Monday Points: April 15, 2013

Monday Points

April 15, 2013

Welcome back from what I hope was a restful and relaxing Spring Break! Today we begin the last quarter of the school year. As every year, the tempo will increase over these next ten weeks as we start down the road to Graduation and the end of the year.

Celebration Points:

Ahoy New Start sailors. The 3^rd Annual Adventuress cruise has been completed safely, and our kids are home! I want to congratulate Teacher Kelsie Maney for organizing, coordinating and her leadership through the “Adventuress adventure” with 24 of our students and the crew of SS Adventuress. In addition to a three-day overnight sail around Puget Sound with our students, Kelsie worked closely with our partners, Sound Experience and the Youth Maritime Training Association, to keep this amazing hands-on learning, team building and authentic sailing experience alive and truly accessible to our students. Celebrate by asking the students about their experience, and giving sincere thanks to Kelsie for her commitment to our students.

Instructional Point:

Smarter Balanced is the assessment consortium that our district and state will be working with in coming years for student performance testing. The idea is this organization will manage and align state testing with the new Common Core as we sunset current state standards. We have started the conversations this year and will begin teaching to the Common Core next year. This week I want to introduce you the Smarter Balanced website http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/ , which has incredible amounts of information about Common Core, standards and the assessments we will soon be engaging with our colleague schools and students. The link I have included is a page with sample performance tasks and assessments in Math and ELA standards. Over the break I have placed a hard copy of these standards in your teacher box. Please take a few minutes to look at the standards we will be learning to teach too soon, and “dip your toes” into a few of the sample questions at the Smarter Balanced website. http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/ It is important that you have a sense of the rigor and increased performance expectations we will soon be having of our students, and your teaching!

PCT Point: Friday April 19. 1:00 @ Salmon Creek. Pedagogy of Confidence

Our last discussion (this year) around our shared reading of Pedagogy of Confidence will be facilities by colleague Mrs. Dindria Barrow who is going to share with us some of her related graduate research about student self-concept, personal identity in cultural groups and bicultural settings (such as school).  I want to thank Dindria in advance for offering to conduct our next collaborative learning and sharing experience around how students’ self perception is formed in the environments we grow and teach our children.

Mike’s Schedule:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
April 15	April 16	April 17	April 18	April 19
Weekly Letter Staffing Prep Staffing Meetings (ERAC) In Classrooms Sped Meeting Teachscape Study Group	Evaluation Meetings Transition Planning In Classrooms CHOICE Staff Meeting ELL Symposium	Evaluation Meetings In Classrooms Language Credit Meeting (CHOICE) Evaluation Meetings Discipline Hearing (ERAC)	Alt Ed Leadership Team Retreat (All Day)	Evaluation Meetings Counselor Meeting Weekly Admin Meeting PCT: Pedagogy of Confidence Evaluation Meetings

And away we go into another exciting and glorious fourth quarter run! Have a fantastic week and welcome back!

Mike