What a week!
First, many, many thanks to all who participated in MCAS, had their rooms moved by MCAS, had to make quick changes because of additional spacing needs, who prepared and reinforced concepts for our students in advance of MCAS, proctored MCAS, or welcomed staff into their spaces because of classroom changes... so, basically, everyone.
We had an incredibly smooth testing week. There were a couple of hiccups which were fixed quickly, and we had one reported security incident that was determined by the state to be minor and did not result in a voided result.
Overall, great job. We have nine MCAS makeups for next week, after which we can turn our attention to the math test in May.
PARCC Pilot
The PARCC pilot will be given to about 80 students on Monday and Tuesday. The full roster was published on the high school conference. The only rooms impacted are on the main floor of the math wing, and the test is timed - so after 90 minutes we know it is over!
Assemblies
We rarely have full-school assemblies, so the respect and focus shown by our students today as our Student Government and Peer Buddies co-sponsored our speaker as part of the "Spread the Word to End the Word" campaign. We are hoping that this discussion opens up a bigger conversation about some other words that are used insensitively by our students.
At any rate, many thanks to Ms. Ryan, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Tighe for spearheading the effort!
Looking Ahead
The coming weeks will hopefully bring some more details in terms of scheduling - we are still waiting on final decisions in terms of budget, which remains in discussion at the School Committee level. Hopefully, we'll have some answers within the next couple of weeks - but we are starting to run some different scenarios that will give us a sense of what courses can and will run - and where.
If you have questions about evaluation portfolios, please see your evaluator. If you handed in a formative last year, and have questions about what your summative should include (if you are year two), feel free to ask. By the same token, teachers who are non-professional status should similarly confirm what is needed for the summative, as those deadlines are rapidly approaching.
If you haven't already done so, and you have an iPad or iPhone, download the Medway sports app. It is awesome! Many kudos to Mr. Pearl for making it happen.
