January 4, 2019
Goals have been approved at all levels of the school community and we are looking forward to monitoring each and adjusting as necessary to achieve them. We have been focused on more intense dialogue with each other in order to improve our professional learning. Our School Improvement Panel (ScIP) discussed professional books that align with district and school goals. We will be reading together in our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and sharing ideas and issues with the whole staff at faculty meetings and professional development (PD) meetings. Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam and the magazine Educational Leadership Volume 73 No. 1 Questioning for Learning were chosen to discuss and the plan is to finish with Results by Mike Schmoker.
We will be giving our second Benchmark Assessment this month. We have a professional development day planned on January 21st to dive into the data obtained from our first and second Benchmark Assessments. Teachers use the results to guide their instruction based on strengths and weaknesses for enrichment or remediation.
Teachers are also monitoring their students' individual learning goals as they were set at the beginning of the year based on feedback from the prior year and formative assessments given at the beginning of the current year. If you attended conferences in October, your teacher may have discussed these with you. It’s another way that we truly differentiate instruction to meet your child’s needs.
We have professional development (PD) scheduled for our teachers in the areas of math and science. Specifically, we are in our fourth year of our Go Math program implementation and overall we are seeing improvements in our math scores across all assessments. However, we can still improve. PD from the program’s representatives is scheduled during an upcoming early dismissal PD day. Also, our teachers will receive PD from our science program by reps from STEMscopes. It is the first year of this program and we will be looking for more general science instructional PD opportunities.
Our Hour of Code was a great success thanks to Mr. Zimmerman and help from Ms. Heyduke, Mrs. Montesion, and Mr. Blondina. The 8th grade students led various activities with the younger grades. Students were able to build robots, code dance parties, build interactive stories and/or code their own video games; it’s safe to say that they learned and had fun at the same time! These activities fall in line with our goals connected to STEM, which is to build student confidence in the computer sciences and allow students to investigate, ask questions, and explore.
We had another successful, annual Holiday Luncheon! Our lunch guests always appreciate the efforts of the PTA during this awesome event. The students always enjoy the visit from Santa.
Our band and chorus performed at the Holiday Concert. They did a fantastic job! Thanks to Mrs. Thompson for leading our students, and thank you to the staff for being flexible during the couple of weeks that lead up to the show.
Another Spelling Bee is in the books. Congratulations to Gabby Medea for the win; second place went to Ava Keiser and tied for third place were Kate Firko and Abby Rambo. A thank you goes out to Mrs. Charleston for leading it. Also, thanks to Mayor Daniel, Mrs. Behrens, and Mrs. Thompson for judging and Ms. DeAngelo who was tasked with saying the words.
On another note, we recently updated our security plan and have been in close contact with the Prosecutor’s Office and the Washington Twp. Police. Obviously, our goal is to keep your children as safe as possible while they are in our care. As a result, we continue to look for ways to make this happen.
We are once again participating in the Governor’s Educator and Teacher of the Year program. I look forward to announcing the winners in the near future as selected recently by our Selection Committee!
I will close by saying goodbye to what I feel was a successful 2018 for our school! We will continue to work hard moving into 2019 so that your children can continue to grow both academically and socially and experience both success, and at times, failure. We look forward to the challenges!
Happy New Year!
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