Ram Nation News
Week of November 12, 2018
Vision
Mission
At Thomas J. Rusk Middle School, our mission is to empower our students to become
college and career ready by providing them a culture of excellence through challenging
opportunities, powerful relationships, and strong community partnerships.
Attendance
The following is the percent for attendance for the week of 11/5 - 11/09:
- 6th Grade - 96.46%
- 7th Grade - 95.80% - Improved by 0.02%
- 8th Grade - 95.89%
Let's continue to encourage our students to be present and on time on a daily basis. It really makes a huge difference when our students are present learning
THANK YOU
- Ms. Winton, Mr. Rivera, and Mr. Salazar for their dedication and support as they lead our soccer teams during practice and Saturday games. Our students continue to work hard and grow as a team. Shout out to Coach Addison, Ms. Minter, and Mr. Alarcon for coming out to cheer our teams and support their fellow teachers.
- Coach Addison, Ms. Buitron, Coach Clark and Mr. Thornton for their leadership and commitment to building the whole child. Last week, they led the basketball teams in their first game of the season. Our students played hard against a very strong Long team.
- Ms. Turnbull, Ms. Safford, and Ms. Shelby for their leadership and commitment as they represented our school during the No Bully training. It was very informative and helps strengthen our practices to prevent bullying.
Instructional Practices
Aggressively Monitoring
Data Walls
Small Group
Modeling
Leadership
As part of the commitment of the Teaching and Learning department of building pathways to develop teachers and instructional staff, Ms. Lewis, Ms. Rocha, Mr. Patel, and Ms. Molla supported and led PD sessions last Saturday during the 2018 Language, Literacy, and Social Studies Fall Conference at Adamson HS. Their commitment is to assist with developing content knowledge, providing strategies to support social emotional learning and culturally responsive learning environments, and building skills to support specialized student groups. They supported teachers in learning strategies to increase student engagement as well as improve their practice of data driven instruction.
Climate and Culture
- Mrs. Maloy- Our chef/baker extraordinaire!
- Our marvelous cafeteria staff for helping prepare a delicious meal for our guests.
- 8th grade teachers for their support
- Mrs. Lewis, Ms. Perez, Mrs. Trent, Mrs. Brown, and our lovely CIS ladies for facilitating and monitoring during the event.
- Mrs. Wells for helping set up a wonderful area for our guests.
- Mrs. Baker for providing us with 4 AVID ambassadors who were INCREDIBLE! They represented Rusk honorably. All her hard work truly shined during this event!
- Mrs. Miranda for reaching out to business partnerships for donations.
- Administration team for helping provide lunch to our guests.
Debate
REMINDERS FOR THE UPCOMING WEEK OF SCHOOL
- During 8:00 a.m. - 8:20 a.m., students must be engaged in meaningful activities: homework support, organizing binder, CNN news with reflection sheet.
- It is critical to be prepared with lessons and materials to avoid having issues with students. When we are not prepared, our students can tell and will find their own way of entertainment.
- We must have 100% presence in the hallway during transition times. Our students notice when there is a lack of adult presence in the hallways and will take advantage of it.
- During transitions, let's make sure to have 100% participation and hold each other accountable to be present in the hallway supporting students. Our goal is to narrate the positive and have at least 10 positive interactions each transition. APs, CICs, and counselors will be working with each one of you to provide individual support. (TEI 3.3 and 3R Positive Attitude/Enthusiasm).
- Engage learners throughout your lessons and ensure we incorporate bell-to-bell instruction. It will support the increase in student achievement and reduce disruptions. While students are more familiar with engagement strategies such as Think Pair Share, we need to ensure that we have taught, modeled, and practiced these skills in order for effective implementation (TEI 2.4, 3.1, and 3.3).
- Be very consistent in the effective implementation of various practices discussed during our TEI orientation and lesson alignment conversations. With regards to Alignment (learning objective), the proficient rating states: Focuses students at the beginning and throughout the lesson, by clearly stating (TEI 2.1)
- What they are learning
- Why it is important
- What mastery looks like
- How to connect it to prior knowledge and their own lives and explaining to students
- Submit lesson plans by Thursday at 6:00 p.m. (TEI 4.2)
DAILY EVENTS
Monday, November 12-
- B Day - Wear camouflage as we War Against Bullying! (Attire includes: camouflage shirt and/or pants; if only shirt is worn, uniform pants are required.)
We will continue to work on sizing students who have not received their school jackets. Also, Ms. Saucedo will continue to distribute student ID badges; this is safety measure and it is a part of the dress code. Wait until Ms. Saucedo finish distributing badges before sending students to the office.
- Weekly PLC - Room 115. Data Walls, Exemplar, and Aggressive Monitoring - Mr. Cordoba. Bring your exemplar and aggressive monitoring tracker.
4:45 Grade Level Meeting - Grade level location
We will have our soccer games at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. for the girls and boys respectively at Loos Stadium against Spence MS.
- A-Day. Meme Day!. (Attire includes: school uniform. Stop laughing at other people and enjoy the day by laughing at memes. Students may wear their favorite school appropriate meme.)
Report cards are distributed to students. Students who are failing 2 or more subjects will receive a blank report card. Parents must meet with an administrator or counselor to receive report card.
- Meet with your grade level teams to align your Lesson Plans, continue the analysis of the common assessment, and analyze data profiles for your students.
Tutoring is cancelled this week. We will resume tutoring after Thanksgiving break.
4:45 p.m. planning and collaboration with department. Deliverables for Thursday are lesson plans and exemplars week of November 26, and data wall update based on information shared during PLC.
Remember to clock out at or after 6:00 p.m.
- A-Day. Super Hero Day! Be a super hero and stop bullying by dressing up as your favorite super hero!
- Selected 6th grade students will be attending a college tour at University of Texas at Dallas. Please, ensure that the permission slip has been turned in and that students are wearing their uniform.
- Calibration Walks - We will be walking classrooms checking for alignment, exemplars, and aggressively monitoring.
- Meet with your grade level teams to align your Lesson Plans, continue the analysis of the common assessment, and analyze data profiles for your students.
- Tutoring is cancelled this week. We will resume tutoring after Thanksgiving break.
- 4:45 p.m. planning and collaboration with department. Deliverables for Thursday are lesson plans and exemplars week of November 26, and data wall update based on information shared during PLC.
- Remember to clock out at or after 6:00 p.m.
- Lady Rams’ basketball game at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Loos Fieldhouse against Franklin MS.
Thursday, November 15-
- A-Day. Blue Out Day! Blue is the official color of kindness and bullying awareness; wear all blue to support kindness.
- Meet with your grade level teams to align your Lesson Plans, continue the analysis of the common assessment, and analyze data profiles for your students.
- 6:00 - Lesson plans and exemplars week of November 26, and data wall update based on information shared during PLC.
Boys’ basketball game at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Loos Fieldhouse against Franklin MS.
Friday, November 9 -
- A-Day. Boots Day! Stomp on bullying! Wear your boots.
To comply with state and federal laws, Dallas ISD requires that all employees complete an Annual Policy and Compliance Acknowledgement. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 20, using their EAD user name and password, employees are required to log into the Annual Policy and Compliance Acknowledgement application at http://PolicyAcknowledgement.dallasisd.org/ to review and acknowledge the following:
- Employee Handbook
- Annual Employee Notification of District Policies
- Conflict of Interest Notice
- State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Reporting Notice
- Confidentiality Requirements
Visit the Annual Policy and Compliance page for more information and access to the documents (you must be inside the district's network to complete acknowledgement). In addition, the deadline for compliance training for all employees with respect to Child Abuse, Copyright Law, FERPA, Sexual Harassment, and The Texas Educators’ Code of Ethics is Nov. 16.
Teacher Training Video
Videos and other reference materials
Welcome!!!
Ms. Anya Cooray comes back from her maternity leave and is eager to meet her 6th grade students. We know it is hard to leave the baby behind and we appreciate the commitment to our school and community.
Happy Birthday
Wishing you the very best!!!
Dolores Reyes – 11/4
Thomas Lowry – 11/4
Taylor Iberosi – 11/16
Destany Morgan – 11/18
Arryan Baker – 11/22
Gabriel Hernandez – 11/26
Rusk Middle School
Email: jcordoba@dallasisd.org
Website: www.dallasisd.org/rusk
Location: 2929 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX, United States
Phone: 972-925-2000
Twitter: @RuskAllTheWayUp