EMS Friday Focus
March 22, 2019 #25
EMS 2018-2019 Goals
ALL EMS students and staff will feel connected to our school community - safe, respected, seen, heard, and valued.
All EMS students will find meaning in the work they are tasked with.
Weekly Message
Team -
Throughout Joelle’s presentation this week I heard questions asked that were very specific to individual student’s needs. These questions challenged Joelle to provide us clear ways in which we can more effectively support our students.
While there were many nuggets in Joelle’s workshop - there was one overarching theme - increasing the time students are in class increases their feeling of connectedness and meaning!
With that in mind Joelle reminded us that this messaging is heard by students through our actions and words on a daily basis. Below are a few specific examples of ways in which Joelle suggested we could do this:
Provide opportunities for students to identify how they’re feeling every day so you can consider your supports accordingly and strategies and mechanisms to self regulate.
Establish norms as a class before offering these options/opportunities to ensure students are using these effectively.
Ensure you create opportunities for success for every student each day.
For those students exposed to toxic stress who avoid work you can attune to them and support them in co-regulate by:
Warm call them (give them a heads up before calling on them and reassure them that you know they can meet success)
Provide a little incentive to complete the work
Provide a choice of the work that can be completed
Validate student’s feelings and then challenge student to consider what can be agreed upon
Strike when the iron is cold - connect at a point when student is regulated. Make it a 5-10 min. appointment that focuses on the idea that “we can’t do that - this solution isn’t good. We failed today but we’ll try it again tomorrow.”
Your leaning in supports our EMS community in moving closer to our goal of creating a community where all feel connected to our school community - safe, respected, seen, heard, and valued.
Thank you for your ongoing partnership,
Meg
TASKS
Please take a moment to read and reflect on blog entries submitted by your colleagues. This week's entry is "Why Am I Grading This" by Mr. DeMink
Please review the Field Review Schedule for this Tuesday 3/19 to ensure you know what role you will be playing.
The following student council members will be giving a tour to our guests from the Dept. of Education on Tuesday March 19th. Below is a list of names and when they will be guiding.
DOE Tour Guides 9:00-9:30
Vivian Halladay
Zoe Paxton
Alexa Gagnon
DOE Tour Guides 1:00-1:15
Sadie Harris
Tommy Coleman
Jacob Grady
Spring Parent Conferences are March 28 & 29
By invitation only for our 7th & 8th grade students.
Sixth grade and exploratory teachers will utilize Pick-a-time for scheduling.
*Total parent conference hours (11.75).
Teams are welcome to identify the times that work best for them. Team leaders will include those times here.
If you are interested in being part of the hiring process for 2019-2020 please let Meg know. As of know we will be hiring for for the following positions:
.5 guidance
.5 health
6th grade FTE
2.0 SPED
1.0 Band para
1.0 Art
Let Meg know if you are interested in this upcoming PD opportunity - Reaching & Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap with Paul Gorski. Who would like to attend and bring it back?
Announcements and Logistics For the Week
SBAC are quickly approaching. Please see the schedule and upcoming Friday Focus’ for logistics as we move closer.
Annual 6th grade ski trip is 3/21 - all 6th grade students will be out of the building for the entire day
Wednesday's Faculty Objective
SWBAT identify and share with their colleagues what they need in order to feel safe, heard, seen and understood at EMS.
Calendar:
Connecting To Best Practice
Link to the EMS Blog: This week's entry is "Why Am I Grading This?" by Mr. DeMink
Do you have a tool, lesson plan, idea, video, article, or something else that directly connect to one of our our "EMS goals" and to our "indicators of success"? If so, please let us know using this form. Compensation will be as follows: Blog Contribution- $25, Teach Meet presentation- $25, workshop presentation- $100