**Please check the Meeting Schedules (in the sidebar) and the calendar at the bottom for information regarding this week's meetings and events. Laptops are not required unless requested. Thank you for leaving them in your classrooms.
***Please bookmark the Mindset link so you can access it easily.
Vera Angyal has joined the world of motherhood. Mom and child are happy and healthy. Her full name is Boros-Angyal Freja Judit. She was born on 2017.09.21. With 3500g and 48 cm.
If you'd like to send Vera a message, her email address is [email protected].
~IWofP Committee
~from the Elementary Office
Our second Newsletters (core and encore) will be sent home this Friday, October 6th via team leads on behalf of the grade level. Please use the templates provided. If you need support embedding your newsletter, organizing your core or encore site pages, setting up composer to send the newsletter, please check in with Nate and his team. Please let Krista and Leigh know when your newsletter is published (Thursday morning latest), so we can review it before team leads send it home next Friday, October 6th.
~from the Office Assistant (Erika Nemes)
The Student-Led Goal Setting Conferences take place on Thursday, October 10th.
Today, in an email, you will receive a link to the Sign-up from PTCfast.com. As in past years, parents will use this to make appointments with you.
Please access your conference sign-up site and check the time blocks for the conferences. If you would like to make any changes in your conference schedule, please let Erika know no later than 4:00 pm Tuesday, September 26.
On Friday, September 29th, the PTCfast sign up links will be emailed to parents. Please make sure to check all the folders in your email account, including spam, when you look for the email from PTCfast.com. If you are still unable to locate the email with the link to your conference schedule, please let Erika know by the end of today (September 25).
~from the DTL
We have invested a great deal of time this month in getting to know our students through reading, writing, and math assessments. To ensure that this time was invested wisely, we need to prioritize time to talk with our students about using these assessments to set data-based learning goals. It is important that these goals are specific, actionable, and can be monitored over time through evidence. Depending on the age of your students, these conversations may be best had individually or in small groups.
Weak goal examples:
My goal is to be a better reader
My goal is to be a better mathematician
My goal is to learn algebra
My goal is to write better.
Strong goal examples:
My goal is to improve my thinking beyond the text.
My goal is to improve my organization in my writing.
My goal is to improve my math communication skills.
My goal is to increase my strategies for comprehending informational text.
My goal is to improve my ability to solve multi-step problems.
Student Goal Setting forms are included in the sidebar of the Mindset or can be accessed here:
Assessment Data Analysis
Over the next few weeks, we will be meeting as grade levels to analyze our reading/writing/and math learning data for patterns and trends to inform instructional action. This type of data analysis is also necessary at the class level to ensure that our time was invested wisely in giving assessments. If you would like to analyze, confer and set goals as a teacher around your class data, please make an individual appointment with Leigh in the coming weeks.
~from the ES Principal
At Risk Notifications are our first formal, written notifications shared with the parents of students who are unable to meet grade level expectations due to academic, social and/or attendance concerns. These reports are only written for students who are not identified as learning resource nor is the concern related to second language development. At Risk Notifications may be written up to three times during the year if necessary.
An ‘At Risk Notification’ must to be completed for all subjects (core or encore) where students are assessed as emerging. If you are unsure whether or not to complete an ‘At Risk Notification’, please talk to one of the members of the Student Support Team (SST) (Krista, Shawn, Pablo, or Kathleen). ‘At Risk Notifications' must be completed and shared with Krista to review no later than this Thursday, October 5th and shared with parents at the Goal Setting Conference on October 10. The ‘At Risk Notification’ form can be located in the sidebar of the Mindset => AISB Forms => At Risk Notification.
~from the ES DTL
Thanks for your patience on inputting your assessment data. Unfortunately, the Data Dashboard will not be ready for us to input data until November, so we are going to enter our data into an ES Assessment spreadsheet one last time. Please do not change the formatting of this document because it will be uploaded directly to the Data Dashboard when it is ready and needs to follow these specifications.
Our data meetings begin in October, so please enter your reading and writing assessment data before this time. Ashlee and Leigh will enter all Math benchmark assessment data this year since it is new. Thanks for all your work. It is much appreciated.
~from the ELA Curriculum Lead
Our subscription to Raz-Kids for grades K-5 has been updated. Each grade has been given two accounts, and the login information for each teacher can be found here. It will also be made available on the library website for teachers. Please see Kathleen if you have any issues logging in.
~from your ES Service Learning Coordinator (Piroska Nagy)
Our annual Walk the Wish event is on Friday, October 6 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm. Please save the date in your calendar. All practices, activities and hosted clubs are cancelled on October 6! Students who are not participating in Walk the Wish must head home at 3:30 pm. Teachers and Assistants are responsible for ensuring they are picked up.
Walk the Wish is a great all-community event for students, teachers and parents, and a great cause for supporting severely ill children's wishes at the Csodalámpa Foundation. The event is followed by a dinner sponsored by our PSA in the ES cafeteria. There will be information about the children we will be supporting posted around the ES. Here is the poster we will be using in the ES, and this is the letter that will be going out to parents, which contains more detailed information about the event. We will print and hand these out to you. Please do not print and send home yourself. We hope to see you there!
~from the ES Principal
Each year we hold two announced emergency drills followed by two unannounced drills. This year's announced drills are Thursday, October 12th at 9:40 am (fire drill) and Monday, November 6th at 11:00 am (Lockdown). Please mark them on your calendar and/or plan book. Before the announced drills, please be sure to practice. All teachers (core and encore) need to walk all their students through each drill at least once. Please review the faculty handbook (pp 20-24) for important information regarding each type of drill. If you have any questions, please see Krista.
Please Bring your Extended Learning Journal to Tuesday's Meeting
Observe/examine/ reflect/ solicit feedback about how the environment impacts relationship-building, teaching and learning
How have you leveraged the environment to support inquiry-based teaching and learning?
How have you leveraged the environment to support language growth for all students?
What questions might you have for your colleagues?
~from the Principal
Looking for a great podcast? The Cult of Pedagogy podcast is a collection of episodes focused on teaching and learning. There is something for everyone. Author, Jennifer Gonzalez , interviews teachers, parents, students and administrators about hot topics in education (MA-Grade 12). Each episode provides the listener with practical ideas, tools, and resources to reinforce, support and extend teaching and learning. Each week I will highlight one or two of Jennifer's Podcasts or resources. I hope you will find time to explore them yourself. If you do and come across one you believe others in our community might enjoy, send it my way and I will add the link here.
This Week's Cult of Pedagogy Highlight:
Five Common Teaching Practices I'm Kicking to the Curb- In this podcast, Jennifer Gonzales highlights five common teaching methods that are still a part daily classroom practice but are not longer backed by research.