Week Ahead: Oct. 2

Another great week!  What stood out for me this week was the professionalism and dedication of the MS faculty.  From PBL to Project X, you are knocking it out of the park.  I’m eager to see all of these plans come to fruition.  For such a hard working group, I hope that you are prepared for a great Fall Break that includes exactly what you need!

There are a few staffing changes happening next week.  Katelyn Cook will be moving to the ES to continue her EAL Student Teaching.  We also welcome Ms. Ha to the MS Office. She will be covering for Hang while she is on maternity leave.

Here is what’s up next week:

Saturday, Sept. 30
Happy Birthday, Eric Schoonard!
10-1  International University Event Saigon, 2017 at SSIS

Monday, Oct. 2
Day 1, ABCD (Adv)
*Katelyn Cook moves to ES
*Ms. Ha starts in MS Office
1:30-3 Sr. Admin Team Mtg

Tuesday, Oct. 3
Day 2, EFGH (DEAR)
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team Mtg (Agenda)

Wednesday, Oct. 4
Day 3, BCDA (DEAR)
1:30-2:30 HOS/MS Principal Mtg
3:15-4:30 Divisional Mtg (Library, Common Instructional Strategies)

Thursday, Oct. 5
Day 4, FGHE (HL)
11-12 Academic Leadership Team Mtg
12:55-1:35 HL

Friday, Oct. 6
Day 5, CDAB (DEAR)
*Last day of Quarter

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Oct. 6 – End of 1st Quarter
• Oct 17-25 – Molly at ERB Conference and doing school visits in Boston
• Oct. 17 – Comments completed and peer reviewed (in Q1 bin) and grades completed by 3:00; verification reports printed at 3:00
• Oct. 18 – Verification report reviewed, signed (can be digital) and returned to office by 12:15
• Oct. 19 – Parent Teacher Conferences, 4-8:00
• Oct. 20 – Parent Teacher Conferences, 8-1:00
• Oct. 20 – Hang’s last day before maternity leave
• Oct. 24-26 – International Week
• Oct. 28 – PTA Halloween Event
• Oct. 31 – Halloween Dress Up Day (DEAR time used for short HL competition – costume parade)

Common Instructional Strategy:  This week’s focus is on helping students with their organization and planning.  Developing independent learners requires that we teach them HOW to be independent.  One method we use at SSIS is teaching students how to use planners.  One key component is ensuring it is clear what students should write in their planner, giving them time to write it in their planner, and finally ensuring that students have time to ask questions about the information.  Here are some great examples that have appeared in classrooms at SSIS (there are more great examples, but these are ones I actually had photos of):

Repeat – New Email “MS Division” List:  We discovered that there was some confusion about how the MS Faculty email group worked – staff weren’t actually included in that group so they never got the emails (this includes people like Sanny, Khanh, Nguyen, and Hung).  4 years and I never knew this!  So this has been fixed with the creation of a MS Division email group (same with all the divisions).  So now when we need to email everyone in the division, please use MS Division.