October 26, 2018

October 26, 2018

The staff members who attend NEU are very excited to present at our next staff meeting. The sessions we attended all aligned with NEU. Just a friendly reminder we have access to NEU connect which provides thousands of resources that were created by teachers. Just log in using your FSUSD email. Watch this video to see how many different resources are just a click away. CLICK HERE 

"A goal without a plan is just a wish” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As I continue to go into classrooms, we still seem to struggle (about 5 classes) with posting the learning objective versus posting an assignment.  Let's define this again:

Learning Objective:  Learning objectives describe the goal of the program and what the learners have to achieve.

Activity:  The resources that help to achieve the objective.

Take moment to review what's posted on your whiteboard.  Is it an ACTIVITY or an actual OBJECTIVE?  Still confused?  Take a look at THIS easy article for clarification.

GATE - A parent notification letter was mailed home this week to all Grade 1 students in
English
and Spanish, letting them know that their child will be GATE tested between November
26th
- December 15th. The letter has an opt out option that should be returned to the school
office.

GATE Grade 1 Parent Notification Letter

The deadline to request to have a Grade 2-7 child tested is November 1st and that form
can be found on the District webpage under the GATE section.

Test Request for Grades 2-7

• Students in grades 2-7 may be referred by school personnel and/or a
• parent/guardian
• to be screened for the gifted program in November 2018.  If you are
• interested in
• having your student screened for GATE services, please complete
• the FSUSD GATE test request form by Thursday, November 1, 2018.

District Writing Assessment - All assessments should be scored AND inputted into
Illuminate by
Friday, November 2nd.

Mark your calendar: *Student Of The Month Board Meeting: 8th Grader, Mia Hernandez, has been chosen to represent Suisun Valley. For those of you that may know Mia, she is a responsible, helpful and bright young lady. We hope that our Suisun Valley staff will be able to REPRESENT at the board meeting on Thursday, November 8th @ 6 PM to show Mia how proud we are of her as she shows her Dragon Pride that evening. 

Halloween day costumes: follow school dress code, no weapons, no blood, no masks, no blow up costumes.  Make sure food brought in on October 31 follows food policy guidelines. 

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There:  Thank you Patty, Christina, Cecily, Sarah, and Julie for being prepared for our academic conferences. 

Play: Thank you for making some really AWESOME scarecrows.

Choose your attitude: Your attitude can decide how you will feel for the rest of the day- EVERY DAY!!

Make Their Day:   Make at least one positive phone home this week. 

October 19, 2018

October 19, 2018

NO EXCUSES UNIVERSITY – INTERVENTIONS

Culture of Universal Achievement

Collaboration

Standards Alignment

Assessment Plan

Data Analysis

Interventions

“Once children are taught what they need to learn and then assessed for their levels of proficiency, there needs to be appropriate, data-driven academic interventions to help students who are not on track to be proficient by the end of the year.  There also needs to be similar social interventions, because children who are emotionally well adjusted are much more likely to be academically successful.”

During our Academic Conferences we discussed interventions for our students.  In reviewing the data, we have moved past the excuses and how we can help them at school :)

When we review data, we focus on what the students don’t know and how we are going to provide interventions to support the students learning.

We have now completed MAP assessments.  What are you doing with the data?  What interventions have you put in place?  Here is an example:

If your student scores have low RIT score.   You are able to drill down into the results to determine on which standards the students need support in.  As an example in Math, when one drills down further into the data,  you may notice that the majority of the students struggled with expressions and equations.  A smaller number also struggled with use functions to model relationships. Then the teacher is able to develop very targeted lessons that can be delivered in a small group setting.  The teacher does not have to re-teach the entire class.  Targeted, immediate intervention will have a positive impact on student achievement.

We have just finished giving our district writing prompt.

11 Storyboarding Apps To Organize & Inspire Young Writers

www.teachthought.com/apps-2/11-storyboarding-apps-organize-inspire-young-writers

iPadifying the Writing Workshop

www.mguhlin.org/2013/10/ipadifying-writing-workshop-ipad-ipaded.html

Some ideas for conferences and report cards:

During conferences you can sit side by side with your laptop and have a student chromebook. Have parents sign into parent portal on the chromebook.  Please watch the video I shared with you so you can check to see which parents have not signed up. You can then have a print out of codes if you need it and then have parents sign into parent portal. You can have separate signature sheet that parents can sign so that way you know who attended conferences.


Question came up how can I tell if parents have looked at progress reports- you can sign into your account and you can see which parents have signed in. Watch the video that was shared with you.

RQC scores need to be inputted by hand in K-5 grade in Illuminate EVERY trimester.

Halloween day costumes: follow school dress code, no weapons, no blood, no masks, no blow up costumes.  Make sure food brought in on October 31 follows food policy guidelines. 

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There: Thank you Christina and Patty for making a scarecrow for the Rotary competition and the school. Thank you Jamie, Katie, Heather M., Amy, Jennifer, and Heather H. for being prepared for our academic conferences. Thank you Fern and Janelle for supporting ALL of our students ALL the time!! Thank you Melissa, Janelle, Julie, Sarah, Ariel, Carole, Cecily, and Daniel for attending the NEU conference and writing sub plans. 

Play: Thank you Ariel, Sarah, Patty, Christina and Mindi having fun and supporting our garden clean up and chili cook off. 

Choose your attitude: Your attitude can decide how you will feel for the rest of the day- EVERY DAY!!

Make Their Day:   Make at least one positive phone home this week. 

October 12, 2018

October 12, 2018

NO EXCUSES UNIVERSITY – DATA ANALYSIS

Culture of Universal Achievement

Collaboration

Standards Alignment

Assessment Plan

Data Analysis

Interventions

“It is one thing to have a sophisticated system of regular, formative assessments, but if that assessment data is not collected, disaggregated and reported in a timely and user-friendly manner, it becomes almost unusable.  We believe data must be easily accessible, openly shared, and deliberately arranged.”

There are three main components to data management:

#1:  Easily accessible

#2:  Openly shared

#3:  Deliberately arranged

Easily accessible:  We are so fortunate to have two data systems that provide us with on-the-spot data about our students, our schools, and our district.  If you have not become proficient on MAP, you are missing out on valuable tools that will help guide your conversations and actions.  The best part of MAP and Illuminate is that both systems are accessible to our staff.

Openly shared:  During our collaborative time with grade levels, we have shared multiple data sets that include district and site-level academic achievement.  We should currently be working with our school’s formative (or MAP) data and providing intervention now.  Next few weeks, we will be looking at writing. 

Deliberately arranged:  Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing lots of thoughts about student achievement – reasons for increases or decreases.  One of our commitments is to be specific when we talk about student achievement.  Student achievement data is readily available and we need to use it to describe academic progress.  Furthermore, as you look to each data set, make certain you drill down to the student level.  Don’t just look at the data from the 30,000 foot view.  Remember…data doesn’t always answer questions.  More often than not, it raises questions. AND DATA BELONGS TO THE STUDENT!

I will be attending the NEU conference with other staff members on Oct. 18-19^th. Vickie Johnson (VP from Dover) and Araceli Lopez (VP from Anna Kyle) will be on campus. Please still fill out electronic referrals. These will be sent to Kristin and she will give them to the VP in charge. This way discipline issues will be taken care of immediately and won’t have to wait until Monday when I get back. 

Classroom Observation Data for September:

Looking at the data below- what do you observe? Send me a quick email. 

Suisun Valley Virtual Book Club: Kids Deserve It: Pushing Boundaries and Challenging Conventional Thinking 

CLICK HERE to access virtual book club. 

Halloween day costumes: follow school dress code, no weapons, no blood, no masks

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There: Thank you Janice, Robin, Ariel, Carole, Heather M., Melissa H., Melissa S., Denise, Michelle and Mindi for being prepared during our academic conferences. 

Play:  Join us tomorrow for garden clean up/chili cook off. 

Choose your attitude: Your attitude can decide how you will feel for the rest of the day- EVERY DAY!!

Make Their Day:   THANK you for making my day for Boss's Day!! It made my day!! 

October 5, 2018

October 5, 2018

NO EXCUSES UNIVERSITY – ASSESSMENT PLAN

Culture of Universal Achievement

Collaboration

Standards Alignment

Assessment Plan

Data Analysis

Interventions

“We spend time at our Institute distinguishing between formative and summative assessments and how grade level teams can take responsibility for gathering or creating formative assessments that make sense for them.  We emphasize the importance of this work as a support to teachers, because this allows teachers to track those students who are not making adequate academic progress towards proficiency, and then identify specific content areas that require intervention.”

There are some key topics to consider when implementing an assessment plan:

#1:  Assessment is NOT about the teacher, it’s about the student

#2:  Balance between of and for learning assessments

#3:  Scheduling, benchmarks for growth, and continuous improvement are crucial

Assessment is NOT about the teacher, it’s about the student:  One of my favorite quotes from the summer institute was that data did not belong to the teachers.  It was on loan from the students.  In order to help students achieve proficiency, we must support the teacher in analyzing the data and making the necessary adjustments.

Balance between of and for learning assessments:  There needs to be a balance between formative and summative assessments.  Think about the teachers on your campus.  What percentage of the instructional time is dedicated to formative assessment?  What percentage of the instructional time is dedicated to summative assessment?  In a NEU school, both assessments are equally important.

Scheduling, benchmarks, and continuous improvement are crucial:  When you get your data…what do you do about it?  Is it used as a learning opportunity to better understand what your students know and don’t know? Everything we do should be about providing opportunities for continuous improvement.  Do we have systems in place that allow for such a process?

Please be walking around when doing yard duty. Standing in one place and talking to another colleague takes the attention away from our students who need active supervision. Students forming a circle around you and talking to you also takes away from being active during supervision. The amount of students coming in during recesses clearly identifies that we NEED TO BE WALKING AND MONITORING BEHAVIOR. 

From a teacher:

“I came to school this morning with the lessons from yesterday fresh in my mind. I decided that I would focus on positive behaviors today, and try and let the negative go away on its own.  I started the day with a quick carpet talk, telling students how proud I was of all their good work and asking them to continue for today. I addressed a few issues but then it was off to work. I called students to my desk, or leaned over to talk to them every time I saw something respectful or helpful. At the end of the day, I sat at the carpet with them and asked if it was different today as compared to yesterday. I had 20 hands fly up and the comments ranged from, “you were nice” to “you liked us.” Talk about immediate feedback. I am sure every day will have new challenges and one day is not forever, but I believe that the first step to having a great day is being positive.” – George Kastanis, 3^rd grade teacher

Halloween day costumes: follow school dress code, no weapons, no blood, no masks.  Make sure food brought in on October 31 follows food policy guidelines. 

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

Be There: Thank you Christina, Carole, and Patty for helping Ariel out today.  Thank you Fern and Janelle for supporting ALL of our students ALL the time!! 

Play: Get out in the garden and have some fun. 

Choose your attitude: Your attitude can decide how you will feel for the rest of the day- EVERY DAY!!

Make Their Day:   Make at least one positive phone call home this week.