We hope this message finds everyone well and having survived a long week! To echo the sentiments of the parents and other missives that have been sent, great job with parent-teacher conferences this week! Parents have been effusive with their compliments and impressions left after Wednesday. Now we just need to sustain momentum!
Some of the parents have been inquiring about callbacks. One recommendation is to handle those by email, and perhaps to focus the conversation you could send the grade report, along with a couple of open-ended questions for the parent. Something along the lines of: "In order to focus our conversation, I would like you to respond to a couple of questions. 1. What concerns about this class do you have? 2. What do you see as your child's strengths/weaknesses? 3. How can we work together to support ___ with this class?" You may find the parent answering the questions for you and keeping the virtual conversation brief! (If you happen to see Jay Rojee, he used a similar format to occupy waiting parents on Wednesday).
Again, if you have any dire concerns - make the call. If you need any of us to support you with what could be a tricky conversation, let us know and we're happy to be there. Again, with grades closing very soon, we don't want anyone being broadsided!
Student Discipline Statistics!
We are having a great year thanks to everyone's collective efforts. Here is a look at the discipline totals through the first five cycles of the schedule from last year to this year:
You will see that the biggest change has been in the decrease of actual office consequences. Detentions are down from 76 at this point last year to 23, and suspensions have been reduced from 29 (out-of-school and in-school) to 0! Thus, as you may expect, the number of incidents reported are down, from 135 to 60, through the same number of days. This is a credit to everyone, from all the classes to the students, and it has enabled us to spend some time processing with the actual incidents that are reported, since there aren't constant proverbial fires to put out.
So thank you! Thank you for the great start and working with students to set this type of tone, and while we are not so naive as to think that these incidents won't pop up as the year progresses, we are off to a terrific start.
To those looking for some additional classroom tips, check out this video, circa 1947. I'm sure Mr. Grimes (yes, that is this teacher's name) shares some of our frustrations on our worst days, but the first couple of minutes will definitely give you a laugh!
Halloween Parade
Thanks to Ms. Ryan, Ms. Aigler, and the class officers for today's event and its relative smoothness. Yes, there was the usual hooting and hollering throughout the hallway, but the halls were completely cleared within ten minutes of its end. According to some of the records, there were 40 fewer student dismissals and about 30 fewer absences. Once again, these seniors have met the task, for the most part, with which we have charged them and rose to the occasion!
SMART Goals and Ed Eval
In the coming weeks, those who are on cycle can expect something more formal from an evaluator as to a follow-up on SMART goals and beginning the cycle of evaluation. As we get more direction on the procedural pieces, we will do our best to work everyone through the inception of the process with as little stress as possible.
Field Trip Approval
We know that many of you are eager to bring students to extensions of our classrooms and go on field trips. For the purpose of clarification: please discuss these field trip opportunities with your department heads and colleagues in advance of bringing them forward. We would like to extend opportunities to more students - and provide equitable chances for all students in a given course, subject, etc. That said, we have to balance these opportunities with time on task in teh classroom (and the time sacrificed away from other classes). And, as weather conditions may become an issue, we may ask that certain trips be kept until springtime.
Student Leadership Group
Just a reminder to all clubs/activities that the Student Leadership Representative Group will meet Monday morning at 7:15 in the office; all clubs, activities, and classes should be represented. If you wish to attend, feel free!
Boys Soccer Team : 2012 TVL Champions!
Congratulations to the boys soccer team on clinching the TVL Championship on Thursday with a 1-0 win against Hopkinton. We know that many of you will join in rooting for our volleyball, boys soccer, and girls soccer teams as they make their way to the postseason!
PD360 Video of the Week:
For those of you who are focusing on implementing more specific assessment tools, the following videos may help:
Formative Assessment Strategies: http://www.pd360.com/index.cfm?ContentId=2515
The How of Assessment: http://www.pd360.com/index.cfm?ContentId=138
Link of the Week: For those of you on Twitter, this article provides an educator's guide to #Hashtags that can be used to assist with your own professional learning.
Let's hope Sandy stays good and west of here so we can avoid this:
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