Week of Oct 19th

UAI Staff News

Volume III

Issue 8

Week of Oct. 19, 2015

Announcements

UAI Walks to Support Breast Cancer Awareness in Prospect Park!

Class of 2016 Visits Brooklyn College

End of the MP 1.  It's hard to believe that we're almost done with October!  That means that there are only two more weeks left in the 1st marking period (MP 1 ends on Friday, 30OCT15).  Please make sure you are regularly entering grades into Skedula so that students have access to how they are doing in your class.  Please make sure to schedule emergency conferences with any students who are in danger of failing your class.  Also, remember to schedule emergency conferences with the high achievers who are kinda slacking!  Additionally, this is the time to begin selecting student work for display.  Start celebrating student growth by showing off their work!

Calls home.  We have been doing a fairly great job in our outreach.  Remember that we have 8 minutes built into each day, including Fridays (the 40 minutes of family outreach time) to call any advisee who doesn't make it to 2nd period on time. You should also take the opportunity to update families on academic progress prior to the first progress report.  Remember, reaching out to share positive news is just as important (and even more powerful) than only updating on failure or behavior mistakes.  Also, it's more fun to talk about the good stuff!

PD and Pods.  From now on, all teachers will meet in room 409 at 3PM for our weekly PD.  We may only have time to provide feedback for one person this week, but if your pod decides, you can provide feedback to both.  To facilitate that, please make sure that your group has entered notes and feedback into your POD's debriefing Protocol.  Here's Monday's Agenda

• MS Teachers 2:50-3:00 meet in 409 for MS Announcements
• All Teachers 3:00-3:40 meet in 409 for Pod Debriefs 
• MS Teachers 3:40-4:10 meet in Grade Teams in 409
• HS Teachers 3:40-4:20 meet in Grade Teams (9th is in 403; 10th/12th is in 511?; 11th/12 is in B53)

Co-Teaching and Co-Planning.  This week I will be paying visits to classrooms with two teachers.  We have a lot of co-teaching happening this year, and visiting classrooms is the best way to see how it's working.  I've heard a number of people express concern that there is not enough time to co-plan.  That's true.  So, let me clarify my expectations around classroom with two teachers.

• Both the primary classroom teacher and the ISS or push-in teacher are facilitating their own formats, in particular Unison/Table shares and conferences.  When I pop in for observations I'll be looking for evidence of this (either formats in action or via looking at records/sign-ups).

Teachers should use grade or subject team time to coordinate calendars.  Once calendars are coordinated, formats should happen, and the need for co-planning will change.  Once formats are consistently happening, teachers will need to meet to share data (e.g. review UR and Conference records to inform Grass Roots lessons and/or identify targeted skills/concepts that require additional or different activities during Work Time).  From initial observations, most teacher pairs are still working on format consistency.  If this applies you, focus first on establishing your two calendars and keeping the lessons short enough to make sure Unison/Table shares and Conferences can happen.   If you and your co-teachers have succeeded in getting formats consistently running, the come to me and I will set aside per session time to support your next step in co-planning.

Cookie Dough Fundraiser.  All cookie dough packets are due to Carol by Friday.  These are the last five days to try to reach our goal (that all students sell at least 5 items).  This week, please remind students in your classes to strive to reach this goal!  As a reminder, the PTA is offering a pizza party for any student who meets this goal and the PTA is offering a prize to the highest seller.  As extra incentive for staff, I'm offering two prizes:  (1) Any and all advisors who have at least 90% of their advisory selling at least 5 items will be treated to lunch, and (2) The Advisory with the highest sales in the school will get funded to go on a field trip of their choice!  So, let's get to it and raise some funds for our PTA to support upgrades in our technology!

Resilient Scholars Project

Over 75% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch.  That means that 3 out of 4 of our students are living in poverty.  It's important that we understand the strains on our students both in and out of school (empathy - not sympathy).  To overcome the adversity our students face, they will need to develop strong social emotional skills.  One of the key skills that fuel the growth mindset is Optimistic Thinking.  In order to grow and achieve, students have to believe that they can!  Check out these sentence starters and this rubric to help students orient their thinking and track their progress.  Try to find ways to integrate into your classroom this week!

Important Dates

• Tuesday 20OCT15.  UAI Coaches Meeting, room 403 3-4PM
• Thursday 22OCT15.  Lady Eagles Volleyball Game
• Tuesday, 27OCT15.  Soft Lock Down Drill Planned.  Times will be unannounced - be ready!  [NEW DATE]
• Friday, 30OCT15.  First Full High School Assembly.  Last Period (in Gym)
• Tuesday, 02NOV15.  Election Day Professional Development
• Wednsday 04NOV15.  MP 1 Grades Due at 3PM
• Friday, 06NOV15.  First Full Middle School Assembly.  Last Period (in Gym)
• Wednesday, 11NOV15.  Veteran's Day, NO SCHOOL
• Thursday 19NOV15 (5-8PM) and Friday 20NOV15 (Lunch Dismissal to End of School Day).  Fall Parent Conferences (Updates to come on SLCs and MS Parent Conference in next Blog) 

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

Per Session Posting

No new postings this week (other than the co-planning time mentioned above)