O Come O Come

This Sunday marks the First Sunday of Advent.  It is also the start of a new Liturgical Year.  This year we are in Sunday Cycle C and Weekday Cycle 1.  Please be sure to have your Advent Wreaths out and incorporate the idea of preparing into your religion lessons.  I emailed teachers a good resource to discuss the Gospels for the next three Mondays.  This Sunday is also the day in which those in the RCIA program are presented to the congregation as they enter the final stage of their preparation to enter into the Catholic Church.  My husband is one of the candidates this year and it's been an amazing and sometimes challenging opportunity to sponsor someone as they learn the intricacies of the Catholic faith.  Being a cradle Catholic I forget how rich our faith is but it has been a good experience for both of us.

We had a minor accident on Friday and if you smell smoke when you arrive on Monday, please do not be alarmed.  The good news is that we know our fire alarms work.  The bad news is that we may need to revisit and rethink keeping animals at school.  Tom felt confident that the school would be fine come Monday and no one and no animals were harmed. 

Friday is our Advent Retreat followed by Prof Dev.  For our discussion on Friday, we will focus on assessment.  The discussion will be led by our Instructional Coaches along with Gina and myself.  We will begin as a group and then divide into three groups - Early Childhood, Grades 3-8, and Encore.  We need to continue to have these discussions and the importance of assessment.  We will also share ideas on strategies for effective assessment in each subject.  We struggled to meet the grade requirements in the first trimester and it continues to be a struggle.  Some teachers are doing a great job of having sufficient formatives for each summative.  Since a trimester has 12 weeks and we have just completed three weeks, each class should have at least 4 formatives and 1 summative by now or close to it.  We also have a policy that grades must be posted within 2 days.  Some classes are right where they should be with 4 formatives and one summative.  Some classes have no grades at all.  That is not acceptable.  It is not ok to be cramming grades in the last two weeks of the trimester.  Math classes in particular should have 3-4 formatives a week.  We will discuss ways to make this happen.  Please know that this is not a request nor is this an option, it is an expectation.  This is part of the grading policy created by the Diocese and we follow it.

Some reminders about grades:

• Students may not receive a grade less than 50 unless they did not turn in the assignment
• Retakes in grades K-5 are teacher initiated
• Students may NOT grade their own or another student's paper (peer editing is fine) - I do talk to students and they tell me this is still happening
• Instructional assistants may NOT grade papers or put grades into Renweb
• Textbook "tests" like the ones in the religion book should not be used as the summative above 2nd grade unless you have ripped all the tests out prior to giving the books to the students

This will be another busy week for Gina and I.  Between being in 3rd grade, doing observations, and meetings it will be hectic.  If you need something from me and I'm not responding to an email, please come see me or raise a red flag outside my office.  The good news is we believe we have a teacher for 3rd grade and my hope is that he will take over next Monday.  Thank you to Nicki and Nick for pitching in and helping us teach.  I know this is not ideal for the students but I have gotten positive feedback from parents and the students have adapted well.  One parent told me their child thought it was super cool to have more teachers than their middle school sibling. I am impressed by how capable the third grade students are and how they will rise to high expectations.  I'm am also confused by why it is so difficult to fold a piece of paper and glue it in a notebook.  One child put glue on both sides of the paper and for one child I glued it in for them only to have it disappear a minute later.  It has been an education.  I also learned that if you need a pencil, just bend down, one will be within reach.