November 28th, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

Thank you to everyone who brought in food for the food pantry at St. Michaels.  It was a fun competition to benefit those in need.  Huge thank you to Ms. Hooker for setting it up with the PEER Leaders!

Last year we discussed ways to improve parent communication and many people discussed the possibility of sending out a newsletter but weren't sure how to do it or what to include.  Sometimes seeing one allows us the opportunity to see how it can be done.  The 5th grade recently sent out their November Newsletter and it was great.  They included information, pictures, and even recourses for parents to help their students at home.  Great work!

Nuts and Bolts:

Help us start our day on the right food by making some song selections!

There is a saying that the walls and halls of a school speak to what the school is like.  I am always amazed at the pride students take when they see their art-work displayed from Mrs. Naimo's class.  As we are approaching a change in bulletin boards please try your best to place great student work on display, and please remember to check your schedules for bulletin boards.

Also please be sure to consult the press-release schedule.  When you are submitting a Press - Release please be sure to send it us first so we can see it and then pass it along to Gerri for publication.

12 Days of Christmas is coming...be sure to check out what each day has to offer!

Advisory:  In our meeting with Team Leaders it was brought up that the advisory programs have not had a chance to bond as well as we would have liked because we were preparing for SLC's.  In order to allow for a chance to make this happen we will be having a Winter Wonderland competition.  Please see go to the Google Classroom Advisory page for more details.

Holiday Breakfast -- On December 16th we will be having a Holiday Breakfast and EVERYONE is welcome in the Teacher's Room to enjoy in the festivities.  Instead of having a certain team responsible for the breakfast we will be doing it pot-luck style.  Click here to sign up to bring to bring a holiday treat and make sure we don't have 12 people bringing in the same thing.

Second will be on Jan 20th before school.

Third will be the Super Bowl Competition on February 3rd -- Bring in your own soup or chili dish for others to try.

Grading -- As a school we have many different types of grading systems, and even within grade levels we have different grading systems.  Next year we are looking to have one type of grading system either points or percents.  As you meet in teams please make this a topic that is covered, as we will be looking for teacher input as to which system we will be moving towards next year.

Dates:

November 28      Faculty Meeting -- Departmental

December 5                 Faculty Meeting

December 9                 7th-8th Grade Dance

December 12               Faculty Meeting

December 13               Holiday Concert
December 16 Staff Breakfast
December 23               Winter Wonderland Assembly in APR-- 12:30 -- 


Tips:

The Best Books for Middle School According to My Students

November 14, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

SLC’s were a success!  All last week we saw students arriving who felt all different emotions from nervous, to excited, to apprehensive, but when they left after their conference was over they all seemed proud for being able to present their portfolios to their parents.  Thank you for all the work you put into these conferences!  We have all been working since the summer to make this a positive experience, and at least from the parent’s perspective it was successful.  Check out the results of our survey HERE.  If you haven’t already please be sure to fill out the teacher survey so we learn how the experience was for teachers.  

Nuts and Bolts:

• We removed the bells at the beginning and end of the day, but please remember to say the Pledge of Allegiance in your classroom on a daily basis.  

• Tuesday is Advisory, but we would like to learn from our students how they felt about the conferences.  During our Advisory time we would like students to meet with their Advisory Leader in the room you were practicing in to hear from the students how they think the program went.  We will be putting in a survey into Google Classroom that we would like all students to take.  We would also like you to help lead a discussion to learn what they thought was positive about the experience and what they would like to see changed or altered for the spring time.  

• Wednesday Grades are due, please be sure to have them posted by 3 PM.  This year we have changed the comments to match the Great Student Rubric.  If you have questions about how this works please see Tim or me.

• ELA Teachers we would like to have students complete the next round of STAR assessments by Wednesday of this week.  They can take the assessment Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

• Wednesday is Parent Visitation Day.  We can’t wait for the parents to see the innovative and exciting lessons you have waiting for the students.  We will arrange for chairs to be placed in your rooms so the parents have a place to sit. 

• Food Drive Challenge! The Peer Leaders will be collecting non-perishable food items next week during lunch in the All Purpose room-place your food items in the correct box by grade level. The grade level to collect the most food items will receive a special treat!! Stay tuned for hints on what that may be.  Food collected starting on Monday, November 14th to Friday, November 18th

• Attention All 6-7 and 8th grade girls interested in joining the Rams Cheerleading Squad for 2016-2017 season. Forms are available outside of Mrs. Smith’s room 105. Please take a form quickly as all necessary paper-work is due by November 18th. I look forward to an exciting season cheering on our fabulous girls and boys basketball team.

• Support the 2017 6th Grade Trip to Frost Valley- clean out your closets and donate clothing, shoes, belts, and toys! Donations accepted now till November 16th – drop off at the main entrance!

• Newspapers are still needed for the Art Room.  If you have newspapers that you could bring in please send them to Linda, she could definitely use them.  

Dates:

November 14           Faculty Meeting

November 16           BOE Meeting
November 18 Spotlight 2:30PM in APR --Link is active

November 23 Early Dismissal

November 24-25     School Closed

November 28           Faculty Meeting

Tips:

What is gamification, and can I try it in my classroom?  Watch this brief video to learn what it is about.

October 17, 2016

 

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. -- e.e. cummings






Great Things Noticed:

Nuts and Bolts:

Our Swipe Station is now fully operational.  Please make sure you are signing in and out using this station as it will replace the book we previously used.  As a reminder teachers need to be signed in by 8:32 and can sign out 3:40 or later.

Thank you to all of you who helped out and/or walked for the Hudson Farm Charity Hike!  Over $16, 000 was raised for our school district!!!

Picture day will be on Thursday of this week.  In the past we have called students down alphabetically to take photographs and it has caused a disruption to our school day.  This year we are going to have students report to Open Space during their Gym or Spanish time period that day.  Teachers we are asking you to please remind students in homeroom that they will report to Open Space instead of their Gym or Spanish time on Thursday, and they will need to bring their picture money with them.

Monday October 31st, is Halloween.  Please remind students they will not be allowed to show up in their Halloween Costumes.   Students will put on their Halloween costumes during their recess period.  This means students will need to bring their costumes with them to lunch on Halloween and they will transform into character in Open Space.  There are no clown costumes of any kind that will be allowed.  During periods 15-16 students will vote in that class period for the costume that is their favorite.  Teachers please let your team leaders know who the finalists are in your grade level as they will be calling the student names.  During periods 17-18 we will call grade levels down to the APR where we will be holding our contest.

Teachers every year the students have LOVED seeing you dress up and in costume and we hope you are able to participate and gear up in your costume after lunch.  There will be a staff competition in the APR as well with some prizes.

Upcoming Events:

October 19 Board Meeting 7:00 PM
                   Parent OutReach 7:00 PM
                   Flu Shots-2:45- 3:45 BIS

October 20 Picture Day During Spanish and Gym

October 24 Faculty Meeting

October 31 Halloween Assembly Periods 17- 18

October 10, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

We would like to thank you for the work you put into today's in-service program both in the morning and the afternoon.  I am excited about our student-led conferences and the work the students will be able to share with their parents.  Tonight we have a parent meeting to describe the process for parents, and Tim and I have been coming into lunches to discuss this shift as well.  

Nuts & Bolts:

We will have police officers in today during lunches to talk about the "creepy clowns" that have been posted on social media.  According to the police there have been no confirmed reports of "creepy clowns" in Byram, and police will come in today to help keep students calm, let they know they are safe, and talk about best practices to stay safe in any situation.  We will be sending out an email today to inform parents that we did have the police in to talk to students.

During periods 9-12 if a student is having difficulty with a locker please call the main office so we can have someone help the student instead of calling Harold.  During this time Harold has his lunch and we would like him to enjoy it.

Dates:

October 10               Staff in Service

October 11              Advisory Starts

                                 Parents -- SLC Meeting-7pm

October 15               SGO's Due
Hudson Farm Hike

October 19               Board Meeting

October 24              Faculty Meeting


Tech Tip:

Mentimeter.com was the website we used for cloud sourcing ideas at the start of the meeting on Monday. Feel free to use it with your class, however be aware that it is anonymous and student will be able to write what they please.

October 2, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

Nuts & Bolts:
***Please continue to monitor who is signing out in your rooms carefully.
Monday: Respect for Others- It's World Day of Bullying Prevention,

Wear a blue shirt

Tuesday: Respect for Differences- Mix it up!  Wear mismatched clothing.

Wednesday: Respect For Peace- Wear tie-dye, white or peace signs.

Thursday: Respect For Environment- Wear green

Friday: Respect For School and Community- Wear school colors (blue and

gold), or Byram apparel.



Dates:

October 3                Faculty Meeting

October 5                Mid point/ Marking Period 1

                                Parent Outreach Meeting-7pm

                                

October 7                Spotlight

October 10              Staff in Service

October 11              Advisory Starts

                                Parents -- SLC Meeting-7pm

October 15              SGO's Due
Hudson Farm Hike

October 19              Board Meeting

October 24              Faculty Meeting




Tech Tips:

Gmail Tips 
Creating and using contact groups can save you a lot of time when you're sending messages to groups of parents, colleagues, or students. Watch the video below to learn how to create a contact group.

September 25, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

Nuts & Bolts:

• SGO's are due October 15th

• Our inservice on October 10th will be focusing on our Student-Led conferences. Make sure you are discussing this at team meetings to come up with a plan for how students will present their information and work.

• Teachers will be required to submit two PDP’s before meeting with John and Tim.  Once PDP can be a grade level or school-wide goal such as Student-Led-Conferences, while the other PDP should be tied to one of the Domains in the Danielson Model.  PDPs can be created in the Genesis Evaluation Portal. Once logged in, access the Professional Development Tab, choose Plans, then Create New Plan for 2016-2017.  You will then be walked through the process of creating your PDP. Genesis will ask you to fill in the same areas as the State PDP Template & Sample PDP. When you decide on your PDP and begin inputting the information, you will be asked to identify start/end dates.  Start date can be 10/1/2016 and end day will be May 1st. Please let John or Tim know if you have any questions.

• Please be sure to put any after school, or grade-level activities on our Parent Calendar, we will be sending it to parents at the end of the week.

• This Thursday team meetings will center around our I&RS process. Please bring any questions or concerns you might have.

• Don't forget to make your song requests for the morning. You can submit requests as many times as you like.

• Our first Spotlight will be taking place on Friday October 7th.  We will begin calling you down one grade level at a time beginning at 2:20.  We will be reviewing our three core values at the Spotlight, please be sure to connect our award winners to one of those three values:
• Find Your Passion
• Strive for Excellence
• Be Kinder than Necessary

Dates:

September 26 Faculty Meeting

September 28 6th Grade leaves for Frost Valley

September 28 Board Meeting 7:00 PM

October 3 Faculty Meeting

October 5th First Parent Outreach meeting with parents at 7:00PM
October 7th Spotlight - 2:20 in APR

October 10th Inservice Focusing on Student Led Conferences
October 11th Parent meeting for SLC

October 15th SGO's due

Tech Tip:

When doing research Google Scholar can be a great resource. It eliminates search results that are not full of advertising and provides students with primary sources.

September 16, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

This has been a spectacular first week!  Thank you everyone for all your hard work in getting back in the swing of things.  All the students have seemed to transition in nicely from the summer and everyone played such a big role in making that happen...so THANK YOU!!!  

Nuts and Bolts:

• Everyone should now be sending out any homework assignments, tests, quizzes, and/or projects via the SchoolWay App.

• All websites should now be updated with the necessary information about you and your class.
• Information about who you are
• What classes/grade levels/subjects you teach
• How to access homework
• Contact information

• Back to School Night  will start promptly at 7:00 PM on Thursday, September 22nd.  Our parking lot fills up quickly and it can take some extra time to not only find a parking space, but get to where you need to be.  Please take the necessary measures to make sure you are here on time.

• Schedule for BTSN:
• 7:00 - 7:40 -- Administration will address parents and introduce teachers.  We will have the chairs arranged by teams with a place for every teacher to sit.  
• 7:40 - Teachers who teach ELA, Math, Social Studies and/or Science will be dismissed to their classes.
• 7:40 - 8:00 - Specialists will have 90 seconds each to introduced themselves and talk about their class.  Please have at least one slide to play in the background for your presentation.  All slides should be created by Tuesday at 4:00PM.  If you can include a picture of students or student work I think it would be a great idea!
• 8:00 - Parents will go to their sessions based on their child’s last name.  Please check here for information on times and locations.
• 8:45 - Parents will be allowed to visit with teachers that they may have missed.  If you notice parents discussing their child specifically please ask them to email or call you to set up an appointment.  The conversation is too important to be rushed.
• 9:00 We will make a call for all teachers to please bring your sign-in sheets to the main office. Tim and I will be collecting them to see how our parent attendance was and to make sure you are able to leave in a timely fashion.

• Our inservice on October 10th will be focusing on our Student-Led conferences. Make sure you are discussing this at team meetings to come up with a plan for how students will present their information and work.

• Please make sure to sign up for PDP meetings with us.  The list of the sign ups so far are located at the bottom of this post. -- we had to change the Tuesday meetings to Wednesdays because we will have an advisory schedule on those days and it seemed too crazy to have advisory with a PDP meeting.  

• Teachers will be required to submit two PDP’s before meeting with John and Tim.  Once PDP can be a grade level or school-wide goal such as Student-Led-Conferences, while the other PDP should be tied to one of the Domains in the Danielson Model.  PDPs can be created in the Genesis Evaluation Portal. Once logged in, access the Professional Development Tab, choose Plans, then Create New Plan for 2016-2017.  You will then be walked through the process of creating your PDP. Genesis will ask you to fill in the same areas as the State PDP Template & Sample PDP. When you decide on your PDP and begin inputting the information, you will be asked to identify start/end dates.  Start date can be 10/1/2016 and end day will be May 1st. Please let John or Tim know if you have any questions.

• Reminders -- any student how has an average below a ‘C’ should be referred to the I&RS committee.

• Aesop Training will be occurring at the faculty meeting on October 3rd faculty meeting.  The site will be live on October 17th and we will be using this site for substitute services.

• Pandora had 209 active Tuesday at 11am.  Teachers if you are playing background music for your class that is appropriate and can help students focus on certain tasks.  However, we do not have 209 teachers in the district which means students are accessing Pandora and slowing the internet speed.  Please talk with your students about this, while it may be nice to listen to personalized music it does hinder the district's ability to function properly.

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

September 22 Back to School Night

September 24 Byram Day

September 26       Faculty Meetimg

September 28       6th Grade leaves for Frost Valley

September 28 Board Meeting

Best Practices:

Tips for Standards Based Math (good resource for helping identify standards for SGOs and how to address them).

Resources for Parents

Tech Tips:

Three Simple and Powerful Ways to Use Technology for Setting Student Goals




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September 9, 2016

Great Things Noticed:

What an opening to the school year!!! Thank you so much for all your efforts to make sure students had a smooth transition to the school year. The first few days we saw so many different lessons involving activity lists and hands on activities for the students.  Thank you for planning lessons that not only teach rules about your class and how it functions but lessons that allow the students to think and move.

Nuts and Bolts:

Notes from Team Meetings

Student Led Conferences Handbook - Please begin reviewing and discussing this at team meetings this week.  There are many resources in their for your team to use.  Watch a video of how student-led conferences work by clicking here.

Remember we are using the new Genesis Evaluation Software for SGO's this year.

Tomorrow is Friday and it will be H-O-T. Please feel free to wear a nice pair of shorts tomorrow and a collared shirt to try and beat the heat please!

Dates:

September 12 Faculty Meeting**

September 28 Board Meeting

September 22 Back to School Night

September 24 Byram Day

September 26         Faculty Meeting

September 28         6th Grade leaves for Frost Valley
October 15 SGOs & PDPs due

Best Practices - Tips & Strategies:

Teaching Goal Setting to Help Students Take Ownership of Learning - 4 quick steps

The 5 Priorities of Classroom Management - to effectively manage a classroom, teachers must prioritize building positive relationships, leveraging time, and designing behavioral standards.

Tech Tips:

Paired Text sets from ReadWorks

Google Classroom -- Write notes on student work using your mobile device.

June 1, 2016

We know how crazy the end of year can be, and with this year getting out on June 14th (That is awesome!) we know there are a lot of activities that are pushed from the end to the beginning of June (That is not awesome).  So to try and have some fun and relieve some stress we will be having some contests from June 1st through the 7th, when the eighth grade departs on the their DC trip.  Everyone who is a Byram Intermediate School staff member can be nominated including teachers, aides, secretaries, custodians, CST, nurses, guidance counselors, cafeteria staff, etc.

June 1st - The scratchy award, who do you think can scratch together the best lesson in the shortest amount of time.  The winner will win a scratch off lottery ticket. Click here to nominate: The Scratchy Contest


June 2nd - Care Bear Award - The teacher who you think cares the most for students and staff. The winner will carry around an actual Care Bear (Sunshine) for the entire day, plus a DD card.

We are trying our best to have as many people from BIS represented at the end-of-year party.  Even if you missed the deadline, we would love it if you stopped by to have a refreshment.  We will be giving out two raffle prizes for those who come to our party at St. Moritz.

June 3rd - WAMY (Wait a  Minute Ya'll) The person you feel who needs to be recognized for all they do, but many people may not know about it.  Winner receives: DD Card

June 6th -  Customer Service Award - The person who provides the best advice in the work place. Winner receives: DD Card

June 7th - Super Glue Award - When times are stressful this person is able to hold everything together and keep everyone calm. Winner receives: Glue Stick and DD Card



Nuts and Bolts:

• With the heat already here I wanted let you know about our modified dress code for June.  I know this past Friday it was extremely hot in almost of all the rooms, and it would be impossible for you to be at your best without a fashion break.  So...for the month of June if you would like to wear school school-appropriate shorts with a collared shirt please feel free to do so.
• For Summative Conferences please bring your completed SGO. .  You will need 1 copy of your pre and post assessment, as well as a roster list with individual student scores for the pre and post exam.  We still have some grade levels that are scoring their building wide SGO and when they are complete they will be sent to you with the grade level progress.
• Please bring your completed PDP with any evidence or certificates to show your completion.  We will also discuss Domain 4 and the evidence you have for each section.  We are not asking you to print all the emails you have sent to parents.  Please be  but able to provide an example of systems that you have used in your classroom.  I know Teachscape can be difficult to navigate so to check out the Domains click here.  Click here to see examples for each section.

• Chromebooks will begin collection next week and here is the schedule:
• 8th grade June 2nd AM - After the 8th grade math placement test
• 7th grade June 2nd 9, 10, 13
• 6th grade June 3rd  6, 7, 8
• 5th grade June 3rd 14, 17, 18
• If there is a problem because there are assignments you need the students to complete please let us know and we will do our best to work out a solution.
• Students must bring in their case, charger and chromebook.
• Math Placement Tests -We would like students to take them and have them scored by next Friday, June 10th.  If you have a question about changing the placement test you used last year please let us know.
• Star Reading - Please have the students take one last STAR assessment by Friday when the chrome books will be turned in.  Please remind students to take this seriously as we will use this information as a piece of the puzzle to determine what students will be required to take BSI next year.
• Videos - If you have any pictures throughout the year that you have taken of students if you could put them in a folder and share them with Jimmy, he has agreed to have his team of students work to put the end of year videos together.  Your grade level will need to put choose a song for the pictures to be put to for our last day of school viewing.
• June 8 & 9 will have in-service days after the students leave.  Friday June 10th, staff will be allowed to leave at 1:40.  Monday, June 13th will have Genesis training on our new software, Tuesday June 14th you will be able leave at 1:40.  Graduation is June 14th at 7:00 PM