The Knight Times

Thomas Dale Faculty and Staff,

Meredith Byrd shared THIS VIDEO with me before the break. The video is a 12-minute TED Talk by Kyle Schwartz about student perspective. It inspired me to sit in the commons during lunches today to see how some of our students would respond if I had them write about what they wish I knew about them as their principal. I received 78 responses to the prompt, and I intend to read them over the weekend. I will consolidate my learning to help further shape my views of our school and figure out how I will respond to them.

I wonder what responses you would get from your students if you asked them What do you wish I knew about you?

Up-Front Summary (by day):

Monday

• Continue Pilot Testing the Proposed Bell Schedule
  
• Morning Meeting in Enrichment (please invite me to your Homeroom; I would love to spend time with your students!!!)

Tuesday

• Counseling Presentations in the Auditorium during Enrichment (Juniors-Main, Freshmen-Half of West)

Wednesday

• Counseling Presentation in the Auditorium during Enrichment (Sophomores-Main, Freshmen-Half of West)

Thursday

• Medford League vs Meadowbrook (11:45am)
• CTC ProSeal Interest Presentation during Enrichment (by invitation)

Friday

• Opportunities Day at CTC@Courthouse (by invitation, 9:30-11:30)

Links shared in this issue:

• TD Staff Dashboard
• KUDOS
• January 25th Pot Luck Form
• Tech Integrator - Janice Skipwith
  
• Bell Schedule for week of January 7 (Piloting new schedule with Enrichment every day)
  
• Bell Schedule Feedback Survey Data Spreadsheet
• Knight's Cafe Order Form
  

#EveryKnightEveryDay

Each week, I will include writing from our students. This started as an idea to include student voice in our newsletter, and I think has the potential to be so much more. If you are interested in having your students write about their Thomas Dale experience for inclusion in The Knight Times, simply submit them to me...and I will include them.

• I’ve experienced a lot of everything in 2018. I think what summarizes a lot of my experiences in 2018 is my college application process. I stressed myself out from beginning to end. From teacher recommendations to application fees. I believe this summarizes my year because although the process was tough, it was worth it. 2018 has been full of personal struggles, but they are outshined by the good things that have happened for me. I think that hard times are necessary to truly appreciate the good times. Applying for college was probably the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life, but as of today, I’ve been accepted to 5 universities. Seeing the fruits of my hard work and late nights is an amazing end to 2018. --Summer Stephens

• No matter how much I complain, cry or stress out this year, I know it’ll still be there by next year. A couple essays here and there, 2 projects to turn in, and lab work to finish; usually how my week consists of. I tell myself everyday “its ok”, “you will get through this” , “only one more day” and imagine at the end of the day coming home to a bag of chocolate covered popcorn. I know sometimes I exaggerate over the work I have, but I always get it done. I've learned to take in each day and not drag about how fast I wish the days ends. See what kind of fights happen in the cafeteria, what crying, broken heart girl I see in the hallway, or over hear a teacher yelling at her students for being disrespectful and not paying attention. This is high school and it's my last year. I'm going to make something of it. -- Leslie Flores

The I Make A Difference award is a weekly recognition for a staff member going above and beyond the requirements of the job. Each week, the previous I Make A Difference award winner will select one member of the faculty/staff who displays excellence, goes the extra mile, and makes a difference and "pass" it on.

From Natalie Noland:

The next recipient of the "I Make A Difference Award" is being passed on to Sheila Pope. For those of you who don't know Mrs. Pope, she serves as our school social worker with whom we also share with other schools. Sheila is a blessing to work with and leads with her heart. She has a very quiet and calm demeanor that makes you want to spend hours talking to her. She is very positive and upbeat. I have consulted with her on several students over the past two years who I felt needed a trusting adult to connect with. She goes above and beyond and will immediately come to my classroom to meet with that student if she is in the building. When I have needed her and she was at another school, she even took the time to speak with me over the phone. Students feel comfortable and safe confiding in her and trust that she will be a support system for them at school. She consistently checks in with students and will seek outside sources and agencies if necessary. Students trust that if she says she will follow up with them, that she will keep her word. Sheila is a pleasure to work with and I appreciate all that she does for our students and the Chester community. She is visible in the halls, walking between campuses, and at after school events. Thanks for always going the extra mile!

The purpose of our weekly KUDOS is to give public affirmation to a faculty/staff member for a job well done. Anytime you witness something that you think deserves KUDOS, you are invited to fill out THIS FORM with the staff member's name and a little about why he/she deserves KUDOS. You will notice a difference in the form. We have added a layer that will send each individual recipient an email with attachment shortly after the KUDOS has been submitted! The list of teacher names and valiant acts will be published in The Knight Times. At each faculty meeting, those nominated for KUDOS will be entered into a drawing for a special prize! Be alert to the wonderful actions of your colleagues and give a shout out when you see something awesome!

Please enjoy this week's KUDOS by clicking HERE!

Each month, we will celebrate and recognize one teacher as the Teacher of the Month and one staff member as the Staff Member of the Month. We were so excited to celebrate our Teacher and Staff Member of the Month recipients so far!

• September: Jamie Barrack and Michelle Kimenhour
• October: Rachel Langston and Steve Davies
• November: James Thompson and Bridget Lehman
• December: Heather Walker and Lisa Neal

Submit your nomination for January's Teacher and Staff Member of the Month by clicking HERE.

Each month, we will celebrate and recognize one student from each grade level as the Student of the Month. This student will be publicly recognized in front of classmates and on social media. Additionally, we will place a yard sign at each student's place of residency indicating that they are a Student of the Month for the appropriate grade level. Each student will be able to keep the yard sign. Each student who is nominated but not selected will also be recognized publicly.

Please think of a student you feel is deserving of January's Student of the Month and submit that student's name HERE.

The Culture by Design team has come up with several ways for us to celebrate our awesome knight students, as they exemplify the pillars of the Knight Code. Please take a moment to read through the awards and methods of nomination.

Additionally, we would like to ask that all Homeroom teachers encourage their students to come up with spirit-oriented Genius hour sessions. Ideas to jump start the conversation include: poster painting, face painting, relay races or candid photos... but we'd love to make their ideas come into reality.

• Staff Parking Passes (Action). All staff parking passes should be displayed in vehicles by Monday, Jan. 14. If you are located at West Campus, please complete google doc. by Thursday, Jan. 10 so they can be sent over for pick up in the main office.
  
• Tech Integrator (Information). Janice Skipwith is a wonderful resource for high-quality instruction. Please see her weekly newsletter HERE.
• Positive Referrals (Action). As we transition back to school please continue to look for reasons to "write students up" on a positive referral. We currently only have 70 students who have earned one for the second marking period.
• Shadow-A-Student (Information). During January, the Admin Team and a few teachers will select a student and shadow them for the day. Each person who shadows a student will reach out to teachers on the student's schedule to give them a head's up. As a reminder, when we are in your classroom, please do not alter any of your plans for the day. We are not in there to observe or evaluate you; this is purely a learning experience for us to help shape our understanding of the Thomas Dale experience.

It has come to my attention that there are a number of Virginians, including CCPS employees, that may be planning to attend an event in support of #Red4Ed at the Virginia Capitol Grounds on Monday, January 28, 2019. I have provided the following guidelines to all CCPS principals. Please keep in mind that the decision for personal leave will be completely under the principal’s discretion. The district office staff will make every effort to offer assistance to schools on the 28th. To ensure safe and smooth operation of our schools on that day, please take note of the following:

· Personal leave may be used for this purpose consistent with existing school board policy.

· For planned absences on January 28, we ask that CCPS employees submit their leave requests to the appropriate supervisor as soon as possible, but no later than Friday, January 11.

· Principals are encouraged to provide a reasonable review all leave requests submitted on or before the close of business on January 11.

· Leave requests submitted after January 11 may be more likely to be denied due to logistical concerns.

The rescheduled sessions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday (January 8th and 9th) during Enrichment. Students will be dismissed 10 minutes prior to Enrichment (accompanied by their teachers) to the auditoriums. Please follow the schedule below.

o Juniors (rising 12th)… Main large auditorium – January 8th

o Sophomores (rising 11th)…Main large auditorium – January 9th

o Freshmen (rising 10th)…West auditorium – January 8th (All 100 and 300 classrooms to include the gym)

o Freshmen (rising 10th)…West auditorium – January 9th (All 200, W1--W11, Library and auditorium)

Thank you for your flexibility and support of our student!!

Our public-facing image is important to me. First, it is important that we tell the Thomas Dale story and not wait for our story to be spun and told by someone else. Second, we are a first-class school, and I want to appear that way. During this week, and into next, our department web site curators (with Chris Kelly's assistance) have given our school web site a serious face lift. I am grateful for their work to get our public-facing image to the next level. I have yet to see a school website (nationwide) that is as AWESOME as ours!

I want to take the next step in the improvement of our public-facing image, and it involves each of you tending to your email settings. Uniformity is a clear sign of unity, team, and cohesion. There are two things I need all staff members to adjust before January 28, 2019. This will provide you with more than a month to make this happen.

• I need all staff members to have a picture of themselves as their email icon. I am happy to come around to take a picture of you and assist you with adding the image to your email photo settings.
• I also need all staff members to align their signature lines in their email with the standard outlined below. The easiest way to do this is to use my signature line as a template; you are welcome to simply copy/paste (use any email from me) into your auto-signature block, and then change the necessary lines to match your information. I've hyperlinked our school and division to the corresponding websites for others to access in lieu of direct contact information. This standard also applies to all devices, including changing any other auto-signatures (e.g. "Sent from my iPhone"). The components you will need to include are:
• Name
• Position
• School (contact information optional)
• Division
• Professional Social Media or Web Site, if applicable
• Imagine Tomorrow Goals (integrity, equity, teamwork, ingenuity)

You have plenty of time to make this change, and it can be done in less than 5 minutes. I appreciate your attention to this expectation.

There were a few concerns about the scheduled luncheon brought to my attention, and I wanted to include some additional information. We will host our Pot Luck Luncheon on January 25 at 12:30pm. The purpose of this luncheon is three-fold:

• Allow us as a staff to enjoy good food and fellowship.
• Allow us as a staff to build stronger relationships with our students and to also understand our school through our students' eyes.
• Allow us to include faculty meeting activities so that we can cancel the January 28 faculty meeting.

The luncheon will last approximately 1 hour, and we will include our Faculty Meeting activities within that hour. This will allow us to cancel the regularly-scheduled Faculty Meeting on January 28. Grades will be due at 3:30pm on Monday, January 28. Because the luncheon is geared toward building relationships with students and empathy, it is in line with the PD we would have done during the faculty meeting. This activity allows us to feed several birds with one feeder.

Also, if you are finding it awkward to invite your student, I recommend framing it in a student voice manner. For example, you can explain to the student you intend to invite that "as a school, we are working to better understand the Thomas Dale experience from the student perspective. Dr. Jones has asked that each of us invite a student so that we can learn more about our school from our students. I would love to invite you to join us for a luncheon..."

If you still have questions or need support in working through this, please let me know. I am happy to work with you.

Please invite a student of your choice to join us! In particular, select a student you are either having difficulty finding a connection with or a student you feel we (as a school) could benefit from learning their perspective on TD. Please sign up HERE.

We will continue to pilot our new bell schedule during the week of January 7. Although the feedback is overwhelmingly in favor for using THIS BELL SCHEDULE beginning right away, I have also heard feedback that some of our students and staff would like to test it out for a full, uninterrupted week to get a better feel. If next week yields better feedback to make a small tweak (for example, a longer Monday Enrichment period, moving the Pledge-moment of silence-announcements to the beginning of Enrichment instead of beginning of 1st period, etc.), then this gives us a safe buffer to do so. At this point, I am fairly certain we are going with THIS BELL SCHEDULE. Using a "pilot period" gives us the opportunity to critically examine our changes.

Thank you for your patience and flexibility as we work to get this right!

For your reference, I've included the survey data (without the comments) below:

Should we implement the proposed new bell schedule? (74 responses)

• Yes; it is good to go as-is, no changes or modifications needed (60)
• Yes, but I recommend some changes (12)
• No (2)

If we change the bell scheudle, when do you recommend we start? (72 responses)

• Right away-January 7 (69)
• At the beginning of the 2nd semester (2)
• My vote was not to change the bell schedule at all (1)

If you are interested in viewing all the feedback in the spreadsheet, please click HERE.

Please see below for items from the library for The Knight Times. Thanks!

MAIN LIBRARY PAPER CUTTER

We are looking for the main campus library's paper cutter. It was borrowed before break but has not returned to the main library. If you have it, please return it ASAP.

RESEARCH WITH YOUR CLASSES

Research season is starting! Be sure to see us in the library to schedule time for us to work with your classes on using databases, citing sources, taking notes and more!

STAFF BOOK CLUB

Staff Book Club will meet on Wednesday, January 9, after school in the West Campus library. We will be discussing Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds and Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff. Hope to see you there!

THE GREAT CHESTERFIELD READ

Is there a book that changed your life, made you think in a different way, or is like a best friend? This month students will nominate their favorite books for The Great Chesterfield Read! The Great Chesterfield Read is a riff on The Great American Read on PBS where the best loved novel of America was chosen. At Thomas Dale HS we will be suggesting books for the best loved novel of Chesterfield County. Students will start nominating their favorites through English classes this month.

We would like faculty and students to create Flipgrids for their nominations for their favorite novels at the link below. You will need to login with Google. Check out the book nominations so far. We would love for all teachers to participate in the Flipgrid and help get students excited about reading!

https://flipgrid.com/62443211

PD - NOODLETOOLS EXPLAINED

Learn how to use our new citation tool, Noodletools, at an after school training in the West Campus library on Wednesday, January 14. Sign up in SDRWeb for LIB NOODLETOOLS, EXPLAINED. Teachers will create a test project that includes notecards and a works cited page. Learn how this tool can help you and your students.

This week the Knights Cafe is offering blueberry streusel muffins, chocolate chip muffins and apple oat bars. Click HERE for the order form.

• The next Genius Hour will be January 28th. The catalog will be created December 10th-January 3rd, so please start thinking about potential sessions to host or to help students host.

• Also, please give me (Elizabeth_Clark@ccpsnet.net) feedback on any part of Genius Hour to let me know ways to improve it!! Next time, all Genius Hour links will be in ONE document for you on the TD Dashboard and they will each have an explanation, so hopefully it will be easier to locate what you need.

As part of our intentionality to strengthen trust, communication, and relationships, we will include agendas and minutes from our meetings in this section of the newsletter.

• Admin Team: January 3
  
• ILT: December 7
  
• Instructional Admin: November 27
  
• Community Partners Meeting: December 18
• Principal's Advisory Council: November 14
• Student Advisory Council: December 6
• ACTS Notes (from Cindy Waters): November
• English: November 19
• Math: Minutes Folder

Gray Taylor - January 7

Meghan Van Orden - January 9

Enjoy your day!!!

Stay connected to OUR CALENDAR and mark yours!

Click HERE for our 2018-2019 meeting dates.

January 7 - Pilot Test of New Bell Schedule (HERE is the schedule)

January 7 - VDOE Survey Window Opens (more information to follow)

January 8 - PTSA Meeting

January 8 and 9 - Grade Level Scheduling Presentations during Enrichment

January 15 - Student Exchange Day with LC Bird

January 16 - Instructional Coaching Learning Walks with Admin Team

Click below to access previous issues of The Knight Times, our weekly staff newsletter:

• Week of August 13
• Week of August 20
• Week of August 27
• Week of September 3
• Week of September 10
• Week of September 17
• Week of September 24
• Week of October 1
• Week October 8
• Week of October 15
• Week of October 22
• Week of October 29
• Week of November 5
• Week of November 12
• Weeks of November 19 and 26
• Week of December 3
• Week of December 10
• Week of December 31

Click below to access previous issues of From the Castle, our monthly parent and community newsletter:

• August 2018
• September 2018
• October 2018
• November 2018
• December 2018
• January 2019

If you have information you need to share, input you seek, or dates you need to communicate, please send it to me. As we improve our communication structure, The Knight Times will become an increasingly collaborative document.

Please email me what you'd like to share - just ensure you have The Knight Times as part of your subject line. I will just need a title, body of text to include, and a picture attachment (if you have one to add to your piece).

Email: christopherm_jones@ccpsnet.net
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/ccpsnet.net/tdhs/
Location: 3626 W. Hundred Rd. Chester, VA 23831
Phone: (804) 768-6245
Facebook: facebook.com/ThomasDale
Twitter: @GoTDKnights