Monday Memo

Team,

Happy Four Day Week! Due to not needing to use our Bad Weather Days this year, we have off this Friday. If you haven't already shared this information in your weekly communication with parents, please do so. Our goal is to not have anyone dropped off at school on Friday morning. Given that nobody plans on being up at school, this would be really bad for the stranded student.

I was in a meeting recently talking to five different people. In that meeting, when asked how they determine if students are successful, not one person even alluded to the use of data to measure success. To say the least, I was mortified. How is it possible that we can have people in our profession who don't use data to determine growth? This has caused great distress for me. While I know that there are many ways to measure success, the key to determining success is measurement. Without it, it is just pure speculation and wishful thinking. If I have ever given you the impression that success is determined by anything but this, I have failed you greatly, and I am so sorry. I don't believe this is the case, and I cannot imagine anyone from McGowen responding to that question without data being a huge component of the answer, but I just had to say this out loud and make sure we are all on the same page.

Registration opens on Tuesday, May 1st. Please be sure to announce this in your newsletters and post on your social media accounts. We want to encourage all incoming Kindergarten students to get registered asap. Please feel free to encourage your McGowen parents to share this information with anyone they know who has an incoming Kindergarten student that may not have a connection with the school yet to get this information. It is not uncommon for families out of state or new to the school scene to assume registration takes place in August, and it would be really nice to have enough Kinder students registered by the end of the year to justify our allocated five sections. Anything you can do to support this effort would be greatly appreciated by not only me, but the Kinder team as well.

On Friday, I met with 4th and 5th grade students to discuss concerns I have regarding behavior. In this meeting, I told 4th and 5th grade teachers that every day they needed to be having some sort of family meeting/community circle/social skills lesson to explicitly teach students how to treat each other as well as manage themselves. One might argue that there is not enough time to teach students how to behave, however, our data shows that we are losing far more instructional time by not teaching it and must do something to address the problem. While 4th & 5th are the only two grade levels currently with this mandate, I want to encourage everyone to consider including social skills training in weekly planning. In a quick search online, I found several BoysTown lessons that you may find helpful. I downloaded them and placed them in a Social Skills file on Drive. Please feel free to add resources that you find helpful. With any luck, if we all work together on this, we will never see another year of discipline issues like this again.

Make today count, and take care of each other!

JL

I wanted to give you some updates on this summer’s ed tech event scheduled for June 20th and June 21st. In addition to the keynotes you already know about we have now secured commitments from both Apple and LEGO Education to participate in this conference. On the Apple side, there will be two 2-hour sessions (one each day) facilitated by Apple Distinguished Educators on using Apple tools in the classroom that honors the craft of teaching and how it can be enhanced. The LEGO partnership was one Lara and team recently cemented and reps from this company will also be joining us for both days. Highlights include grade level specific sessions (PK, Elementary, Secondary) on “Playful Learning” and “Purposeful Makerspaces”. The 2-hour sessions will include lesson ideas tied to science TEKS by grade level for Makerspaces using LEGO tools as a catalyst. This could include “traditional” LEGO blocks, LEGO STEAM Park, LEGO We-Do, or LEGO Mindstorms.

One interesting factoid the LEGO folks threw out when they were onsite last week was that Texas A&M is their largest customer in Texas. I’m not sure if that means Aggies are better with bricks than books but it’s always nice to be #1 at something!

The Instructional Technology Team is looking for proposals from every grade level, PK-12 to share some of the innovative things you do every day in the classroom. I think sometimes when teachers are cloistered in their own classrooms they believe everyone knows how to do the things they do and they can’t bring anything new to the table. This could not be further from the truth. Everyone has a story to tell about their journey with innovation! Let me know if you have any questions, and please use this link to submit your proposal.

Operation Converge 2018 is now listed in Eduphoria for registration! Teachers will receive their 6 hour GT update credit for both days of Converge. We have some exciting things planned for this innovative 2-day event. Check out the CONVERGE WEBSITE for more information on our plan for this summer and the link for breakout session proposals!

Don’t miss out! It’s going to be AMAZING!!

Links for registration:

Day 1-

https://eduphoria.mckinneyisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=17156

Day 2-

https://eduphoria.mckinneyisd.net/wshop/default.aspx?cid=17157

Thank you for participating in instructional rounds. To date, we have 46 responses on record.

Please let us know if you have certain practices that are strategically put in place to teach and reinforce how students should treat each other and/or conflict resolution. This will need to be a focus for the remainder of the year, and it might be helpful for others to see how you manage this.

The purpose of this practice is to learn from each other, and sometimes it is the simplest things we observe watching others that can dramatically change our whole world.

• Prepare for EOY T-TESS Conference
• Remind your parents of no school on Friday, April 27th in your next parent communication.
• Make sure you have everything updated in Aware for the RtI Meeting by Monday, April 30th.

Did you know that each week I give out jeans passes to the three highest scoring staff members on Shoparoo? I know that many of you have already joined, but if you haven't, it is not too late. Simply go to www.shoparoo.com to create your account. Please feel free to push this information out to your parents as well.

Congratulations to Barbara Peebles, Jennifer Little and Laurie Leotaud for being the highest three staff contributors to Shoparoo this week!

In order to help all children achieve their personal best, McGowen teachers and staff will:

• Knowledgeably speak about our current practices that contribute to McGowen becoming a Level 2 Certified High Reliability School.
• Engage in collaborative team planning and lesson design that addresses the four essential questions of a PLC.
• Present lessons in such a way that students understand and can speak knowledgeably about posted learning and language targets.

I have created a Remind for our staff in order to send out just-in-time reminders, last minute notifications of jeans/warm-up days, and/or emergency info. If you haven't already, please click on the link below to join the group.

https://www.remind.com/join/mcgowenst

April

Lori Roof - 8th

• Many thanks to Jean, Michelle and Shiela for tackling the massive dyslexia testing project. I appreciate you so much and wish I could do more to help. -JL
• Kinder and First grade - Thanks to you for flying into action and helping us get the ball rolling as quickly as possible with the dyslexia testing. We couldn't do it without you! -JL
• Office Team - I am so grateful for my team. You guys are simply the best! Thank you for all that you do to not only keep the school running, but me going as well. -JL
• Jaime & John - Many thanks to you for your continued support in challenging situations. -JL
• McCartney, Peterson, & Fogle - Thank you so much for housing some of our ISS students last week so that A-Team could have a meeting to discuss confidential student information. -JL
• Thank you to Sylvia, Jennifer, Michelle, Shiela, all first and kinder teachers, and everyone else who is helping with the dyslexia screeners. JP
  
• Amy – Thank you for letting my class use your black crayons! You helped us out big time! – Trisha
  
• Melanie H. – Thank you for helping put up our Lorax display! I am lucky to have you has my school neighbor. – Trisha
  
• Ashley – Thank you for the light bulb! You’ve made my classroom a brighter place! – Trisha
  
• Krystina – Thank you for the blue construction paper! You’re a lifesaver! – Trisha
  
• Maria – Thanks for always being on top of things and remembering all the little things we need to keep up with and do! We are lucky to have you in charge of our team! Love ya! – Trisha
  
• Rico – Thank you for the blue construction paper! The second graders were very thankful! - Trisha
  
• Third Grade Sonic Fairy – thank you so much for my treat this week! McKeen
  
• McGowen Staff I want to Thank my McGowen family for all my hugs and love last week on Erik’s anniversary. I am so blessed to be a part of McGowen. Karol Koegl
  
• Kincaid -- Thanks so much for creating our hallway Lorax display! It turned out so cute!!! - Henry
  
• Noble – Thank you for being an amazing teammate and always being supportive. It felt like you have been part of our team for years. I am so excited to meet your sweet, precious baby boy. We will miss you while on leave and are very excited for you an your family. Sending hugs and prayers for everything to go smoothly this week. You will be missed these last weeks of school. -AE
  
• Melanie – Thank you for scheduling time for Google Expeditions with my class. They really enjoyed learning about the different ecosystems. I can’t wait to do it again for another unit of study. -AE
  

Please join us in congratulating Shiela De Leon as the Bad Dude of the Week. While I'm sure you have heard rumblings about the Dyslexia Screener and how many referrals we have as a result of it, but what you might not know is that this project will take at least 200 hours and must be completed by the end of the year. If Shiela could cancel the rest of her job responsibilities for the remainder of the year, it might not be such a big deal; However, this is not the case, it is in addition to her normal duties plus EOY extras. Michelle and Jean will be helping with this, but Shiela will take the lead on making this happen. Given that most people would curl up in a ball and cry, it is quite impressive how Shiela has embraced a positive attitude, rolled up her sleeves, and figured out ways to make the impossible, doable.

Any time we have an idea, concern, solution and/or comment, this is the filter through which we should speak. Let's help each other live up to our vision, mission, and beliefs.

Vision:

We are a cohesive, diverse community providing engaging learning experiences for all.

Mission:
We will provide engaging learning experiences so students can become effective communicators, quality contributors and socially responsible citizens.

Beliefs:

• Partnerships between students, parents, community members and staff are foundational to educational success.
• Positive school culture and a safe environment foster growth.
• Everyone has inherent value and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
• Learning is an active process requiring engaging tasks and engaging minds.
• Relevant and authentic experiences ignite continuous, deeper learning.
• Meaningful relationships enrich learning.
• Confidence fuels risk taking and higher achievement.
• Financial stewardship ensures a tomorrow for education.