Week Ahead: Sept. 6-10

| September 5, 2021 | Week Updates | No Comments

A full week of exciting learning is ahead of us!  I’ve been doing my best to get into classes – as we head into the week, be sure to send me a note if there is something specific you’d like for me to see and/or be a part of.

Here is what’s up:

Monday, Sept. 6
VS A-D
1:30-3:00 Admin Mtg (Molly attends)

Tuesday, Sept. 7
VS E-H
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team (agenda)

Wednesday, Sept. 8
Wellness / Consolidation
7:30-8:15  New Faculty Orientation Mtg
3:15-4:30 All Faculty PD, Character Strengths with David Bott (see description below)

Thursday, Sept. 9
VS A-D
3-4:00 Admin Mtg (Molly attends)

Friday, Sept. 10
VS E-H

Upcoming (on the radar)

  • Sept. 10 StuCo Grade Level Rep Elections during advisory
  • Sept. 17: MS Movie Night
  • Sept. 23: Early Dismissal
  • Oct. 13: End of Quarter 1
  • Oct. 14 and 15: Parent Teacher Conferences

Google Update from Daniel:  Google is renaming ‘Rooms’ and will be automatically updated to ‘Spaces’. Please note that renaming ‘Rooms’ to ‘Spaces’ will not change the functionality in Chat in any way. At a later date, ‘Spaces’ will be enhanced to include newer features such as in-line topic threading, discoverable spaces, and enhanced user roles and moderation.

From Roxanne’s Email last week – Advisory Lessons:  Week 9/6-9/10 we are making space in the advisory sessions for you to address the hopes and needs you brought up in Molly’s faculty survey and to your team leads. I have created some generic slides and some instructions and added them to each of your grade level Dragon Days slideshow. Links are below adapt slides to suit your grade. More information on the slides noted below.

  • For Monday: Use the time for building connections and hanging out with your students. Also capture what your students think they need. Links to activities provided and are optional. No prep needed.
  • For Wed: In addition to the Dragon survey your team will determine the needs and how to address them. Remember all students in your grade level need to have a common experience/info
  • For Friday: In addition to StuCo Elections (10ish minutes) your team will determine the need and how to address them.

Personal Development Leads, Advisory, and House Leagues as we move forward:  As of this school year, all SSIS grade levels have a Personal Development Leader (PDL) following the reorganization of the schoolwide middle level leadership positions (you can read more about this in the MS Middle Level Leaders document). These positions were created to better meet the SSIS mission of developing our students not only intellectually, but also personally. Lead by Roxanne, MS Dean of Students, our MS Personal Development Leaders (PDL) are:

    • G6: Kevin Brodeur
    • G7: Kelley McKenna
    • G8: Cintia Bastos
The primary objective of the PDL team is to support and coordinate student life experiences and personal development in division ensuring the intentional personal development of the SSIS dragons. In middle school, this happens primarily through the advisory program, Week Without Walls, the house leagues program, student activities/events, MS Meet-Ups!, after school activities (ASA) and athletics programs. Our PDT will provide oversight and coordination of these events and programs.
Last year, we had an incredible team of Advisory leads who focused on the development of our advisory program.  The revision of the advisory program to match PERMAH was the major priority of the division last year.   The advisory leads tended to the scope and sequence of the overall program and also created a fair amount of the individual advisory experiences/lessons for advisors. This team concluded this work with the completion of the scope and sequence and topic alignment.  This year, the PDLs will provide oversight to the advisory scope and sequence, making recommendations for continued growth and improvement as well as adjustments needed in response to Virtual School and/or other community needs. One key difference between the work of the Advisory lead team last year and the PDL team this year is that the PDL team is not responsible for advisory lesson creation. The refinement and creation of any needed advisory lesson will be shared across each grade level as has been done in previous years.
Another change moving forward is in the oversight of House Leagues.  The oversight of HL will move from the PE department to the PDL team.  We will continue with the same goals for the House League program, and HL activities will continue to be supported by various departments in the design, development and creation of HL events.  The PDL team will be evaluating the HL program for the year and will be design the scope and sequence of that program, as well as delegate responsibility across the division for the actual creation of events.

Wednesday PD with David Bott:  Complete the FREE 10-15 min survey at https://viacharacter.org  prior to the session.  If you’ve done it before it would be worth doing again to see what comes out considering our current state.   Take note of your signature strengths = TOP 6 STRENGTHS.  Please note: David Bott will be presenting to MS and HS students on September 22.  Students will be completing VIA in advance of their session.

PROVOCATION TO GET YOU THINKING: “Overusing a strength can turn it into a weakness. We need to be balanced in our strength profile.” Do you agree or disagree?”

Repeat Post – Subs in Virtual School:  We have a system set up for illnesses and absences during Virtual School.

As a teacher: Full details are in the MS Faculty Handbook; short version:

  • Text sub line if between 4pm-6:30am; message Thao if between 6:30am-4pm.
  • Same basic items need to be included in text but include course code for Schoology and add sub as an alt host (if possible; if not, then we will send a new Zoom to students)

 

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