Weekly News and Notes

As we wind down the month of November and enter the month of December, some things we need EVERYONE (that's right, EVERYONE) to be aware of:

1. Homeroom attendance is a daily responsibility and requirement. Please... take your attendance accurately every day. That means keeping an eye on students who are skirting past the office and into homerooms late. Avoid the confrontation with them at all costs, but if you've posted attendance as announcements start, simply send Wanda an email indicating who may have come in after the bell, so we can deal with it. There are some students who are hustling past the office and down to homeroom after the bell; marking them present without any ramifications or consequences undermines those who are holding the proverbial line.

2. To that end - when you check period attendance and notice that a student is there but was marked absent in MMS, PLEASE LET THE OFFICE KNOW! (This is especially important in the first two periods of the day!) Often times that helps us with our record-keeping and finding out if a student has arrived late and bypassed procedures, or just human error has occurred. Either way, we need to have an accurate record of who is in the building (and who is not).

3. If either of these requests seems uncertain, or you need support on either request, please let us know, and we will be happy to assist.

Again, attendance for the past couple of weeks, after a decent start, has deteriorated in terms of its overall accuracy. Please... take your attendance, both in homeroom and in class, accurately EVERY DAY.

The Wanderers

A few things on passes that we are noticing and reacting to:

We have a few members of our community who are wearing out the tread on their shoes wandering around. Feel free to NOT issue some of these students passes. We are all working on finding appropriate ways to respond aside from sending them out, and we have made attempts to be as proactive and progressive with discipline as possible. That said, it's an ongoing process, and imperfect.

Also:

Please be judicious in giving passes at the end of the day. Last period hall duty folks are reporting a number of students out, particularly from study, and particularly after 2:15. Those students are leaving and not going back. You have the right to say: "no, wait until the end of the day," or "you can go, but if you don't come back, don't expect to go again." It would cut down on a lot of our wandering at day's end!

Thanks for the support on this - we have done a great job --- all of us --- on cutting down the number of students in the corridor, and we want to keep this up!

New Teacher Evaluation System

Many of you have already started working on SMART goals and the new teacher evaluation system, including gathering evidence and artifacts to support your proficiency on specific indicators. Some plans are in place to utilize PD360 to support you in those efforts. As that occurs, we will be sure to forward them and train the necessary people.

Also, as many people have been sharing SMART goals with evaluators, department heads, administrators, and peers, we will be compiling a centralized database of all SMART goals. That will allow people to see who is working on what, and folks could then potentially meet during free periods to discuss their goals and determine ways to support one another. One of the administrative goals would be to support people through the provision of that time and to achieve their goals. Again, more details to follow.


Activity Calendar

Some parents and students had indicated a need to have all schedules centralized as to what is happening in the building. To that end, we have worked on establishing a calendar through Google that combines activities, events, field trips, and athletics; it can be found publicly at: Medway Activities Calendar It is also showing up on this blog homepage, as well as Doug's blog.

Holiday Giving Project

Thanks to all who have volunteered to assist with the Holiday Giving Project. Students from SADD and Peer Counselors will be collecting next week, beginning on Monday. There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm among the students, so let's encourage them to give as much as they can!

Links of the Week:

For those who are working on blended learning, this is a terrific article: http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-flipped-classroom-model-a-full-picture/

A couple of good videos: This first one explains Common Core using illustrations.

For those involved in inquiry-based learning:

 

Weekly News and Notes

Happy Thanksgiving season, everyone!

First off, what a remarkably busy couple of weeks it has been. Between post-season games of our athletic teams, the production of Midsummer Night's Dream, faculty meetings, the Halloween parade, Superstorm Sandy, and the end of the first term, it has been a sprint to this fast-approaching long weekend.

Medway Boys Soccer plays Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Worcester State College against Groton-Dunstable for the state championship, and the cheerleaders compete for the state championship on Sunday at Shrewsbury High School, beginning at 3. We had more than 300 supporters at Braintree for soccer on Wednesday and expect a huge crowd on Saturday as well! Whatever happens, it has been a remarkable ride for a great group of young men.

Next week, the Powderpuff game is on Monday night; Mr. Christie is looking for folks to serve as referees for the game. The Homecoming Dance is Tuesday night from 7-10; again, we hope many of you will be there to chaperone.

On Wednesday, expect to be called to the gym late morning, about an hour before school lets out, for the rally. We hope to have a full schedule from student council next week.

Holiday Giving Project


Thanks to those who have already volunteered - but we need more teacher support! Here is the message that went out on the conference earlier this week:

Our Peer Counselors and SADD will be co-sponsoring a Holiday Giving Project that will take place for much of the month of December, in which students will be donating items that will support those in need - including toys, gifts, wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, etc.

How can faculty be involved?

We asking staff to VOLUNTEER to participate by offering incentives for donation. Coupons would be given to students when they donate, and the coupon can be exchanged for anything a teacher sees fit - bonus points on a quiz, the opportunity to hand an assignment in a day late, a "get out of homework free," etc. Teachers would VOLUNTEER to participate; they would be given a coupon from a student signed by the Peer Counselors or SADD representative upon receipt of the item, which will be collected in the foyer before school. The teacher could then post what the coupon could be redeemed for, as well as a deadline. Those teachers who are participating would have their names posted on a flyer so students would know who is involved, and the student would be allowed to use the coupon once only - that's once, with one teacher, not once PER teacher.

We are are sensitive to those that may not be able to afford to purchase a toy or gift, but there are other ways to volunteer  - i.e. helping with delivering or collecting, donating less expensive, consumable items such as gift wrap or tape, helping with wrapping gifts, etc. That way, everyone has an opportunity to participate and give back.

The PA announcement that will go out, and which will be included on the flyer, would read something like:

"From now until Christmas, Medway High School will be coordinating a charity called the Holiday Giving Project.  Students are asked to donate anything an underprivileged family may need during the holiday season.  This may include small gifts for children ages 1-18, wrapping paper, clothing, food items, ribbon, or decorative lights.  Students who donate to the Holiday Giving Project will receive Bonus Points on a quiz or test, and/or a homework pass from any participating teacher, as well as GOOD Karma!  See the list posted around the building for teachers who will be participating in the event.  Peer Counselors and SADD members will be posted in the main foyer beginning on December 3 at 7:30 a.m.  So start donating, Medway!"

The spirit of this is to build community and offer opportunities to give to a number of organizations. There is nothing quite like the students standing in front of several car loads of toys and gifts going to different organizations! Peer Counselors and SADD have already been in touch with a couple of groups, including homeless shelters, battered women shelters, and local hospitals, and we will hopefully have enough to support all these groups.

If you wish to donate items yourselves, feel free! (No, there will be no "get out of a faculty meeting free" coupon" from the administration!)

If you wish to participate, please reply to me by Monday so I can get the names to the Peer Counselors and SADD student coordinators, so they can build their flyers for December. If you do not, please disregard this email and do not reply.

ItsLearning Home Page

We have started looking at the High School Itslearning page as a better spot for parents to land; when you click on it, you should begin seeing some of the information filtering into it as a landing page. Most of the information will be relative for parents and students, including links, resources, calendars, Doug's blog, etc. Let me know if you have any ideas for material to include on it as the district continues to move toward more blended learning environments!

Discipline Totals:

An analysis of discipline actions for the first quarter, compared over the past two years, is included below:

This follows suit with the total number of incidents of conflict or aggressive behavior (the more "passive" forms of incidents, such as cutting teacher detention or cutting class, are all down):


The conclusion:

As Vince Lombardi once said, “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Each person in the school community has quickly been normed to the social and civic expectations of our student body. The students have set the tone themselves, arriving at class, by and large, when expected, and being, if nothing else, compliant. They have responded to positive reinforcement, the consistent message being delivered about rewards for what is done correctly rather than consequences for “gotcha” situations.

We have looked for ways to catch people doing “right,” not wrong, and mentioned that with detail. The ability to spend more time outside the office and in classrooms has also afforded additional visibility and helped create a cycle of positive behavior, as not as much time has been needed to be spent in the office responding to constant infraction. The fewer incidents also allows additional time to be spent counseling and intervening where needed.

Consistency will be challenged, and infractions beyond the scope of those addressed in the first quarter will no doubt arise, but the message will continue to be clear, and the response appropriate, when needed.

To Vince Lombardi’s quote: everyone owns a piece of this success so far, and the cooperation to proactive work with students and families, as opposed to conflict-driven reaction to behaviors, perhaps impacts these statistics the most.

Editor's Note: This will not publish formally next week. Enjoy the week!

Video of the Week: Something lighter this time around!

Weekly News and Notes

Happy long weekend!

The first quarter officially ended on Friday, November 9, and we hope that many will find the time to finish closing out grades in the next few days. The Report card will be issued on November 19 - please remember to post grades and comments! If you have questions on how to finalize both comments and grades, see a department head or administrator, but we trust that is fairly old hat for almost all of you!

Sarah Hope Signing Letter of Intent!

Stop by the foyer next Wednesday immediately after school, as senior Sarah Hope signs her National Letter of Intent to play basketball at Boston University. According to Officer Grimes, Sarah will be Medway's first ever Division I basketball recruit and scholarship athlete! We plan on a brief ceremony, followed by some refreshments, and it would be a great show of our school community's support for Sarah during this exciting opportunity!

Student Leadership Senate

The student leaders of almost all the groups, along with several advisors, met on Tuesday morning to discuss common goals and procedures for all of the student groups to follow. The meeting was pretty positive, and minutes have been posted to the new "it's learning" group for student activities. It will have an online message board and discussion forum, a calendar of events, and a logo of minutes and agendas for those meetings, so that all groups can be on the same page.

One of the key ideas that came from Tuesday's meeting will be the concept of targeted and focused fundraising, where the group or organization will be required to indicate how the money raised will be used to benefit student life and the community at large. While all groups need money, it will put some goals in front of the students and enable others to see, transparently, what the funds will be used for.

We will be looking at holding a toy and non-perishable drive in December to benefit some needy families and children, and several groups have offered to take part. There will more information forthcoming on how faculty can be involved without having to reach into its wallet!

Midsummer Night's Dream

If you haven't caught it already, be sure to check out the Medway High School Drama Club's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The student actors are wonderful and the production extremely well done! You will be amazed by the work of some of our students who may appear on the quieter side on a daily basis - be sure to check it out and congratulate them on a job well done!

To that end, the middle school was here Friday with all of their seventh and eighth graders. We join Mr. Christie in applauding them for being a captive and respectful audience, and, moving forward, we hope to accomplish more of these type of days that assists with vertical alignment and potentially some interaction between the schools on a curricular and extra-curricular level.

Discipline Totals

Not to jinx anything, but we went the entire first quarter without a single out-of-school or in-school suspension, and the first Saturday detentions of the year were assigned this week. Let's keep that streak up!

Study Hall, Corridors, and Passes

To say that everything has been perfect would be an exaggeration, though. While 99% of the hall duty reports have come back with the building clear and students where they are supposed to be, there have been a couple of anomalies in the past week or so that bear mentioning.

First, if a student asks for a pass from Study Hall to another area of the building (guidance, computer lab, etc.), PLEASE CALL FIRST! Sometimes there is a class in the lab, or guidance is booked. Generally, people have been very good about following this procedure, but we want to make sure students don't start taking advantage of any situations!

Second, if students in study ask for a pass in the last few minutes, be wary of giving it to them. Often times, they are going to a locker and then wandering for a few minutes. Just check the clock and make sure students are going and coming back within an appropriate window - there have been a few students wandering a bit more this week. If you think a student was wandering, or took too long to complete a simple task, just say no next time!

To that end - every minute is valuable. Students lining up at the door (or outside the door, in some cases) should not be the norm. If classes are running bell-to-bell, the likelihood of students sneaking out a minute or two early goes way down.

Finally, we have gotten a few questions about iPods and other technology during studies. Generally, this issue has been handled on a case-by-case basis. That said, the use of the iPod, laptop, etc. in class or study should be linked to an academic purpose. (If a student is in the study, without anything to do except watch Netflix on his/her iPad or play video games, there is likely a broader conversation to be had about rigor, the number of studies a student may have, or the purpose of them to begin with!) So if a student is refusing to stop watching movies or playing games on his/her iPod, especially after being warned, let us know.

Links of the Week

There is a wonderful collection of lesson plans and teacher resources aligned with the Common Core embedded in this article from US News.

For those that teach the research process, Edudemic published 15 lesson plans for teaching effective researching skills.

Videos of the Week

This quick video discusses the positive aspects of Project-based learning.



From PD360: A video on how to prepare a technology-infused lesson


Have a great weekend!

Weekly News & Notes

Good afternoon!

We trust that everyone has gotten somewhat back into the swing of things with this shortened week. We were all certainly tested this week - with continuity in terms of our classes, two days to potentially sleep in followed by three wake-ups, and the struggle of getting back to routine amid all that occurred earlier in the week. We hope that the storm was weathered by all with relative ease and that the clean-ups at your home(s) has gone smoothly.

Please remember to take consistent attendance! We would also ask that all teachers in first period make sure that they report any discrepancies - as we mentioned at the first day meeting several weeks ago, checking attendance helps perform a simple cross-check to ensure that all students we expect in class are there. We appreciate the cooperation!

Be sure to get out and root, root, root for the home team. Hopefully, girls soccer will advance, having opened tournament play on Friday afternoon. Boys soccer (5:00) and volleyball (7:00) both play on Sunday, November 4.








GRADES CLOSE NEXT FRIDAY

Just a reminder that grades close next Friday, November 9. Report cards are issued on November 19. Please, if you need assistance with posting grades or comments, let someone know!

News on the Teacher Evaluation Process

Okay, so maybe things aren't quite as dire as the cartoon above. But Dr. Dias has started to meet with teachers who are "beginning educators" or non-professional status to review goals and plans for the coming year. Within the next couple of weeks we expect to be able to start having these conversations with teachers who are professional status and on-cycle as well. We hope to work with everyone on ways to streamline the processes and use the tools we have at our disposal, including Atlas Rubicon and PD360, so that we can hit multiple tasks with similar evidence. Thank you for your patience as we work through the process together!


Other News:

The Student Leadership Senate, with a representative leader from each club/activity/grade, will be meeting Tuesday morning in the conference room. The agenda will involve discussions on how organizations can complement one another, work toward similar missions, and combine efforts, as well as target fundraising to avoid overkill.

The Student Council is in the process of developing some plans for senior privileges. More information to follow as that plan comes to fruition.

Field trips: with some class time having been compromised by the storms, we will be reluctant to approve any more field trips for the next few weeks. Our weeks are shortened enough, and there is the short Thanksgiving week coming as well, so please try to plan these events, when necessary, across grade levels, with department chair consultation, and around other schedules.


PD360 Video of the Week: http://www.pd360.com/index.cfm?ContentId=2819 . This video deals with Metacognition, a terrific skill to embed in writing assignments that helps students self-reflect. If you aren't doing it, it is a simple 5-10 point add-on to every assignment. See Mike for any resources on it if you're interested.

Other video: This quickie is a neat little video on brainstorming, a skill we all use from time to time: 

Have a great week!