Thursday Thriller
March 21, 2024
Shout Outs
Another year of SUCCESSFUL freshmen registration!!! Thank you, Steve and Nicole M!! I think it took less than 2.5 hours!
The last couple of weeks we have had multiple guest teachers in the building. THANK YOU for supporting them and helping them out with tech, behaviors and general questions. When you all pull together, students benefit AND nobody gets hurt!😆
Nuts-n-Bolts
1. Here is our Spring SBA schedule. This schedule is aligned with Pioneer which will help with our shared staff and continues to allow ELA and Math monitor and answer specific content questions. This schedule does allow for additional planning ; more than the regular week. We did push the timeline back to give teachers more time to cover content. There are some staff members who do have more planning time. These staff will be able to support other staff members with bathroom breaks, supply runs (not the kind of supplies some of you are thinking about-HULETT) test tickets, pencils, scratch paper to work problems, etc. so that all staff have equal minutes of planning. Nicole and Kim will create the schedule for those that have the additional planning time.
May 20- 29 SBA Testing
May 30-31 WCAS(Science) Testing & 6/7th gr SBA Make Ups
June 3-7 Optional iReady Spring Diagnostic & SBA & WCAS Make Ups
2. April 10th is our 2nd Annual Student Summit. Similar to last year, students in all three grades will be invited to attend the Summit. Our goal is to have student summit attendees be a representation of GMS; athletes, ML, sped, honors, band, orchestra, choir, LGBTQ + and students of different races. The tentative schedule is load bus at 10:15, head to District Office, and return by 1:30-1:45. Invites will be going out next week to students.
3. On Thursday March 28th, our 7th graders have the awesome opportunity to have the Pacific Science Center in the building to present about Engineering topics. The day will start with a 7th grade assembly in the gym during 1st period. All 7th grade students will need to be excused for this. Then, the rest of the day the presentations will happen in the students' Science classes. There is one exception with Nick's 1st period, who will then receive the presentation during 2nd period (Nicole will send out the list next week).
4. Agenda for tomorrow, March 22nd. Please see Nicole's email. Thanks
5. Clarification on Classroom Exclusions and/or Accountable for Learning.
Classroom Exclusion
3 D's-Disrespect, Disruption, Defiance. Student is excluded, comes to the office and meets with Admin and/or counselors. The Referral/Classroom Exclusion form must be completed before we process with students. Please make it a priority. We need to be able to send students to the next class.
Accountable for Learning - If students are not using their class time, then assign Accountable for Learning. Reports from subs are REFERRALS because this falls under Disrespect. Disrupting the learning environment-Referral/Exclusion, I know with Accountable for Learning we don't have to do the form and/or call parents. However, please ask questions if you are unsure about a Referral/Classroom Exclusion vs Accountable for Learning.
6. Please remember the Building a Culture of Equity and Belonging asynchronous, mandated training due by June 14th. Here is Dr. Perron's email explaining the details.
7. Email can be a total time suck! This is one of the main reasons I send the TT each week; to cut down on email and not clog up your inbox. My hope is you read it, refer back to it and ask questions if you don't understand. Part of our professional responsibility to parents, students and colleagues is to read and respond to email in a timely manner. There's no shame if you are overwhelmed with emails. Do any of you have a system for tackling email? PLEASE SHARE!!! Otherwise, the expectations are reading and responding to email in a timely manner.
Something to Ponder
Setting the purpose for your lesson and letting students know how you are going to measure their learning, sets the stage for accelerated learning; teacher clarity accelerates the learning! See last week's TT for research articles that support this.
What happens when you get the blank stare after setting the purpose for learning? You are checking for understanding to make sure students are ready to go and you get crickets? I listened to Cult of Pedagogy episode 223, Why Students Give you the Blank Stare, and What to Do About It. Hope you find a gold nugget in the podcast that you can try if and when you get those nasty, blank stares.
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Wise Words
"There are three constants in life...change, choice and principles." Stephen Covey
