Week of 05OCT15

UAI High School Staff News

Volume III

Issue 6

Week of Oct 5, 2015

Announcements

Cookie Dough Fundraiser.  All advisors have received cookie dough fundraising packets by now.  If not, please see Carol ASAP to get your packet.  Please make sure your advisees receive the fundraising.  Top seller receives $100.  Students who sell at other levels will be eligible to receive movie tickets and/or a pizza party.   As added incentive for staff...the advisory who has (1) the most engagement (i.e. the highest percent of advisory involvement in selling), and/or (2) the highest amount of sales will receive an incentive prize from me.  I'm still trying to figure out what that prize should be - so shoot me an email to give me suggestions?  And yes, adults can sell too!

Parent Outreach Reminder.  As a reminder, we need to make sure to be using our parent outreach minutes each day.  You have 8 minutes per day to call your advisees.  A required component is that all teachers must call any advisory who does not make it to 2nd period (their first class after advisory) on time.  In order to make this easy for everyone, everyone needs to make it a priority in their classes to take and record attendance in Skedula during class.  Taking accurate attendance and parent outreach are both professional responsibilities for UAI teachers.  I will be following up on how well we are doing both of these duties this week.  Make me proud!

Student Locations.  While our middle and high school staff may be coming together under a single principal, our students should still be observing the expectations of staying in their assigned parts of the building.  If you see middle school students on the high school floors (outside of the gym floor and in detention in the basement), please remind them to return to their floors.  Vice versa, middle school teachers need to make sure high schoolers remain on assigned high school floors.  We have not yet established new protocols for students.  Until we do, we keep to existing rules.

After Hours.  Unless we have special evening events, we do not officially have a permit to be in the building after 6pm.  School safety has been gracious enough to make exceptions from time to time.  However, they are held ultimately responsible if anyone is in the building after they leave.  They are hard working and are simply trying to wrap up a long day of work for themselves when they come around and ask you to leave.  They have asked that I reach out to you.  I am asking that you respect their position and their requests.  When it's time to leave, please comply with their requests that you clear the building.  Thank you!

Pod Launch.  As you have heard from Rebecca and Meredith, we are meeting together on Monday for PD.   We will be launching our first round of teacher-run mini-inquiry groups (we call Pods).  We will be meeting in room 409.  The middle school teachers should report there at 2:50PM, after finishing parent outreach.  The high school teachers should report there at 3PM, after finishing their parent outreach.  The MS will have brief announcements first.

Resilient Scholars Project

As we enter our 2nd full week of school, we can finally begin establishing routines and expectations. It's important to remember that in addition to our academic and classroom routines, we need to pave the ground for positive social patterns.  Here are some strategies/lessons you may want to use in your class to deal with common social dilemmas in the classroom.

Paying Attention  In this mini-lesson, you can explicitly provide students with a clear strategy on how to actively pay attention to others (e.g. during lessons, unison, small group instruction, etc.) and how to show others that you are paying attention.  It's important to be transparent that there could be two reasons students get reminders in class (1) they are actually doing something that requires redirection or (2) they look like they're doing something that requires redirection.  Giving students the benefit of the doubt and assuming #2 is a great strategy to de-escalate situations.  Pairing de-escalation with this lesson will be a first brick in building a strong pro-social foundation for your class.

Dealing with Anger & Frustration  This lesson leads with the quote "When anger goes up, thinking goes down."  As humans, we all feel how challenging it is to keep rationale in the heat of the moment.  This lesson provides structures to generate strategies to support students in their effort to cool down and get a handle on their feelings during frustrating moments.  These strategies can become part of your classroom environment and should be used to help students deal with frustration and anger as it bubbles up during class.  If they are better equipped to manage their feelings, they are better equipped to learn!

Important Dates

• Wednesday, 07OCT15.  Kiri is out of the building at all-day Principal's Meeting.
• Wednesday, 07OCT15.  School Leadership Team Meeting @ 3:30PM - Conference Room.
• Friday, 09OCT15.  Friday Rapid Dismissal at 3:30PM.  This is an official fire drill set at SLJ's dismissal time.  All after school programs, all staff and all teachers must exit the building at 3:30 and await notification to re-enter from school safety.
• Monday, 12OCT15.  Columbus Day, NO SCHOOL.
• Wednesday, 15OCT15.  PSAT Testing, Special Schedule for 10th & 11th Graders ONLY.
• Tuesday, 20OCT15.  Soft Lock Down Drill Planned.  Times will be unannounced - be ready!
• Friday, 30OCT15.  First Full High School Assembly.  Last Period (in Gym)
• Tuesday, 02NOV15.  Election Day Professional Development
• Friday, 06NOV15.  First Full Middle School Assembly.  Last Period (in Gym)

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

Per Session Posting

After School Per Session.  Nicole is recruiting for after school positions (8 hours total per semester).  Touch base with her in room 145 for details.  

Coaches' Per Session Opportunity.   If you are a returning or rising coach, you are eligible to receive per session for a variety of after school professional development opportunities.  This week, third year coaches Marianna, Darby, Wendy & Meredith are helping me streamline and refine the LC rubrics that I will use for observations.  Stay tuned for more opportunities.

First School Dance Chaperones.  The first school dance will be on Friday, >>>DATE CHANGE October 16th<<DATE CHANGE<<<< 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, and Anna have signed up so far.  We're still looking for 3 more.