This week brings us closer to the closing date of first quarter grades, which will be on November 9, 2012. Parent-teacher conferences will be next week, which will hopefully give parents more of an idea of where students stand. If there are students in your classes who are struggling or in danger of failing - i.e. have less than a seventy but have been inconsistent - please reach out to those students' parents/guardians, or even school counselors. We don't want any families blindsided come mid-November!
Halloween Parade/Senior Dress-up
We met with the senior class officers this week to outline our expectations. The timeline and specific details will be coming from Ms. Ryan early next week, but you can expect the seniors to be done with the festivities by the end of second period on Friday. Specifically, we discussed that this senior class has been outstanding so far in terms of meeting our expectations and rising to the occasion, and we do not expect next Friday to be any different.
Ideally, there will be no need for cleanup, but the students will be handling that on their own. We also have promises from them to avoid any air horns or silly string - and that their lack of compliance with our requests for some manner of decorum will potentially result in our lack of support for future events. As we seek to impart on them an understanding of RESPONSIBILITY and RESPECT, we hope that you will echo that thought - that we think they can do what we ask, not simply post a list of things we don't want to see.
Again, more details will be out early next week.
SMART Goals
We had asked for draft SMART goals to be submitted by Friday, October 19; those of you who need additional time, please make sure you check in, so we can have everyone on the same page heading into the next couple of weeks! Again, if you wish to know if you are on or off cycle, see Doug, Dot, or Mike.
Student Leadership "Senate"
Beginning Monday, October 29, Mike will be meeting periodically with a group assembled from a representative from each club/activity/class. The goals are to bring all the agendas together to find ways that all clubs can support one another, as well as to get some of the divergent fundraising needs under a common umbrella. Many people have expressed at least a subtle frustration with the amount of fundraising that goes on - and how faculty and staff are repeatedly hit for money! We want to try and find a basis for the different groups to support one another, both in terms of finances and mission, as well to find some priorities that we, as a school, can support in full.
Field Trips Update
As the year continues, and folks start to request more field trips, please be respectful of the time that students will spend out of the building and that a teacher may spend away from class. There are some concerns when a teacher leaves the building with a group of 15 and leaves 100 behind. Also, we need to build into the field trip costs opportunities for all students to go - we don't want anyone left behind because he/she cannot afford the trip.
We have set up a calendar in FirstClass so people can see when a particular field trip has already been booked. Again, we love opportunities for learning to occur outside Medway High School, but we may need to be creative in finding chaperones or finding opportunities for all students in a particular course/grade/subject/etc. to get access to these opportunities. Anyone with ideas - we're open to suggestions!
AP Results
We'd like to to thank the Department Chairs for being part of the process of sharing AP results at this week's School Committee meeting. We had the task of reporting on AP, MCAS, SAT, and ACT results, and having each share with their curricular level of expertise made for a great joint effort. Feel free to consult with them if you're interested in any of the results and/or the specifics.
Committee Updates
Two different committees from a district level have met in the past two weeks: Literacy Action Planning and PD Planning. Many thanks to Aubrie Rojee and Kelly Bliss for serving on each, respectively. We hope to use both committees as platforms for bringing ideas to and from the high school staff, as well as assessing the needs of this building in the context of the district goals. As more information is made available, we will hopefully disseminate that to the rest of the building.
Videos of the Week
PD 360 Video of the Week: Heidi Hayes Jacobs "Mapping to the Core: Planning for Curriculum Success" - Part 2 Segment 2 of 4 of this program. In this webinar, participants gain an overview of an innovative learning experience provided by Mapping to the Core LiveBook and LivePlanner, written by Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs and the Curriculum21 team. Click Here!
Resource of the Week: A great piece on how students learn from Educational Psychology (the infographic is particularly easy to follow!)
Article of the Week: We shared this on the high school conference, but if you missed it: here are five tips on having a better parent-teacher conference.
Video of the Week: Where do good ideas come from?
Remember - you can follow Mike on Twitter, @MedwayHSDean and the Medway Weekly, our journal of weekly resources, can be found at: http://paper.li/MedwayHSDean/1346850266#
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