Week Ahead: Sept. 20-24
|What brought me joy this weekend? Seeing the kids riding bikes, roller blading, and scootering all around the complex courtyard. It’s been months since we’ve seen them. Their laughter lifted my heart. Seeing things ease up a bit takes a tiny bit of pressure off … but after reviewing the faculty survey, I know that more needs to be done. Thank you for your honest and candid feedback and input. You are doing amazing work with our students. Each time I visit a class (I got to see each of you over the past two weeks), I am impressed, personally engaged, and so proud of what you have accomplished. And I know it is draining, exhausting work. We will keep working together to support each other through this very difficult time.
Here is what’s up next week:
Monday, Sept. 20
VS A-D
1:30-3 Admin Mtg (Molly attends)
Tuesday, Sept. 21
VS E-H
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team Mtg (agenda)
Wednesday, Sept. 22
Wellness / Consolidation; Half Day PD
*Happy Birthday Abby Morgan!
1:30-4:30 Early Release; work time on curriculum
Thursday, Sept. 23
VS A-D
9:30-11 Admin Mtg (Molly attends)
Friday, Sept. 24
VS E-H
*Happy Birthday Khanh Tran!
Upcoming (on the radar)
- Oct. 11: Comments completed and peer reviewed (in Q1 bin) and grades completed by 3:00; verification reports printed by 3:45
- Oct. 12: Verification report reviewed, signed (can be digital) and returned to office by 3:00
- Oct. 13: End of Quarter 1
- Oct. 14 and 15: Parent Teacher Conferences
- Oct. 18-22: Fall Break
Parent Teacher Conferences: The structure of PTCs has been shared with you by your grade level team lead / leadership team rep. Conferences will be 7 minutes long (with the block being 10 minutes to allow for 3 minutes between conferences). Thank you to the tech dept and Thao for getting the back end organized with conference and break times. When Thao emails you, please be sure to review your schedule, add your lunch break, and request any changes as needed. Conferences will run Thursday from 9-6 (you have 2 20 min breaks and a 40 min lunch break during that time) and Friday from 8-4 (same break structure). These will be intense but rewarding days to meet with parents and celebrate successes from the quarter.
- If you are a new teacher or don’t have an active SchoolsBuddy account, you will receive an email from David Perkin to activate your account. Please do this activation process as soon as possible.
- If you are a returning teacher, please go to SchoolsBuddy to ensure you can sign in to your SchoolsBuddy account. To sign in, go to The Link, click the “Faculty” tab, and then click “SchoolsBuddy.”
From Roxanne: Character Strengths- Monday during advisory all MS students will take a survey that will reveal their signature character strengths. To do this:
- G6 students and advisors will all join into Ms. Dubois’s Zoom Room at 1:00PM
- G7 students and advisors will all join into Mr. Scott’s Zoom Room at 1:00PM
- G8 students and advisors will all join into Ms. Morgan’s Zoom Room at 1:00PM
MS/HS Schoology Focus Group
Now that we have had some experience with Schoology it is time to review what is working and what needs tweaking. We are convening a MS/HS focus group (of no more than 7 members) to review the template. We are looking for people who are interested to meet once a quarter to review the layout, processes and feedback and then make recommendations to the admin.
Once the recommendations have been approved, all teachers will adjust their courses to the expectations created from this focus group and the admin will follow up on implementation.
The group’s first meeting will be in October to review samples across grade levels and division. By Quarter 2, these adjustments will be communicated to MS/HS teachers and applied going forward. If you are interested in participating please let your divisional instructional coach know.
From Daniel: Schoology Gradebook Visibility: (note – there is a “to do” in this section – please read carefully): We received feedback from students and teachers that it was difficult for students to find assignments in Schoology after the due date passed. The solution is to turn on the Schoology Gradebook for students and remove the overall grades in Schoology.
The Schoology gradebook will be the one-stop location to find assignments. Students will be able to click into the Gradebook to find the list of ALL past and upcoming assignments. The assignments are hyperlinked, allowing the students to open the assignments to complete or review feedback on past assignments. This is what their view will look like:
One of the reasons for turning off the Gradebook previously was to avoid a mismatch of overall course grades between Schoology and PowerTeacher Pro. We still need to avoid this potential mismatch.
- So, you need to check some boxes in each of your courses to turn off the overall grade from appearing in Schoology. If you would like to do this now, please follow this tutorial.
- Go to Gradebook Setup
- Scroll down to Visibility Settings
- Check the first two boxes: Hide overall grade and Hide grading period grades.
We will also be at next week’s Divisional Meeting to go through this process and answer any questions.
If you are collecting the assignment via Schoology, continue to use the Schoology annotation features to give feedback. The feedback about the grading/comment feature in Schoology has been super positive and encouraging. You can insert an individual assignment score in Schoology if you wish or you can simply mark the assignment was completed without a score. If the assignment was not submitted within Schoology, you should just mark the assignment as completed once you verify its completion. It is essential that the score is inputted into PowerTeacher Pro once grading is complete in both submission situations. It is also still required to mark missing work flags in PowerTeacher Pro. This generates reports used by admin.
From Roxanne: Virtual School Progress Docs: Below are the Virtual School Progress Docs updated with Thursday, Sept. 16, data. You will note an increasing number of students with missing assignments. Thank you to all of who have already been connecting w/students during the week and/or during Wednesday tutorials to catch up with work and sharpen time management skills.
G6 VS Progress ’21-22 |
G7 VS Progress ’21-22 |
G8 VS Progress ’21-22 |
From Roxanne: MS SOC Referral and Meeting Docs: A zillion thanks to all of those who helped bring the improved SOC referral and meeting document to fruition and to all who are putting it to good use! If you do not have the access you need, let Roxanne or the appropriate team lead know.
G6 SOC (referrals & meetings) ’21-22 |
G7 SOC (referrals & meetings) ’21-22 |
G8 SOC (referrals & meetings) ’21-22 |
- On Friday, 224 MS Dragons and their parents received one of the following certificates!
From Roxanne: Wednesday Assemblies! Are you wondering what is coming up for our Wednesday’s Virtual School assemblies? Check this doc. Do you want to participate? Let Roxanne know! The students would love to see you in an assembly!
- Lead a poll time?
- Share something going on in your classes?
- Run a Poll time,
- Share some Pocket Trivia
- Be featured in as mid-assembly talent
- Run a house league event?
Tech News from Daniel Mendes: GREAT NEWS! There is now a Google Chrome extension that integrates with our Google Apps to make voice commenting quick and easy.
- Check out https://www.mote.com/
- Click the “Add to Chrome” button on this site and follow the prompts to install.
From David Chadwell: We’ve adjusted the Wednesday schedule to provide time for curriculum work.
- Wednesday, September 22
ES: Regular Instructional Day and After School is Divisional (see principal for details)
MS and HS: Half Day PD (moved from 23rd for MS and HS).- Time: Likely 1:00 – 4:00 but need to examine based on the schedule being used at that time. Current Focus: Work time individual and with Department on YAAG and Curriculum.
- Thursday, September 23
ES: Half Day PD; Time: Likely 1:00 – 4:00 but need to examine based on schedule being used at that time.- Current Focus: Work time individual and with team on YAAG and Curriculum; MS and HS: Regular Instructional Day (this is a change from previous schedule)
- Wednesday, September 29: EC-12 IDL and PDL (IDL with Clayton and PDL with Mel)
- Wednesday, October 6: Divisional (See principals for details)
- Wednesday, October 13: Divisional (See principals for details)