Raider Portal and PLC

Staff,

Last week our office got the North Hudson Raider Portal up and running for the 17-18 school year. Our weekly newsletter will be posted on this site, as well as social media updates from the District's twitter and facebook accounts:  North Hudson Elementary Raider Portal.

Tomorrow our PBIS Tier I team will meet to reflect on the kickoff for the year and our plans during the first six weeks. Please pass on any input you have to this team regarding the initial PBIS stations and the acknowledgements with the paws.

During Thursday's common planning time. Teams will begin deciding upon and creating plans around their first essential learning within ELA. Here's the spreadsheet Amanda McCarthy created for teams this year. Instead of a tab for each round, grade level teams have their own tab to use while working through essential learning planning:  NH 17-18 PLC Products.

More Eclipse Information

Staff,

Here's some additional information from NASA on safety measures using the eclipse glasses tomorrow with your students.

• Always inspect your solar filter before use; if scratched or damaged, discard it. Read and follow any instructions printed on or packaged with the filter.
• Always supervise children using solar filters.
• Stand still and cover your eyes with your eclipse glasses or solar viewer before looking up at the bright sun. After looking at the sun, turn away and remove your filter — do not remove it while looking at the sun. 
• If you normally wear eyeglasses, keep them on. Put your eclipse glasses on over them

We will have indoor recess for both recesses tomorrow to minimize the chance of students looking up at the eclipse without eye protection. Kelli Hedlund is going to live stream the solar eclipse from the news studio. Please have this up on your Smartboards during both lunch and afternoon recess. Students who are opting out of viewing the solar eclipse with their class can come down to the office and watch the NASA streaming there. 

Also on starting on Tuesday through the rest of the week, I can use as many staff as possible in the front and back of the building, to assist 4K and Kindergarten students transitioning to and from school. Wishing you all a great first FULL week of school with your students. 

Welcome Back!

Staff,

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow to kick off our 17-18 school year! At 8:15am, a continental breakfast will be provided in the media center followed by our beginning of the year staff meeting starting at 8:45am. After the staff meeting, you'll be on your own for lunch, and will have time to meet with your team and prepare your classroom for the new year.

Tuesday is our district day starting at the high school stadium at 8:00am and walking to the middle school. District messages start at 8:45am in the gymnasium at Hudson Prairie followed by elementary common messages at 9:30am (also in the Hudson Prairie gymnasium). A reminder that student pictures also happen on Tuesday from 4:00-8:00pm at North Hudson Elementary with Meet the Teacher Night occurring from 5:00-6:30pm.


Finally to prepare for the staff meeting, I want you all to think about what inspires you? What's that "thing" that you are passionate about and gets you up every morning? I will be asking for you to share your thoughts early on in the staff meeting.

Last Week Reminders

Staff,

I wish you a wonderful last week with your students. Below are reminders for our last five days together for the 16-17 school year.

• Monday, June 5th: 4th Grade at Fort Snelling, North Hudson Title One Meeting at 2:15pm and grades due into Skyward by 11:59pm.
• Tuesday, June 6th: 5th Grade at Eau Claire Waterpark, 2nd Grade MN Zoo, All School Picnic, Report Cards will be printed, class pictures due in the T drive for All School Meeting Slide Show and NH PTO Meeting at 6:30pm
• Wednesday, June 7th: Revise any individual report cards in Skyward by 11:59pm
• Thursday, June 8th (Last Day of School): 9:10am All School Meeting, 10:30am Yearbooks, 2:45pm Kickball, send report cards home and staff get together in River Falls after work
• Friday, June 9th (Teacher Check Out Day) compete cumulative files, clean room and assist colleagues who are moving to new spaces (OT/PT, Mrs. Domeier and Ms. Strop)

Building Reminders

Staff,

Here are some reminders of upcoming building events to keep in mind while we approach the end of the year. Those of you who will meet with me for a summative evaluation in the next couple weeks, please review last week's blog for the reflection questions.

• End of the Day Monday, May 22nd:  Submit End of Interval SLO Review
• Tuesday, May 23rd:  Grade Level Roll Through with ITS (Raider Portal) and Learning Services
• Wednesday, May 24th:  K-3 Track and Field Day and Fun Run at 2:50pm
• Thursday, May 25th: 4th Grade Track and Field Day
• Friday, May 26th:  5th Grade Track and Field Day
• Tuesday, May 30th: Last Staff Meeting and Summer Book Checkout Starts in the Media Center
• Thursday, June 1st: Dolf out at Interviews
• Friday, June 2nd: 1st Grade at Como Zoo and at 2:15: 5th Grade Farewell
• Monday, June 5th: 4th Grade at Fort Snelling
• Tuesday, June 6th: 5th Grade at Eau Claire Waterpark, 2nd Grade MN Zoo and All School Picnic
• Thursday, June 8th (Last Day of School): 9:10am All School Meeting, 10:30am Yearbooks and 2:45pm Kickball

Highlights from this Year

At our staff meeting on Tuesday, we will begin by taking some time to reflect on classroom, grade level, department and building highlights from the year. Be thinking about the things that you're proud of and be ready to share at your staff meeting tables. I'll be using the reflections we generate as part of my report to the board in June. This is the second year all schools and District departments have reported highlights during the "state of the schools" portion of the June board meeting.

A couple of reminders, instructional reading levels are due in Skyward by the end of the day on Friday, May 19th and SLOs are due to be submitted at the end of the day on Monday, May 22nd. If you have all your data before the 19th, and you have your SLO completed, feel free to submit it before the May 22nd date. Again summative meetings will begin on May 23rd (maybe earlier if there are early SLOs submitted), and I will have Sue schedule the meetings. I will submit summative evaluations to teachers at least one day prior to our meetings for your review first. The following are the objectives I am hoping for in our summative conferences with continuing staff:

• Sum up your thoughts and perspectives on the last two-three years.
• My thoughts about overall strengths during the past three years.
• Your thoughts or feedback regarding process, feedback received.
• Talk about strategies and goals for moving forward.

I'd also like teachers who have a summative evaluation to think about this question coming into these meetings:  

As you look back over the last couple of years, how do you think things went?  What went well?  What didn’t go as planned?

Late Start Focus

Staff,

This Thursday is our last late start of the year. You will have a menu of items to complete during this time. First, please complete your fourth form within professional goal setting, called the professional practice goal review.  Here is the district SLO support sheet to help you fill out this document and the other SLO form I will reference later below:  Professional Goal Setting Plan. Once you've reflected on your evidence of progress toward this goal, please submit to me on Thursday. Next, classroom teachers feel free to work on your pink and blue sheets for class placement day, if you haven't already. 5th grade teachers you can also complete the electronic form you need to submit to the middle school.

After this, staff can begin work on the third mylearningplan form within professional goal setting:  SLO end of interval review. I know you won't have your student data to enter the % of students meeting the goal into the first box (summarize the end-of interval status of your goal), but you can reflect on the process/actions you used this year with your students. You also can begin to draft your reflections for the final two boxes:  environmental/contextual implications and your lessons learned this year while going through the 16-17 SLO process. Remember to save any work you completed on this form, and here's a screen shot of it. Finally, any time remaining can be used on third trimester essential learning work or lesson planning for the month of May. There will not be a meeting to start this late start so you can begin work immediately when you arrive to school. However remember on Monday, we have a building forum beginning at 8:05am in the media center.

Proposed Fountas and Pinnell Communication Sheet

Teachers:

At the staff meeting on Tuesday, Amanda McCarthy will be rolling out a proposed new Fountas and Pinnell Communication Form to be used during the Formal Assessment window to communicate reading behaviors to next year's teacher. This form has been updated to give more specific information than the previous quarter sheet. As a school, you'll be coming to a consensus regarding whether you'll shift to the new form this spring or use the quarter sheet you've typically used to communicate reading information to next year's teachers based off the spring Fountas and Pinnell Assessment. Below is an example of the form. Please look over the form and be ready to ask questions of Amanda on Tuesday. Reminder:  5th grade teachers do not need to fill out this form for the middle school. The information you provide electronically for the middle school is sufficient. 

Late Start Agenda

Staff,

At our late start on Thursday a contintental breakfast will be provided in the media center.  Here are the agenda items to be covered:   

• Technology Tips from Collegues
• Teacher Salary Structure Update
• 16-17 SMARTgoal Revisit
• Third Trimester Essential Learning Work:  PLC Products

The next assessment window is a formal one running from May 1st-May 19th. Please ignore placing updated instructional reading levels in Skyward on April 14th. This date is listed on your grade level specific assessment calendars and should have been deleted.

Third Trimester Essential Learning

Staff:

With the Forward Exam one week away for third and fourth grade students, here's a reminder of items to do for test prep this week at the intermediate grades.

Test- Taking Strategies- whole class (March 27-31)    

• Test Preparation PPT  (10 min.)
• Grit/ Growth Mindset- Video on Grit

Forward Exam Platform (March 27- 31)

• Whole Class- Student Tutorials (25- 30 min.)
• Individuals- Practice tests for students- all content areas Firefox, Chrome Browsers (30 min.)

At our Tuesday staff meeting, we will return to our PLC revitalization discussing the following questions that the SMART Team had dialogue around at our last meeting. Day 6 on Wednesday is set aside for teams to decide on their third trimester essential learning, and common formative assessment, using our PLC Products document.

• What has gone well so far this year with the PLC revitalization? What progress have we made toward a successful implementation at our building?

• What has not gone well so far with our PLC rebooting? What unresolved issues are still getting in the way of our success?

• What strategies or suggestions do you have for us to overcome the challenges and to be more successful with our PLC revitalization?

Here's the link to the SMART Team responses regarding these three questions.