Belinder Elementary

#BEthechange

The following staff indicated interest in serving on the Lighthouse Team as we move forward with implementation. Thank you to these individuals for accepting this important teacher leadership position!

Leadership: Heather Brown, Amy Ruby, Maggie Miller

Culture: Erin Bloom, Erica Rohr, Anna Dalrymple, Shauna Bartel

Academics: Katie Pitner, Shannon Johnson, Debby Neth

A reminder: Jenna Tate, our on-site coach, will be with us this Friday, September 13, for our early release day. She will meet with Lighthouse Team members in the morning, and then will resume 7 Habits training for all staff in the afternoon. Please bring your LIM materials to the training. Lighthouse Team members, I will work on getting guest teachers for you for the morning. Given there are so many, I believe I am going to see about getting one that can split between two classrooms, so each of you can have some time with Jenna. Just thinking about cost and recognizing it's Friday, so guest teachers may be at a premium. I'll keep you updated on that.

We're continuing to make excellent use of our Right Work time in all grade levels, and I've been super impressed with the level of collaboration and focus on intervention and achievement data. I wanted to extend a shout-out to our 5th grade team who, this week, knocked out their 1st quarter task of writing a SMART goal. Knowing they are all working on some new learning around IXL implementation, the team wrote the following goal:

By the 2019-20 Winter benchmarking period, we will strive to have at least 85% of 5th grade students working at the "at or above level" on IXL in both Reading and Math.

Great job and example of working together!

I've been continuing with my goal of classroom observations and utilization of feedback forms. I did find a somewhat easy-to-use checklist form that I have shared with a couple of you. In each case, I'm simply providing some observation data and a few insights from my perspective. I invite any dialogue with you after having received these feedback forms. There are great things happening in classrooms at Belinder! Thanks for learning with me.

These were to be completed by Friday, September 6. I can't explain why some of you have indicated your completion, only to see the "n/c" next to your name. I can inquire with Melissa Brumbaugh at the CAA about this on Monday. I suspect there's just some part that needs to be finished up. Apologies if a technical snafu results in you having to spend time completing the trainings for a second time. Appreciate your attention to this important task.

From the district: Please remind staff that they have until September 27, 2019, to complete their annual network password change. Additional information can be found on the ICT Info page

I know I say this every week, but this is an important short article from ed researcher and author, Mike Schmoker. He shares some critical insight around instructional practices. I think it's required reading! Would be interested to hear how it was received by any who take the opportunity to read it.

A huge shout out to our lunchroom supervision staff. They've worked together to come up with a schedule for walk-n-talk supervision and are really helping one another out to ensure this is a smooth, headache-free, time of the day for our students. I was sharing with the students that, to my knowledge, no grade levels have received any feedback about lunchroom behavior of a corrective variety. This is a great indicator that some of the practices we've put in place to give students talk time, to decrease the number of students in the lunchroom, etc., are all having a positive impact! I had one parent from the guest table share she really noticed a difference and it made the experience of visiting her student for lunch so much more enjoyable. Thank you for your help in reminding students of expectations, keeping those seating charts in place and current, and assigning student help in the form of weekly table washers and sweepers. And 6th grade teachers, sending those three helpers during that 45 minute window has made a huge difference! Thanks to all.

Email: steveyeoman@smsd.org
Website: https://belinder.smsd.org/
Location: 7230 Belinder Avenue
Phone: (913)993-1800
Twitter: @belinder_prin