Trimester 1 Comes to An End

It's the final countdown.  Our first trimester comes to an end on Friday.  I know we had some disruptions this first trimester, but we actually only lost two days of instruction.  Some things to remember:   

• Every class gets an ATL
• Conduct goes in Homeroom
• Any ATL or Conduct score lower than a 3 should not be a surprise to parents.  Written communication or a conference should have happened before you can give a 1 or a 2
• A score lower than a C should also not be a surprise
• All 1's, 2's, D's and F's MUST have a comment
• Grades must be complete by 8:00 a.m. Monday morning, Nov. 6

Charles will provide a complete checklist for you to be sure grades are correct before we print report cards.  

Nov. 9 is a Parent Conference Day.  Every core teacher should be having conferences that day.  You should be meet with every parent at least once during the year.  For this first conference day, you should be focusing on students who may be struggling or are new to the school.  First set up conferences with students you know you need to meet on, and then offer a conference to other parents.  Every parent should be offered a conference.  Anyone you do not meet with this time, insist they come in on the next conference day.  It's impossible to meet with everyone on this one day so I understand that you will most likely be meeting before and after Nov. 9 with parents.  If you plan a conference before school, set the start time by at least 7:15 a.m. and end promptly at 7:40.  Students should not be waiting outside your room while you conference.  Please send your conference schedule to me by Friday, Nov. 3.

As I've been reviewing Unit Plans and doing observations, I am finding that everyone is doing a great job in you lessons, classroom management, activities, student engagement, questioning, etc.  However, in general we still struggle with the overarching parts of the unit plans.  Enduring Understandings read like skills, Essential Questions are too content specific, Values Infusion is a quote from the Bible that has little connection, assessments are not in Atlas, Knowledge consists of only vocabulary words or has no vocabulary words, and Atlas attachments will not open.  These issues are not evident in every unit plan, but in general everyone has at least one struggle.  I will be reviewing these items in depth at an upcoming faculty meetings.  The other thing I've noticed is that it's hard to know what unit plans are for this year and what was copied over from last year.  I believe unit plans can stay in the prior year and you can access them there but it is difficult to know what you are doing particularly if you are a new teacher and there are plans from a prior teacher.  I will be reviewing all these things individually with you when we go over your observations.  

Lastly, Nicki gets a lot of feedback from new parents in particular and many have only good things to say about our school and particularly about our teachers.  What impresses them most is the caring attitude we have here at St. Stephen.  You should all be proud of yourselves.  Thank you all for making me look good!! 😊

Fall in NY

Sorry the blog is a little late.  I've spent the past two days catching up with family and enjoying spending time with my mom.  She is trying to adjust to life in a nursing home but doesn't want to ask for help and spends a good deal of time on the floor.  I can see where I get my stubborn streak from.  Weather was perfect as was the food and it will be hard to leave here this afternoon.

Some reminders for this week...  There is a faculty meeting today - Love and Logic.  Friday is Harvest Festival followed by PLCs.  Some teachers are out that day at Clinical Ed training.  We are in school next Monday and Tuesday of next week is Marvelous Mustang.

Charles is checking gradebooks and will be contacting you if you do not have enough assessments.  Remember it's 4 Formatives for every Summative and 4 Summatives for each trimester.  It may be different for Encore classes.  Conduct should be in your homeroom class.  Make sure you are putting it in the right place.

See you all tomorrow!

Is it Fall yet?

It's this time of year when I start to get tired of the heat.  October and Halloween means cooler weather... at least in some places in the country.  

As I am sure you all read (hint, hint) in Tidbits last week, this coming Friday (Oct. 20) is the day you will send home ONE envelope with each child for their first stewardship donation.  Please talk to them about it and the idea of giving.  Show the students how to fill out the envelope with their time, talent, and treasures.  Just explain it, they should be filling it out with their parents. 

As a reminder, I am leaving early on Friday and will be out Monday, Oct. 23.  Here is a recap of meeting agendas from last week's blog:

Monday, Oct. 16 - Grade level meetings (PreK-1, 2-5, 6-8) - Topics for discussions include:

• How ATL and Conduct grades are being determined
• Lunch discipline.  It doesn't look like assistants are recording behavior anywhere.  How is it being communicated to teachers
• Topics as determined by grade level
• Take notes and share minutes with Charles and Linda

Thursday, Oct. 19  - Encore Meeting 12:25 - 1:12 p.m.  (This allows Julianne to join this meeting and the middle school meeting.)  Topics for discussion include:

• How ATL and Conduct grades are determined and communicated to homeroom teachers who record the only conduct grade.
• Topics as needed

Monday, Oct. 23 - Love and Logic

I attended a workshop on the CE Tracker program which is what we will be using for master inservice points in the future.  I may have said this already, but I want to be sure everyone got the message.  DO NOT re-apply for a certificate until you have the go ahead from us.  State is revamping their system and your payment will most likely get lost.  The new MIP program is super easy and will reduce paper by about 95%.  Only on the rare occasion when you attend a workshop alone will you need to fill out a form.  Even then, if you get a certificate, no form needed.  I will demonstrate the system at our November faculty meeting.  In the meantime, I will be working with Charles to get all your accounts set up and input all the workshops, etc. we've had since July 1.  We should be all caught up by December. 

The other thing I will be talking about at our November faculty meeting is an update on field trips and what we are required to do.  I will tell you that by the end most schools decided that in-school field trips sounded like a good idea.  In the meantime, if anyone has a field trip coming up before Nov. 13, please be sure that a permission form is completed for all STUDENTS, CHAPERONES, AND TEACHERS.  In other words, anyone going on the trip.  The purpose has to do with medical release portion and if anyone gets hurt.  Be sure you leave a copy of ALL permission slips with Charles before you go on the trip. 

Thank you all for everything you do and have a great week!

Making RenWeb Happen!

This blog is early and I explain why below.  This mostly for teachers this week.  Everyone else, scan through and enjoy your weekend.  

A couple of weeks ago I sent instructions to parents on how they can access information on ParentsWeb.  In tracking handbook acknowledgements, we have discovered that only a few parents have NOT registered on RenWeb.  That's great!!  Except when I look at ParentsWeb there isn't much for them to see except grades.  I was waiting for a faculty meeting to go over how to put stuff up there but September was a mess and October has people coming and going to meetings.  I'm having a hard time finding an opportunity when we are all in the building.  Therefore, I am going to give instructions here.  My blog is going out early this week because my expectation is that by Monday, everyone will have something on ParentsWeb.  I want to see announcements of upcoming events like field trips, project due dates and summative dates.  Soon I want to see an announcement of how you are doing conferences.  I also want to see homework up for next week, even if it's only Monday's homework.  Homework section MUST be up to date everyday.  It is what we promise parents and we must follow through.  Here is the other reason why you MUST put your homework here.  I need one place to see what is being assigned in all classes for homework.  I can't look at planners, white boards, atlas, google classroom, handouts, etc.  Everyone uses a different method to communicate homework.  We need ONE method that everyone is using and parents can count on and I can check to be sure you are following the guidelines in our handbook.  This is not optional.  Here are the instructions (I am able to log in as one of you so you should be able to duplicate these steps.):

HOW TO ADD HOMEWORK

• Start in Classroom and choose a class
• From the drop down menu choose "Lesson Plans"
• Click on a date
• Under "web homework" it says "type something" - that's where you add the homework.  You can also add a link.
• Under "documents" you can upload a worksheet, rubric, etc.

HOW TO ADD AN ANNOUNCEMENT

I was going to add a field trip to 5th grade technology to show how it would look to parents, but Gina has already utilized this feature.  Here is what it looks like...

And here is how to do it:

Start in Classroom and choose a class

From the drop down menu choose "Web Items"

From the list choose "Announcements" (please noet that the calendar feature here does not link to our google calendar. Web tests and portfolio are not turned on right now, but they can be.)

Filling in the announcement is self explanatory.

You can add your syllabus and resources here too.  The homework drop button is not for you to add homework.  This is for students to access from their page (see above) to upload their homework.  This is a great feature for students who are away or sick for a number of days.  When you go into homework drop, you can download their work to your computer.  

Here is something else I had RenWeb set up for us, but I did not pursue as there was a lot to learn this year.  It's not working quite like I wanted it to but I can follow up with them if necessary.  There is a behavior function which I have now opened up for teachers.  To get there get there:

• Go to "Students"
• Choose a student
• On the right choose "behavior"
• Choose "add an event"
• You need to manually add 25 merits and save.

My intention was that when you added a demerit it would automatically reduce the merit but that's not happening.  It would have to be done manually.  

Below is what it looks like on the parent/student end.  For now they cannot see this.

This is a great way to document behavior even if we do not open it to parents to view.  Since they can't see conduct until the report card and we have to inform parents when behavior issues arise, this is a good way to communicate.  The merit/demerit portion does not have to be utilized by everyone and can be used by just grades 5-8.  I would like everyone to look at this and we will discuss at a faculty meeting.  

FACULTY MEETING PLANS FOR OCTOBER

We need to do a few things that can't wait any longer.  Because people are attending workshops and taking time off, the only day that everyone is actually is Oct. 23.  Therefore, I'm trying to accommodate everyone and still get everything done.  

Monday, Oct. 9 

• RenWeb discussion for teachers grades 1-8 (Maria, Kdg. teachers, pre-k teachers are at an EC workshop)   This meeting will be to answer any questions you have regarding the info above, talk about using behavior in RenWeb, and hopefully we will know by then how to put in ATL and Conduct grades.  This should not be more than 20 minutes.  Those unable to attend because you are not here, Charles and I will meet with you during a planning period.
• Part 2 will only be for the following teachers: Gina, Kim, Kelly, Katie, Heather.  I have the books that I ordered for writing.  Just a brief discussion to bring Heather and Kim up-to-date on what we discussed and the plan.

Monday, Oct. 16 - Grade level meetings (PreK-1, 2-5, 6-8) - Topics for discussions include:

• How ATL and Conduct grades are being determined
• Lunch discipline.  It doesn't look like assistants are recording behavior anywhere.  How is it being communicated to teachers
• Topics as determined by grade level
• Take notes and share minutes with Charles and Linda

Thursday, Oct. 19  - Encore Meeting 12:25 - 1:12 p.m.  (This allows Julianne to join this meeting and the middle school meeting.)  Topics for discussion include:

• How ATL and Conduct grades are determined and communicated to homeroom teachers who record the only conduct grade.
• Topics as needed

Monday, Oct. 23 - Love and Logic (I will be out this day.  Taking a trip to NY this weekend for my mom's 92nd birthday!) 

Friday, Oct. 27 - PLCs for curriculum alignment

• ELA - Gina, Heather, Kim, Sue, Katie, Jenn
• Math in Focus - Susana, Nathan, Krista, Kasey, Kelly G (if you can make it)

Maria, Kelly M, Julianne, Charles will be at a Clinical Ed. training

I will be out on Tuesday 10/10 at a Title I meeting.  I will also be out on Friday at a Admin Meeting.  Have a great weekend!!  

Happy 30th St. Stephen

For those of you who attended Mass yesterday at 11:30, I'm sure you will agree that our Bishop is pretty awesome.  We were very blessed to have him with us yesterday.  He came to the picnic too and mingled with everyone.  Great community building day for all.

Reminders that this week there is no Mass.  Julianne sent out a great idea for what to do during that time.  Thank you Julianne.  Student Council will be selling Pumpkin Pops, and the area Catholic High Schools will be here Friday.  Pictures will not take place on Tuesday, it has been moved to Oct. 17 due to Irma.

I would like to review one aspect of carline that seems to be a confusion, particularly in the younger car line.  It is the responsibility of the person with the bull horn to ask people without a car tag to park and come into the school for a paper "tag".  No other options are acceptable.  Looking at IDs mean nothing unless you are checking Renweb to be sure the person is an authorized driver.  No one but the bull horn person needs to get involved and no child should be put into a car without a tag.

Lastly, when I was at the picnic, a 2nd or 3rd grader came to me with an "issue".  It didn't even pertain to her anymore as she was sticking up for students younger than her.  She said that students give their ice cream money to the teachers and the teachers forget to bring it to the lunchroom and the kids go without ice cream.  Her mom said she puts the ice cream money in her lunch box now to avoid the problem.  That's actually a good idea.  If you run into this issue, I would suggest the child just leave the money in their lunch box.

Have a marvelous week!!