February 28, 2016

February, or as I call it the armpit of the school year is almost over!  I hope you had a great weekend and were able to get outside to enjoy the weather.  If you are feeling like spring is far away perhaps you are in a 'Winter Slump,' check out these 8 ways to avoid falling into a winter slump. 

Have a great week!

Great Things Noticed:

In Meaghan Phillips' class  students have difficulty reading and comprehending material in the novel the class reads.  There are times when se cannot make herself available for a 'whole class' read aloud, but she has found a solution to this problem.  Meaghan reads each chapter aloud and records it the shares it out via Google Classroom.  This way students can read/hear the book just as they would during a whole class read aloud.  If you have questions on how to do this she is happy to share.

Grammar is one of those areas that is important to teach but with so many other ELA skills to teach it can be difficult to find ways to infuse it.  Lori Loredo has a student take over as teacher and reviews grammar skills for 5-10 minutes.  The students are eager to participate and even try to act like and say things Lori would say.  This is something I know math teachers do as well but could be infused in any lesson.

Rachael Ward's class had students read resumes of candidates for president without their names attached, and then had students vote.  She took greats like Washington and Lincoln and mixed them with the candidates of today.  So many times students have a perception when it comes to history or current events based on what the conversation is at home.  It was interesting to hear about this activity which provided the students with the opportunity to make a decision on their own.

Tracey Manser has a great way to check for understanding.  When the students enter the room there is a problem for them to work on.  When they finish they put their answer on a post it and then onto a bulletin board in the back of the room.  Tracey is able to quickly look and identify which students need to be pulled immedately for a mini lesson and which students can go on their   Tracey entrance ticket with board.

In Wanda Hernendez's Spanish class students move at their own pace throughout the lesson.  Students work on several lessons and are then assessed by her before they are allowed to move on.  It was great to see students who were not held back by students who needed to move at a slower pace.  Wanda also was able to choose her location in the classroom and made sure she spent the majority of her time right next to a group of students who needed her attention.

In Ginette Garrity's class the students take comprehension checks during the year.  As she does this she teaches the students how to use split screens to navigate the page.  The skills she is assessing are important, but the manner in which she assesses the students is done in a way so that when the students take the PARCC they are not surprised by a format they have not experienced before.  Below are screenshots to show how the the students computer screen looks.

#1S1W:  Thank you to all who took part in the #1S1W activity.  It was interesting to see pictures of schools from around the world. If you click HERE you can read the blog by Pernille Ripp and see the pictures at the bottom of the page.

Nuts and Bolts:

The third marking period is almost at its half-way point.  Please make sure your grades have been entered to keep parents up to date.  For classes that meet every day a good rule of thumb is to have one grade per week, this includes interdisciplinary class.

Please remember to use the SchoolWay App to alert parents about upcoming homework assignments and tests consistently.

This year we will be changing the way students obtain their supply list.  We will be giving parents the option of ordering all the supplies from a company and having them shipped to our school and packaged individually.  Please stop by the office on Wednesday morning before school to take a look at the packages.  Grade levels will be asked to put together a list of supplies they will be asking for by March 10th.  Our goal is to keep the supply order under $30 per student.  

UpComing Events:

March 1 Mid-point Marking Period 3

March 7 Faculty Meeting 

March 8 PNC Bank Visit

March 10 I & R S Meeting

March 11 BIS Spotlight

March 14 Faculty Meeting

March 16 BOE Meeting

March 22 & 23 CAP Program – 6th Grade

March 22, 23 & 24 Parent Conferences – Early Dismissal

March 25 – April 1 Spring Break – School Closed

Lincoln Financial Visit

February 20th, 2016

We hope you enjoyed your well-deserved break and are re-energized as we get back into the swing of things.  I know the recharge was great for my family to relax and reconnect.  I even managed to stay away from Twitter and email for a few days...even if it was like going through withdrawal at times.... :)

Great Things Noticed:

• The TNT Game was a success!  Thank you to Patty for coaching the boys team and running the sound for the National Anthem, Deb for organizing the PEER Leaders and the fundraising, Kathy for working with the cheerleaders all year, Jimmy and Pete for organizing the teachers to play in the game, and to all the teachers who played or attended the game.   Thank you all for making it a special day for everyone at BIS.

• Joe Capriotti was working with a student and her parents because they were frustrated there wasn't a program that met the specific needs of their daughter.  He developed a creative system that allows for the teacher, the parent, the student, and the tutor to all work together.  If you have questions please see Joe about it.  Sometimes we think color coding is for the elementary school, but this was a really cool idea!  Check it out:
• You need three pens: a red, a yellow, and a green.  As she does her math HW, she can mark problems with one of the three pens to indicate if it was easy, a struggle, or she was unable to solve it.  She can also rate each homework on a google doc with 1-5 stars based on difficulty. When she meets with her tutor, she has a neatly organized record of what she needs more help on.  The visual data she generates by doing this will help her see the scope of what she knows and what she needs to work on.  It will ease the abstract fear of "MATH" and replace it with "I need some support on this particular concept."

• Deb Hooker developed a game system to see if students understood concepts before she began a chapter on multiplying fractions.  She had stations where students played spoons, bingo, and a math racing game with cards.  As the students work she checks in to see who has the skills at each station mastered and who needs help.  All students are working to remove the cobwebs because they have a felt need to win the game, and no one said, "We never learned this last year." Way to go Deb!

• The 5th grade team has created a love of learning.  If you are free during periods 9-10 stop by their wing and see how many students voluntarily come in to their 'Study Hall.'  They have a rotation system set up where different teachers supervise the students who are doing their work.  I asked the students who go down if they give away candy or anything they told me:  No, I just like to have a place to do my work with my friends.  Really cool stuff!

Featured Newsletter:

Jess Taylor Block 1, Block 2, Block 3

Nuts and Bolts:

Please welcome Mrs. Michele Melendez!  She is taking over for Celeste Mayhood.  Please stop by her room if you have the time to introduce yourself.  I know we have great teachers at Byram who always help to ease the transition of someone new.

One School - One World

Monday, we would love it if you could take one picture of your classroom.  It could be of the students in action, it could be before they come in and the class is set up ready to go, it could be after they leave and the room is a mess (as we all know learning is messy!)  Please send your picture to me so that we can share it on Twitter, and contribute to this conversation.  We are hoping to gather images and make it part of an advisory conversation in the near future.  I feel as though our students will be amazed by the pictures they see from around the world, schools that have more than we do, as well as school that have much, much less.


Say goodbye to Teachscape!
Our SCIP team went to a presentation conducted by the good people from Genesis, and we will be moving to their web-based teacher assessment model.   This software seems much more user friendly, it is faster, with less pages to navigate between, and when something needs to be fixed we do not have to wait several weeks for the company to fix it, we can do it here.  This does not mean we are leaving the Danielson Framework, just the Teachscape portion.  We are at work trying to have the Genesis team provide us with training on how to use their program in June so we can hit the ground running in September of 2016.

IDE - Our IDE program will be continuing next year and we have 8 spots that will open for teachers.  This program centers around shifting the balance of responsibility from the teacher to the student within the classroom.  Every month Rowena, a consultant from IDE comes in to work directly with the teachers and provides feedback and suggestions for teachers to improve their craft.  I love this program because it is not a quick fix, or a silver bullet, it is a process.  There is a week long training at the end of June you would have to attend that you would not be paid for.  The district will pay for the training.  If you are interested in learning how to move your class in this direction next year please give your name to JoAnn in the office and she will add your name to the list.

The March Parent Calendar will be sent out at the end of the week to notify parents about upcoming events.  Please be sure to add to the March calendar anything that may take place before or after school, as well as any special grade level activities you have taking place.  We will be locking the calendar on Wednesday of this week.

The Rammy is our competition for what is the Best Book Award for BIS.   We have 32 books nominated and the goal is to have a 30 second commercial from the students on why their book should win the award (Thank you Jimmy).  Then during March Madness we will air the videos on the morning announcements and have students vote for the book they think should win.  Teachers we need your help to fill in the spots to make sure we have every book represented.  If you know of a student who has  read a book that is not filled in here, please see if they would be interested.  Thank you in advance for understanding if one of your students is called out during period 13-14 to film with Mr. Clayton.








Teachers visit Teachers: 

 One of the best part about the job Tim and I have is we are able to go from class to class and see AMAZING lessons on a daily basis. We have so much talent in this school but none of the teachers are able to see anyone else and learn from what they do.  After discussing this with our SCIP team we decided we will be dedicating specific days for teachers to invite other teachers into their class or perhaps go visit another class.  Start thinking about which teachers you would like to connect with.

Upcoming Events:

BOE Meeting February 24th

STAR Reading Assessment given by ELA teachers March 7th - 11th


Tech Tips:

One Tab   - Technology is great, but if you are like me by the time 10:00 AM rolls around I have a million tabs open in chrome.  Having too many tabs open at the same time slows your computer down.  By reducing it too one tab, you can restore the computer's speed. How many of our students could use this as well?  Below is the description from their site, I highly recommend it!

• Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once. When your tabs are in the OneTab list, you will save up to 95% of memory because you will have reduced the number of tabs open in Google Chrome.

February 8, 2016

Tim and I hope you enjoyed the Super-Bowl and had a relaxing weekend, and maybe even won a few dollars.  This is the lead up to Valentine's Day, and we wanted to have some fun this week and play our version of Love Connection.  We have posted the image of one person who is part of a famous couple in each of your rooms/mailboxes.  Your job will be to find the missing piece of your couple.  Everyone~teachers, aides, custodians, cafeteria staff, secretaries, and administrators have a picture.  The first three couples to call the office with their match wins what every teacher desires-Dunkin Gift Cards.  

Great Things Noticed

In Lori Loredo's class students were working independently on a writing draft.  While this was taking place Lori pulled one student at a time to conference about a previous piece of writing.  She was able to give specific feedback using the 'data tracker' in her classroom.  The students are able to take the information from the conference and then apply parts of it into their new piece of writing.  These conferences lasted about 7 minutes each, which is an optimal amount of time for students to receive meaningful feedback and allow the teacher enough time to meet with several other students in the same time period.   Way to go Lori!

In Mike Linskey's class students are in control of their learning.   Students enter the class, grab their folders and begin to work.  Instead of waiting for everyone to trickle in and wait to give instructions, the students have already scheduled for themselves what they will be working on the moment they enter class.  Students were cognizant of the scheduling factor, and not wanting to fall behind.  I even heard a few of them discussing what they would have to do to get back on track without the teacher even present.  Not only are they learning math, but life-skills as well!

Mrs. Randall's class had students discovering how oxygen levels in their lungs change through exercise.  The students conducted experiments which everyone in the class loved, but then she was able to have students follow through from the 'fun' part of the class to the piece where they needed to think more critically.  Students had to write a concluding paragraph about the experiment and were provided 'how to' cards to scaffold the learning.  7th graders then had to tackle this problem:  Does gender affect the rate of cellular respiration? Great question Melissa!

The chorus and band traveled to Lenape for their All-Schools Concert this past week. The students blew the audience away with their performance. Dante Cornella and Cori Scaturo were able to have the students practice songs during rehearsals, but then when they went to Lenape they played/sang with Stanhope and Netcong and Lenape Valley. They were able to put together a huge musical jigsaw puzzle, and the students performed brilliantly!!! Huge props to Dante and Cori!

Mrs. Naimo's class was recently in the Township Journal, as her students were highlighted for the great work they did with their art illustration pieces. Check out the article HERE.  We are so lucky to have art work that is this wonderful displayed in our hall-ways on a daily basis.  

8th Grade ELA has tackled Shakespeare this year.  Amy Stevens and Lori Loredo provided TONS of scaffolding for the students, who now feel confident reading from The Bard of Avon.  Their write up was also featured in the Township Journal, but I cannot seem to find the link on their website, if someone locates it please send it to us!

Upcoming Events:

February 8 Faculty Meeting

February 11 I & R S Meeting

February 12 BIS Spotlight

February 15-17 Winter Break – SCHOOL CLOSED

February 22 IDE Visit

February 24 BOE Meeting


Nuts & Bolts:

• Now that we are half-way through the year please work with your teams to determine if anyone is in danger of failing a subject for the year.  This would mean if they have earned a D or lower for the 1st two marking periods we need to send a letter home notifying the parents.  As always, please be sure to contact parents if you notice a student is struggling a great deal.  Having the parents checking parent portal is not enough for some of our students, we need to work together to develop a plan.

• As technology is becoming more and more a part of everyone's life we would like to form a Technology Committee made up of educators, parents, and even students.  Each person has a slightly different perspective on how technology should be used both in and out of school and by working together we hope can have a technology department that keeps students safe, while allowing them learning opportunities that interest and excite their minds.  If you are interested in being a part of this committee please fill out the form below.  We are hoping to have one parent and teacher from every grade level on the committee.  

Tech Tips:


Top Ten Teacher Add-ons for Google Chrome


Writing Worth Reading:
Mindful Facilitation: In a PBL class  by Laura Thomas

Feb 1, 2016

We have a Winter Break!!!! 
- Since we did not have any school closings prior to January 31^st the winter recess will remain intact.  School will be closed for three days starting Monday, February 15^th through Wednesday, February 17^th.

Great Things Noticed:

Conferencing - During the independent reading time I was able to listen to Ginette Garrity talk with students about books they like.  She listened to the students and valued what they had to say about the book they had just finished.  No teacher can read every book that students read, but by taking the time to listen to the students Ginette showed how important their reading was to her.  If you have time to stop down to any 5th grade class during their reading time 1:33-1:54 you will see students who are locked and lost in a book. Great job 5th grade!

Because we are not all English teachers a link that may help while you conference with students about a book they could choose in the future would be: http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/.

Pete Morris connected with Paul Solarz (@PaulSolrz) and his class about Genius Hour. The students asked the kids from Paul's class lots of questions so they could start off on the right foot. It was great to see our students connect with those from other parts of the country.

Acts of Kindness -- Thank you to EVERYONE who had a hand in helping spread acts of kindness throughout the school. The post-its were great to see, and I know this week the letters the students worked on will be delivered to the teachers across the street and have a huge impact on them.




Upcoming Events:

February 1 Faculty Meeting

February 8 Faculty Meeting

February 11 I & R S Meeting

February 12 BIS Spotlight

February 15-17 Winter Break – SCHOOL CLOSED

February 22 IDE Visit

February 24 BOE Meeting

Nuts & Bolts:

• The Rammy - Thank you for allowing the students vote for this new award.  I couldn't believe the number of votes we had for this new award, 1,018 total votes were cast and we are weeding down the list to the top 64 books and we have to seed the

• At our SGO meetings many teachers discussed the possibility of creating a class newsletter as a way to communicate with families about upcoming events and to show parents what has already happened in your class.  Newsletters a great way to provide a window in your classroom, and if the students lend a hand in creating the newsletter it may take some of the work off of your plate.  Below are some links to Newsletters you can take a look at, I always find it is easier to see what has been done by others and then modify it to fit my own needs.  

8th Grade Math - Mara & Andrew
5th Grade Science - Pete
Around the Horn - Parent edition 



Tech Tips:

Zaption -  is a web app for teachers, trainers, and content publishers to use video as an interactive experience. Add images, text, quizzes and discussions to private videos as well as those from YouTube and Vimeo to create a “learning tour.” Teachers also have access to analytics.

Great find Tim!