Week of April 29th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 33

April 29th, 2019

(29 Instructional Days Remaining)

Announcements

Washington DC.  Just before the break, Kelly, Danielle, and Judy took a group of juniors (with a smattering of seniors and sophomores) o a trip to DC.  The group got to visit a wide variety of sites and engaged in a lot of different learning opportunities in our nation's capital.  Getting out of the city to experience the larger world is such an essential piece of helping our students grow.  Many thanks to Kelly for planning and coordinating such an amazing opportunity for our young women.

Ishrat impresses Generation Citizen. Class of 2020 Ishrat Jahan was asked by Generation Citizen to be on a panel with Brooklyn Borough President, Eric Adams, and the CEO of Generation Citizen, Scott Warren during the break for a small event for their donors and Board. She answered questions from Scott and the audience and spoke passionately about the importance of youth participation in politics while also educating the panel about why young people often feel disenfranchised in our political system.  Almost every person in attendance expressed how impressed they were with Ishrat’s passion and engagement and commended UAI for helping develop her voice and confidence. The GC staff even approached Ishrat about applying to be on their Board of Directors when she turns 18. 

Facing History Grant Winners.  Natalie, Joey, Rebecca, and Kelly applied to Facing History for their In-Depth Grant and won!  Facing History is an educational support organization that provides resources and professional development for schools and teachers as they work to make history come alive for their students and develop their moral responsibility as citizens in our global culture.  This grant provides our teachers with both resources and PD opportunities to help our UAI teachers!  Great work team!

Our very own LINCT Presenter.  Nina was selected to present at the First Annual LINCT Exhibition for Teaching and Learning.  At the Inaugural LINCT Exhibition, educators and students across their 92 partner schools will showcase their work, and our very own Ms. Nina will be one of them!  LINCT (Lessons in Navigating College Transition) provides curriculum and professional development support for our 11th and 12th grade Math & ELA teachers to help our students be college ready.

Welcome Back Val! Val Binyard has been on leave since October 2017.  She is returning to UAI on Monday!  As an assistant principal, Ms. Val will be supporting our discipline team, providing teacher supervision support, and providing instruction for our self-contained students in the middle school.  We welcome you back Ms. Val!!  We'll introduce her to everyone during PD after school.

Staff Out This Week

• Monday 29APR:  
• No One

• Tuesday 30APR: 
• No One

• Wednesday 01MAY: NYS MS Math Exam, MP5 Grades are Due
• No One 

• Thursday 02MAY: NYS MS Math Exam  
• No One 

• Friday  03MAY: MP5 Report Cards Distributed, 7th Grade Trip
• Kristi - Personal Business

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  This Monday will be our next session on understanding bias in our classrooms.  We will be continuing the work we started before break.  We'll all meet together in 409 at 3PM. Here's the plan.  For this Monday, we'll begin by reading the chapter I gave you last Monday on "Warm Demanders" from Delpit's Multiplication is for White People.   You'll have time to refresh your thinking about the chapter as we use a protocol to structure our discussion of the text.

• Monday, 29APR19.   Strategies to Limit the Impact of Bias in the Classroom
• Monday, 06MAY19.  Monthly Grade Team Meetings and Planning for May 9th Conferences
• Monday, 13MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part I
• Monday, 20MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part II

Tuesday Outreach.  As a reminder, May 9th is our next parent conference.  That conference will be focused on meeting with students who are failing as of MP5.  MP5 ended before the break and grades are due on Wednesday at 3PM.  Report cards will be distributed during last period on Friday, 03MAY19.   Please use Tuesday time to contact any and all students who are currently failing your class.  Please use prep time this week to update Skedula so that families and students have access to their performance data in your classes.  When you contact home, here are some points to address with their families:

• How is there attendance to class?
• How well are they participating in class, what can be improved?
• How well are they performing on class assessments?  What can families do to help?
• How well are they doing on class assignments?  What can families do to help?

As a reminder,  for Promotion In Doubt records, we need to document our interventions.  Your contact home is part of that intervention.  Please make sure to enter your outreach into Skedula.  

Final Parent Conferences Thursday, May 9th.  This final parent conference session will be structured like traditional parent conferences with teachers meeting with their classroom students (rather than their advisees).   Advisors and classroom teachers have been reaching out to families of parents who are failing classes, and we will be sending home targeted messages based on MP5 grades.  Please make sure you are prepared to hold meetings with students and their families to explain how students have progressed through the year, and what families can do to intervene and support student learning in this last marking period. 

Student Support Services Update

No updates this week!

 

Week of April 15th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 32

April 15th, 2019

(31 Instructional Days Remaining)

Announcements

Deputy Superintendent Visit.  Our visit with Deputy Superintendent Debbie Afanadour was a good one!  While we didn't get any specific feedback, yet, she was generally impressed with our classroom practice, our school community, and our growth and achievement.  The work we are doing around bias was particularly aligned to the goals of our Affinity Superintendency.  Being able to share the work we've done all year around this was a particular high point.  One particular piece of feedback that she left with us was how impressed she was with the teacher team meeting with Zach, Suzannah, and Kelly.  They did an amazing job showing how we think about and approach lesson planning.  Many thanks to all we visited (I'll be sharing individual feedback with you guys in emails)!  Many thanks to everyone who put their best on display for that day!

Spring Break is Almost Here.  By Thursday, we will have completed 40 uninterrupted days of instruction!  It was a long 8 weeks, but we did it!!  When we return from break, May will be upon us, and before you know it, we'll be out for summer!  This Thursday we will be doing a rapid dismissal at 2:20PM.  There will be no after school on Thursday.

Staff Out This Week

• Monday 15APR:  
• No One

• Tuesday 16APR: 
• Kiri Out - UA Principals' Meeting

• Wednesday 17APR:  
• Danielle Ro, Kelly P, and Judy - Trip to DC
• Brodie leaves early - LEAP PD
• Jennifer JR out - personal business

• Thursday 18APR: 
• No One

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  This Monday will be our next session on understanding bias in our classrooms.  We will be continuing the work we started last Monday, integrating the feedback we got from folks to incorporate more time for discussion.  We'll all meet together in 409 at 3PM. Here's the plan

• Monday, 15APR19.  Understanding the Impact of Our Biases in Our Classrooms
• Monday, 29APR19.   Strategies to Limit the Impact of Bias in the Classroom
• Monday, 06MAY19.  Monthly Grade Team Meetings and Planning for May 9th Conferences
• Monday, 13MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part I
• Monday, 20MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part II

Tuesday Outreach.  May 9th is our next parent conference.  That conference will be focused on meeting with students who are failing as of MP5.  MP5 ends on Thursday, and report cards will be due the Wednesday we return.  Please use Tuesday time to contact any students that are currently failing your class.  Please use prep time this week to update Skedula so that families and students have access to their performance data in your classes.  When you contact home, here are some points to address with their families:

• How is there attendance to class?
• How well are they participating in class, what can be improved?
• How well are they performing on class assessments?  What can families do to help?
• How well are they doing on class assignments?  What can families to do help?

As a reminder,  for Promotion In Doubt records, we need to document our interventions.  Your contact home is part of that intervention.  Please make sure to enter your outreach into Skedula.  

Student Support Services Update

 

Week of April 8th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 31

April 8th, 2019

(36 Instructional Days Remaining)

Announcements

Next Superintendent Visit.  Our next MPPR Superintendent Visit is on Wednesday, April 10th.  Debbie Afanadour is our new Deputy Superintendent (Richie became Superintendent himself last year).  This will be Deb's very first visit to UAI, so we definitely want to show our best.  For Wednesday, please

• Plan Student Look Fors.  Prepare a narrative lesson plan that highlights your best work in preparing for and demonstrating your own thinking around student thinking.  At this point in the year, the graphic organizers and worksheets aimed at supporting student thinking should be minimal and almost gone.  Let the student thinking shine on Wednesday
• Leverage Student Discourse:  Turn and talks and think pair shares maximize student participation in class discussions.  Use prompts that require discussion, not prompts that ask kids to identify facts.
• Make students Apply New Knowledge to Learn it:  For Wednesday, structure your lesson to maximize thinking time.  Increase the amount of time students have to apply factual understanding. For example, plan to have them actively use their own individual thinking to understand a text to learn (take two minutes to read an annotate this text) new information.  Then use a think pair share to have them apply it to expanding new thinking. 

• Plan Intentional Circulation. Be intentional about your circulation (who are you going to first and later and why).  Also plan your feedback to students as you go.  Before you send them to work, tell them what you are going to be looking for as you circulate and tell them what your expectations are for high-level thinking.  Your feedback then should be targeted at supporting them to get to that level of thinking.  

Last Push for Parent Surveys.   This is the last week for the surveys!  If you haven't done so already, talk to your advisees in class and get them to bring their parent's survey in to school!  We're still pushing to get to at least 60% response rate.  Big shout out to Tiffany who has been sharing her family's submission rates!  Thank you, Tiffany.  If anyone else has success, please do share.

Penultimate Marking Period.  We are into the 5th marking period which ends on April 18th.  With the change of SLC, this made the 5th MP short (just 19 days).  Grades will be due Wednesday, May 1st.  Report cards will be distributed to students on Friday, May 3rd.  The May 9th Evening Parent Conferences will be prioritized for students who fail a 5th MP class.  The year is rapidly coming to an end, and that is simultaneously exciting and stressful!  Here's the breakdown:

•  9 instructional days until Spring Break
• 11 instructional days until the NYS Middle School Math Exams
• 16 instructional days until Mock Regents (all kids in regents classes sit for Mock Regents)
• 30 instructional days until the June 3rd New Global Regents Exam
• 35 instructional days until High School Final Exams
• 36 instructional days until June Regents Week begins
• 38 instructional days until Middle School Final Exams
• 40 instructional days until 8th Grade Stepping Up
• 41 instructional days until High School Graduation and the Last Day of School

Staff Out This Week

• Monday 08APR:  
• No One

• Tuesday 09APR: 
• No One

• Wednesday 10APR:  Superintendent Visit
• No One

• Thursday 11APR: 11th Grade College Overnight Trip
• Doris & Danielle out - 11th Grade College Trip
• Brenda out - personal business
• Joanna out - personal business

• Friday 12APR: School Assembly last period
• No One

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  This Monday we will be kicking off our UAI series of PDs on continuing the work we started this year around uncovering bias.  Inspired by the Perception Institute and Paul Forbes, the PD committee has been working on Fridays to select texts and plan experiences to take the next step into uncovering our own biases.  We'll all meet together in 409 at 3PM. Here's the plan

• Monday, 08APR19.  Uncovering Our Own Biases
• Monday, 15APR19.  Understanding the Impact of Our Biases in Our Classrooms
• Monday, 29APR19.   Strategies to Limit the Impact of Bias in the Classroom
• Monday, 06MAY19.  Monthly Grade Team Meetings and Planning for May 9th Conferences
• Monday, 13MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part I
• Monday, 20MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part II

Tuesday Outreach. All classroom teachers should be reaching out to families of any student who is failing their class every week from now until the end of the year.  This is a shift from advisor outreach and a shift to classroom teacher in preparation for the May 9th Parent Conferences (which concentrate on failing students, not SLCs).  This weekly outreach should be updates on student progress.

• How is there attendance to class?
• How well are they participating in class, what can be improved?
• How well are they performing on class assessments?  What can families do to help?
• How well are they doing on class assignments?  What can families to do help?

As part of our Promotion In Doubt due diligence, we need to document our interventions.  Your contact home is part of that intervention.  Please make sure to enter your outreach into Skedula.  

Student Support Services Update