September 7, 2012

.       Happy Cy-Hawk Team Spirt Day!         .

Please welcome Shari Duncan on Friday! She will be our last recess associate (Jason Lawry has been filling in until now). We are excited to add her to our team.

Fall Assessment - As you complete benchmarking, please add the information to your grade level Google.doc. MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) will begin later this month for our 3rd-5th graders and that data also needs to be entered on the form. Please have your students information entered by Friday, September 21.

Professional Development is next Wednesday (Sept 12). Staff will be getting hands-on time and sharing around our EDM online resources. Related arts staff will be with like-subject colleagues from across the district. Locations of your meeting are on the Google.doc I forwarded from Michelle H. If you cannot access the document, please request access to it from Michelle.

As we begin completing walk-through observations, please note that you should receive an email copy of the walk-through that same day (within 30 minutes). Please review the feedback and comments, but you do not need to respond. I always welcome staff emailing or stopping in to discuss one of the reflective questions or comments, but it is not required. The emailed copy is your "official" copy as you/I do not need a hard copy. I will have at least two additional people joining me this year from time to time as they are working on their admin degree. If you do not want another observer, please let me know now so I can avoid your room on their visit days.

Our first Owl's Nest Day will be on Monday, Sept 17, and it will be located in room 415 (across from Koenigs and Lentell). Teachers are always welcome to provide positive rewards and activities for students within your room but I would encourage you to also sign up on the calendar Nicole emailed about this week. Kids LOVE eating or hanging out with RA staff, former teachers and "older" teachers (i.e. "my older sister's teacher). 

Odds-n-Ends worth sharing from our district admin meeting today...

• Watch some of our high school athletic events LIVE online! Including this Friday's home game at http://www.highschoolcube.com/schools/WaukeeHS  
• Additional wellness dates is Oct 19. Please sign up if you are interested. We had over 250 employees sign up the first round!
• There are A LOT of IT requests right now so please have patience! They are working long hours and working diligently!
• Phishing: DO NOT reply to any request for information unless it is from a specific IT employee. This creates 10's of 1000s of emails from your account and really, really slows down our email system.
• Human Resource Director interviews will be later this month.

Final Thoughts for the Week

Normally, it is where I keep typing/talking and you

don't necessarily have to keep reading/listening...but this week

I'd like you (teachers & associates) to keep reading! 

As we wrap up our fall benchmarking assessment period, it is a great time to think about the purpose and importance of the time our students are engaged in independent reading during the school day. A couple of our teams over the past two years have spent time reading and discussing a great book, What Really Matters for Struggling Readings, by Richard Allington. He can state it much better than I can so I wanted to provide a few of his thoughts as you begin to set up your students' book boxes/bags and/or start having conversations with students about what "type" of reading really increases their progress toward becoming proficient readers!

Allington highlights the importance of accuracy through multiple studies and mentions "that quality of word recognition in first grade (i.e., being able to recognize words) is more important than quantity of exposure to words" and through studying multiple intervention programs he concluded that "reading achievement of students...appeared to be explained primarily by one aspect...reading text at a high level of accuracy, between 98% and 100%" (p.69). 

So please be cognizant of what your students are reading - especially our struggling readers - as the research clearly indicates it is the amount of high-succes reading activity that delivers the gains we need to see in order to help EACH child be successful. 

...on that note, I would also LOVE to host a coffee, evening or electronic book club during the school year for any staff members interested in reading, discussing and working through Allington's book, What Really Matters for Struggling Readings. Please email me or stop in if you're interested!

August 31, 2012

Thank you to everyone for your engagement in our PD yesterday. You are doing many wonderful things to engage our families, shine the spot-light on our kids and make MGE a great place to learn, grow and work! A special thanks to Michelle, Lindsey and Cassandra for sharing with our staff yesterday. I really do love working here because we have such a caring, dedicated, diverse and fun (of course!) staff.

Friday's Rock-In-Prevention assembly schedule is below. Please be in the gym a few minutes prior to the assembly. We will not call classrooms down. Prep students by reteaching appropriate assembly behavior.

• 2nd/3rd: 9:15-10:30am
• 4th/5th: 11:00am-12:15pm
• K/1st: 1:00-2:00pm

PBIS Lesson Needed - Please help our nutrition staff by talking to students about being responsible and caring in the lunchroom. Specifically, we need students to keep food on their plates. It has been getting very messy in recent days and we would love for teachers to talk to students Friday before lunch to reinforce in is ALL of jobs to keep the building neat and clean - including the lunchroom floor.

Picture schedules were placed in your box. Please stick to the schedule unless a change is emailed or announced. The hallway by the custodians' and Rigler's office will be blocked off so pictures can be taken in this location. Please plan accordingly and tell your students if needed!

Sub Reminders - It is extremely important for you to leave a reminder for your subs to...

• record AM and PM attendance (this has not been happening regularly so far); and
• make sure they do not ask students, "Is everyone here?" or "If you're not here, raise your hand." Although I joke with the latter, the first one has been asked by subs already this year. Those questions and attendance recording are not safe and would likely not stand up in the court of law. :-) They need to check the students themselves and ensure all students marked are accordingly.

Thank you to Jennifer Johnston for supporting Mrs. Koenigs room during the first couple weeks of school! Friday is her last day as a short term sub at MGE. She has been a great help and we will be sure to see her in the near future. Another thank-you and abbreviated good bye to Amanda Robinson as Katie comes back next week. Amanda did a fine job with our 4th graders and will be back with us in Sara Weatherall's so, more of a "See you soon!"

Dates to note next week include

• Monday - No school! Labor day
• Tuesday - Tornado drill. Please review procedures (everyone MUST have their map up by the door)
• Thursday - busy day!!
• Barry @ Mandt training; 
• Williamson @ district mtg in AM; 
• 4th/2nd grade PLC+
• At-risk initial identification information due (on Google grade level docs)
• Friday - 
• College Spirit Day! More info coming...
• BLT (8:00-8:35am); 
• Bus evacuation drill

Final Thoughts for the Week

Where I keep typing/talking and you

don't necessarily have to keep reading/listening.

The power of a positive phone call can be unmeasurable and a great way to make an early 'deposit' in case you need to make a withdrawal later in the year. A few of you have already shared some neat stories with me about first week phone calls you made and I'm sure those few minutes will continue to pay off for you. Guess what though? It is never too late! I ran across a worth-reading blog post from Elena Aguilar and she highlights her experience with positive phone calls and their impact:

When I first started teaching and was overwhelmed by the demands and complexity of the job, my survival strategy was simply to take all the advice that came my way and implement it. So when my wise mentor suggested that after the first day of school I call all of my second grader's parents, I did so.

In spite of my exhaustion, I called each family and introduced myself. I asked a few questions about their child. I said that their kid had had a good first day. I said I looked forward to working together.

Your initial response may be, "Doug! I don't have the time! You have all these other 'to-do' items for us!" Well, Elena sums it up for me when she states:

I know how many hours teachers work. And I also know that a phone call can take three minutes. If every teacher allocated 15 minutes a day to calling parents with good news, the impact could be tremendous. In the long list of priorities for teachers, communicating good news is usually not at the top. But try it -- just for a week -- try calling a few kid's parents (and maybe not just the challenging ones -- they all need and deserve these calls) and see what happens. The ripple effects for the kid, the class, and the teacher might be transformational.

I'm giving you permission to move those other priorities down the list so you can share a little bit of your story with the families you will be spending the next 9 months with AND hear a bit about their story. It will make a difference.

August 24, 2012

Professional Growth - Attention teachers who fall under: Year 3, New to Waukee, or Initial license: I will be in the library Tuesday morning at 8:00am to walk through the evaluation/observation process. We will also cover end of the year summative document requirements (Year 3 & Initial Year 2).  This is an optional meeting as this will be a review of the evaluation memo sent out prior to school starting.

Related Arts Early Out Schedule Draft #2 - Please check our second draft of our related arts schedule. Thank you for the input. I will have final copy posted for all staff by 8am on Tuesday.  You can download the Draft #2 @: 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rsnpubh2eqhdlu8/Master%20MGE%20Schedule%202012-13%20FINAL.xlsx 

Overview of the changes:

** swapped SR/SA PE

** moved Day 1 KMC from AM to 12:20

** moved Day 5 3AS from AM to 12:00

** moved a few of K-art classes up 10 minutes

PLEASE check to make sure you have your tornado and fire drill maps up in your room. We must have those posted in every room (per WSDM Fire Department inspection). Our tornado drill will be Sept 4th and fire drill will be Sept 13th. Also, let me know if you did not pick up a red emergency reference guide for your room.

August 31 Assembly - Rock-in-Prevention assembly times are set! Very few classrooms had related arts conflicts. We met to identify the conflicts and the related arts teacher will talk to those teachers involved. The schedule is below. PLEASE have students in the gym by the start time. For more information about Rock-in-Prevention - click here.

• 2nd/3rd: 9:15-10:30am
• 4th/5th: 11:00am-12:15pm
• K/1st: 1:00-2:00pm

Smile! Yes...pictures are next Friday too! Paula will schedule K-1 classrooms and 2nd-5th grade classrooms will be able to sign up for times. To view and schedule your classroom's time, click here (please remember to look at specials, lunch and assembly times prior to scheduling!!).

Professional Development on Wednesday will begin at 2:10 pm in the library (change from the email). An agenda will be sent out early next week but a reminder that this time is for ALL MGE staff!! We are excited to have our entire MGE staff together to continue the conversation about diversity and inclusion centered around the theme of "Your Story Matters!"

Lunch Time! All students needs 20 minutes of seat time in the lunch room. Please make sure we are using the full time scheduled and encouraging kids to eat during the time they are in the lunchroom.

AESOP To-Do - PLEASE know that all teachers and associates should enter in some of your preferred subs so that those subs will be notified immediately when the absence is entered. When an absence is entered, the automated system 'reaches out' to your "Fab Five" subs in your preferred list during the first 1/4 of the "lag time" between when you enter it and when the sub is needed. Example: You enter an absence at 4pm the day prior to being gone. That is 16 hrs prior to your absence. The 1st four hours, will be time for your "favorite five" sub(s) to pick up the job (system calling or they can view it). Make sense? If not - see me. On a side note, I'm old enough to not think of the Olympics first when I think of the term "Fab Five." 

Rick Wormeli - If you're planning on attending, please register for the October 19th PD soon! It should be a great event! This is a contract day so certified staff should attend the workshop or be working in your rooms. 

AEA Support - The graphic/comic book novel approach has generated super high "readership" for Web-based documents. Heartland AEA took that approach to make a short video that highlights how they make an impact for the teachers they serve. Click here to see the video.

The Project Approach is an engaging and powerful way to teach children how to love learning. This four-part series, sponsored by the Mid-Iowa Chapter of Iowa AEYC, the Science Center of Iowa and Des Moines Business/Education Alliance, is designed to lead teachers step-by-step through the implementation of the Project Approach in the classroom. Graduate credit and teacher license renewal credit are available. Click here for a flier of dates and details. Click here to register or register through the AEA Professional Development catalog and enter activity number EC007899991301 in the correct field.