Week Ahead: August 22

So just when I was sure my new habit (writing the blog on Thursday nights) was cemented, I went and totally forgot.  Seriously, wasn’t even on the radar until I saw that my awesome colleague Jacob Hendrikson posted to the HS blog.  I was even on my computer working on other stuff.  How could that happen?!  I felt so … stupid, incompetent, disappointed in myself.

Upon reflection, this made me think about a statement made during a middle school training many years ago, “We are who we teach.”  So powerful.  At the time, he meant middle school teachers can sometimes be a bit out there, just like our students.  This time, it reminded me that we are all human.  When lots of change is thrown at us, we sometimes don’t always get it right.  So the 6th grade kid who lost their schedule 20 minutes after orientation, or the student who didn’t remember that there was even homework, or the principal who forgot to blog, may just be dealing with change in the best way they can.  Thank you all for showing such compassion and understand to me and to our students as we are getting our feet under us during a time of great change.

A new organizational feature of the blog is to highlight calendar events that have a write up in the blog. I am hoping that will help create easy connections between dates and explanation of events.  So if it’s blue, that means more information can be found below.  Here is what’s up this week:

Monday, Aug. 22
Day 1, ABCD (Adv)
*Happy Birthday Vaughan Swart!
11-12 HOS/MS Principal Mtg
1:30-3 Sr. Admin Mtg

Tuesday, Aug. 23
Day 2, EFGH (DEAR)
*Happy Birthday Jeff Nesmith!
8-12 Data in a Day Community Walk (visit classrooms from 9-11)
12:35-1:10 Gr 8 EAL/LS Check In (lunch provided – make sure your ordered)
1-3 WASC Community Profile Committee (parent/student focus group) meeting
3:15-3:30  Review Curriculum Night  (optional session)
4:30-5:30 Vietnamese proficiency test for MS Vietnamese students enrolled under Decree 73

Wednesday, Aug. 24
Day 3, BCDA (DEAR)
3:15-4:30 WASC Meeting, All Faculty in Auditorium

Thursday, Aug. 25
Day 4, FGHE (Adv)
6-8pm MS Curriculum Night

Friday, Aug. 26
Day 5, CDAB (DEAR)
8:15-10  Opening PTA Meeting
4-7pm PTA Blast!

Upcoming (on the radar)
August 29-Sept 1 – MS School Photos (schedule)
August 31 – HS Curriculum Night
September 2 – No School (Vietnamese National Day)
September 7 – Early Dismissal
September 7 8, 13, 16, – MS MAP Testing
September 17 – PTA Family Day
September 23 – MS Dance

Roll Out of Grade 6 Schedules:  The schedules are created and things look pretty good.  We are ready for them to be distributed on Monday first thing.  Please help all Gr 6 students get to their new first block class (there will be large class lists posted on the 2nd and 3rd floors).  Once there, they will receive their new schedule and complete a new rotation template.  From that point, they will continue in their new schedule.  I will be sending an email out Sunday informing grade 6 students and parents of the coming change.  On Monday, we will update Moodle and Clever (which populates other programs/software).  Moodle should be fully updated by 3:00 on Monday ensuring students have correct access that night.

MS Curriculum Night:  Curriculum Night will run from 6-8pm on Thursday night.  The goals of this night are to meet and greet parents, share curriculum information, and share information about WWW.  We will be starting with a welcome and WWW presentations by grade levels.  After that we will return to our classrooms for the remainder of the evening.  At the MS LT meeting, we discussed trying to create a blended approach of focused sessions (where each teacher would give a short presentation on the course) and open house format (a relaxed, informal style where parents and students self-select where to go).  The details of this are still being worked out.  I will be ready to give full information by Monday.  The idea is great – the execution a bit challenging.  I will also hold a quick session from 3:15-3:30 on Tuesday to review the structure and expectations. This is an optional session.

Data in a Day and Community Profile Group:  On Tuesday, August 23, we have invited 20 parents and 10 teachers to conduct a data walk through.  As they walk through classrooms in all divisions, they will be collecting data in the following categories: Core Values, Reading/Writing, Use of Technology, and Student Engagement.  There is no need to “do” anything special.  The goal is to see what an average day at SSIS looks like in these areas.  What do we see and hear teachers and students doing; what is visible in the learning as it relates to these areas.  Groups will stay no more than 10 minutes in each classroom; and different groups will be looking for different categories.  There is no need to stop and greet each group as they are trying to create as little disruption as possible.  Thank you to Rick, Abena, and Siqin for participating in these walk throughs.

In the afternoon of that same day, these parents will be joined by middle and high school students to review the information and analysis in the first chapters of our WASC report.  These students will be missing DEAR and H block class.  They are expected to make up their missed work, but should be granted extended time as needed.

Vietnamese Classes for Decree 73 Vietnamese Students: International schools who enroll Vietnamese students must provide Vietnamese studies for those students.  Though always in place at the high school for some grade and for all grades in the elementary school, the middle school years were never specifically covered.  However, changes in Decree 73 (the circular that details procedure and policy) now specifies that middle school students and all high school Vietnamese students (those that only have Vietnamese passports and are enrolled under the provisions of Decree 73), must attend at a minimum 90 minutes a week.  In order to meet these requirements, we have created a 90 minute course that will run on Wednesdays for these students in Grade 6-12.  These classes will be leveled by fluency in Vietnamese and will be grouped in grade 6-8 and 9-12.  Our students will be taking placements tests this coming week on Tuesday from 4:30-5:30 in the MPR (this means our athletes might have to leave practice just a bit early).  Classes will start on Wednesday, Sept. 14.  Middle school students were notified in May and again in August about this requirement.  Click here to see the post on eNews.

MAP Testing:  We are still working our our MAP testing schedule to account for teachers who cross divisions.  As soon as it is available, we will post for all to review.  The basic plan is to run MAP testing for the first 1.5 – 2 hours of the day and run a shortened class schedule after that.  I am still working out the fine details to ensure that HS classes and MS classes do not overlap.  The MAP will be administered in advisory groups, with advisors being paired together in testing areas.  EAL/LS students will be tested in a smaller grouping.  Testing will be on Sept. 8, 13, and 16.

Common Teaching Strategy:  This is a new section being provided by Kate and Stacy to help us remain consistent on common teaching strategies adopted by our division.  

Using Graphic Organizers:

Using graphic organizers is nothing new, but often the question is, “Which one should I use?”  Graphic organizers are REALLY helpful to students in EAL and LS; of course, many more of your students will benefit from a little help with breaking something complex down into chunks and seeing how those chunks are related.  

As a staff, we have a number of graphic organizers that students are already familiar with using in our shared Teaching Strategies folder.  We’ve found that being consistent in which ones we use helps students make connections between disciplines and also saves us from teaching both a routine and the content.  Using consistent language, such as claim, reason, evidence, analysis, etc. is also really helpful for our students whether you’re writing in ELA, giving a presentation in Science, or making a speech in Social Studies.

A great place to start is using pre-writing organizers like these (in the Teaching Strategies folder).  This one is specifically for argumentative writing but is easy to adapt and modify for any subject.