Week of September 2nd

UAI High School Staff News

Volume II

Issue 4

Week of September 2nd, 2014

Announcements

Welcome Back to the 2014-2015 School Year. It's hard to believe it, but we're about to kick off UAI's 9th year!  Many of you have already returned from your summer travels which were very broad indeed.  This summer UAI staff touched the corners of the Globe.  Hopefully, your journeys have energized and invigorated you for the year to come.  

This year will be our third year of full-scale Learning Cultures.  This is our year for refinement and attention to quality. To help us reach our goals (see below), we have new structures and new roles for some of our very own.

• Jen continues her role as Supervising Social Worker and Director of Student Activities and Student Discipline.  This year, Jen is going to located alongside Kiri in room 401 and will focus her work on the high school.
• Colleen is leaving the classroom to take over School Operations and to step up to be our Lead Learning Cultures Coach.
• Pamela also moves out of the classroom from the Middle School.  Working with Jen, Kiri, and Colleen, Pamela will be instrumental in supporting our teachers and students as High School Dean.
• Returning LC Coaches.  Last year, Darby & Marianna (along with Colleen) received training and support from Sarah Dennis to develop and hone their coaching skills.  They had the opportunity to work with several teachers last year, and in the process established an excellent model for peer coaching.  Darby and Marianna are going to continue their work this year, focusing on new coaching structures, continuing their work with teachers, and working with the new coaches.
• Rising Coaches.  At the end of last year, several teachers demonstrated great achievement in their classroom practice and demonstrated strengths in working with their peers.  As our newest wave of coaches, Jamie, Martine, Danielle, Elena, Rebecca, Sarah, Ilyana, and Brodie will also undergo the same work and training with Sarah and develop into rich network of peer support for UAI High School.
• Committee Chairs.  We will continue our work with the Learning Cultures committees from last year (Code Blue, School Culture, Curriculum, Professional Development, and Assessment).  Our new chairs are:  Martine - Code Blue, Sarah - School Culture, Rebecca - PD, and Danielle - Assessment.  In addition, to continue improving our learning environment and school climate (assemblies and school spirit), Jamie is taking on the role of Coordinator of Student Activities (COSA).
• New and Returning Team Leaders.  Martine is taking on several leadership roles this year- both as 9th grade team leader and ISS team leader.  Ilyana is taking the healm of the high school English department.  Damon, Darby, Mike, and Elena all return this year as subject team leaders.  Sarah & Brodie also return as grade team leaders.

Celebrate our UAI High School Rock Stars!

With a team of people like this, this is bound to be an amazing year!

(I really just couldn't resist the Kiss-faced/Ozzie-tongued/Leia-tattooed Yoda)

Schedule and Skedula.  The 2014-2015 Master Schedule is here for you to peruse. This shared document gives you access to student and teacher programs as well as classroom use for the school year.  New this year is the testing schedule.  We will be using the same exact testing schedule for all of our Regents Benchmarking exams (midterms, finals, etc.).  Please click on the 2nd tab to see the schedule.

To access your class roster, go to Skedula.  Enter your DOE password.  Then, click on "forgot" password to access your account.  If you cannot login, please email Colleen immediately so she can get you set up in time for our training on Tuesday at 1:30PM.  In addition, Colleen shared several Skedula training webinars via the PD Calendar for the year.

Professional Development Days.  
Here are the final agendas for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and the draft agenda for our first Full Staff PD on Monday, after school.

      





 Tuesday 02SEP14 - All PD will be in Room 409

• 8:00-8:30 - Breakfast Snacks (Bagels, Coffee, Pastries) & Socializing [optional]

• 8:30-9:30 - Principal's Address.  Kiri will welcome everyone and set the mission for the year.  In so doing, she will go over Goals for the School Year, the Updated UAI High School Handbook, Grade and Subject Team goals for the year, new PD structures for the year, and introductions of new programs and staff resources.

• 9:30-10:00 - MOSL and MOTP Info.  To have detailed information of Advance for the 2014-2015 school year, there are a number of Advance resources available on the DOE website. In addition, please review the Educators Guide. There are several changes to Teacher Evaluation for the 2014-2015 School Year.  Here are the highlights.

             - Domains 2 & 3 will comprise 85% of the MOTP rating, with Domains 1 and 4 at 15%
             - Evaluated indicators shrink from all 22 to a selected 8.
             - Teacher artifact submission is eliminated.
             - MOTP options from last year are in place PLUS a new one for highly effective teachers.
             - 2013-2014 Final ratings are being emailed to your DOE email at the end of the day on the 2nd.

• 10:00-12:30 - Subject Team Meetings.  Subject teams will learn more about the work and theories from the Summer Learning Cultures Institutes.  In addition, teams will work on Unit Arcs.  Subject Teams will also set agenda for Subject Team Meetings on Wednesday 03SEP and Thursday 04SEP.  

• 12:30-1:30 - Lunch.  New Staff will join Kiri, Del, and coaches in room 409 for a working lunch and orientation to UAI (lunch will be provided).  All other staff is released for lunch. 

• 1:30-2:40 - Skedula Training. Meet in Library.

Wednesday 03SEP14

• 8:30-9:00 - Welcome, Overview and Expectations for the Day.  Grade Teams will meet to plan orientation activities for 04SEP and 05SEP.  In particular grade teams must be sure and plan to:  (1) Provide explicit instruction around the why's and how's of each Learning Cultures format, (2) Follow up the general assembly's social norms talk with classroom specific concrete examples of disruptive and productive behaviors, (3) Introduce the Behavioral Reminder system, and (4) plan grade-level appropriate orientation activities (e.g. tour of the building for new 9th graders, college readiness for seniors, etc.).  Establishing strong social norms is essential for the start of the school year.  Grade teams will also plan how best to provide on-call support to one another during the 1st two weeks of school.

• 9:00-11:00 Grade team meetings.  Grade teams will meet to plan achieving above listed goals.  Grade teams will also plan agenda for 1st team meeting on Monday.

• 11:00-12:00 Subject team meeting. Follow-up to agenda set from Tuesday.

• 12:00-12:40 UAI High School Staff Lunch.  Working lunch will have time for meeting and greeting old and new staff, learning about our new opportunities for our girls from our partners, and enjoying a yummy lunch provided by UAI High School.

• 12:40-2:40 Classroom Set Up.  If you still need to get your keys and your technology (don't forget the deposits are $5 for your keys, $15 for an elevator pass, and $75 for the tech cart), come to room 415 at 12:40 to go through orientation and pick everything up.  All other staff are released to ready classrooms for the first day of school.

Monday 08SEP14

• 2:50-3:30 Setting Up PD Pods and Conducting Low Inference Observations
• 3:30-4:10 Grade Team Meetings

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, 02SEP14 and Wednesday 03SEP14, UAI High School Staff PD Days.
• Tuesday 02SEP14. All August Per Session Sheets are Due to Del by the end of the day.  If you do not submit your sheets, you will not be paid.
• Thursday, 04SEP14, First Day of School and Lori's Birthday*
• Monday, 08SEP14, First Day of Regular Classes
• Thursday, 11SEP14, Mara's Birthday
• Friday, 12SEP14, DRP testing in 3rd & 4th Period Classes
• Tuesday, 16SEP14, Per Session Sheets for 01SEP14 through 15SEP14 are due to Del.
• Thursday 18SEP14, School Safety Level 3 Dones' Birthday
• Friday 19SEP14, Ruben's Birthday
• Monday, 21SEP14, Demetris' Birthday
• Tuesday, 23SEP14 and Wednesday, 24SEP14, Benchmark I Testing (Baseline)
• Thursday, 25SEP14 and Friday, 26SEP14, Rosh Hashanah, NO SCHOOL

*I have every intention of listing all the birthdays of everyone, but if I miss someone, please just let me know and I'll add you to the list!  Also, I do not yet have the birth dates of new staff.

Per Session Opportunities

• UAI High School Kickoff Dance  6:30-10:30PM of fun time chaperoning.  Posting is filled.