Friday Faculty Focus
News and Notes about #BeBCMS-
Bringing in October!
October! Seems crazy but my daughter was wearing a Christmas hat the other day. Of course, in our house, when football isn't going well-- you focus on Christmas. :) Seems like it was just summer and I was thinking about scholars walking in our halls! Now we are almost done with Quarter ONE!
October has started off hot in the discipline area. Don't lose your focus. Keep building relationships with our scholars. Asking them questions, investing in their lives. If you need some new behavior support or strategies, consider joining KAT's Fred Jones' classes through google classroom!
This upcoming week is going to be another busy one! It's Homecoming! Our scholars are very excited for all the events: spirit days, dress up days, football, parade, king/queen, and dances! Let's all make this an ELITE experience for them! It will be an all hands on deck week! Please consider participating in spirit days all week!
The grading period ends on Monday. With rolling grade books, there is no need to "finalize" or "sign off" on grades. All grades will "end" Monday at 3:30. Grades need to be completely entered by Wednesday at 3:30. Progress reports will be sent home Thursday in HR (2nd period for 7th graders) Ms. Franks will be sending you notes regarding this.
Please have scholars look in PowerSchool to see what their next Q2 Connection class is!
Thank you for all the ELITE work you do to grow our scholars! Truly inspiring!
Celebrations:
- Mr. Charles, Ms. Veta, and Ms. McKinney for being an ELITE custodial staff
- Ms. Gordon for being selected as PBIS Staff of the Month!
- Ms. Willett for an ELITE lesson design on angles in 8th grade Math!
- Ms. Sines for cleaning up RTI lists
- Ms. Waddell for rocking the school spirit club
- Ms. Ennis and Ms. Crosby for our new scholar of the month boards!
- Ms. Mattos for eliteness in the Techie Hut
#BeBCMS Elite PBIS update!
The PBIS School Store is OPEN with new hours:
The store will be open T/W/R for ALL grades at Breakfast time.
How is this working? We would love your feedback!
School Wide PBIS Celebration is Wednesday October 11th!
Please see the link here for details! There will be a full school schedule change and it will be an ALL HANDS ON DECK supervision day!
RTI News and Notes (RTI: READY TO IGNITE-- Elite Interventions!)
RTI meetings have taken off! I appreciate everyone's efforts making sure scholars are getting the correct services and working to understand the processes and procedures that we have in place. At this time, our Tier 3 list is manageable. We will begin having our Tier 3 meetings this week.
Remember: Our focus is on the learning.
We will send out the most updated RTI lists on Tuesday!
Keep the main thing: the main thing!
Homecoming Week Information!
Homecoming Spirit week is HERE!
Monday- Dress for Success (pictures)
Tuesday- Twin Day
Wednesday- Color War-
6th RED
7th BLACK
8th WHITE
HOMECOMING FOOTBALL GAME !
Thursday-Camo Day!
Friday-Spirit Day!
We will have a TAILGATE on Wednesday! Please bring your favorite dish to share and we will have a hot dog bar for all staff! Wednesday will be a perfect day to stay after school, hang out with your colleagues, watch our scholars play some football, and be proud to #BeBCMS!
Tailgate will be set up at 4:00 PM
Please use this link to sign up for your favorite dish!
Parade on Thursday! Thank you to all the groups who are participating! It will be so much fun to walk together and show our school pride!
Dance on Friday! (HS football game)
Sign up for tailgate food here: https://docs.google.com/a/bryan.k12.ga.us/spreadsheets/d/1r-ZL8_FIGp4i0ZUKZtOft2fZmPo8X_V3vcs8jMxp-VA/edit?usp=sharing
Important Events!
Friday- #FocusFriday,
Tuesday- #TerrificTuesday, RTI Meetings
Wednesday- #WinWednesday, Innovation Center- Classrooms as assigned, SCHEDULE CHANGE- All School PBIS celebration! Football/HOMECOMING, Grades entered by 3:30
Thursday-#ThankfulThursday, Leadership 7:40, Parade, Grade reports sent home
Friday- #FocusFriday, Dance!
Focus on..... Creating engagement with differentiation!
Engaging with some differentiation!
When I say differentiation I am talking about: Content-Process-Product!
We have focused on engagement and we have defined the look fors as:
1. Are your scholars attracted to the learning?
2. Do you scholars show GRIT when the learning becomes challenging?
3. Is there a genuine passion/energy for the learning?
Now, we are moving into engagement with differentiation.
The critical questions when we are planning authentic lesson designs that are engaging AND at the appropriate level for our scholars for differentiation are:
1. What do you want your scholars to know?
2. Where are your scholars performing?
3. What resources do you have? What resources do you need?
4. What choices are you offering?
5. What learning styles have you addressed?
Thank you to Ms. Waddell for this great illustration that helps us think through the questions we need to ask ourselves when we are planning dynamic lesson designs!
*resources from EMPOWER by John Spencer and
Nuggets and News
- The Innovation Center: Please be on time and be intentional in your learning!
I am VERY proud of the work we are doing in The Innovation Center and we look to have an AWESOME class selection for Quarter Two! Q2 Classes begin October 25th
- Supervision: PLEASE make sure you are at your supervision spots on time. The new supervision schedule is here:
- Lesson Plans: Make sure data is driving your planning and have your lesson plans uploaded in the Team Drive Folders nad on your clipboards available. AB, KW, and I will begin looking at those as we continue TKES classroom walk thrus. We are looking for differentiation this week.
- Please take a look at this information in regards to building capacity as a Title 1 school for us as professionals. We will discuss this information at your next Team Meetings.
http://www.gadoe.org/School-Improvement/Federal-Programs/Partnerships/Pages/Handbook.aspx
- Compliance Checks - #CelebrateMonday with 5x5s!
- Dr. Rice will be working on campus with our 8th grade teachers during planning Monday!
- There is a mailbox in the workroom for our ESOL consult teacher: Anita Harrison
- Meetings Schedules: Monday: TEAM, Tuesday: RTI, Wednesday: Math ,Thursday: ELA , Friday: Science and Social Studies
- Educator's Handbook- September Data is posted in the Parent Resource Room! Elite work! Let's make October even better!
- TKES- Feedback is focused, intentional, and transformational! That is what makes our scholars grow!
- Sunshine Club: We would like to have 100% participation in our BCMS Sunshine Club! Dues this year will be $20.00 to Shelby and you will get one free "anytime" jeans pass. This is the only we have as a school house to show people we care about them when they go through hardships. We are a family! Please consider this donation.
- Morning Times: If you have scholars you want to work with in the morning (Tutorial) please write them a pass. It's an AWESOME idea to work with scholars
- Principal's Advisory Council: Still accepting applications: the link is here:
- JEANS passes for October: ALL money raised will be an additional donation to United Way!
- "YOU are LATE to school" passes will be on sale beginning Monday. Buy packs of 4 passes for $10.00 and come to school at 8:00 AM.
#FiveHundred
What I'm Reading....
I have put my behavior hat back on after some enlightening behavior situations that have come to light in the schoolhouse. If you haven't read the work of Ross Green, please google him.
His work is centered around the idea that kids do well: IF THEY CAN. It's not a "won't" do : it's a "can't do" because kids have lagging skills and unmet needs. When a scholar behaves in the way he/she does, press pause, and consider what need is not being met. Is there a quick intervention that you can use to help give them an opportunity to cool down and make a better choice?
How can you identify the unmet need and then meet them: meet the child where he/she is? Think about what strategies you can use when it comes to that and see how much different your relationship becomes with the student. Like KAT said about classroom management this week: there is no magic fix and of course building relationships will go a very long way....
What are you reading right now?
L
Georgia Peach Books!
Tweet....Tweet....Tweet...
This week on Twitter....
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A1: When you know change needs to happen, keep fighting for it...even when it isn't popular. Be relentless! #leadlap
Aaron Hogan @aaron_hogan 13h13 hours ago
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Make the most of your time with your kids on Friday. A long weekend isn’t always their first choice.
#TeacherMyth #KidsDeserveIt #LeadLAP
Jeff Veal @heffrey 5h5 hours ago
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Classroom management isn't control. It's about engagement, building relationships, & coaching kids to self regulate. #satchat #LeadLap
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Everyday make somebody feel like a somebody. Uplift, celebrate, love. #bekindEDU #kidsdeserveit #tlap #edchat #joyfulleaders #eduAR #LeadLAP
Think about lurking on a twitter chat this week! I love #SatChat on Saturday mornings, #WeAreWayne chats on Tuesday nights, and #OhEdChats on Wednesday nights! I learn so much cool stuff!
We were so elite at our first Faculty Flip Grid: We are going to do a second one! Due on October 24th. You will get the code in next week's Friday Focus!
The topic is: What is ONE thing that is ELITE about teaching at BCMS and what is ONE idea you have that would like to implement to increase ELITENESS at the best middle school on the planet? This is on the master calendar with the questions! Start to think and get ready! The code is:
WIN Period -- Rolling!
- Monday- Set goals, review personal data and school data, grade check-- USE MAP READING data to support school wide Literacy Goal
- Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday- Remediation/Enrichment: focus on Literacy- Scholars may still need some support knowing where to go. Help them and support them. Remind them this is flexible learning time! :)
- Friday- Clubs-- If you need items for your club, please put it in your Amazon Cart!
WIN time is academic in nature no matter who you are teaching. You can try new teaching techniques and new strategies.
United Way Campaign 2017!
Ms. George is rocking the United Way Campaign this year! She has some exciting challenges planned for us!
- Consider your donation and stay tuned for details!
We are proud to be partners with United Way. They support our scholars often! Please consider this worthy cause.
College Football #FTW
The land of 0-4 is not a place I like to live. But the journey is the reward and I promise you SSU is getting better! We play Hampton this week and it's Homecoming! I am sure we will have 20,000 people there cheering on our guys, so hopefully THIS will be the week we can pull out a victory! I will be in my orange and blue proudly tomorrow either way! #HailSSU
I know most you probably saw the new tradition that my Hawks started week one, but it was featured by Tom Rinadli on College GameDay this week. This was super meaningful to me-- eight years ago, on October 2, I lost one of my students to cancer. JD is and always will be an amazing light in my life. I talk to his mom and dad all the time and I am constantly reminded that the work we GET to do is bigger than anything we can ever imagine. #WaveOfHope
#RTB
We are a flock of geese: developing leaders and developing each other to grow scholars! Check out what Coach Fleck has to say about the geese in the above clip.
#RTB
1. The Oar- the energy you bring!
2. The Boat- the sacrifice (SERVING AND GIVING!- ALWAYS)
3. The Compass- the direction you go
We ROW! Keep on rowing! Stay the course.
My new favorite #BeBCMS Softball picture! Congratulations Girls!
Still my favorite BCMS football picture!
L