Thursday Thriller
June 3, 2021
Business Convention from Conor's class! These students had such great ideas!! So fun to hear their pitches, what they created and their sheer excitement!!!
Diane shared this with me yesterday. I wanted to share with everyone because her husband, Ty, taught in the WWPS for many years. He taught our middle daughter and was very kind at parent/teacher conferences. Our daughter was not doing so hot in his class. LOL. With that being said, Ty is being honored and nominated for a National Award!!! Congratulations to both Diane and Ty. :D
Nuts-n-Bolts
1. How can a four day week feel longer than a five day week? I am driving the struggle bus! :D
2. Steve will be working with students in the library on Friday, tomorrow, to complete their iReady assessments in both reading and math.
3. Students will be keeping their Chromebooks through the summer and in a sense until they graduate from WWPS. Chromebooks are on the 5 year rotation cycle so just like this year Kara and Jami will swap out old for new. We do have students who need to return their hot spot. Jami and Kara have been making phone calls.
4. Carina and Angie completed classroom presentations to all 6th graders. We are teaching students to put their elective choices into a Google Doc so that when they get to 8th grade and register for high school it won't be so painful.
5. Thanks for your work yesterday in our collaboration. Great to have everyone in one room!!!! The GC Team met this morning and discussed the pros/cons of the GST and Embedded time. Carina and I will weigh the discussion points and let you know where we landed.
6. June 16th at 2:45 is the time we will honor staff members who will no longer be with us at Garrison beginning in the fall. Donnetta is heading back to Opportunity, Stacey to WA HI, Stacy McPherson staying at WWOnline, Karen Larson moving to Spokane, Lynette and Sherry resigning, and Amy K moving to the District Office. Mark you calendar for this event. :D
7. Please make sure and click into the 8th grade Recognition slides to add comments to our 8th grade students.
8. The final 8th grade GMS vs Pioneer softball game for girls has been postponed until next week.
9. If students are non compliant with their masks, please use the system. Send them to the office and then write a GA referral. Yes, it's another step but it helps document.
10. Staff meeting next week. We will meet as certificated staff in the library at 2:45. Then at 3:30 please collaborate with your team members. We will be discussing grading in this June 9th staff meeting at 2:45. Carina will be re-sending information for you to read if choose.
Something to Ponder
I am a fan of Paul Bambrick-Santoyo! He has written several books that have inspired me professionally. This article resonated with me. "Equity is not about lowering the bar but building a challenging curriculum because it's good for kids." This is regardless of race, gender, class or anything. Equity means high standards for all students.
Hope you find a gold nugget. :D
Maintaining High Expectations in the Face of Unfinished Learning
In this Newsweek article, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Stephen Chiger (Uncommon
Schools) say the best way to address the “massive instructional loss” resulting from school closings is not to lower expectations, which seems to be the argument made by some who are concerned about the emotional fragility of students as they emerge from the pandemic. Rather, say Bambrick-Santoyo and Chiger, we need to get an accurate assessment of where students are in the fall and challenge them to engage in “productive struggle.”
Consider the analogy of weightlifting, they say, where strength is built by working at the edge of one’s current ability, lifting increasingly heavier weights over time. “We should not be hoping to avoid challenge this fall,” they argue. “Rather, we should embrace it, in classrooms that validate students for who they are and inspire them to take intellectual risks.”
That’s the essence of equity in schools, conclude Bambrick-Santoyo and Chiger: “that all students, regardless of their race, gender, class, or anything else, have the support they need to ensure they can learn. What equity does not mean is lowering the bar to where students happen to be currently. Embracing equity means building a challenging curriculum, not because being difficult is inherently virtuous, but because it’s good for kids.” In short, we don’t have to choose between wellness and intellect.
“After the Pandemic, Schools Can’t Hide from ‘Learning Loss.’ We Need to Embrace It ” by
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Stephen Chiger in Newsweek, May 7, 2021; the authors can be
reached at pbambrick@uncommonschools.org and schiger@uncommonschools.org .
QUOTE
Don't look back. You're not going that way.
-Mary Engelbreit
Little Humor
As I was confiscating phones during lunch, students were begging to have their devices back and asking, "Why can't we have screen time at lunch?"
Maybe I could give them back their technology if they could explain the following:
What was the Oregon Trail Computer program? Oregon Trail. That was a high tech game for us but they would laugh at the graphics now.
What does filling in the bubble really mean? ScanTron cards and the absolute fear of getting the pencil marks outside of the little bubble.
Why the index card in the back of the library book? Checking out a book from the school library and going through the list in the back of the book of previous students that had gotten this book just to see if any of the cute boys I liked had read it.
Who was Dewey and what was his system? Using the Dewey decimal classification system on the index cards just to find a book!
Yep, kids answer the above and I might just give you your phone back or not. 😂
Calendar Items
Friday, June 4th iReady make ups in the library
Tuesday, June 8th 7:30 Grading for Equity Team Meeting in the library
Wednesday, June 9th Certificated Staff meeting at 2:45, Collaboration time at 3:30
