Week Ahead: Dec. 13-17

We made it!  The final week of the semester is just around the weekend bend.  I’m getting out the blog extra early to ensure that everyone has a heads up about events next week.  Please be sure to read through the post; there are some to-do’s in there.

Here is what’s up next week:

Monday, Dec. 13
VS A-D
*Spirit Week: Sports day

Tuesday, Dec. 14
VS E-H
*Spirit Week: HL t-shirt / color
3:00 Grades/Comments due

Wednesday, Dec. 15
Wellness / Consolidation
*Spirit Week: Holiday Wear
9-9:45 MS Assembly
10-10:40 Advisory
3:00 Verification report (for grades/comments) due
*remainder of day prep for Thursday

Thursday, Dec. 16
*Spirit Week: Favorite Color (Head to Toe)
Special Schedule 9-12:00

• 9-9:15 Welcome Assembly (attendance taken)
• 9:30-10:15  Session 1 Activities
  • Gingerbread Group 1 
• 10:30-11:15 Session 2 Activities
  • Gingerbread Group 2
• 11:30-12:00 Advisory (close out day)

*Master order due

Friday, Dec. 17
First day of Winter Holiday

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Dec. 19 – Happy Birthday Andrew Ward!
• Dec. 25 – Happy Birthday Cintia Bastos!
• Dec. 31 – Happy Birthday Natalie Beals!
• Jan 3 – Happy Birthday Stephen Ada!
• Jan. 5 – Happy Birthday Lili Dubois!
• Jan. 10 – 1st teacher day back, PD day
• Jan. 11 – 1st day back for students (format not determined yet – could be concurrent or fully virtual)
• Jan. 28-Feb. 4 – Tet Holiday

Winter Celebration:  The last day of the semester will be a fun celebration for all of us.  Please check out all the great activities being offered to students.  2021 Winter Celebration   All teachers need to either lead or support the activities.  You can sign up on the teacher version on page 4.  The table lists the number of teachers estimated to be needed in each section.  Materials for all the options are linked in the table.  Most activities are very easy to oversee.  Some might require a bit of background knowledge (ex. running Codename).  There is also space to add additional activities if you have more ideas for what to offer for students.  Please sign up by 3:00 Monday.  For those that don’t sign up by 3:00 on Monday, I will assign you to an activity (so if you don’t really mind what you do, you don’t have to worry about signing up).  Thank you all for helping to make the final day a very fun day for the middle school!

Survey Your Students at End S1:  In the past years, we have given the Tripod Survey to get feedback from students for their teachers.  This year, due to virtual school, we decided it would not be appropriate to use that tool (it wasn’t designed with virtual school in mind both in design and administration).  The MS Leadership Team wanted to still provide an option for teachers so that they could get this valuable feedback from their students.  To this end, they designed a modified survey using Google forms that teachers could use with their students.  We recommend you do this next week on Monday or Tuesday (or on Friday if that works best for you).  Again, this is optional.  If you do decide to get this feedback from your students, please follow the administration guidelines.   Here are the administration guidelines:

1. Make a copy of the Student Survey for yourself.  Add Molly as a collaborator on your form.  Add your last name at the end of the title of the form.  Ex. Student Survey Burger
2. The survey MUST be given anonymously.  You cannot ask for names or collect emails from the respondents.  You also cannot ask for the block they are in.  Note: This is a change from previous years when you were able to see results by block.  This is to better assure students of anonymity.
3. The survey MUST be optional for students to complete.  It is not good practice to force a student to evaluate their teacher.   In general, most students are very willing to do this.  However, each year, we do have a few abstain.  And because it’s anonymous, you will not know who abstained.  You cannot ask who abstained.
4. Administer the survey during your class block time.  Please do not send the students the survey to complete outside of class time.  This is also problematic for administration.
5. Use the same form for all classes.  Do not create a new form for each block.  Again, this is to better ensure anonymity.