Weekly Update November 24 – December 1, 2017

One month from today will be Christmas Eve.  Please do not panic!  There is still time to finish writing your Christmas cards and buying presents.

Schools are often about change.  Please read this Dragon’s Lair carefully so that you what changes are coming.

1. Bell Schedule for the last two weeks of Semester One
2. Report Card due dates.
3. Possible new HL/AP Hybrid Bell Schedule for Semester Two

Tim

Friday, November 24
Day 5 – CDAB

Saturday, November 26
Friendly SWIM MEET vs UNIS@SSIS 12:00pm – 6:00pm

Monday, November 27 Advisory  Advisory Schedule
Day 6- GHE Adv F.

Tuesday, November 28 
Day 7- DABC
UN Speaker 12:00 – 2:00pm in MPR
HSLT Meeting, 3:15-3:55pm (Counseling Conference Room) Agenda Here

Wednesday, November 29
Day 8- HEFG
HS Staff Meeting – HL Hours / Grade Level Planning Time

Thursday, November 30 Advisory. Advisory Schedule
Day 9- ABC Adv D.

Friday, December 1st
Day 10 – EFGH

 Saturday, December 2
SAT 8:00 – 12:30pm

On the Horizon:

• SSIS Holiday Staff Party, December 9 (GEM Center)
• Last Day of Semester 1, Early Release for students, December 15
• January 8, 2018. First Day of School for Staff for Semester Two (9:00am workshop on PowerSchool’s new Learning Management System)

Staff Action Needed:

• Start planning for a two hour chunk of time with each of your classes during the last two weeks of the semester as an alternative to exams in the gym.  See below for more information.

Semester 1 Report Cards 

• December 11 — Comments and Grades Due (Comments can now be up to 800 characters in length) 
• December 12 – comments  peer reviewed (in S1 bin) and grades completed by 3:00; verification reports printed at 3:00
• December 13 – verification reviewed, signed (can be digital) and returned to office by 12:15
• Semester 1 Reports released  on December 15th 2:00pm

New Staff in the HS 2018-19

• Erica Neal will be teaching Environmental Systems and Societies and  Chemistry.  Erica is from Perth, Ontario, Canada. She has four degrees from Queen’s University in Canada.Erica has taught in the UK and is now teaching in Shanghai, China.  She is single. HS Staffing Update – New Hires for 2018–19

Schedule for December 4 – 13, 2017. (8 days of classes)

We will run the Advisory schedule on Monday, December 4th and 11th and on Thursday, December 7th.  We will run an A-H schedule on Thursday, Dec. 14th with a 10 minute Advisory at the end of the day.

Each block during the last two weeks of school will be assigned a two block of time where you may choose to deliver an AP/DP Mock type exam, have students give presentations to their peers, work on a project or some other authentic activity of your choosing.  The only class allowed to give a major assessment on these days is the two hour block class to ensure we are not overloading our students with assessments on any given day. 

Monday and Thursday – Advisory Days

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

Thursday, December 14, 2017 will be an A – H Block Day with Advisory
Bell Schedule A-H + Advisory for Dec. 14, 2017

Friday, December 15th – Early Dismissal
House Activities and an HS Assembly from 10:15 – 11:15am

HL Hours Update
As you may know, The IBO has required SSIS to find ways to increase our HL hours as they expect 240 hours of instructional time.  Last year we had 209 hours (over Year 1 and Year 2).  By eliminating the December exams in the Gymnasium we gained 6 more hour of instructional time but that was not enough.  The above schedule allows us to move to 238 hours of instruction.  It will also reduce the SL class hours giving those students an additional Study Hall which will hopefully relieve some street and homework time for them.  We will be sharing more about this model and student feedback at next Wednesday’s Divisional Meeting.
Hybrid 2017-18 HS BELL SCHEDULES (With HL/AP Hours)

Tripod Surveys– As Tim mentioned at our meeting this week, we begin the Tripod surveys this Thursday and finish up the next week.  While we were told that we would get the shortened version of this survey, it looks like we got the same one as last year.  As a result, please plan on spending a bit more time on these in your classes on the designated days.  You will be given slips of paper with access codes to open the survey.  Make sure you hand out the correct slips to the right classes.  A-H block is printed in the bottom left corner.  It is best to give these at the beginning of the period and rush them at the end.  Please refer to Tim’s email about instructions here for more details.  The goals of these surveys is to give you targeted feedback for you to analyze.  These are research based and were used last year, so if you are new to the division please check in with your department head, Tim or Jacob.  The main purpose of the tools is to be reflective in your practice.  This is not used for the evaluation of staff.  See the dates in the calendar above.  Please stick to this schedule, so we can avoid survey fatigue.  If you are already scheduled to give and assessment that will take the entire block, make sure to share your plan of how you are going to make this up during the week of November 20-24 with Jacob and Tim