Friday, September 16, 2016

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:






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