Week of Nov 16th

UAI Staff News

Volume III

Issue 12

Week of Nov. 16th, 2015

Announcements

Calls Home.  I know the days can get busy.  With the million plus things you are juggling each day, something as small as a phone call can often get lost in the shuffle.  However, it is the smallest things that often have the greatest impact.  Please put a cell phone reminder, post-it on your computer or some other reminder to make time to follow up on the phone calls home.  On Friday, I was meeting with a parent and he told me that no one had called home to notify him that his daughter had been late to school multiple times the week prior.  Our parent investment is growing, and we need to keep it that way.  They are the people who have entrusted us with their children, and we need to take that responsibility with pride and honor.  So, as a reminder, please make sure that you are checking on your advisees' attendance. If they are not making it to their second period class on time (8:30 or 8:40), please call home and log it into Skedula.  Remember, we are trying to collectively strengthen our family bonds.  This only works if we all chip in to do it together!  So, please make those calls and throw in some positive ones, too. THANK YOU!!

Co-Planning. As reminder from the last blog post, you can use your prep periods to common plan with your co-teachers.  In response to hearing that many of you are struggling to find time to co-plan, I made THIS document (click on the tab that says "Teacher Free Periods") to help you find one another.

You certainly don't have to co-plan every day or even every week.  In an LC instructional model, co-planning may be most intense in the weeks leading up to a new unit and teacher teams may only need maintenance check-ins periodically during the unit.  You and your co-teacher need to decide what works best for you!  Please decide together.

Please visit the schedule link to see who is free when.  You and your co-teachers should work together to choose a prep that you share to work together that makes the most sense for both of you and the class needs. Once you choose a day, here's a sample agenda that you can elect to use to help facilitate your planning:

Sample Maintenance Agenda

• 10 min- Check in on CUR and Conference Data to mine data for Grass Roots Lessons
• 20 min- Using Assessment, CUR, and Conference Data, assign responsibility for resource development for the classroom environment to support gaps in student knowledge.
• 10 min- Review planned lessons/activities/CUR & Conferences for the week
• 5 min - Other agenda items that team needs
• 5 min - Review commitments and deadlines for the week.

Sample Unit Planning Agenda

• 10 min- Subject teacher shares unit contract and expectations for feedback from co-teacher
• 30 min- Using Assessment, CUR, Conference and other Data (e.g. DRP, standards, benchmarks, etc), identify unit and student needs and assign responsibility for resource development for the classroom environment to support gaps in student knowledge or resources to support acquisition of new content and skills.
• 5 min - Other agenda items that team needs
• 5 min - Review commitments and deadlines for the week.

Important Reminders from Last Blog Post

Student Led Conferences and Parent Conference Night/Afternoon. This Thursday (19NOV15) and Friday (20NOV15) are designated Parent Conference Time.  For this fall, Middle School teachers will have traditional Parent Conferences.  Students will pick up report cards from a central location and teachers will have sign ups for parent meetings.  Next Spring, we will move MS students to SLCs so that UAI can have one system of conference.  

For the Middle School teachers:

• (1) Please check in and support new teachers around Parent Conference structures and expectations
• (2) Please print out and use this form  to help parents sign up for meeting with you.  Please make sure to try to stay within the 10 minute limit so we don't keep parents waiting.
• (3) Assigned conference times are Thursday from 5-8PM and Friday from 12-2:40PM.  You are only required to stay for these contractual hours.

For the High School teachers: 

• (1) Please check in and support new teachers around SLC structures and expectations, and
• (2) Please complete your appointment list by Wednseday, 18NOV15
• (3) High School teachers, you have 30 minutes per student.  5.5hrs are flex time.  You need to complete conferences for all advisees.  This year's advisories are larger than last year because our enrollment is higher.  For those advisors with more than 11 advisees, when you complete more than 11 conferences, you will receive per session for the extra conferences.  Flex time can be applied any time between now and November 24th.  ALL conferences must be completed by 24NOV and except for 19NOV (where we stay until 8PM), all conferences must be completed before 5:30PM.

First Benchmarks.   The first benchmark exams are happening NEXT week (19NOV and 20NOV).  For high school teachers, you should use your same benchmarks as last year, and/or there are extra regents exams that you can use in the storage closet across from the main office.  For middle school teachers, your benchmarks are being made for you, based on the PARCC assessments (which are the common core assessments of the future).  These will be done by Monday, 16NOV.   Everyone, 

• Please CLICK HERE to see the schedule.  Click on the "Benchmark" tab
• All teachers must get copies of benchmark exams by to special ed teachers so they can be prepared to test in testing mod rooms.  In order to provide accommodations within the time frame, students will test on fewer questions in the same time frame as gen-ed students (in place of having extended time for the same amount of questions, they'll have fewer questions in the same amount of time).
• Finally, grading time is built into your schedules during benchmark week.  Please use this time to grade and upload scores into THIS document by the end of the day on Wednesday 25NOV15.

Here are some important things to TEACH into this week in preparing students for the benchmarks

• A benchmark is an exam that measures growth.  In order to do this, we need to know where they are starting.  These tests are DIFFERENT than the performance tests they take for the state (NYS ELA and Math in April and Regents Exams in Jan/Jun/Aug).   They will be taking these exams several times throughout the year.  They need to take these exams seriously so that we can best see how to help them.  If they don't try their hardest, we won't know where they are in their growth, and we won't be able to adequately support them.  So, please reassure them that this test is important because it helps us help them - not because it grades them.

• The first benchmark is a baseline - where we start.  Tell your students that because of this, they will NOT likely know much of the material that is on the test.  Tell your students this is expected and that's ok.  Tell them, that you will be observing HOW they deal with frustration when they encounter a question they think they don't know.   When they take this test, actively note how they are acting, what they are doing, and give them a means to show you the types of thinking (what questions/breaches do they have), etc.  This first benchmark will not only give you a baseline of their content/skill knowledge but also of their testing capacity.  You will need to address both with your students as we progress through the year.

Staff Highlights

First Residency.  Congratulations to Ilyana and Steve.  They have been working tirelessly for weeks to plan and execute our first residency of the year.  In a residency, a peer coach (Ilyana) works with a teacher new to Learning Cultures to help learn how to best launch units, formats, and curate resources to support independent learning.  Their work resulted in a brand new classroom for Steve! It reflected an amazing amount of growth and format development!  Learning Cultures is not easy to master, and it can feel wrong for a long time. That's why we have so many coach support at UAI.  For any of you who are interested in this type support or would like some other type of support, please let us know by completing this short survey.

Our New Test Coordinator.  A BIG Thank YOU goes out to Joanna for stepping up to be our new testing coordinator.  She has already been reaching out to you guys with the exciting test manuals, and we are gearing up for second DRP administration in December and our first round of Regents exams in January.  Managing and coordinating these big assessments is an important and vital part of our school's success.  It's also not particularly fun, which means it's particularly awesome that Joanna is stepping up!  Thank you Joanna!!!

Resilient Scholars

Self-Management.  As we prepare students for our first Benchmark exams, it's important that we pause to teach techniques of persisting through frustration.  One easy to use strategy is to ask that students write down the questions they have if they don't know how to answer a question.  Another is to write around everything, meaning explain whatever it is that comes to mind (however unrelated - it doesn't matter) to get them started.  Fluency is the baseline to mastery.  Sometimes getting the kids to just write anything is all they need to get past hurdles.  Subject teams should work together this week to develop other ideas to share with students to help build coping techniques during testing periods.

Important Dates

• Tuesday, 17NOV15.  Full Cabinet Meeting in Room 403 3-4PM
• 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)
• Wednesday 25NOV15. High School Assembly and Early Dismissal at 2:30PM
• Tuesday 24NOV15.  First Fire Drill at 9:40AM NOTE THE DATE CHANGE
• Wednesday, 25NOV15. 8th Grade Ice-Skating Trip
• Thursday 26NOV15 & Friday 27NOV15.  Thanksgiving Recess
• Monday 30NOV15. First Pod Share
• Tuesday 01DEC15.  Grade Teams Moved to Tuesday this week.
• Friday, 04DEC15. Middle School Assembly
• Friday, 04DEC15, Middle School Dance NOTE THE DATE CHANGE
• Monday, 07DEC15. Pod Cycle 2 Begins (07DEC15 Through 18JAN15) - Pod Share on 02FEB16
• Friday, 11DEC15, SAVE THE DATE for UAI Staff Party
• Friday, 11DEC15.  MP2 ENds
• Wednesday 16DEC15.  MP Grades Due
• Wednesday, 23DEC15.  Early Dismissal at 2:30PM.  All students and staff MUST leave the building at 2:30 for the Winter Recess.
• Thursday, 24DEC15 through 03JAN16 Winter Recess.

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

Per Session Posting

Middle School Dance Chaperones.  December 4th 5:30-7:30

9th Grade Transition Planning. This work team will be collaborating to develop strategies and plans for developing stronger transition practices for students matriculating from 8th to 9th grade.  First meeting is THIS Thursday at 3PM.

Recruitment Team.  This team will be working alongside Jen & Jennifer to plan and create deeper relationships during the Spring Term to build feeder-school relationships with Elementary and Middle Schools. Activities will include but are not limited to, planning mentor activities between our students and outside middle/elementary school students, planning community service events at local elementary schools (e.g. gardening, book reading, etc.).  Essentially, we need to show the schools how awesome our girls, our staff, and our school are so that we can create stronger relationships with these schools and UP our  enrollment!  

The goal for next year is to have FOUR 6th grade sections so that we can work on bringing our MS enrollment back from where we are today (at 173 to what we're supposed to be (81 per grade for a total of 243))!  For the high school, the goal is to find 100 girls who choose us first! If we can get 10 elementary and 10 middle schools to each send 10 girls to us, we will hit the mark.  So join the team who will make this happen!!  Hours start in December.  To start it will be at least one meeting per week, but hours will fluctuate with group needs.