Week of Sept 14

UAI High School Staff News

Volume III

Issue 3

Week of Sept 16, 2015

Announcements

Congratulation to Ilyana for her wonderful wedding this weekend!
It's so wonderful to see our UAI family (both current and past) joining you and yours on your special day!
(Thanks to Kerry for sharing the picture.)

Congratulations on a Great First Week.  It was a short and exciting week, and though some of our new 9th graders had some hiccups, it was overall a smooth launch to the school year.  That's all due to your hard work and preparation.  This month will prove challenging.  With all the holidays and upcoming shifts, settling into a pattern will pose a challenge.  However, with strong plans for Unit Zero, and with the strength and support of your team, the kids will rely on you to help them surmount whatever challenge comes their way.  Our new superintendent, Fred Walsh was impressed with the flow of our school, our environment, and your commitment to professionalism and excellence.  I really look forward to working with his team and getting him to better understand our work and achievements at UAI.  Beautiful work team UAI!

Attendance.  Though you couldn't see it, every morning I making little I-HEART-YOU shapes with my hands as I reviewed Skedula attendance.  You guys did an amazing job keeping up with taking attendance in Skedula last week.  Additionally, the majority of you guys were also on top of completing your period attendance on time.  Carol and Nancy provide epic back-office support for attendance at UAI.  Your attention to these details have made their jobs SOOOO much easier.  I thank you for that, and I'm sure they will, too.  As I mentioned in last week's PD, we need to be making calls home for our advisees who are not in school for the day.  You have a couple of options on how to do this:

1.  Wait until the end of the day and use your allotted time (2:50-2:58) to check Skedula and make the calls home.  Don't forget to log that you called in Skedula.  
2. Make the calls during the day (your choice).  If you choose this one, you'll have to say something like "So-and-So hasn't made it to school yet.  Is she planning on coming in?" Again, don't forget to log it into Skedula. 

As you reach out to families, please remind them that September 30th is our annual curriculum night from 5-8PM.  We'll be using PD & if need be some grade team time for the next couple of Mondays to prepare.  Skedula has some great ideas for getting parents to sign up.  Check out their blog post HERE.

Feedback Drop-Bys.  Between this week and next week, I want to get you guys initial feedback around social norms and the classroom environment.  You'll be seeing me, Jen, Colleen, and our coaches visiting to see how things are going and to give you some perspectives.  These are just drive-bys and have no evaluative weight and are purely for you to have another eye on the early stages of the classroom establishment.

Initial Planning Conferences & MOSL updates.  In next week's blog, I'll be publishing the schedule for Initial Planning Conferences.  We will review last year's ratings and MOSL selections.  Unless you want otherwise, MOSL selections will remain the same as last year.  These conferences will begin the week of September 28th. In preparation for these conferences, please think about the following

• What data points are you using to gauge student capacity in your classroom?  What are their current skills?  Do they need remediation or enrichment? How you preparing your first inquiry unit to evaluate and address their diverse learning needs?
• What's your plan for the first hook lesson? I want to be hooked, too! So dazzle me!
• From your observations of students in class and discussions with team members, what SEL areas are priority for the students and what is your plan for addressing it?
• After thinking about these questions, what are your two most pressing goals for the year?
• What specifically do you need/want to support you in achieving these goals?

Resilient Scholars Project

As we launch this project, I'm introducing this new section of the blog (BTW - if anyone else wants to add in, please feel free to shoot me an email with the subject header "Add to blog").  Below are some of the strategies that I pulled from the strategies section of the DESSA website (feel free to poke around to look for more that may interest you!).

Self-Awareness.   Self-Awareness is how our students come to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and how they learn to understand them so they can continually focus on growing and improving.  This past week our students are learning how to adjust to many new personalities and environments.  As teenagers, they are still developing their capacity to understand how they fit into the bigger picture and how their actions and decisions are perceived by have impact on the world around them.  Click here for an idea on how to build positive self-awareness for students. 

Social Awareness.  Social Awareness is our capacity to interact with other, respect their ideas and perspectives, recognize our impact on them and use tolerance, empathy, and collaboration in social situations.  As we continue to work with our kids in their development, it's also important to check in with ourselves as they continue to find new and innovative ways to test the limits.  Our responsibility is to teach them how to push the limits appropriately.  One step is to first figure out our own role in their understanding of social interactions.  Check out for an idea on how to reflect on what teachers' roles in this area.

Self-Management.  Self-Management skills are students capacity to self-regulate and persist through new or ongoing challenges.  Developed self-management skills will also help students overcome challenges and complete tasks and meet goals. In addition to students and teachers, the third critical leg for establishing a stable learning plane are our parents and families.  No one knows how to raise a teenager.  However, we can give some ideas.  It's important that as we share ideas with families, they understand that these are suggestions and that with all things the suggestion may work, but it may not.  The important thing is that we always keep trying!  Click here for a suggested tool that families can use at home to help students build self-management skills. 

Important Dates

• Wednesday, 16SEP15. 1st Whole Cabinet Meeting in Room 403 at 3PM.
• Thursday, 17SEP15. 11th Grade Assembly, start of 7th period in room 503.
• Friday, 18SEP15.  10th Grade Assembly, start of 6th period in room 503.
• Monday, 21SEP15. Full Staff PD in room 409.
• Wednesday 23SEP15. Yom Kippur, NO SCHOOL.
• Thursday, 24SEP15. Eid Al-Adha, NO SCHOOL.
• Friday, 25SEP15. DRP and DESSA Administration, Special AM schedules
• Monday, 28SEP15.  Open Lunch and Late Pass Rules go into Place
• Wednesday, 30SEP15.  Curriculum Night, 5PM-8PM

For All High School Important Dates, please add "UAI High School" calendar to your google calendars.

Per Session Posting

CHAMPS Middle School Sports & Fitness Program.  Please click here to find the per session tempalte to apply.  Any interested teachers must formally apply to this posting and have (1) AED/CPR certification from the American Red Cross or American Heart Association and (2)Concussion in Youth Sports (CYS) certification from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These certifications must be valid for the entire season to be considered. 

First School Dance Chaperones.  The first school dance will be on Friday, October 2nd from 6-10PM.  We are looking for a maximum of 10 chaperones.  Please email Kiri directly if you are interested.  Update (14SEP15): Damon, Elena, Jamie, Kristin, Kerry, Michael have signed up so far.  We're still looking for 4 more. 

SAT Prep Teacher. Ilyana and Mike have graciously agreed to provide our seniors with SAT prep prior to the official start of after school.  They will be receiving per session for this quick start program.  If you are also interested, please let Kiri know ASAP. Update (14SEP15) No one else expressed interest.  The positions are now closed.