Staff,

As we wrap up the first month of school this week, it seems like a good time to revisit the pillars that drive our work:  why do we exit, what must we become, how will we behave to make it happen and what steps do we have to take to get there?

During the late start, I mentioned the SMARTgoal team's focus is to review PLC teams' products and set the plan for the next month. Remember to give your SMART team representative feedback, before Tuesday, on October products you feel your team should work on to move your PLC goals forward on what you want your students to learn, how will you know when they've learned it, what will you do when they already know it and what you will do if students have not learned it yet? You may want to look at the PLC process for some guidance on your next steps. Remember to add any products you want included for review at the Tuesday SMART Team meeting in the PLC Products table

Planning Essential Learning Lessons and Common Formative Assessments

Teachers,

During the Day 6 on Monday your focus will be on lesson planning around the essential learning your team decided upon. The following link has the PLC process we're utilizing this year. You will be working on the teaching portion of the process tomorrow PLC Process. In the upper lefthand corner of the document is your norms/planning document where you can record your planning.

On Thursday there are three agenda items to be covered during our late start. First HR will review the 16-17 certified handbook from 8:05-8:35am, next I'll recap our 15-16 SMARTgoal results and our 16-17 goals/action plan. Finally from about 9-10, we will spend our time digging into common formatve assessments to support your work in ensuring students have learned your team's essential learning for trimester one.

North Hudson Staff:

This week you will have five tickets each day to recognize above the line behavior in the kitchen and the lunchroom. Please remember your tickets when picking up your students to recognize their behavior. If you have time this week, please also stop into the lunchroom when students are eating to acknowledge their behavior.

Tomorrow I will be sharing an updated spreadsheet that Amanda McCarthy has created based off our PLC essential learning work. She's revised it so you'll always be able to see the column headings while creating your PLC products. She's also added a column to include what you will teach to ensure your children get to mastery of your essential learning. This lesson planning will be your Day 6 focus on September 19th followed by the September 22nd late start to finalize your common formative assessment for your team's essential learning.

Getting to Know Your Students as Readers

Teachers:

With less fall assessments this fall (no MAP at most grade levels and no PALS at second), I'd like you to use the time normally spent on these assessments to get to know your students as readers, first and foremost by listening to them read. Amanda McCarthy shared this wonderful blog on just this topic: Getting to Know Your Readers. Also spend time reviewing their spring F+P notes from last year's teacher, and you now can also pull up your class to review their MAP data from last spring. This can be done looking at your class report or your spring 16 to spring 17 growth projections report. You need to choose students rostered in the fall 16-17, but students tested spring 15-16.

Starting tomorrow you'll also have five tickets a day (20 this week) to recognize above the line behavior as we teach and reteach our expectations these first five weeks of school. Entering/exiting/lines and hallways are our focus areas for the rest of the week.  Wishing you all a wonderful second week of school. It was great to have the students and you all back last week!