The Knight Times

Thomas Dale Faculty and Staff,

Ready or not...HERE THEY COME!!!

What a week! From TD Knights chairs to Lost at Sea and Senses Memories to setting expectations and Fears & Hopes. From working with students to hyping it up at the convocation pep rally. From 2,384 to 2,502 in the blink of an eye!

Ready or not...there will be about 2,500 of the most amazing students on Earth stepping on campus to fill our halls and classrooms with joy, enthusiasm, and a bit of nervous energy next week. Tuesday will be the BEST first day EVER for our newest Knights, the Class of 2023! And on Wednesday, we will begin our journey of the BEST YEAR EVER!! With the opportunity for all of us to meet all of our kids, we are starting off on the right foot to build relationships with our students. These two days will be awesome and totally crazy. And that's okay! Flexibility, a positive attitude, smiles, and high fives will make everything alright for everyone!

Here is your survival guide for the week:

• Bell Schedules for Tuesday: WEST DAY 1 and MAIN DAY 1.
• Bell Schedules for Wednesday: WEST DAY 2 and MAIN DAY 2.
• Bell Schedules for Thursday and Friday: WEST and MAIN.
• Access to the DASHBOARD.
• You will need the link to the BUS ROUTES.
• You will need access to the VIDEO ANNOUNCEMENTS to play at the beginning of the block.
• We appreciate your assistance with our HOT SPOTS and HOT TIMES. Your help is invaluable!
• 1st period - BLUE schedules to your students. Return any "No-Shows" with the enrollment form before 10am.
  
• Lunch rotations for Wednesday - Single grade level, please escort. Two grade levels, please split your class. Three or four grade levels, choose one grade level and work with your department to distribute your choices.
• Pep Rally - You will need the Pep Rally AGENDA and STADIUM SEATING MAP.
• HAVE FUN!!!

I also promised I would include all the slides used this week. Here you go!

Welcome Back Faculty Meeting

Nuts and Bolts:

• Field Trips
• Bookkeeping and Payroll
• Clinic and Counseling
• Engagement
• Expectations and Discipline
• School Safety
• Special Education and 504

Department Meetings Whole-Group Opening Slides

Enjoy!

Links shared in this issue:

• In-Service Week Agenda
• TD Staff Dashboard
• KUDOS!
• 6-person Bowling Team Signup Form
• Lunch Rotations
• 504 Distribution Receipt Form
• Lesson Plan Templates: 4 Questions and Before-During-After
• Pathways Roster
• Fee Collection Spreadsheet
• Morning Announcements
• Chromebook Deployment Plan (September 12)
• Yoga Sign Up Form

#EveryKnightEveryDay

The I Make A Difference award is a weekly recognition for a staff member going above and beyond the requirements of the job. Each week, the previous I Make A Difference award winner will select one member of the faculty/staff who displays excellence, goes the extra mile, and makes a difference and "pass" it on.

From Sonja Mix:

Thank you, Chris Kelly, for thinking of me! This recognition coming from one of the top technological forerunners in this building is a great honor. I suspect some might suspect that this award is rigged being that we carpool to work. Your innovation in this building has kept Thomas Dale ahead of most technological practices in CCPS.

The next recipient of the I Make A Difference award is Robert (Luke) Petrey. Luke is very quiet and is definitely a “behind the scenes” kind of teacher; many colleagues do not know the many magnificent things he does for his department, the school, and his students. Luke is always willing to help the Visual and Performing Arts Department. He is one of the few teachers in our department that at one point in his career has taught every art class offered and is always there to help us when we need suggestions about instruction and innovative ideas. Not only does he know his content, he knows how to teach it. The artwork that his students create is breathtaking. It doesn’t matter how skilled the students are when they come to him, by the end of the year they are creating amazing pieces. His students respect him and enjoy his class. There is not a day that goes by that he is not looking out for his colleagues (I think I would miss most meetings if he didn’t remind me…just kidding Dr. Jones…maybe) and his students. Our department would not be the same without him.

The purpose of our weekly KUDOS is to give public affirmation to a faculty/staff member for a job well done. Anytime you witness something that you think deserves KUDOS, you are invited to fill out THIS FORM with the staff member's name and a little about why he/she deserves KUDOS. Each individual recipient will receive an email with attachment shortly after the KUDOS has been submitted! The list of teacher names and valiant acts will be published in The Knight Times. At each faculty meeting, those nominated for KUDOS will be entered into a drawing for a special prize! Be alert to the wonderful actions of your colleagues and give a shout out when you see something awesome!

Please enjoy this week's KUDOS by clicking HERE!

• Are you a bowler? (Information/Action). The superintendent is putting together a bowling fundraiser, and it would be nice to get a team of 6 together. Who's in? Click HERE to let me know you are interested. It is $15 per person; all money goes to Conexus nonprofit. First 6 are in it!
• West Campus Entrance for Faculty and Staff (Information). Faculty and Staff entrances for West Campus will be Door 9 and Door 1. Door 9 will be open at 7am; even if you park near Door 13, please use Door 9 or Door 1. Thank you!
• Lunch Rotations (Action). Please see THIS SPREADSHEET for your Lunch Rotation. Thanks!
• 504 Plan Distribution Receipt (Action). Have you received 504 Plans from Angela Porter? Please CLICK HERE to let her know you've received them. It's literally a one-click form. Thanks!
• In Need of a Lesson Plan Template? (Information). If you are looking for a lesson plan template that will help you design instruction, check out these two: HERE for Number 1 and HERE for Number 2. Personally, I feel Number 1 with the four questions is simple and leads to the most intentional design for your students!
• ESOL (Information). ESOL is divided by level and not grade. This means that there may be Freshman ELs on Main campus and upperclassmen at West.
• (Re-print) After-School Supervision (Information/Action). We offer after school supervision for students who attend other specialty centers from 3-5 each school day, and we are looking for teachers who are willing to provide this supervision. Please let Dr. Grabham know if you are interested in doing this or if you have any questions. The obligation can be split among multiple teachers and you will be paid for the time you supervise.

Our approach to professional development takes on a personalized approach this year. During in-service week, you were asked to think about your growth for the year and how a pathway in 1 of 12 areas of high-quality instruction could best meet those needs. Because our first Personalized Professional Development Pathways meeting is Monday, September 24, right after school in the Main Commons, we wanted to take time to remind you of your selection and to also provide a short description of each in the event you wanted to change your pathway going into our first meeting.

The purpose of the meeting on September 9 is to identify your group's learning goals and intended outcomes (which will also serve as your PGPP-T professional goal), and then to decide the best way to get there (e.g. book study, learning walks, peer observation, in-house monthly workshop, etc.). As a reminder, HERE are the meeting dates shared earlier. There will be a mid-way whole group check-in (January 13), and then an end-of-year exhibition of learning (June 8).

Please click HERE to view the spreadsheet indicating where you selected. There is a full staff roster tab, and then a tab for each pathway. This spreadsheet will be updated before our September 9 Pathways meeting.

Here are the pathways with a short description:

Instructional Non-Negotiables.

• Relationships. The key to a healthy learning environment in which students and teachers feel safe (physically, emotionally, psychologically, and socially) is with strong relationships. Relationships are the foundation to a healthy school culture, positive learning experiences, and challenging coursework.
• Purposeful and Collaborative Planning. Everything that happens in a classroom is by design. Engaging (or not engaging), measuring progress (or not measuring), providing feedback (or not providing), differentiating (or not differentiating) all happen as a result of intentional and purposeful planning. The importance of collaboration allows us to be even better with our intentions and contributes to a collegial work environment.
• Ongoing Assessment and Feedback. Constantly checking where students are in relation to the intended outcomes is paramount. Knowing who needs what will allow you to make skillful decisions about adjusting instruction based on student understanding and performance. The role of feedback is to do that very same thing for the students. In a "no secrets" classroom, the student knows what they are learning, how they are measured, and how they are doing in relation to the intended outcome.

Cause Learning.

• Activate Prior Knowledge. Activating prior knowledge is about making what is in the students' minds on their minds. It is not about assessing who knows what, it is about setting one half of the velcro that will later be attached during instruction. This is tapping into the knowledge that ALL the students are coming to the table with; not just some of them.
• Academic Rigor and Deeper Learning. This pathway is intended to dig deeper into your content areas so that students are experiencing trans-disciplinary learning - learning that integrates your content with other contents by using the 5 Cs (Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Citizenship). With academic rigor and deeper learning, students will be able to perform the skills in any given context. Students will be able to use multiple skills to access the curricular objectives and to make connections across multiple disciplines.
• Authentic and Contextual Experiences. Learning that takes place within the context allows students to access curriculum in authentic situations. Objectives in an authentic and contextual experience are not learned in isolation, devoid of where they are used in the universe. In this pathway, you will explore how to use the context and authentic experiences to engage students in learning the curriculum.
• Project-Based Learning. With a product or design outcome in mind, students will explore and learn the content driving toward some type of exhibition as the outcome. Much like authentic experiences, PBL pulls in multiple objectives and/or disciplines to focus the students on a product, so that learning the skills/objectives occurs as a result of doing, rather than in isolated silos.

See Learning.

• Intentional and Purposeful Checking for Understanding. Measuring wether or not students are working toward proficiency or mastery of your daily target is critical to informing your understanding of how students are performing during the lesson. Checking for understanding occurs throughout the entire lesson, and it happens intentionally and purposefully. To begin, these moments in a lesson are carefully crafted when designing the lesson during planning. Carried out in a lesson, you will measure student progress at strategic moments and make adjustments accordingly. Within-the-lesson and lesson-to-lesson data are collected as you intentionally and purposefully check for understanding. Knowing who got it and who did not is a question the skillful teacher can always answer.
• Data and Evidence Collection and Analysis. Decisions about future lessons (near- and long-term) will be made with student work in hand. Whether you use data or student evidence that you collect, you are selecting future targets, strategies, and assessments based on the students' work. A skillful teacher and a high-functioning PLC will always use student evidence to evaluate and reflect on their teaching and make adjustments and subsequent plans according to the "hard evidence" they bring to the table.
• Strategic Monitoring. Monitoring how students perform in relation to the course objectives is important for knowing your students' performance levels and, more specifically, their needs. Being able to track student progress by objective over the course of the year will allow you to make decisions that are personalized for each student. Strategic monitoring to collect mastery longitudinally begins with tightly-aligned assessments that allow teachers and students to quickly measure, assess, and reflect on a student's performance by objective (as opposed to unit, assessment, or even time).

Differentiate Learning.

• Small Group Instruction. Understanding where each student is in relation to proficiency/mastery of the intended outcomes will allow you to group students by readiness levels to differentiate the level of instruction they receive based on needs. In any given classroom, there are students who are academically not ready for the day's lesson, ready to learn the objective, or have already mastered the objective. If you have only planned a one-sized lesson, you will inevitably miss two of the groups. Instead, the differentiated classroom has a strategic plan to meet the needs of kids who are not ready, ready, and moving on.

Customize Learning.

• Personalized Learning. This is our North Star. In a personalized learning environment, students are agents of their learning. Students are self-directed learners who engage in topics that interest them in order to learn the content. Students are guided by their passions, gifts, and goals to set context for their learning. In a personalized learning environment, students have choice in how they will engage in their learning and how they will demonstrate mastery. Some of the time, they may not have choice of content, but their pathway will be self-selected, based on goal setting, progress monitoring, and reflection. As an example, the Personalized Professional Development Pathways that we are currently engaged in is Personalized Learning.

This year, we are ON IT! I know that our approach last year was frustrating for you, and in an effort to respond to your feedback, we revamped the way we collect and track fees. The spreadsheet is already up-to-date, and updated LIVE!!!!

I've added it to the dashboard under "Fee Collection Spreadsheet (2019-2020)" for you to access. We are relying on you to track whether or not students in your class have paid required fees. Column D in the spreadsheet has the students' last names to make it easy for you to check out. Simply scroll across; we created ten possible entries for each student.

I've linked the spreadsheet HERE for your convenience.

This time last year, we started broadcasting the morning announcements with a school-wide video. Over the year, it became the K News daily broadcast. On Tuesday, Sept. 3, and Wednesday, Sept. 4, the first broadcasts of the 2019-20 school year will be available on a shared google doc - linked here and in the TD Staff Dashboard.

Morning Announcements Videos

The link below takes you to the 2019-20 google form that you can use to get your school-wide announcement to us to include in the script. This link is also in the TD Staff Dashboard.

Form to Submit Announcements

There are two guidelines you need to know:

• Turn in your announcement at least three days before you’d like it to run.

• Please limit the time your announcement will run to three specific days.

If you’d like to share video promotions, raw video footage or still photographs to use during the morning announcements, place the media in the folder provided here - the Photo/Video Link & Submissions - , also linked in the TD staff dashboard. You'll find specific instructions there. Let us know through the Form to Submit Announcements that you've submitted something for us, what you've named it, and any details we should know.

We would love to also use your videos & photographs in the other Knightly News publications - there is a place on this form for you to give your permission for that use.

Many of you may not realize the miracle that happened last year. A very small group of dedicated Thomas Dale students were responsible for making sure we had video announcements almost every single school day. The students wrote the scripts from your submissions, taped even when the microphones and cameras weren't cooperating, and edited the shows at night ... using WeVideo, usually on a Chromebook. Like I said ... a miracle that Dale students - through their personal commitment - pulled off. We're hoping to take it to a new level this year ... but mostly I just wanted to say thank you for your support and your patience.

Here's to another amazing year.

Lee Bloxom, The Knightly News adviser, on behalf of The Knightly News editors & staff

Students will receive Chromebooks on September 12th from 8:30-10:00 at both campuses. We are going to try something different from the dot system we used last year. This year, a student will simply get a card or not get a card. Here is the plan for Chromebook deployment. This document will be update over the coming days so if there is information missing it will be there soon. Please review the schedule within the document and email Clint Patterson @ clinton_patterson@ccpsnet.net if you've been left off.

I was not always a member of the CEA. When I began my career at CCPS, I was young, still paying back my student loans, and couldn’t see losing anything voluntarily from my paycheck. Then suddenly, at the end of my 4th year in the county, I had a good reason to join the CEA. I would love to share the details of my “CEA story” with you in person and hear your CEA story, if you have one.

There are so many great reasons to join the CEA:

• Many of us join for the liability insurance, because you never know when you might need it.

• You will have an expert in educational employment law you can call for legal advice or representation.

• You gain access to teaching resources and get a subscription to the VEA and NEA magazines, which are a treasure trove of practical ideas and reflections on the profession from teachers and other educational professionals.

• Discounts on home and auto insurance, etc. are available.

• Swag, such as magnetic school year calendars and stickers, will be given to all members.

• There is strength in numbers when we are asking for improvements in our salary and working conditions.

This year’s goals are a 5% raise for all Chesterfield County employees, getting teachers paid either through time or money for any classes they supervise during their planning period, and a third goal which I would love to talk to you about in person. Whether you are a member of the CEA or not, I am here to be your representative and support you in any way I can. And if I don’t know the answer to your question, I will find out for you! If you ever have anything you would like me to bring up at the Rep meetings, or if you would like to be a CEA rep (we can have 3 more!), please let me know.

To become a member of the CEA, go to vea.link/ceamemform or ask me for a paper copy.

-Ruth Loop, Main campus room 1001; West campus pd. 4E and after school on even days

Canvas: We encourage you to add the library website (LibGuides) into your Canvas classes for student access. Here are the directions to do so. See us if you need help.

Passes: Students must have passes to visit the library.

Engagement Passes: If a student wants to visit the library during Engagement, they must have a pass FROM the library. This is the only time of day that we do not take teacher passes. Students can pick one up the day before or in the morning before Engagement.

Staff Book Club: Do you like to read, snack, and chat? Join Staff Book Club! See the link for the book club brochure. We are still working on adding this activity to Impact so hope to be able to offer recertification points as we have in the past.

Cords and Equipment: As soon as it is safe to be in the main campus library, we will get you your cords for the ceiling projectors and equipment. Thank you for being patient.

Awesome Girls' Volleyball at Thomas Dale needs your help:

Would you like to purchase a space in our Game Program?

You can advertise a business, celebrate a member of the team, or even just give TDHS a shout out. By purchasing an AD space you are supporting our team's success as 100% goes to the team.

Price corresponds to the percentage you buy except business card size:

(Example Included)

Full page $100

Half Page $50

Quarter page $25

Business card $15

For questions please contact Coach Jen Ray Jennifer_Ray@ccpsnet.net

Thank you so much!!

Beginner Faculty/Staff Yoga Class: Thursday, September 5, 3:30-4:30p.m. Room 1009

Feeling stressed? Are you looking for a way to take some time for yourself and practice some self care? Do your thoughts run away with you and you can’t get your brain to “be quiet”? Do you want to learn how to stay in the present moment? Do you have tight muscles? Are you curious about yoga? If you answered yes to any of these questions then please join us for a free weekly faculty/staff yoga class! Yogis of all levels are welcome! Please click here to learn more and register.

As part of our work to establish a positive, healthy, and joyful school culture and to provide more opportunities for connection, collaboration, and academic assistance, we will experiment with One Lunch on 27 days throughout the year. The first one will be on September 25 as part of our Genius Hour Bell Schedule at Main. (NOTE: The first Genius Hour at West will be September 24, built into the 1E block without the need for an adjusted schedule.)

Please access the Department Rotations HERE. This includes September 25, October 9, October 16, October 23, and November 6.

One of my favorite advantages of One Lunch is that no child in our school has to eat alone!

As part of our intentionality to strengthen trust, communication, and relationships, we will include agendas and minutes from our meetings in this section of the newsletter.

• Admin Team Retreat: August 5 and 6
• English - August 28
• Government PLC Minutes - August 30

Upcoming Birthdays:

Rebecca Alexander - September 3

Kevin Cook - September 6

Caitlyn Falsone - September 8

Kara Watts - September 8

Enjoy your day!!!

Stay connected to OUR CALENDAR and mark yours!

Click HERE for our 2019-2020 meeting dates.

Click HERE for the 2019-2020 SCA Calendar.

Upcoming Events:

Click HERE for all things September for School Operations.

Click HERE for all things September for Activities.

• August 26-30 - Teacher In-Service Week
  
• August 30 - Dale-gate and Football vs Cosby
• September 3 - New Students First Day of School (West Schedule and Main Schedule)
• September 4 - All students report (West Schedule and Main Schedule)
• September 9 - Professional Development Pathways Meeting (Main Campus Commons)
• September 12 - Chromebook Deployment (8:30-10am)
• September 13 - ILT Meeting (10:15am, Art A - Main Campus)
• September 16 - Back-to-School Night: Open House (6-7:30pm)
• September 19 - Cal Ripken Foundation, Niagara Bottling, Home Depot, Scott's Turf Project Unveiling and Dinner
• September 20 - Beautiful Tomorrow Assemblies (by grade level, more information later)
• September 23 - Faculty Meeting (West Campus Auditorium)
• September 24 - West Campus Genius Hour during 1E (9-10am)
• September 25 - Genius Hour and One Lunch at Main Campus (Bell Schedule)

Click below to access previous issues of The Knight Times, our weekly staff newsletter:

• Week of August 12
• Week of August 19
• Week of August 26

Click below to access previous issues of From the Castle, our monthly parent and community newsletter:

• August 2019

If you have information you need to share, input you seek, or dates you need to communicate, please send it to me. As we improve our communication structure, The Knight Times will become an increasingly collaborative document.

Please email me what you'd like to share - just ensure you have The Knight Times as part of your subject line. I will just need a title, body of text to include, and a picture attachment (if you have one to add to your piece).

Email: christopherm_jones@ccpsnet.net
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/ccpsnet.net/tdhs/
Location: 3626 W. Hundred Rd. Chester, VA 23831
Phone: (804) 768-6245
Facebook: facebook.com/ThomasDale
Twitter: @GoTDKnights