It has been great seeing so many of you facilitating small groups with our students! Guided reading, reading strategy, writing strategy, and math all this week in our classrooms! Thank you for your hard work each and every day!
Staff Professional Learning:
This week is a Teacher PLC week. You may wish to analyze your reading assessment data and plan for small groups, you may wish to look for the illuminate math assessments, review the Dreambox teacher reports or anything else of value to your team. Before your team leaves on Wednesday, please complete the Link to PLC minutes form.
Imagine Learning:
The Imagine Learning Assessment window was extended to September 14. Please let me know if you need help accessing the assessments or Imagine Learning.
ELA TOSA Tip:
You have officially ventured onto your next unit! For many of you this will mean embarking into the world of Non-Fiction. It also means that by this point we hope to have seen growth in our workshop routines and components. This might be a good time to reflect personally or as a team on how the transition into the new year is going. Below you will find a tool that will suggest some areas to self-analyze, as well as some suggestions for how to address areas of need with your kiddos. This is an awesome tool!
“Building a Reading Life” Progressions
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. -Peter Drucker
Also, don’t forget to check out the At-A-Glance for your unit that are linked in the Scope and Sequence to help with your planning!
Teachers College Primary (Phonics):
Thank you to Karina, Rebecca and Georgina for hosting our labsites on Monday, September 16th. The new Phonics Units will be our focus.
| Grade | Time | Labsite | Notes |
| Second Grade
Melinda, Georgina, Jeanne |
8:00-9:30 | Georgina Lobato
**8:40-9:10 |
**Melinda VAPA/STEM
Moves to 1:25-2:25 |
| TK/Kindergarten
Christy, Connie, Karina |
10:15-11:45 | Karina Martinez
**10:35-11:05 |
**Teacher Lunch
11:45-12:30 |
| 1st Grade/LC
Rebecca, Karen/Dene, Monica
|
12:40-2:25 | Rebecca Carson
**1:10-1:40 |
Attendance:
Some of you have asked about identifying the students in your classroom who are at risk for becoming chronically absent (miss greater than 10% of the school). Students who are chronically absent are more likely to read below grade level and/or drop out/not graduate from high school. Please see the email from me with the names of our chronically absent students and students at risk for becoming chronically absent. See link below to the Attendance Works Website with tips for teachers, families and students.
https://www.attendanceworks.org/take-action/educators/teachers/
Tips for Teachers:
- Take roll regularly showing students that you care when they miss school
- Reach out to frequently absent students to find out in a supportive manner why they are missing school and what would help them attend more regularly.
- Work with parents to stress the importance of early education and to learn about any barriers to good attendance.
- Create a nurturing, engaging classroom that will encourage children to come to school. Work with colleagues to develop and implement a school-wide system of incentives and reward for good attendance.
- Encourage families to partner with other school staff, such as school psychologist, nurses, as well as community agencies to get needed supports to help children and families solve a significant barrier to getting to school.
Opportunities for Staff:
Last week our Emory School Plan was approved. We have some specific actions (listed below) which allow us to recruit interested staff who may be compensated/released for their leadership. Please let me know if you would like more information and/or are interested in being considered for one of the opportunities.
Out of Contract Pay
Before/After School Tutoring- using LLI
After School Imagine Learning
Out of Contract and/or Release
Facilitate Parent Education (during school day/outside school day)
PLC Leadership Team
PBIS Leadership Team
Other actions included in the school plan (this is not a comprehensive list)
Impact Teacher (start date tbd) 130 days per year/4 hours per day
Behavior Intervention Assistant (start date tbd) 5 days per week/3.75 hours per day
Community Volunteer Coordinator 3 days per week 3.75 hours per day
Lexia licenses (20)
Teachers College Partnership
Flag Salute Returns Sept 9:
Our UN Ambassadors have created several innovative ideas to improve our Monday Flag Salute. They voted and approved a new formation and location for the flag salute. Flyers will be placed in your boxes to show this.
As with before, each class will be assigned a Monday to lead the flag salute. The Emory Academy choir will sing the song. All should join in as well.
The assigned class should also speak to the leadership attribute for the month we are working on. Choose either an individual, small group, or whole class to showcase this attribute. This could be as simple as a quote, short song, skit, poem, or speech. You decide what works best for you! This should be student led, not teacher.
The order of events for the flag salute is as follows:
- Flag salute- class assigned
- Song- Emory choir
- Emory Pledge- Emory choir
- Principal message- principal
- Leadership attribute- class assigned
- Stomp- school-wide
Our first official flag salute will be held on Monday, September 9th.
District Digital Content:
- District Digital Content– This document has all the login information for any district provided digital content.(Imagine Learning, ST Math, Dreambox etc)
PBIS/BEST Behavior Leadership Team:
Please let me know if you would like to join our PBIS leadership team. Team members will get a copy of BEST Behavior/PBIS book We will read the book and, during release time, work together to develop professional learning for our colleagues and update school-wide procedures and systems.
Staff United Nations/Shared Leadership:
Our next meeting is Tuesday, September 10th at 2:40 in room 23 for the Emory Staff United Nations/Shared Leadership meeting. At this meeting, we will review data from the first 6 weeks of school and identify “look fors” for interactive read aloud.
Upcoming Dates:
Apex Fun Run Sept 13
T.C. Primary Grade Sept 16
Site Leadership Team (at Ed Center) Sept 17
Principal PLC Sept 18
Soaring to Success Respect Sept 20
Classroom Mission Statement Due Sept 20
Quote of the Week:
