Week Ahead: Sept. 9

A long weekend brings a short week – but what a busy one it was.  And this next week will be equally busy with 2 candidates visiting campus.

An ES faculty member mentioned to me that he wished he could keep his feedback form about the HOS candidate until he saw the other candidates.  Please consider this: evaluate the candidate independently rather than thinking in comparison to other options.  Our job is to provide feedback on what we see as the candidate’s strengths, possible concerns, and overall suitability to lead the school; how well we think this candidate can lead us in the growth and development of our school (based on our strategic plan and goals).  We do not need to (nor are asked to) provide a rating of our “favorite” person of the three candidates.   Though we will likely end up with one that each of us personally likes the best (human nature), that isn’t our role in this process.

Here is what’s up next week:

Chris Anderson’s Schedule: As Chris returns to a more part-time schedule, I’ll be including his hours for the week so that we can know when to find him.  Here is his hours for this week.

Saturday, Sept. 9
Happy birthday Dawne Kaba!
Critical Friends Training (and Sunday too)

Monday, Sept. 11
Day 6, GHEF (Adv)
8-4 Molly in CFG Admin Training

Tuesday, Sept. 12
Day 7, DABC (DEAR)
*2nd HOS Candidate on Campus: Catriona Moran (pronounced Katrina)
9-9:45  HOS Candidate walk through classrooms
4-5:00 HOS Candidate meeting with Full Faculty (MPR)

Wednesday, Sept. 13
Day 8, HEFG (DEAR)
*2nd HOS Candidate on Campus: Catriona Moran (pronounced Katrina)
9-12 Molly off campus to pick up 3rd HOS candidate
3:15-4:30 School wide committee mtgs (locations determined by committees)

Thursday, Sept. 14
Day 9, ABCD (Adv)
*3rd HOS Candidate on Campus: Rhonda Norris
8:15-9:15 MS Principal Coffee (Math in the Middle)
9-9:45 HOS Candidate walk through classrooms
4-5:00 HOS Candidate meeting with Full Faculty (MPR)

Friday, Sept. 15
Day 10, EFGH (DEAR)
*3rd HOS Candidate on Campus: Rhonda Norris
9-11 Admin Mtg
2:30 Apple Distinguished School Celebration / Presentation

Saturday, Sept. 16
11-2 Family Fun Day (please make an appearance if possible)

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Sept. 22 – MS Dance
• Sept. 27 – PD Day: Inquiry / PBL
• Sept. 28 – Celebration Assembly during advisory time
• Sept. 29 – HOS Reception for MS Faculty, 4:30-6:30
• Sept. 30 – International University Event Saigon (10-1) at SSIS (HUGE event, check it out)
• Oct. 10 – End of 1st Quarter
• 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

Apple Distinguished School Celebration / Presentation:  Apple representatives (yes, this means Robert Appino will be here) will be giving us our official ADS (Apple Distinguished School) plaque.  A celebration is planned for 2:30 on Friday.  Two MS students (and 2 from ES and HS) will be giving a short testimonial as a part of the process.  We will need volunteer classes to join the audience for the PR event.  I should know soon how many MS bodies are needed.  Please let me know if you are willing to give up 30 min. of class on Friday.

Celebration Assembly:  We are gearing up for our first Celebration Assembly.  This assembly is to celebrate the accomplishments of Q1.  I am in need of someone to take the lead on gathering the materials for this assembly (usually Bonnie has done this).  If you are willing to take lead on this, please email Molly.  For all – start thinking about what could be celebrated from your courses, your students, your team.  I am hoping that StuCo will emcee this event.

Family Fun Day:  Be sure to mark your calendars!  The first family fun day is here.  There have been some changes from the PTA to revitalize the fun days.  One thing that has changed is the ticketing process.  They have moved to “taster” tickets that will be given to students only.  This means we need to bring a bit of cash to purchase some of the great items being offered.  They are bringing in new vendors, new products, and new fun!  All faculty members are encouraged to make at least an appearance at the event.  The SSIS family is made up of teachers, students and parents – so let’s all come have a great time together. I’m hoping to have more information soon.

Common Instructional Strategy Review: Another look at sentence stems this week.  Providing this scaffold will assist students in meeting expectations more quickly and efficiently.  One area that we can continue to build student skills is in making effective arguments.  Middle school students love to argue and defend their points of view … but they are not very skilled yet in using evidence to support those view points.  Check out these argumentative / DBQ sentence stems found in the Sentence Stems folder in our Common Teaching strategies folder (yes, nested folders 🙂  ).  Here are some sentence stems to assist them in building their skills.

Another benefit of sentence stems is moving the focus from figuring out the way to get an idea started to focusing instead on the content you want them thinking about.  Check out this short video to hear why one teacher uses sentences stems in her secondary class (from Teacher Toolkit).

Sentence Stems