Leon Springs Elementary

S'more Summer Learning was a fantastic night! We heard so many nice comments and everyone had so much fun!

Our Imagine Learning Math celebration was awesome, as well! We had 121 students join us at Fralo's Pizza for our celebration. We had the highest number of students reach 80 lessons in NISD. Way to go!!

We're almost there and we need to be at our best until the very end!! As tired as we are, please remember the school year is not over. The children are still here and they deserve our very best. Student engagement is so very important.

We hope everyone joins us for our end of year staff celebration, as we love you and want to celebrate with you on June 7th! Enjoy your three day weekend!

The school will be open on Monday from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm.

We will meet in the library at 3:15 pm for 2019-2020 calendar planning. Since all teams will be there, it will be important to communicate with each other regarding events and not double schedule or over schedule. It will be important for teams to put all events, assessments, etc on the calendar. Let's keep in mind that teams have expressed concern with interruption of instruction.

Just like always, Joey will be creating a mock calendar and will give access to team leaders and facilitators on Tuesday. We will close the calendar on June 7th. At that time, Isabel and Michelle will transfer the events to the LSE 152 calendar.

• It is very important for all staff to be present and assist with student monitoring these last two weeks of school. As we all know, it gets crazy during this time of year. We need you here and fully present!
  
• Please carefully follow the EOY instructions that were posted in our LSE Google Classroom.
• Bump up the student engagement during this time of year! Take risks and stay away from anything with the word "packet". Make the end of year fun and engaging for you and your kids!!
  

• All grades are due on May 28th.
• Please refer to the R.C. click sheets that have been given to you in order to assure you are completing R.C. correctly. Also, if you need help, please let us or Joey know.
• May 29th: begin peer editing R.C. comments with your team. Please assure that someone from your team is carefully editing all comments. Comments have to be meaningful to each student. We do not want to use blanket statements for comments.
• May 29th-May 30th: Please make sure you load grades for all subjects and complete competencies. Carefully follow the directions that we have given you. Note ACC for any student that needs instruction or instructional approaches significantly adjusted.
• May 31st and June 3rd: admin will check all report cards and let you know if you need to edit something. Do not print R.C.
• June 4th: admin will print R.C.

Big reminder to please have these dates in your calendar:

• July 30th-31st: Leadership Institute. The team of 12 will join us for leadership institute: Driving the PLC Processes. Detailed schedule will be provided to the team of 12 in your box, and I will send a reminder email, as the date approaches.

• Aug 1st: content facilitator meetings with the district (ELAR, Math, Science, Social Studies).

• Aug 5th and 6th: retreat days for professional staff. One day will be reserved for content facilitator updates (this will be facilitated by our facilitators). The other day will be given to teams for planning in order for everyone to feel ready and organized for the start of the year. This will be a win-win for everyone, as you will get content curriculum updates before school starts, team planning, and teacher choice hours!!

• Aug 12th, 13th, 14th: eNgagement Academy at Brandeis and Warren HS.

• Aug 16th: LSE leadership retreat.

• Aug 19th: Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year!

We highly encourage all teams to plan and get familiar with the new ELAR TEKS and strands. Before the end of the year, we have asked Monica to meet with all teams and get teachers familiar with the new strands.

NISD Curriculum and Instruction is doing a wonderful job with curriculum and resources. We will have excellent resources to dive into. We have to assure that we have a balanced literacy and that the level of learning and rigor is the same in every classroom. This will come with effective planning, understanding, and unpacking TEKS. We never want the reading Basal to be the focus---this is just a resource. Balanced literacy is the key!

• Since phonics is a big focus, as many students in the district are not reading on level, NISD will be providing lower grades with Units of Study for Phonics.
• Words Their Way will be how we teach spelling.
• Pearson Basal can be used for read-alouds and as a supplement.
• Pearson will come with leveled readers for guided reading!
• Classrooms will be provided with a classroom library for instruction!
• Writer's Workshop and Units of Study will continue to be our writing curriculum (along with the supplements like J. Serravallo).

This is very exciting, as we will all be on the same page!! We will have plenty of resources that are NISD approved. Exciting times are ahead of us regarding instruction!!

Next week, we will be sending the order form for the 2019-2020 LSE shirt. We have some talented staff members that will be making our LSE shirts!!! Soooo excited!

Please make sure you order your shirt by June 6th. PTA will pay $10, and we each have to pay the rest of the cost (just like last year)---win-win!!!

Email: gracie-m.espinoza@nisd.net
Website: www.nisd.net
Phone: 210-397-4400
Twitter: @graciemespinoz4