We've finished another great week of learning at McKinley. It's been great to see how your hard work of teaching procedures and expectations is starting to fall into place. It's magical!
Entering Absences in AESOP
If you are planning on being absent, enter this into AESOP as soon as you know of your absence. It gets very hard to fill positions, as you know. It's even harder when you wait until a few days before you are gone to enter this into AESOP.
Use of Door 8 in the Rain
There have been some questions about using door 8 in the rain. If it is down pouring rain, you can make the call to use the 3rd grade doors. This is your call. The office will make the determination of which door to use when we get into the cold winter season.
GRIT:
Here's a great video reminder of "grit": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q48fTWSGauA Grit is our focus this month for PBIS - keep this word alive in your classrooms. Teach and honor students who are showing grit throughout the month.
A Note From Libby:
I am so excited to be working alongside of you again this year towards our goal of getting 100% of our students to mastery on the critical EU’s in reading. Since I went through the information pretty quickly at our back to school meeting, I wanted to recap it for you.
Student Centered Coaching
After doing a fair bit of research on different coaching
models, I have found that the student centered coaching model is in alignment
with our multi-tiered system of support structure and all of the work we are
doing in our PLC’s. If you are interested, you will be able to sign up
for a coaching cycle where I would come to your classroom three times a week
for a unit (or a part of a unit that you are focused on a specific EU), and we
would co-plan and co-teach the unit. As I mentioned, this was effective
in a fourth grade classroom last year where we saw tremendous growth around a
particular EU. One example of a benefit to having two teachers in the
room: we could give a formative assessment at any point, one of us could
quickly score and group them while the other one of us continued instruction
and then we could instantly respond to our students’ progress towards the EU
and break into groups. In K-2, I will have some guided leveling kits that
I can come in and work with you on how to complete assessments and then what to
do with the information in your guided group to support kids in advancing
levels. I’d also love to do some work with engagement at any level.
I’ll be talking more about this soon, but I wanted you to start thinking about
if this is something you are interested in doing.
Other Coaching Options
Please remember that I am here to support you in supporting
our students! Some things that I supported last year and would love to
support again: diagnosing student needs, curriculum support (co-teaching,
co-planning, modeling anchor lessons, small groups or specific strategies),
PRESS, training support staff, gathering data, analyzing data, connecting
teachers and anything else literacy.
Literacy Focus
We will continue to focus on clarity with our purpose, K-2
WTW and purposeful independent reading in our support and professional
development with literacy this year.
My “McKinley days” are still going to be Wednesday, Thursday
and every other Friday morning. However, the first few weeks will be
unique with me supporting the DIBELS assessing team of retired teachers.
Please email me with any questions as that will be the best way to track me
downJ. I’m excited for the
growth that we will see this year!
A Snapshot of Learning this Week:
Bus Safety this week
5th Graders doing an investigation with the bounce of different types of balls.
Valet Parking for the Week:
The Valet Parking for the Week goes to Mary Louks! Mary Louks is a stellar Special Education Paraprofessional. Mary is always focused on what is right for kids. She has high expectations, but supports students to meet those expectations. We are very lucky to have Mary at McKinley. Thank you for all you do, Mary!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
-Justin
