May 4 to May 8

Learning Targets Target Learning
This week I interviewed 5 kids from one classroom after the teacher taught a math lesson. And guess what? EVERY kid was able to say exactly what they were supposed to learn in the lesson!

Learning to learn starts with you for many of our students. Thank you for posting your targets and for talking about them more than once during the school day! Your students are making remarkable gains because you're taking advantage of an effective teaching practice.

Spring Advisory - May 7, May 14, and May 19 (change from May 21)
If you haven't already, please sign up for your 30-minute Advisory Session. No matter which date you sign up for, please be prepared by May 7 to meet - just in case we need to trade your time.

LIC Wed - ProDev: Assessment Scoring
May 6 and May 13 have been scheduled for you and your team to score Spring Writing Prompts and/or Math Assessments (grades 3-6). Recording sheets will be placed in the box of your Literacy Committee rep by the morning of Wednesday, May 6. Remember to calibrate your writing scoring team by:

• reading the anchor papers


• reviewing the rubric


• reading and scoring several papers as a team before reading individually
  

Tidbits:

• each student paper should be read by two different colleagues


• Robert will be a reader on the students he serves in resource

All scoring sheets are due to Rebecca on May 15. Data will be sorted and added to the Fall and Winter data and shared with you to review at a future grade level meeting.

MBSP - Monitoring Basic Skills Progress in Mathematics
Grades 3 through 6 will be administering two timed assessments this week: Computation and Application & Concepts. The data will be submitted to the Assessment Coordinator's office and compiled with the other school's participating in the assessment window. The information will then be compared to state assessments and the likelihood that a student will meet standard - this is a similar process to how the Open Court District Reading Assessments and WRI are used in literacy. Even more important, teachers in the assessed grades will have a piece of evidence to support curriculum based learning. If you need help scoring or recording student responses - just ask! Rebecca or Susan are happy to help!

Kindergarten through second - there are MBSP Assessments for you, as well. Please let Rebecca know if you would like to administer these assessments for your own information.

Staffing Update
As you probably know May 8 will be an important day for the next layer of Involuntary Transfers. RIF notices will be issued on this date - no matter what happens, ALWAYS be mindful of your audience and message. An innocent comment could be mis-interpreted. Be gentle and choose your words carefully with each other this week and in the weeks to come. Most of all "Staff Appreciation" is about this year and the work you've done thus far - be present and fully engaged in each day. Enjoy each other's company. Every day I am thankful for each of you!