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West Hempstead Weekly Update
February 27, 2023
Remaining Open to Continuous Learning
“All of the top achievers I know are lifelong learners… looking for new skills, insights and ideas. If they’re not learning, they’re not growing…not moving toward excellence.”
Denis Waitley
Successful people are in a continuous learning mode. Their confidence, in combination with their curiosity allows them to constantly search for new and better ways to learn and improve. They seek feedback on their work—always growing, always learning, always modifying and improving themselves. They seize problems, situations, tensions, conflicts and circumstances as valuable opportunities to learn.
For some people, feedback represents a threat to what they know. They fear that new information will get in the way of their work rather than help them to improve their work. They confront new learning opportunities with fear rather than mystery and wonder. They seem to feel better when they have the certainty of knowing rather than the uncertainty of learning new ideas. They defend their biases, beliefs, and storehouses of knowledge rather than inviting the unknown, the creative and the inspirational. Perhaps some of us are afraid that if we admit our ignorance or confusion, peers and teachers will think we are a failure, that we are inadequate or stupid. On the one hand they know they must learn how to learn, but they are afraid to admit it. Being certain and closed gives them comfort while being ambiguous, doubtful and open gives them fear. However, when we are closed, we are not open to new questions, new ideas, and discovering our own new capacities and innovations. Yet what we are seeing in today’s workplace is that workers value and appreciate weekly, even daily feedback from supervisors instead of more formal annual performance reviews. Companies are ditching annual reviews for real-time feedback (Kiplinger, 2015). They recognize that continuous learning is far better than a single evaluation at the end of the year.
- https://www.habitsofmindinstitute.org/thinking-interdependently/
Scenes from Black History Month
Living Environment and mathematics students in 7th and 8th grade are doing an activity for both Black History Month and Women's History Month, first watching Hidden Figures and writing an essay about some of the contributions and inspiration the three scientists in the movie from NASA achieved, as well as a Women's Scientists Research project towards the ends of March.
African Kente Cloth-inspired weaving created by Mrs. Shinners' 3rd-grade students.
After school and during Ms. Stahl-Van Brackle's office hours, the hack-a-thon students worked on recreating the games that Jerry Lawson's console system made famous.
Below is a hyper doc from Ms. Dempsey that was used in her bio class.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iAK4I1dH8zROHa2O4jJxPuv9vuwbN5KGFoIO9o_oDuU/edit
Ms. Naughton's class discussed a mathematician of the week each Friday. Through this, they celebrated African American mathematicians and their contributions to the world today!
Ms. Perri's class researched African American scientists and shared them in class.
Ms. Nardo's chorus classes listened to and sung some songs from African American singers.
Ms. Courtney's classes are studying African American female artist Kara Walker. Kara Walker is a contemporary, Black American artist who is also a woman, and we will represent her for Women's history month as well.
NWEA Results in Reading and Math - Intermediate ICT Class
We have just wrapped up our Winter benchmarking in reading and math. We benchmark three times a year (Fall, Winter, and Spring). The data below compares the growth from Fall to Winter. This is a good time to look at real data (without names). This is an intermediate-level class, when normed against the rest of the nation, would be considered "typical." From our perspective, most students are making progress and are on course to make a year's worth of growth. Where this data is valuable is it allows teachers to target instruction.
Summary Data by Subject and Course
Percent Of Students Who Met Growth Projection Math 61.1% Reading 38.9%
Percentage of students with a Growth Index value greater than or equal to zero.
+/-50% of class meeting/exceeding Growth Projection is typical.
Considerably higher than 50% meeting growth -- doing quite well.
Considerably lower than 50% meeting growth invites exploration.
In looking at the report below, this class has six students in reading (purple squares in pink box) and six (green addition signs in pink box) in math who should be receiving targeted support. The remainder of the students (15 in reading and 15 in math) will continue to receive instruction with tweaks dependent upon individual students.
Percent Of Projected Growth Met Math 93.2% Reading 80.7%
Ratio of total Observed Growth to total Projected Growth. A performance of 100% is average, meaning the student growth equaled the projections.
This measure can provide a good indicator of group performance. However, be careful. The assumption is that students will grow at close to the same rate. One or two outliers can skew the percentage for the group. For example, a percentage of 150% could mean that one student's growth surpassed all others.
Count Of Students With Growth Projections And Valid Beginning And Ending Term Scores Math 18 Reading 18
Total of students, including those who showed growth and those who did not.
Count Of Students Who Met Or Exceeded Their Projected Growth Math 11 Reading 7
Number of students with a Growth Index value greater than or equal to zero. The count includes students flagged as Yes or Yes‡ in the Met Projected Growth column.
Median Conditional Growth Percentile Math 61 Reading 41
Percentile that falls in the middle of all the Conditional Growth Percentiles shown.
Based on this data, this class has made some progress. There is room to grow and improve, particularly in reading. We look forward to the work ahead.
Curriculum Writing
UPK Lottery Completed 1/11/23 - Seats Still Available - Registration is Underway
Kindergarten Registration is Underway!
Transportation Requests Are Due By April 1
As per New York State Law, transportation applications to non-public schools must be filled out and submitted to the district on or before April 1st.
To streamline the process, we will no longer be mailing paper applications to each household.
Parents/Guardians are urged to follow this link: https://www.whufsd.com/page/transportation
Upcoming Events
3/7 BOE Budget Meeting - Non-Instructional - 7:30 pm - SS VCR
3/9 PTA/PTSA/SEPTA Reflections - 7 pm - North Cafeteria
3/10 ACT Registration Deadline
SS Interim Progress Reports Viewable
3/11 SAT Exam
3/13 Spring Sports Begin
3/14 BOE Budget Meeting - Instructional - 7:30 pm - SS VCR
3/16 - 3/18 SS Drama Production
About Us
Email: drehman@whufsd.com
Website: www.whufsd.com
Location: 252 Chestnut Street, West Hempstead, NY, USA
Phone: 516-390-3000
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WhufsdRams
Twitter: @WhufsdRams