Week of April 13th

UAI High School Staff News

Volume II

Issue 32

Week of April 13th, 2015

Announcements

The Last 40 Days of Classes.  For the next few weeks, we have 30 days of instruction, uninterrupted by holidays or breaks.  It's the perfect time to establish firm routines and ratchet up the urgency around the end of the year.  For all courses, annualization provides the time needed for students to fully demonstrate their growth and achievements.  As we enter into these final weeks, students need to recognize the importance of doing their best to demonstrate their proficiencies in order to earn their credits for the year.  Additionally, now is the time to start buckling down and preparing for the June Regents exams.  Students must be making time at home to independently study for the exams as a compliment to their in-school work.  Your unit plans and mini-lessons need to be explicit and clear around this expectation.

Systems and Policies Reboot.  To make the most out of the last two months of instruction (June is basically all testing), now is a good time to teach into classroom responsibilities and social norms.  Additionally, for yourself, please take a moment to reread the staff handbook and policies.  In preparation for next year, we are looking for your feedback on this year's systems and policies.

Please share your opinions and thoughts by CLICKING HERE.

Benchmark 4 is on Wednesday & Thursday.  Your Benchmark Results are due this Friday. Enter your data by CLICKING HERE. We will be using this particular benchmark to plan for June and August Regents.  For Regents courses, please enter your raw scores in the yellow columns.   Please also enter the projected Regent score.  Students who have a Regent score below 45 will not be signed up for June.  Instead, they will be mandated to summer school and signed up for August exams.  Of course, exceptions will be made.  Just bring the names to my attention and we will discuss.

Next Year's Schedule.  The first draft of next year's schedule is complete.  Teaching assignments and program are dependent on budget and student population, but barring any drastic unforeseen budgetary shifts, this is pretty much what it will be next year.  The room assignments are in green at the right.  Professional periods are not yet firm because we have to SBO the options, but they are projected assignments based on what people got this year.  With Michelle moving into an ELL/ICT position and Rebecca moving to 9th grade Reading, we are looking for a new 10th Grade English teacher.  The hiring committee has a strong lead on a English teacher who is coming in for classroom observations next week.  With Sarah moving to the middle school next year, we are on the hunt for an Earth Science teacher.  Keep your ears open and let us know if you know anyone who be perfect for our school!


Next Year's Grade & Subject Team Leaders.  To improve team efficacy and distributed leadership structures next year, I am asking for input from the teams on who they would want to have as their leader.  Please give me your two cents by quickly answering these two questions below:

PROSE.  Just before the break, I sent out an email updating you on what the UA principals discussed at our last meeting.  Essentially, we have no idea why some schools were accepted and why others were rejected.  There is some conjecture across the network that schools were rejected solely on the opinion of the UFT district rep to that school.  However, this is solely conjecture at this point.  In an effort to get concrete evidence and reasons for acceptance or rejection from PROSE, Kerry Decker (Principal of UA Green Careers) and her teacher (Brent Chamberlain) wrote letters requesting increased transparency and possibly reconsideration of the decision.  Please take a moment to read Brent's Letter and Kerry's Letter.

At the present time, it is not clear what it means to not be part of PROSE with the rest of the UA network.  As an individual school, we will not suffer greatly, however, for me, I am greatly disturbed by the idea that our school is being treated unfairly.  I believe that our school's proposal (which, btw, was used by another Learning Cultures school (Unison) and they got in!) should be judged on it's merits and the published expectations.  I believe that our school's proposal, in actuality, is not being judged at all, but rather by something else.  I believe that we have a right to be told what that something else is, because if we are to have a successful re-application we have to know what we have to fix.  I need your help to get this message out.  So, I am asking you to sign on to help us figure out what happened with our proposal and if the reasons seem unjust, then I am asking you to sign on to ask the PROSE committee for reconsideration.

Please email me directly if you are willing to put your name on these letters to ask for clarity and fair treatment for our school.

Partnership Shout Outs

Our Partners provide our school and our young women with so many resources, supports and opportunities!  In addition to celebrating our girls, take a moment to thank a partner for their work and support of our school and our girls.

Take a look at what happened this week alone!

Belle, Mariam, and Tiara are three of our strongest, smartest and boldest high schoolers who joined Oprah as they filmed an inspiring commercial for Girls Inc.  We are so proud of them.  Show them how proud you are this week when you see them in class and in the halls!  Celebrate how well they model being an empowered young woman of color!!!



Here's some of the behind the scenes footage:

Our Carrera Partners supported senior Toddara in winning the Children's Aid Society/Madison Square Garden college scholarship for $10,000 which is renewable for each of her college years.  We are so proud of Toddara!!  Be sure to give her the celebratory shout out when you see her in class and in the halls.

Important Dates

• Monday 13APR15 - First day be from spring break
• Friday, 17APR15 - Benchmark IV Results are due
• Friday, 24APR15 - April Assembly during 8th Period - Details TBD
• Friday, 24APR15 - Final DRP Administration in AM
• Monday, 27APR15 through Friday 01MAY15 - Last week of 5th Marking Period - Please DO NOT SCHEDULE any field trips for this week.

• Monday, 04MAY15 - MP6, the last marking period of the year, begins.
• Wednesday, 06MAY15 - MP5 Grades are Due
• Friday 15MAY15 - Annual High School Honor Roll Breakfast at 9AM
• Wednesday 20MAY15 - Senior Awards Night
• Monday, 25MAY15 - Memorial Day, NO SCHOOL
• Thursday, 28MAY15 - Springfest, our 2nd Parent Outreach night (the 2nd of 2 that were added with the new UFT contract)

• Tuesday, 02JUN15 - Common Core Regents - NO CLASSES
• Thursday, 04JUN15 - Brooklyn Queens Day at UAI - Just UAI HS at UAI HS
• Wednesday, 10JUN15 - Tech Carts are due to Allan by the end of the day
• Thursday 11JUN15 and Friday 12JUN15 - Final Benchmark Exams
• Friday, 12JUN15 - End of the 6th Marking Period
• Monday, 15JUN15 - High School Field Day (Details TBD)
• Tuesday, 16JUN15 - Regents Week Begins
• Wednesday, 17JUN15 - Final Grades are Due
• Wednesday, 24JUN15 - Plato Training
• Thursday, 25JUN15 - High School Graduation at Kumbel Theater
• Friday, 26JUN15 - Last Day of School

Per Session

Hiring Committee.  I've scrounged up some minimal hours for the Hiring Committee using excess funds from Per Diem (Great Job on Attendance this year, you guys!!)  We have some extra funds in the sub bucket to use for per session activities!  Current Members: Martine (chair), Darby, Kristin, Danielle, Jamie (did I miss anyone??).  I need to first verify with Nicole on how many folks signed up for the next After School session and then I will be able to state how many hours are available.

Session II After School for STEM electives.  Using these same excess per diem funds, I can now open up After School to non-STEM electives (and pay our volunteers from Session I Paula, Marianna, and Ilyana - thank you for volunteering! and Congrats - I ended up finding a way to pay you!).  Please email me your ideas for an after school program that would meet at least once a week for 1 hour.  Email me by the end of the day on Monday, April 13th with your sketch of an idea.  The After School fair is on April 15th, so this is a QUICK turnaround.

Cabinet Per Session is relaunching.  Stay tuned to next week's blog post for details.  Depending on how many hours I can liberate from per diem and how many are still available after hiring and after school hours are distributed, I will be able to have paid meetings starting next week Wednesday after school throughout all of April and May.