News and Notes for September 28

As this four-day week as come to an end, there have been a number of minor issues popping up and deadlines approaching. As generally tends to happen with this time of year, tension starts to rise, students tend to escalate, and people's patience may wane. Your vigilance in hallways and willingness to help resolve small problems before they become more major is appreciated.

Our agenda for the October 5 professional development day has been set, and we are looking forward to the many topics that will be discussed. Dr. Evans will be going through an overview of the Educator Evaluation process with the first session of the morning, followed by some self-assessment and self-evaluation based on the rubrics. Our sessions post-lunch will have a couple of options, each lasting an hour. All members of the high school staff will be required to attend a session on SMART goal setting for either one of the two afternoon hours. Please be prompt!

To that end, our Faculty Meeting on October 9 will tackle Common Core, which many of you had an opportunity to discuss at the last department meeting.

We are looking to continue to find ways to share ideas, particularly as people build SMART goals and look at ways to refine professional practice, in terms of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and communication. We hope that many of you have found some of the pieces in The Medway Weekly helpful; you can also find some interesting pieces by checking out Mike Rubin's Diigo profile, which provides a listing of online bookmarks. (Diigo is an online site designed for educators, that enables the user to bookmark links and access them regardless of the computer being used). The bookmarks in Mike's profile are also compiled and sorted into various lists, such as "curriculum," "teacher tools," or "commentary," to better held with organization.

Mike is also on Twitter; those of you on Twitter can follow via @MedwayHSDean or by following a link to Mike's public Twitter profile.

The goal of providing all these sources is not information overload, but for each of you to find the best way to gain access to potentially supportive information!  For us, it's about finding ways to get as much information that is relevant into your hands and minds. If you have questions about how to use any of these resources, want to subscribe, or have ideas for contribution, please let Mike know!

Speaking of communication: the message board in the main foyer is now functional. While we are working on gaining its full functionality, club and class advisors can have messages posted up there - just let Mike know, and we will work on getting that information up there as quickly as possible.

Please keep in mind the emails that have been coming with respect to special education protocols and requirements - if you have specific questions, feel free to ask Dot or Kim Condon, our TEAM chair. Kim is generally in the building on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but can also be reached via email.

Counselors have distributed PSAT information to students in grades 10 and 11; please refer students to Ms. Rockwood in guidance for registration.

Grade 9 students will be visited by guidance in the coming weeks; please be on the lookout for those dates and times.

1. The Senior Boat Cruise in Boston is coming next week. Again, remember to get in touch with Ms. Ryan or Ms. Aigler if you plan on chaperoning.

2.  Progress reports will be sent home on October 4, so please have your grades updated! We appreciate your prompt response to this.

3. Parent-teacher conferences will be on Thursday, October 25. We will have instructions for parents and staff coming out in the next couple of weeks.

4. For those who like to plan far in advance, homeroom will be extended on November 14 for the administration of the MetroWest survey.


Enjoy the weekend!

News and Notes for September 21

Well, an exciting week has come to a close! We were able to debrief after the gas leak from Thursday, which obviously put a wrinkle into many plans, both academically and extra-curricularly. We appreciate everyone's support, be it with supervising students on the tennis courts, moving to the football field, or just providing us with support during what was hectic, to say the least. As a positive, we were able to successfully evacuate more than 900 people and dismiss without a hitch, save for a few impatient students who tried to skedaddle before being called - it looked nothing like this! And who knew that 200 students expected to be on Bus 6?

We even made the news (must have been a slow day) - unfortunately, hard to tell who's who.
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/south/12008585362336/medway-hs-evacuated-due-to-gas-leak

Next time (if there is one), we absolutely have to figure out a way to spell something fun out (some ideas: "Send Food"; "We're Fine"; "Got Gas?"; "MEDWAY").

As for some of the details, the event underscored our absolute need for specific compliance with respect to procedure, why we have a signout log in the office, and the requirement for EVERYONE to be on the same page when outside. The check-in process at the tennis courts remains an ongoing work in progress, but remember to get outside, take attendance with your homeroom, turn in sheets, and continue to actively supervise the students. Obviously, over time, everyone gets a little more rambunctious, but if everyone does his/her part, as generally happened on Thursday, we have a smaller likelihood of problems. To the point of signing out, we had the attendance perfect within .1%, but would hate for the one person we're looking for to be a staff member - particularly if that staff member is being counted on for homeroom attendance on the courts. It helps us plan and respond accordingly, and we appreciate your follow-through to that end.

On to other updates:

A three-hour tour... a three-hour tour...

The Senior Class will be sponsoring a boat cruise in Boston on Saturday, October 6. Please contact Ms. Ryan or Ms. Aigler if you wish to chaperone!

This coming Tuesday, 9/25, will include department meetings. Please consult your department head for an agenda for that meeting.

A reminder that we do not have school on Wednesday, September 26, for the observance of Yom Kippur.

We're not expecting too many conferences to look like this, particularly because of the hat.

We will also be sending forth instructions and expectations for Parent-Teacher conferences, which will likely take place in late October. We appreciate all those who provided us with feedback and comments on making that evening as productive as possible.

The new procedures for the library, coupled with everyone's continued vigilance and consistency with respect to passes and attendance, have made for a very smooth couple of weeks, given the number of changes to study hall. We appreciate everyone's patience and support to that end.

Thanks to Mr. Hoek for organizing and keeping Good Friday breakfasts alive - we're excited for it next week!

A reminder that every Wednesday, we will publish The Medway Weekly, a compendium of online resources and ideas, some of which can adapt to your classrooms. The site draws from a number of blogs, articles, Twitter feeds, video sites, etc., and will hopefully provide some thought-provoking material. If you "subscribe," you will get an automatic email each week indicating that it's updated.

Video of the week Part I comes from PD360 and deals with the importance of setting objectives with students: http://www.pd360.com/index.cfm?ContentId=123

Video of the week Part II comes from the local high school soccer scene. Watch the video, and you will be amazed. 

Enjoy the weekend!

Medway Weekly and Other Links!

Hello everyone,

The Medway Weekly is available here:

paper.li/MedwayHSDean/1346850266


Also, some other links that you may find helpful or interesting:

From US News, an interesting article on student "thinking" skills, as opposed to memorization.

From EdWeek, a post on free speech for students.

Finally, a piece on "deeper learning," published on MindShift.


Enjoy!

News for September 14

News for September 14:

Thanks again to everyone for their assistance with last night's Open House. Parents were effusive in their praise of this school and your efforts for all our students As Doug indicated in his email, we would welcome any feedback on how to improve the night, which was, by and large, extremely positive. We will soon be holding Parent-Teacher Conferences, which will be scheduled soon. A procedure for those conferences will be distributed within the next two weeks, and thanks to those staff members who came to discuss Conferences with us this week.

As some of you may have heard, there was a car accident outside of school on Tuesday. Four students were in one vehicle, which was hit by an oncoming truck. All the students were taken by ambulance, but, fortunately, there were no major injuries. We were unaware of the accident until about 90 minutes it happened, which is something we will be working on improving so all of you can be better informed. We will continue to work with Officer Grimes on ways to ensure safety coming and going, particularly during the high traffic hours before and after school.

We also appreciate all the support and energy with study halls, passes, and vigilance in the corridors, as well as with keeping students actively engaged in class. There is an obvious lack of traffic in the halls during class periods - the more you keep them busy and engaged, the less the likelihood of students leaving and wandering! In terms of studies, Ms. Dolan distributed a revised procedure for student sign-in to avoid the bottlenecking of calls going to her the start of each period - that should go into effect next Tuesday/Wednesday, but please be patient as we iron out the hiccups at the beginning! It is also posted to this blog, and you can follow up with Mary as to any questions.

Speaking of revised procedures- we are working with the National Honor Society students on a better process for utilizing the NHS tutoring room to prevent some of the issues that arose last year. We expect to have that up and running within the next two weeks as well. More news to follow.

We had our first Student Assistance Team meeting this week; please, if you have a student who is struggling in your classes, fill out the referral form and communicate with the student's counselor. We want to try and reach as many students as possible - particularly those who would benefit from some specific academic interventions, not solely those students who may seem at-risk based on attendance or behavior. Be on the lookout on an email detailing and reminding about those procedures.

The Guidance Department met with seniors this week on the college planning process, and will be in with sophomores and juniors next week to discuss PSAT's. Ms. Lisk sent an email earlier this week regarding letters of recommendation and Naviance, but feel free to follow up with any questions.

News for activity advisors: please remind students who have signed up for your activities to get online and pay their fees - or to bring you or the office their fees directly, so we can get those processed quickly!

News "from the halls" (or, more specifically, from the returned Hall Duty sheets): so far, the most egregious situation involved a swinging locker door that remained open and two students who obviously took the long way from their study to their intended destination. The halls, so far, have been very clear and almost entirely incident-free - again, a tribute to everyone's work in the classroom. Keep it up!

As a reminder, Doug's blog can be found at medwayhighprincipal.blogspot.com. Our weekly "newspaper" of resources for teaching and learning can be found at http://paper.li/MedwayHSDean/1346850266.

There is no school on Monday due to the observance of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), so enjoy the long weekend!

New Library Signout Procedure

Starting Wednesday, Sept. 19 there will be a new procedure for students to use the library from study hall.

1. Sign in sheets for every period will be available in the library after 2:31 pm the day before and before 8:04 am the day of. Students will sign up for a slot either of these two times.
2. Students will report directly to the library and will be checked off the attendance list and will remain in the library for the entire study period.
3. If a student does not show up at your study it's a cut. Mrs. Dolan will change that cut to a lib in MMS for all those students who signed up and showed up each study period.
4. You may still give a student a 10 minute pass to return a book, check out a book, print off something etc. That pass will be signed when student returns to you. You may also give a pass to a student you are sending to the library to make up a quiz, test etc.  The library will not accept passes for the entire study period. Students must sign up ahead of time.
Thank you for your patience. Please call or email me if you have any questions.

Medway Weekly available!

This week's Medway Weekly is now available online.

Click here to read!

Medway Weekly!

Each week, we will be "publishing" an online newspaper that includes a number of relevant articles and ideas from various places on the web. Most of it is drawn from Twitter feeds and the related websites, and we hope that you will find many of the pieces enlightening. We may even find some new ideas for instructional or curricular implementation!

The Medway Weekly, which will be updated every 7-8 days or so, can be found at:

http://paper.li/MedwayHSDean/1346850266

Happy reading!

Fire Drill Procedures!

The first fire drill went relatively well on Tuesday, but we would like to tighten up some procedures.

All classes are reporting to the same area to which they reported last year. The Freshmen are reporting to the spot last year’s seniors occupied.

Please try to direct students to the far side of the tennis courts, beyond the nets. The check-in people from guidance and the main office will remain on the front court, which will help facilitate easy communication between homeroom teachers and attendance liaisons.

The Fire Chief has indicated that he will be implementing certain variables with future drills, which could include holding a student out of the line, to ensure that we are in fact monitoring attendance on the tennis courts appropriately. Please let us know if you have any questions about how to handle this correctly!

Picture Day Monday!

With many apologies for the continued disruptions that accompany the first week or so of school, Picture Day will be Monday, September 10. Students will be called to the auditorium by homeroom.

We expect to get through all the pictures fairly quickly, and students will return directly to class after having their photos taken. All students will have photos taken, regardless of whether they are ordering pictures, as these photos will be used for their student ID’s.

Finally, if any staff member did not have his/her photo taken in August, please find a few minutes to get to the auditorium and have it done on Monday

Upcoming Dates!

Coming Attractions:

September 11: We plan on holding our first faculty meeting of the year. An agenda will be forthcoming, but you can expect to begin discussing SMART goals and the frameworks around the teacher evaluation legislation.

September 13 is our Open House. This is NOT a time for parents to discuss individual students, but rather a time for you to review your syllabus, discuss course expectations, explain how parents can support your effort in the classroom, and give parents the best methods for communicating with you. The administration will meet with parents in the auditorium at 6:00, with parents beginning the program with teachers at 6:30.

September 17: There is no school!

September 20: The senior class is hosting a school year kickoff dance in the foyer from 7-10. If you are interested in chaperoning, see Ms. Ryan or Ms. Aigler, the class advisors.

September 26: There is no school!

October 6: The senior class is sponsoring a Boston Harbor dinner dance cruise. Again, if interested in chaperoning, see Ms. Aigler or Ms. Ryan.

Welcome!

Greetings!

We are hoping to use this space to share information as needed - much like a newsletter!