Week Ahead: Sept. 14 – 18

This poem was posted in the AAIE’s COVID update. It made me reflect on how lucky we are that the core of our work is about helping young people grow and develop. For our part – young adolescents who have so much energy, passion, and quirkiness. I hope that through this week you have had your own energy boosted by one of these lovely human beings.

Here is what’s up next week:

Monday, Sept. 14
Day 4, FGHE
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team (agenda)

Tuesday, Sept. 15
Day 5, CDAB
*Happy Birthday Daisy Lo!

Wednesday, Sept. 16
Day 6, GHEF
1:00 StuCo Elections
3:15-4:30 Divisional Mtg (Library)

Thursday, Sept. 17
Day 7, DABC

Friday, Sept. 18
PD Day (see below)
8-10 at home – virtual practice
10:30-3:30 at SSIS

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Oct. 7 – End of Quarter 1
• Oct. 8 and 9 – Parent Teacher Conferences

Advisory Lessons: The advisory leads are working hard to help create and organize advisory lessons for you. They are hitting the ground running and aim to get out the lessons several days in advance in the short term and at least a week in advance in the future. For now, you can check this link on the MS Blog for advisory lessons: Sept Planning Calendar. Monday’s lesson is already linked.. 
Do you have questions, feedback or suggestions about advisory? Please share them with one of the advisory leads at your grade level or with Roxanne. Do you want to help create a lesson? Please let us know! 

StuCo Elections: Student Council elections will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Additional directions will be coming – however, the general plan is that students will watch the candidate videos together as a group during study hall/tutorial. The expectation is that students watch all candidate videos before voting. To ensure this, advisors will show the videos; then direct the students to vote. Congratulations to Roxanne, this year’s StuCo advisor, and the Executive Council – we have a record number of candidates!

Sept. 18 PD Day: This PD day will be dedicated to two purposes. We will be starting our day in the home office with a test of virtual school readiness. Though the timeline is still being finalized, we will start with online PD focused on assessment from 8-9:20. We will have a practice virtual school session with students from 9:30-10. The goal of this session will be to practice Zoom breakout rooms (with a side goal of testing wifi and other systems). This will be done in advisory groupings. [In preparation for this practice day, students will view a video explanation of how virtual school will/would work if the situation changes in Vietnam. This will happen on Tuesday.] After the virtual morning, we will all make our way to school by 10:30. The remainder of the time will be continuing our work on assessment and power standards. Lunch will be provided.

Tripod Surveys:  We will be administering the Tripod student surveys again this year.  We will be administering them between Nov. 9-20.  These surveys have proved to be valuable in generating feedback directly from students.   The survey should take 10-15 minutes of class time.  New faculty (and anyone else who would like a refresher) will have an introduction to Tripod in October. 

In the meantime, here are you can read more about the Tripod Survey:
Tripod Overview
Guide to Tripod’s 7C’s Framework
Sample Reporting Formats

Flip Grid Reading Challenge: This week, the library is launching a FilpGrid for the Dragon Books.  Students always respond with more enthusiasm when teachers get involved, too! If you’ve read a Dragon Book, post a FlipGrid review!  Please share this slideshow with your Advisory during DEAR time one day this week. It is a Reading Challenge Check-In, a bit more information about Dragon Books and also includes the FlipGrid link. Thanks!  Here’s the slideshow link:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1befYl0a6CEF-BPxCEHCwEo-hTclgmWKxHLnMeLzl4sw/edit?usp=sharing

Middle School Students who pick up ES Siblings: We found out that MS students who are picking up their ES siblings are exiting the gate and then waiting with the parents to come back in. Bless their hearts! They are actually allowed to go down the MS walkway, through Bldg C, and to the plaza to pick up their brothers and sisters. This will be in the morning student announcements – please make sure this information is shared.

Academic Honesty Posters: Claire has designed and delivered Academic Honesty posters to each of your mail boxes. (Thank you, Claire) Please post them in your classrooms and refer to them regularly when giving assignments. This comes in response to an increase in academic dishonesty incidences last year. Understanding and adhering to academic honesty guidelines helps our students develop and demonstrate the core value Respect For All, Academic Excellence and Sense of Self.