It's "B" Week!
Our Pledge Helpers: Monday/Dickerson and Tuesday/Johnson
Duty
AM
Carline: Fifth Grade
First Grade Holding: First Grade
Bus Sidewalk/Back Hall: Second Grade
Library: Kindergarten
Cafeteria: Cafeteria Group
Back Hall: Third and Fourth Grade
PM-
Carline: Car Group, Meredith/Mitchell
Front Sidewalk: Third Grade
Front Hall Intersection: Rosetta
Outside workroom: Fifth Grade
Thank you for signing up for Christmas Party times. Please remember to stick to the time your grade level chose. I've put all of them on the CES Calendar. All parents are invited to the Christmas parties. Siblings, even in strollers and carriers are not invited. I'll be sending out a parent note early next week that will address this. If you have a room mom or two coming early to set up for the party, please fill out a visitor form with that request. If we don't have their name listed on the form, they'll have to wait until the start of the party as indicated on the calendar!
Monday will be last day for nominating for Team Member of the Month! This month's honoree will come from Kindergarten, First or Second grade.
We are struggling with finishing the playground! The materials came in and the glue was "spoiled". Then the rain came. Now, all the workers are off next week. They say they will be here Monday Dec. 2 to complete the project.
Turn in your new STACHe goal!
Teacher Advisory Council Questions and Answers
1. Why have teachers been expected to use P.E. and Specials time for Collaboration four
straight Tuesdays in October? October 8, October 15, October 22 and October 29
This has given teachers no break at all on Tuesdays.
Isn’t that what early dismissal on Thursdays was created for, collaboration from
2:15-3:15? Maybe one Thursday a month we could have faculty meeting before
collaboration.
70 minutes of collaboration time, once a week is the District expectation. Cahaba actually submitted a PD/Collaboration plan to Dr. Berry showing our efforts in preparing for ACAP, learning more about DOK, SWIVL and increasing technology skills/use. Most collaboration days, utilize outside resources (Dr. Berry, K McGough, J Peters, M. Bramlett, A Waring) that cannot come on Thursday afternoons or Thursday afternoons do not give enough time to meet with small groups. As an adjustment to this, I have offered subs to help you have additional planning time, I have kept our staff meetings significantly shorter than they have been in previous years to allow time to work and you have a guaranteed 2X a trimester that you won't meet on Tuesdays due to progress reports/report cards. I do agree that you need a few minutes of your own, even on Collaboration day. Mrs. Rosetta and I will take a look at this after Thanksgiving break.
2. Could CES do our schoolwide intervention/enrichment in the morning instead of the
afternoon (starting after Christmas or even next school year)? So many of the students
that receive intervention services are ones that have attention issues and are exhausted
at the end of the day. I have experienced this with groups I see and with the Ticket to
Read students that I have had to keep a few times. This could give them all a better
chance of success if they get ‘intervened’ first thing. I guess that would make specials
and PE start late, but can those be pushed back instead of starting off first thing in the
morning.
The development of our schedule was very intentional and designed to meet the needs of our students. Less than 8% of our students receive interventions and our current plan is working. Last year we exited over half of our T2 students by the end of the school year. There are some students who don't show progress in TTR, so we change their plan. Each month we meet (PST) and go over data and make decisions (driven by the teachers) for individual students. We actually have T2 and T3 Interventions, designed by the PST team, going on all over our building at many different times during the day. If you know of a child that is not showing growth through their plan, please let me know and we'll change the plan. Every decision I make is intentional and designed to maximize student growth. 93% of our students need Enrichment opportunities in order to show growth. The other 7%or 8% are actually much easier to to grow.
Did you know?
- Math Interventions occur every morning from 7:20 - 8:00 in Mrs Wessel's room
- Kindergarten Intervention time is scheduled for the first thing every morning.
- Julie Grogan and Stephanie Young teach Sonday System/Essentials before lunch.
- Amanda Pennington has students pushing into her small groups to provide T3 interventions in reading and math. These occur in the morning.
It's "A" Week!
December 16th is Polar Express Day. Please do your best to schedule a guest reader (don't forget the form) to read this wonderful book to your class. I do ask that you not show the movie. A clip of the movie, if the weather causes indoor recess, or if it contributes to an instructional activity is permissible. There are so many fantastic academic activities related to this book. All you have to do is google!
