Greer Gazette
November 2015
It's All About SYNERGY
The McKinney Mavericks
SPECIAL OLYMPICS BOWLING TOURNAMENT
The McKinney Mavericks kicked off the year with their first competition for Bowling. Practices were throughout October where the athletes were able to practice at Allen Bowl. The bowling tournament was held the end of October at USA Bowl in Dallas. Each athlete was allowed to bowl in two games. Scores were determined by an average of their qualifying scores that were obtained at practices. The Knights of Columbus presented medals/ribbons, to the athletes.
The Mavericks couldn't do this without the help and support of VOLUNTEERS! A special thanks to every who helped make the tournament a success for all our students!
Please continue to help and support the McKinney Mavericks and consider a tax-deductible donation by visiting the following link to contribute: http://www.mmeeff.com/donate.html
Click Donate Now, set up a password, Choose OTHER as preferred use of donation, Enter Special Olympics in the Special Designation area, And follow the form to complete.
You may also send a check to 510 Heard Street, McKinney, TX 75069 payable to MEF-Special Olympics. Any amount is welcome and no amount is too small. Depending on choice of donation, PayClix will email you a receipt or MEF will mail a receipt for tax purposes. We also have McKinney Maverick t-shirts for $15.00 in Heathered Gray and Carolina Blue. If you would like to order shirts, please email Janice Morriss.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Aaron Sebastian
Minshew Elementary
Ms. Lauren, Ms Jackie, Ms Kelly, and Mrs Foster are so proud of Aaron. He was a principals's award winner!
Wonderful Job Aaron!
Keshawn Moore
Great Job Keshawn!!
STAFF SPOTLIGHT
Angela Williams
Minshew Pink Out for Breast Cancer Awareness
What's Happening in the Classroom?
McKinney North High School
Ms. Sadosky and her students got their hands dirty in science cooking up some delicious treats and carving a pumpkin.
"They were so yummy & super easy to make. It was a messy, sticky, slime filled fun time! It tied right into our biomes lesson." -Ms. Sadosky FAC Teacher
Evans Middle School
They also completed a safety course where they learned the importance of following procedures when working with science experiments.
Ms. Brooks and her support staff Mr. Fee and Ms. Harned love sharing the success of their students. Great Job Team!
Professional Development
Missed a Training? No worries...
We have recently hired some new teachers that either did not attend our Special Education Teacher Academy or would like further guidance on Special Education Guidelines and best practices. This does not have to be brand new teachers, but the information that will be covered will be more along the lines of academy training. In lieu of the SDIF/BCBAs/and BS coming and meeting individually with our new teachers, the Special Population Department will be offering professional development on the below listed dates from 4:00–5:00. These topics will include PLAAFPS, Core Curriculum, Q and As, behavior, etc. These trainings are listed on Eduphoria as SPED New Teacher PLC.
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 1 November 16
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 2 November 30
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 3 December 14
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 4 January 11
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 5 January 25
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 6 February 8
SPED New Teacher PLC Day 7 February 22
Read 180
The SDIF’s and HMH rep had the opportunity to do Read 180 Walk Thru last week. It was awesome watching the students as they engaged in their learning, rotating into groups, and doing some silent reading. As we did our walk thrus, teachers took the opportunity to share with us some amazing work that students are doing. It was amazing to see that one of the students from Cockrill had made tremendous growth on Read 180. His teacher reported that when he started the program, his lexile level was in the 190’s and know his lexile is 697. Another student that we observed, teacher mentioned he was able to only compose a few sentences and is now able to write an essay. Awesome work!!!! We also had the opportunity to observe a student that was a struggling reader who asked to read a book out loud to us. That student did a wonderful job of reading.
Thanks so much for giving us the opportunity to visit your classrooms and a big shout out to all of you for letting us observe your Read 180/System 44 classroom as you implement program!!!
X-Logs
There are two ways you can get help. You can:
Call Cecilia Shockley at 214-563-4707 or email her at cshockley@msbconnect.com 'She was very patient and helpful." - Janina Corio
You can also go to the following website: https://solutions.msbconnect.com/CaseNpoynt.dev/CaseNPoynt.htm Once there, in the top right hand corner there is a box that says, “Live Chat Online” - Click on there and enter your question. They will connect with you and walk you through anything. Glen Oaks staff found them to be very patient and helpful as well.
Once you set it up (and again, they will walk you through it), it’s very easy to do. It really doesn’t take long.
Electronic Assessment Binders
November
What's Happening?
11/11/15 - Veteran's Day
11/13/15 - World Kindness Day
11/14/15 - A Look Ahead Mini Conference (see flyer below)
11/23/15 - 11/27/15 - Fall Break
11/26/15 - Happy Thanksgiving
APPRECIATIONS
You're a Shining Star!
Dolly Adams - McNeil - She has jumped right in to help with the DSSC class as they were going through some teacher changes. She has helped cover the class, taken care of Assessment binders, scatterplots, esped paperwork and conducted ARD’s. Way to go Dolly and thanks so very much for ALL your help!
Secondary Read 180 Teachers for coming to the training and implementing System 44/Read 180
Kris Toombs and Heather Stevens for their implementation of Read 180
Theresa MacNaughton for bringing students to the Student Specific Review Committee
EMS for looking for new ways to document inclusion services through X Logs
Caldwell SPED Team rocks!
McGowen Resource has done a fantastic job on Assessment binders.
Malvern Sped Team - great team work and organization.
SJMS team for working together to meet the needs of students impacted by an unplanned loss of centralized staff.
Press Resource Team for mobilizing quickly to meet the needs of a new transfer student that came to us with less than ideal previous data.
Angela Williams way to go stepping up and taking the lead with a problem situation!
Great job Minshew sped team in developing timelines and guidelines for the ARD processes. The team worked together and developed a plan they could all live with that keeps them compliant and provides structure for the success of all.
Marla Boyd you're awesome! Your administrators want to thanks you so much for attending the 4th grade Pow Wow last month. We thought it was awesome you were there supporting JR! You are an outstanding example for all those supporting students.
Thanks to Brian Slowik for jumping in and helping with some high needs students who needed his support!
Jami O'Connell won the Apple Air 2 raffle from attending the McKinney Holiday Bizarre! Way to represent SPED!