Week of 09NOV26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

9 November 2026

  

School Leadership Message.  

Now that MP1 is nearly over, it's time to check in and see how we're doing. Over the next few weekly blog posts I am going to share some data. Today, I am sharing data from our recent mock student survey. The below pie chart reflects student responses from the question, "Do you feel like you belong at this school?".

While nearly 60% of our students responded with "YES" to this question, we still need to figure out how to build deeper connections with the remaining 40%. This week, carve out some time to look through student responses on the survey (linked here). See which students that you teach responded, "NOT SURE", or "NO", and find time to connect. Even a simple conversation can make a huge difference. 

While individual connections are important we know we also need to strengthen school-wide initiatives to build belonging. The Restorative Practices Equity Team (RPET) is working on launching a big/little sister program - designed to build vertical relationships across grades 6-12. This initiative will pair older students with middle schoolers and underclassmen. Grounded in restorative principles, the program will provide our younger students with a reliable peer anchor, while empowering older students as leaders and mentors. RPET is also restarting lunchtime circles this week for kids in grades 6-9 (see School Culture Update section for more info).

Our instructional push to increase rigor is also designed to increase student belonging. When we elevate academic expectations while streamlining intentional support, we send a clear message to our students: We see your potential, we believe in your capability, and we are committed to helping you succeed here.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to our students and our shared goals. As we move into the next marking period, let’s continue to hold high expectations, extend deep support, and look out for kids who may not yet feel like they belong.

Onward.

Some photos from our 3rd Annual NHS Induction Ceremony!

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Week of 02NOV26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

2 November 2026

  

School Leadership Message.  

Happy Marathon Sunday to all participants and spectators! Short blog today - enjoy this beautiful day.

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Week of 26OCT26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

26 October 2026

  

School Leadership Message.  

This week, we have another great opportunity to build on the relationships we've already developed with our families. Thursday evening's Literacy Night is the first academically focused workshop that we will be offering families this year (and is one of the action steps we outlined in our CEP). 

The evening is structured to first and foremost help families to understand their child's current data - we will be handing out STAR Assessment reports for both ELA and Math, and attendance snapshots for all students. From there, Mike & Marsha (thanks!) will facilitate a workshop focused on Literacy, where families will learn about their students' current reading levels, reading intervention classes & literacy programming at UAI, and best practices for fostering a love of reading at home. At the same time, we are inducting our 10th Grade Future Ready students into the pre-nursing pathway!

It is critical that we have families in attendance on Thursday evening. I am asking that all teachers make phone calls home to invite them in for this important event. In order to ensure ALL families have access, we will have childcare and translation services available and we are serving dinner - please be sure to communicate this in your calls home! 

As a heads up, we've been communicating the importance of getting this outreach done since last week. You should expect to hear from myself, Rosie or Kelly by the end of the day on Wednesday if you have not yet completed and logged your outreach. Please, please make sure this gets done.

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Week of 19October26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

19 October 2026

School Leadership Message.  

Between classroom visits this week, hallway chats during transitions, and seeing the ways our team consistently steps up to support each other, we're constantly reminded of how strong our community is.

Whether it’s the smiling faces and cross-grade cheering during the pep rally or the growing energy of students engaging with each other during lessons, the care we show one another is palpable. That sense of belonging is the bedrock of everything we do.

As we prepare for our upcoming Instructional Rounds, we have a powerful opportunity to build on this strong foundation. Our primary focus during rounds will be examining how we design and implement rigorous tasks so that students are doing the heavy lifting and thinking throughout the entire lesson.

A critical part of holding students to that cognitive heavy lifting is how they talk and process ideas together. Right now, classroom interactions can sometimes default to simple "turn-taking," where students share ideas sequentially rather than truly collaborating. To ensure the task's rigor translates into deep student thinking, we want to shift toward authentic dialogue where kids actively build on, reflect on, and challenge each other's ideas.

As we head into Instructional Rounds, we’ll be keeping this connection front and center by focusing on:

• Rigorous Tasks: Crafting learning experiences that require authentic problem-solving and keep the cognitive burden on students.

• Engaging & Higher-Order Questioning: Asking questions that force students to evaluate, defend, and refine their own thinking.

• Structures for Engagement: Providing the routines and sentence stems kids need to build on a peer's point or respectfully push an idea further.

When we combine a supportive culture with rigorous task design and explicit structures for student thinking, our students develop the confidence and skills to tackle hard intellectual work together & independently.

We're looking forward to visiting classrooms together and learning alongside all of you during our upcoming rounds!

Week of 12OCT26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

12 October 2026

School Leadership Message. 

We are officially finished with the first month of school! It has been an honor to launch this year alongside all of you, and we're excited for what the remainder of the year holds. 

Over these past few weeks, our classroom visits have highlighted the undeniable heart of our school: vibrant, warm classroom cultures built on authentic relationships. Across our halls, teachers are making an intentional, daily effort to connect with students, creating safe environments where learners feel known, valued, and ready to show up. 

At the same time, these visits highlighted key instructional trends we want to focus on as we move forward: the use of whole-class scaffolds and rapid teacher-to-student "ping-pong" exchanges. While these moves are well-intentioned attempts to guide students, they often keep the intellectual heavy lifting on the teacher, over-supporting learners and limiting opportunities for true peer discourse and independent processing.

To realize our UAI Instructional Vision, we must shift away from over-scaffolding and teacher-dominated talk toward environments where students develop agency through productive struggle. Our vision calls for stepping back so students can engage deeply with complex content through structured thinking routines, rich peer discussions, and rigorous writing. Moving from teacher-centered dialogue to student-led thinking requires us to design entry points that support access without removing the cognitive demand.

Our upcoming Instructional Rounds starting on October 19 give us the dedicated space to dive directly into this work together. These rounds mark the start of a broader push—alongside our co-planning meetings and coaching cycles—where we can dig into a shared Problem of Practice: How do we effectively plan for and implement rigorous tasks so that high cognitive demand is maintained throughout the class period for all students? 

By observing real-time learning, looking at student outputs, and tweaking how we step back, we will build the habits that help our students take ownership and grapple with complex ideas every single day.

Week of 05OCT26

 

  Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

05 October 2026

School Leadership Message

It was a busy week! It finally feels like we're in the swing of things and we're ready to push our instructional practice. As we're walking through classrooms, we're seeing a lot of effective practice - behavior management is strong, and kids are sitting in groups ready to engage in learning. Now that foundational structures and climate are solid, our next high-leverage move is elevating academic rigor. As we move forward, our focus will be on raising cognitive demand for all students: asking open-ended 'why' and 'how' questions, increasing student-to-student discourse, and giving students more ownership over solving complex problems.

Here's some questions we will work on answering through this year's PD sessions:

1. When you lead a whole-class discussion, who is doing most of the thinking and talking - one student at a time, or everyone in the room? How can we consistently replace the traditional teacher-to-student call-and-response pattern with Total Participation Techniques (like Turn & Talks) that require every student to process, articulate, and defend their ideas with a peer?
2. How can we elevate the level of rigor of our tasks? Does this assignment ask students to recall information, or does it require them to analyze, synthesize, and grapple with complex ideas? How can we ensure our daily tasks go beyond procedural accuracy to demand higher-level cognitive work - offering multiple pathways, encouraging productive struggle, and requiring students to cite evidence, hypothesize, or draw their own conclusions?

This week we will be coming into classrooms to give non-evaluative feedback specifically around Danielson 3C - Engaging Students in Learning. 

We are raising the bar this year on the academic expectations we have for all of our students. In turn, the bar must be raised for all of us - and that starts with me. So, this year, you will receive much more constructive, honest and direct feedback from the admin team - both informally and through the evaluation process.

I am excited to be on this journey with all of you and I look forward to leaning into the hard work ahead of us.

Week of 28SEP26

    

       

   Urban Assembly Institute of Math &                      Science for Young Women

28 September 2026

School Leadership Message

Last week's conference event and PTA meeting was a good reminder of the importance of building strong and trusting relationships with our families. When families and school staff have open lines of communication and a strong sense of partnership, we are better able to support student academically, socially, and emotionally. We are going to continue to prioritize meaningful family engagement and look for new ways to create opportunities for collaboration, communication, and connection.

• We will continue to ensure our family phone call system is working effectively and consistently - where all families are given at least monthly updates on how their child is doing academically and social-emotionally across all classes.
• We will engage families in meaningful conversations about their student’s progress, areas for growth, and the supports they can expect from us as we work together to help their child succeed.
• To do this, we will host whole school evening workshops focused on understanding their student's screener data and the ways in which we are pushing their child to grow. 
• We will formalize our PTA and SLT structures so that parents have a true role in and authentic voice in shaping how we serve our students and families.

This week as you have your Initial Planning Conferences, you should expect to speak to your own personal goals for strengthening your relationships with the families of the students you teach. Building strong family partnerships is not the responsibility of one team or one role, it is something we all contribute to through consistent communication, trust, and a commitment to knowing and supporting our students and their families.