Week Ahead: Sept. 21

Another fabulous week has passed.  We are just past the mid-quarter.  Just 3 short weeks until quarter end and Parent Teacher Conferences.  Remember that a proactive approach to informing parents about student academic concerns is much appreciated by all.

Note:  High School WWW trips are this week (Gr 9 and Gr 10 will be gone all week)

Here is what’s up this week:

Monday, Sept. 21
Day 2 EFGH
*Molly Burger & Amy Flynn out, Embedding Formative Assessment Conference
Tech Sessions in Math

Tuesday, Sept. 22
Day 3 BCDA
*Molly Burger & Amy Flynn out, Embedding Formative Assessment Conference
Tech Sessions in Math
Author Visit (Chris White) begins
3:15ish B Team BBall Boys v. TIS @ SSIS

Wednesday, Sept. 23
Day 4 FGHE (Special Schedule)
*Molly Burger & Amy Flynn out, Embedding Formative Assessment Conference
Author Visit (Chris White)  continues
8:15-9:15 MS Assembly, Chris White (author visit)
3:15-4:30 Divisional Mtg, Library

Thursday, Sept. 24
Day 5 CDAB
Happy Birthday Khanh!
Author Visit (Chris White)  continues
7:15-7:45 New Hire Mtg Option 1 (Focus – writing comments; anyone welcome)
9:30-11 Admin Team Mtg
3:15ish A Team BBall v. BIS @ SSIS; Swim Meet v. AIS @ SSIS

Friday, Sept. 25
Day 6 GHEF
7:30-8 Breakfast Sponsored by Gr 8 Team
8:00-8:30  New Hire Mtg Option 1 (Focus – writing comments; anyone welcome)
5-8pm MS Dance

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Sept. 29; Early Dismissal; PD 1-4:30 Teacher Teaching Teachers
• Oct. 7; Grades/Comments due by 3:00; verification reports ready by 3:30
• Oct. 8; Verification Rpts due by 12:15, End of the Quarter, and Parent/Teacher Conferences from 4-8pm
• Oct. 9; Parent/Teacher Conferences, 8-1:00
• Oct. 14; International Week ES/MS Art Exchange
• Oct. 16; International Week Parade (8-9:30) and Food Festival (2:30-5)
• Oct. 19-23; Fall Break

International Week:  October 14-16 is International Week.  This year’s theme is Arts Around the World.  Please view the schematic of activities.  Note that the committee is asking for all faculty to make an international curricular connection during (or before) the week.  We will be adding additional details to this document as they come available.

Update on In House Write (WrAP):  In previous years, the entire middle school faculty has been a part of scoring a beginning of the year writing sample (also referred to as BOY or In House Write) using the ERB WrAP format and rubric.  After discussion with our ELA department and Tina Fossgreen, we have made some alterations to this process.  This year (and in future years), we will be using writing samples written in ELA classes (rather than using a special schedule with all students writing at the same time) which will be scored using the appropriate SSIS rubric (rather than the ERB WrAP rubric which is not used in instruction and assessment in our courses) by the ELA, LS, and EAL departments (rather than all middle school teachers).  We will still work as a division to analyze the resulting data determining writing trends and creating divisional writing goals/focuses.  During this analysis, we will review anchor papers of our students to ensure that a clear understanding is gained by all about the writing abilities and needs of our students.  The decision was driven by a need to make the process of scoring sustainable (last year the process of training faculty on the rubric, scoring, and analyzing the writing took about 10 hours of time per faculty member) yet still involve all of us in the support of writing across the curriculum.  I believe we have come up with a great structure to continue the work in a sustainable way.  If you have questions and/or concerns about this new process and/or decision, please let me know right away.

Cool Instructional/Assessment Tip:  I really like the way these two articles support the same message: how can we focus students on the positive aspects of being a learner.  Check out this article by Carol Dweck from 2010: Even Geniuses Work Hard and this 2015 article by Jim Dillon, The Tyranny of the Right Answer.  The first article deals with the idea of growth mindset; the second includes 10 different strategies for helping students get beyond just trying to parrot back the right answer (supporting development of a growth mindset).