This is my newsletter for this week to my team. I'm really grateful to work here.
Hi Team!
Thanks for all your hard work last week in getting the Spring aimsweb assessments completed, graded, and entered. Here are the math results:
You’ll notice that the number of students still in the red is quite low (less than 13%).
Last week I asked you what things we should be measuring. A few of you responded and we have been able to have a great conversation over email about what we should be measuring. Most of the responses indicated that these kinds of scores are good to have, but not the indicators of real success. I believe that as we focus on helping our kids feel comfortable and safe these scores will take care of themselves. We need to pay attention to them, but we also need to recognize the benefits of other practices, like trauma-informed practices, recognition, and empathy. The little things we are doing, like providing standing desks, fidget boxes, and stools are not a big deal, but they let kids know that we understand that they are individuals. Thank you for your care and consideration towards our students. There are so many more things that you are doing that help our kids to be successful.
Upcoming Calendar Events:
We are in that weird time of year when the days will go by so fast, yet so slow.
Our Friday meetings are as follows:
May 6: professional development in the library
May 13: grade level PLCs planning for next year (recommendations for foundations, student groupings recommendations, etc.) - You can start the efforts in basecamp if you would like. I’ll give more information for foundations and special ed teachers and where they should plan to go for these meetings as we get closer.
May 20: Final planning and preparation for the last week of school activities in your grade level teams. You can also start this work in Basecamp.
May 27: We will have a farewell breakfast and celebration in the morning, and then you will have the day to prepare for summer.
If any of you are participating in the summer academies, or are planning on it, please let me know your intentions so I can help support you.
Resources:
Three Tips for More Engaging PBL Projects - Here’s some ideas for helping your Project-based Learning projects more engaging.
Making the Courageous Choice - Sometimes we need to make a courageous choice. Courageous choices sometimes make us choose between two bad choices. They aren’t always easy choices to make.
Closing the Gate - We have a really great team at the middle school. We have grown and changed and understood each other better over time. As with every year, people leave and new people come. How can we help those who will be new next year hit the ground running and be successful? How are we going to welcome them to our school and make their new transition as successful as possible? You already do this, but we don’t really talk much about it.
