Secondary Update

WWMS has been using its instructional and staff meeting time to re-establish the building as a Professional Learning Community. Our work has extended the professional development that was provided by Dr. Muhammad and Dr. Many. Each team created goals to accomplish by Christmas, by Spring Break and by the Fall 2020 school year. The Department Leaders met with Mr. Sikora and Mrs. Voelker on 12/10/19 to discuss their progress on their 'Achieve by Christmas' goals.

Math has already accomplished the following: revisiting and revising essential standards and developing learning targets, writing a SMART goal to assess their growth within their Academic Advisory course, and developed a math vocabulary curriculum to implement in advisory and core classes.

The Science Department has been focusing on the NGSS, and made a goal to finish writing the standards that align with the Life Science Phenomenon. The team is working to establish this (with approximately 35 standards aligned, and only 2 remaining). The team has also developed a Google Doc to support collaboration.

The Social Studies Department made a goal to have their Power Standards identified by Christmas and to develop a content-specific argument writing rubric. The 8th grade has accomplished the goal with power standards, and 6th and 7th grades are working together to finalize their lists (as 6th and 7th have recently 'traded' essentials, they are working to support each other in this work.) In terms of the argument rubric, this has been developed, scaffolding skills required in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. This will be shared with all content areas to further support argumentation in all classes.

The Language Arts Department made a goal of aligning assessment questions to learning targets. All current assessments have targets listed for each question set, further supporting the communication of "What do we want them to know?" to our students and families. The team is also working to align their 'I can' statements to existing units and import those into Atlas Rubicon. A goal that was set and will be continued through to Spring Break is a deeper data analysis, dividing the data by standard per assessment.

The WWMS Instructional Teams will continue to use these goals to monitor their growth as a Professional Learning Community.

WWT Gives Back

During our annual holiday drive, WWT staff (curent/former), clubs, teams, parent groups raised and incredible $13,665 in cash and gifts that wen to purchasing Meijer gift cards for over 200 WWT families.

Scheduleing

Our counceling department is preparing for next year's scheduling.

11th Grade March 4-11

10th Grade Feb 26 - March 3

9th Grade Feb 19 - Feb 25

8th Grade Feb 12 - Feb 13

Promoting WWT Week

Various classess, clubs and professions will set up a display in the commons duing all lunches to promote their class/club/profession.

Feb 10th - 15th

Mon - AP/Advanced Classes

Tues- CTE/Elective Classes

Wed- Clubs

Thurs- Skilled Trades (Tentative)

Fri- TBD

School Improvement/Staff Meeting

During our last SIT/Building Leadership Meeting and Staff Meeting we continued to look at MME results from Spring 2019 and PSAT/NMSQT from Fall of 2019. We had a discussion about what trends the departments noticed from looking at the data. We also began a discussion looking at the future of education and whether we are preparing our students for the world that they are going to be living in- In particular the "soft skills" that employers and even universities are looking for.

Department Updates

In addition to reviewing MME data. All non-CTE departments are discussing new classes that we can bring to DSAT in the coming months to be implemented for the 20/21 school year. There is a emphasis on adding additional AP classes and well as courses that can be taken by our freshmen and sophomore students.

Proposed new classes (tentative)

- AP Statistics (approved by DSAT last year)

- AP World History

- AP Government (possible for 2021/22)

- AP Comp and Language

- SAT Prep

Proposed past classes to teach again

- Speech

- English Reading Strategies

The Science Department continues to look at the new Next Generation Science Standards and determine what curricular changes need to be made. This could include changes in curriculum as well as sequencing of classes.

The Social Studies department revised their Team Meeting Norms and procedures and continues to look implementing and evaluating the use of primary and secondary source documents in their instruction. These document are something that students will see in both the SAT as well as the Social Studies M-STEP Assessment.

The Math department continues to focus on real world connections in their lessons in an effort to help student make math connections. They are also incorporating higher order thinking techniques and helping students see various approaches to solving problems.

The English department continues to help students utilize close and critical reading strategies as well as working on students' writing stamina; an issue that appeared to hurt us on the SAT. The Eglsih Department has utilized Kahn Academy with our junior students in preparation for the SAT

Enterprise students and staff are returning from a much needed holiday break. On December 11, 2019, some students took advantage of "practice" SAT and PSAT" testing at Enterprise. The staff provided a "real testing format", and after completing the practice testing and thanks to the new Performance Matters program, we were able to meet with students at the end of the day to review the results. Students were able to see projected scores, and the program allowed for an answer key for each student. Students will be able to see correct answers for each test question, and helpful suggestions for areas of study are included based on those results.

Enterprise students will be completing Second Quarter exams soon. As a staff, we reviewed our Tier II Instructional Waiver data. When compared with our 2018-2019 data, this year we had a five percent increase in overall student attendance during the First Quarter (from 75 percent to 80 percent average attendance). As a result, our overall percentage of First Quarter passing grades increased from the 2018-2019 total of 82 percent to 88 percent this year. Current data shows an increase in Instructional Waiver attendance data as well, so we are looking forward to the results of our Second Quarter exams.

Enterprise teachers are working with Tower teachers exclusively for the next few months as teachers are reviewing common assessments and curriculum standards.

Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions, concerns, or ideas.

Email: kbeal@mywwps.org
Website: www.mywwps.org
Location: 12900 Frazho Road, Warren, MI, USA
Phone: (586) 439-4469
Facebook: facebook.com/warrenwoodspublicschools
Twitter: @warrenwoodsPS