Pow Wow Principals Press

ALL team members are responsible for bringing the following materials to contribute to the planning:

• A copy of your LAFS/MAFS standards and item specs.
• Copies of your scale(s).
• A learning activity or example for each level of the scale (foundational, meeting the standard, and exceeding the standard) based on your pre-planning meeting with your grade chair.
  
• Any curriculum resources {Wonders, Go Math, Science Fusion} that you plan on using
• Copies of any texts that will be incorporated into the unit.

Thank you all for the statistics and the emails about how the program is impacting your school. The numbers are amazing and we are seeing a huge difference in the students.

We look forward to another great year!

Michele Klager

Elks Impact Grant Manager

2:00- United Way Presentation

2:10- Emerson, Moree, Glickstein- Engagement Strategies – African American Achievement Committee

2:35- Golden Arrow Awards

2:45-4:00- Fiori- Multiple Response Strategies

Our message from Thursday's data chats was a particularly profound one which I hope you had time to reflect on. Here's a copy of what was posted on our board.

"The ascent to the top of any mountain in life requires the same: A meaningful goal, a map, initiative, preparation, stamina, efficiency, resilience, and most of all, belief."

We believe in you, very brave educators! You have been assigned this mountain to show it can be moved.

The question is: How can we strategically use our resources, strengths, and time to create proficient readers and problem solvers?

As you begin planning your next units and leading your daily instruction I hope take time to connect with the essential elements that will lead us to the top of our mountain. I'll be highlighting one critical element each week in the Principal's Press.

Meaningful goal: Our target goal is to increase student achievement by improving our core instruction in all areas. To get our "A" we need 62% of students proficient in reading, math, and science. This equates to about 12-14 students per class. Reaching this goal will not just change our school, but our larger community. What would be more meaningful than that?

Moonshot Library: Thanks to the amazing Ms. Fox, our Moonshot Library is up and running. She has cataloged all of our books and they are ready for check out. Please make sure you complete the short survey.

Rank-Talk-Write Protocol: This is a great protocol to use with your students to get them to identify key ideas of a text and write summaries. Since key topics and details are year-round standards I thought this would be perfect way to incorporate into some of your informational text.

Purpose: To actively review text about new concepts as well as analyze and discuss the importance of key ideas.

Procedure:

Independent (10 minutes)

• Read text and identify 2-3 concepts.
• On a post-it note, write a summary sentence for each key concept.
• Rank your summary sentences in order of importance.

Small group (10 minutes)

• Each participant shares their top three key concepts in order of importance.
• Find common ideas among the summary sentences.
• Determine the top three summary sentences that sum up the feeling of the group.
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Benchmark Review: Now is a great time to have students review their benchmarks in small group. You can print out a copy of the test from Unify using the "Test Center" tab and group your students based on their needs/common errors. If you would like help grouping them or analyzing student errors to guide future instruction, let me know and I would be happy to assist!

High Hopes

High Hopes is a 12 week program for children to help them deal with the emotional consequences of parents' separation/divorce. It could also be separation because of incarceration. This meeting takes place during specials or lunch time with a small, homogeneous group going through similar situations.

Vero Beach Elementary National Honor Society is sponsoring a Food Drive. Bill Brooks' Food For Families is a food drive organized by WPTV News Channel 5 aimed at helping less fortunate people in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

National Honor Society students will be collecting canned food or non-perishable food items from Monday, November 7, 2016 through Wednesday, November 16, 2016.

The class with the most canned food collected for the entire school will win an ICE CREAM PARTY. In addition, the class from each grade level that has the most cans or non-perishable food items collected will be invited to a CELEBRATION PARTY.

Please donate can food or non-perishable food items to help families in need. Collection boxes will be located in each classroom and in the front office.

Thank you.

Members of the Vero Beach Elementary National Honor Society

Hi Everyone Just a Reminder to complete the SafeSchools courses if you have not already done so. You do not need to turn anything in but I would like to suggest you print a copy of your completed course certificates for your own records. You need to have completed all the courses (I believe there are three) by Friday, December 30, 2016. As we are approaching holidays and hopefully enjoying time with are families, you may want to get this done sooner rather than later. J

Below I have included part of the email you should have received from SafeSchools.

“Indian River County Schools is using SafeSchoolsTM.com to offer training courses online for your convenience. Follow these easy steps to complete your Indian River County Schools safety training requirements:

Using your web browser, Go to the SafeSchoolsTM website for Indian River County Schools: http://indianriverschools.fl.safeschools.com/

Enter your Username: (You user name is your employee ID number)

Once you log into the site, click on a course title to begin the training. Each course has audio, so be sure to turn up your speakers if you'd like to listen. You must complete each section of the course in order to receive full credit.”

Thank you to those who participated in the VBE Relay For Life dessert bake off and taco lunch. We raised $120.00 for both to go towards our registration fee.

The winner of the dessert back off is... Mrs. Libby with her delicious Reese's Cheesecake Brownies! She won a $25.00 gift certificate to Starbucks!

I have registered our team! The theme for 2017 is Heroes For Hope. If you would like to be a part of our team and get others involved, please sign up on our team. The website to register participants on our team is www.RelayForLife.org/IndianRiverFL

The next Relay For Life lunch will be Wednesday, November 30. Salads and sandwiches. If you would like to participate, please email Segroves.

The VBE Fall Luncheon is Wednesday, November 9th. Please sign up for the Fall Luncheon in the teacher's mailroom. The luncheon will be during your lunch time for everyone to come together at their lunch time to socialize and take a break.

The winner of the Social Committee basket is Mrs. Swink! Thank you to all who paid their Social Committee dues. We wouldn't be able to support each other in times of celebration and support without you! You can still pay your social dues to help out.

Using the Action Plan by Elaine Ragley

Data is not about adding more to your plate. Data is about making sure you have the right things on your plate.

What do we do now after a Data Discussion and Development of an Action Plan? We need to implement the Plan of Action. Some common threads that were discussed in yesterday’s meeting were:

• Practice how to transfer using the CUBE strategy with paper/pencil to using the highlighter on the computer and transferring to the testing journal

• daily interaction and consistent use the academic language

• Use RTI time to take students on computer and monitor them taking a UNIFY test and how to transfer into the testing journal.

• Use BMT data to analyze error analysis with the students. Clarify any misconceptions by going over the question during small group instruction time. Feedback is crucial.

• (Star) Students who are on the cusp of proficiency really focus on them during instruction

• Prepared question stems written in advance

• Continue with unit planning as showing strengths in those standards already planned

• Use CPALMS resources for standards in center rotations time

• Group standards in UNIFY assessments to give a better picture of knowledge of standards and to build testing stamina.

• Improve following the pacing guide so that we cover all standards before benchmark testing

• Spiraling back to skills in math – review rounding, area as a warm up or ending piece in class

• Look at the blueprint percentages of the domains on FSA so we know that we are hitting those standards hard.

• PD for math instruction, understanding the standards and what types of questions that standard could ask

• Use real world application – example use graduated cylinders when talking about volume

During our Upcoming Grade Level Planning Days, let’s make certain to come prepared with knowledge of the math standards that will be taught for the rest of the 2ndNine Weeks, teacher instructional lessons and tasks for students to complete that meet the rigor of the standard. Sharon and I are available to assist in pacing of curriculum, unpacking standards, and understanding of the item specifications.