Weekly News and Notes

First off, thanks to everyone for such a productive PD day on Friday. There was a range of terrific discussions, and the work that everyone seemed to be completing was relevant, practical, and focused. We hope that the format was equally as productive for all of you.

In the interest of the long weekend, this week's news will be brief, but hopefully there will be something for everyone!

PSAT Day Next Wednesday

On October 16, we are administering the PSAT to all sophomores and juniors. There will be homeroom that day to facilitate attendance easily. We'll make sure to have a hard copy in your mailboxes, in case you can't see the homeroom in MMS.

The list of people proctoring PSAT as of right now can be found here. There have been a couple of changes made since Tuesday's faculty meeting, so take note if you can!

Incidentally, some parents have called wondering if the day is a full day of school. Like with MCAS, the periods after the PSAT should be regular periods. You may wish to pare down the amount of material covered that day, but those days are full days of school!

PLC Time

We have been making an effort to get to PLC time to help facilitate people's initial meetings in what could be new groups with the hope that that could be helpful. We indicated at the faculty meeting that a success analysis may be the best place to start. A protocol for getting that started can be found here; also, the log for the period can be found here.

Lest we take ourselves too seriously, this appeared in last week's paper and made me immediately think of some "peer coaching" that could happen:

SMART Goals

If you are looking for the templates for SMART goals, here are several:

Completed 2-Goals Form for Standards-Based lesson plans and Common Assessments

Completed 2-Goal Form for New Course Development and Common Assessments

Single Goal: Student Learning Goal on Common Assessments:

Single Goal: Student Learning Goal on DDM's

Single Goal: Professional Goal for Newly Created Course Development

Single Goal: Professional Goal for Standards-based Lesson Plan Development:

Lesson Plan Template:



Activity and Athletic Schedule

Stay posted to the calendar, found here and Doug's blog, for all our updates to the activity and athletic schedule. There will be a handful of service initiatives coming up, as well as events such as NHS induction, homecoming dance, and some fundraisers. As the end of October draws near, there will be several playoff-bound teams that would love our support as well!


Classes of the Week

Mr. Lemos' Human Geography class was starting a new project; presuming the Zombie Apocalypse, the students were researching areas of the world in which they could construct shelters and how those areas would impact their decision-making in terms of politics, economics, etc.

Mr. Lovett and Mr. Ryan were co-teaching a unit on types of angles in Common Core Math II, with both teachers providing supportive instruction to students on practice problems.

Weekly Resources

For a couple quick reads, check out the blog post on Project-based learning myths; there's also a quick read I added on student engagement from the perspective of the kids.

The entire work can be found here.


Happy reading, and have a great weekend!