Running Records Window Opens
- K. B. Polk Campus visit w/ED
- McShan Campus visit w/ED
- NETWORK MEETING 9:00-5:00 p.m.-ALL PRINCIPALS
- ACP NEW ACTION PLANS DUE!
2019 ACP DATA SNAPSHOT
BILITERACY CAMP
The Bilingual ESL Department is excited to pilot Biliteracy Camp - an innovative feeder pattern tutoring program targeted at struggling English learners in grades 3 – 5. We will meet for four (4) intensive sessions in which students will experience hands-on, engaging activities and lessons to promote listening, speaking, reading, writing, and metalinguistic connections for TELPAS. All expenses and logistics, including the selection and confirmation of host campuses, have been provided for by the Bilingual ESL Department. Transportation will be available from home campus to host campus.
One thing we do need from individual campuses is assistance with reaching out to identified students and facilitating (online) registration. We ask that you identify a campus contact person to assist with parent communication and student registration by Thursday, December 19, 2019.
THE LEADER IN ME
INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO RESOURCES
Thinking Maps ~ December ~ The Brace Map
THE CORE 4
Dallas ISD is 20,000 staff members strong, and each one is vital to the work being accomplished in the district. Through the district’s commitment to exemplary customer service, each member is focused on serving 157,000 students and their families by delivering professional, high-quality service in everything we do.
At the heart of great customer service for each district employee are the four tenets of customer service--the Core 4: focused, fast, flexible, and friendly. These principles, also, are key to forging a positive culture within the organization as they are applied, internally, colleague to colleague, as well as to students, families, taxpayers, and the entire community.
It is a strong commitment that goes beyond the conversation about what exemplary customer service looks like becoming the norm for the way we operate in the district every day.
Thank you Highland Meadows Lead Custodian - Mr. Abiah Woods- Core 4 Proud
FUTURE IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
CIC Conference January 2020
2020 LEADER IN ME SYMPOSIUM
BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (K-2)
SWAG NIGHTS (K-5) & Specials Teachers
SWAG SPECIALIST TEAM LEADS
COMMON ASSESSMENT TIMELINE
Reading ILC Corner
Math ILC Corner
Grade 3-5 Math Focus
Properties of Multiplication to Generate Strategies
Expiration Rules in Division
Science ILC Corner
FALL 2019 TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
Oracle Finance Systems and Payroll classes are also available. ATS is now offering a new Open Lab for iExpense. The attached schedule of classes is on our website at: https://www.dallasisd.org/ATS.
See the WAIP 7/18/2019 for more information
IMPORTANT LINKS & INFORMATION TO READ
JANUARY, 2020
14- 8:00-5:00 ES CIC Conference (Nolan Estes)
14- Campus Safety and Security Needs Assessment Survey Closes (WAIP 12/19/19)17-11:00-12:30 28th Annual MLK Jr. Oratory Competition (Adamson HS)
17- 8:00-2:30 ILC Mtg. (9400)
17 8:30-10:30 ED with DC (Deputy Chief)
17- 1:00-2:00 Elementary ED with DC
17- 3:00-5:00 ED with ILC Network Planning
FEBRUARY
21-State of the District Address @ Omni Hotel-@10:00
27-Network Day
MARCH
28-United 2 Learn-Community day
APRIL
16-Network Day
JUNE
4-Network Day
10-Principal Luncheon
Marshall Memo #817
Spotting and Fixing ELLs’ Learning Challenges in Real Time
(Originally titled “Seven High-Leverage Formative Assessment Moves to Support ELLs”)
In this Educational Leadership article, Brent Duckor (San José State University and Validity Partners) and Carrie Holmberg (Validity Partners) say that seven types of formative assessment provide vital minute-by-minute information as teachers help English language learners make sense of the curriculum and master academic English:
• Priming – A teacher might say, “Write down your thoughts, even if they feel unfinished,” or “I bet someone could build on this – who wants to try?” or “Let’s see what we can learn from Jessinia’s question; every perspective is important.” Prompts like these invite all students to participate and help build a bridge from ELLs’ conversational to academic English.
• Posing “stretch” questions – When a teacher’s queries can be answered with a simple Yes or No, students don’t show their thinking or give the teacher important information on their level of understanding. Higher-level questions get students to articulate their thinking, and even with Yes/No questions, all students can be asked to write silently, then share with a partner, while the teacher walks around looking at responses.
• Pausing – “Even more than many other students,” say Duckor and Holmberg, “ELLs need processing time to ‘transfer files’ from short-term to long-term memory.” Teachers should wait for several seconds after asking a question, have students turn and talk, and post statements like these on the wall: Good answers take time, and We all need time to be heard.
• Probing – “It is critical that ELLs in particular have the opportunity to rethink, revise, and reconsider ways of talking and writing ‘science’ or ‘history’ or ‘math’ in the company of others,” say Duckor and Holmberg. Some possible prompts:
- So an assumption you’re making is… Is that how you see it?
- How do you know? … Can you explain it? What is your evidence?
- So what if you change that variable? … What do you think will happen?
- How are these facts related to one another?
- What does this mean to you? … Is it working for you now?
Probing can also take the form of asking students to elaborate on “first-draft” answers and using word webs, journal entries, and sentence frames to get students extending their thinking and trying out ideas on classmates.
• Bouncing – “Too often, teachers only hear from their most active and verbal students during class (often native English speakers),” say Duckor and Holmberg. Better to get a fair sampling of responses from the whole class and immediately correct errors and misconceptions in what students say or write.
• Tagging – Writing students’ responses on the board makes their thinking visible, values all students’ contributions, models the use of academic language, and helps move the lesson forward. ELLs might work with a native English speaker, jot down ideas, and the partner then goes up and writes their ideas on the board.
• Binning – There’s a tendency to mentally sort students’ responses and work into a limited number of “bins” – correct, incorrect, misconception, off topic. Duckor and Holmberg urge teachers to see students’ efforts on a continuum of bins from novice to mastery. They suggest simplifying rubrics into a compact “progress guide” and tracking students’ work over time, looking for patterns and key points where a scaffold or intervention can be helpful. Here’s one column in a progress guide for a project, with additional columns to note the percent of students currently mastering each step and to list next steps and student requests:
- Weighs evidence
- Adds some evidence
- Takes a position
- Restates the prompt.
The key, say the authors, is seeing “in a student’s provisional responses the beginnings of more sophisticated ways of thinking about the topic.”
EMMETT J. CONRAD/THOMAS JEFFERSON SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
- Jack Lowe Elementary: Principal, Sandra Barrios
- Jill Stone : Principals, Rosalinda Pratt & Selena Deboskie
- Highland Meadows: Principal, JoAnna Bahena
- David G. Burnet Elementary: Principal, Sonia Loskot
- Leonides Cigarroa Elementary : Principal, Douglas Burak
- Stephen C. Foster Elementary: Principal, Irma De La Guardia
- Joe May Elementary: Principal, Rosseven Nava
- K.B. Polk Elementary: Principal, Kourtnei Billups
- Julian T. Saldivar: Principal, Edgar Jaramillo
- Walnut Hill Elementary: Principal, Phillip Potter
- McShan Elementary: Principal, Joseph Medaris