Sunday, February 21, 2016

Week of February 22nd

UAI Staff News

Volume III
Issue 23
Week of February 22nd, 2016


UAI Celebrations

Successful Black History Month Assembly.  Many, many thanks and shout outs go to three amazing women who organized our first 6-12 assembly of the year.  The girls were amazingly supportive of one another, and each performance and artistic share was beautiful and celebratory of both Black History Month and the talents and individuality of our young girls.  Thank you so much Tracy, Sursattie, and Kelly for all of your hard work with the girls. Big applause for all the performers and artists.  Next Month, our Carrera and Girls Inc partners are working together to plan a series of workshops and activities to celebrate Women's History Month on Thursday, March 24th.  Save the date (12-2:30PM)!!




February Staff Thank You Posters.  We're still in February, the month of love and thanks!   Each floor has a poster and thank you cards can be retrieved from admin offices on each floor students and staff to appreciate UAI teachers and staff.   There is undeniably positive benefits for expressing gratitude - both for the thank-er and the thank-ee.  Make some time this week in your classes to discuss how being grateful impacts the healthy brain (check out this blog post on a site called "The Happier Human" - I mean, how could one pass up a site reference like this?!).  If you prefer the more academic reference - check out this article from Clinical Psychology).  Bottom line, people love being thanked and thanking people improves our mental health.  So, this week, make a big push to get all of our kids to find someone they want to thank at UAI.



Field Trip and External Learning Opportunities.  Just before break the 10th Grade took a trip to the Natural History Museum, and Monday when we return, some of the 6th grade will have the opportunity to the Center for Fiction and a meet the author event.   The Math Team is taking kids from each grade (6-12) to our 10th annual Sonia Kovalevsky Day at Barnard College this Friday.  With the weather turning better, it's important to make sure that we are balancing classroom based experiences with external learning experiences for our girls.  Balance is the operative word.  The experiences that our young women have outside of school can be healthy compliments or enrichments to their classroom work and activities.  Grade teams should work together to plan at least 1 trip for March and 1 trip for April for their students.



Announcements 

MidYear Reviews - Mid Year Reviews begin this week.  You will receive an email directly from your supervising admin (Kiri, Colleen, or Val) detailing when you are scheduled to have your review.  Colleen and Val will be shadowing me in the beginning to norm the reviews, so if they are your supervisor, your midyear reviews will likely happen next week.  If you are mine, all but three will be completed this week and the remaining three will be held on Monday.

Monday PD - Marianna attended a Google Educator Certification PD earlier this month and will be sharing some of the amazing things she learned through the process at Monday's PD (Thank you Marianna!).  This will be a brief 30-40 min presentation followed by usual team meetings.


March PD Pod Break and Choose Your Own PD Adventure.  We will be taking a brief break from Pods for the month of March.  We will return to Pods on April 4th and the next Pod will be our last pod for the year.  PD time for March is still a little bit in flux.  We are waiting to hear back from Ilyana/Damon/Darby/Wendy who are working to find an organization to work with us to deep our understanding and sensitivity to diversity issues.  Once we get concrete dates, we will share immediately. In the meantime, I am offering all teachers a PD of choice day.  If you find a PD that you want to attend, I will pay for your sub and release you for the day to attend.  I will be asking to share back what you've learned (and this could be whole staff or in teams - depending on what you chose).  Unfortunately, I will not be able to fund individual workshops.  Additionally, I will not be able to sustain more than 2 teachers out per day (and no more than 1 per grade).  Requests will be filled at a first-come first-serve basis.   Here's two sites to get you started:



Cabinet is for Team Leaders (Grade & Subject) this week.  We will begin reviewing the issues raised during our Open Space Protocol (Feb PD day) during Cabinet this week.  This week, only Grade and Subject team leaders need attend for the issues on the table.  However, all are invited as cabinet is always open to folks!




Teacher To Dos
Kiri's Mid Year Conf Schedule

Mid Year Review and February Observations.  Please review what is required for your midyear reviews and come to the meetings completely prepared.   I first posted these details on the January 11th blog post.  







Shopping Time!  Subject team leaders were given their teams' allocations for spending this semester a few weeks ago in cabinet.  All subject teams should try to get complete orders to me (via shopdoe.org) and cc Del by this FRIDAY 26FEB16.   Budget deadlines are nigh, and it will take Del some time to process them all.  So, please prioritize this week's subject team meetings to complete the orders.




Important Dates

  • Monday, 22FEB15.  Full Staff Meeting (20 min); Grade Team Meetings (60min)
  • Monday, 29FEB15.  UAI Celebration of Student Work - Building our Bulletin Boards
  • Thursday, 03MAR15.  Soft Lockdown Drill at 9:30AM
  • Friday, 04MAR15.  10th Annual Sonia Kovalevsky Day
  • Friday, 11MAR15.  4th Marking Period Ends
  • Monday, 14MAR15.  5th Marking Period Begins
  • Monday, 14MAR15.  Pi Day
  • Wednesday, 16MAR15. MP4 Grades are Due at 3PM
  • Monday, 14MAR15. Staff PD and Grade Team Meetings
  • Thursday, 17MAR15 and Friday, 18MAR15.  Benchmark 3 (This will be MS Predictive)
  • Monday, 21MAR15. Staff PD and Grade Team Meetings
  • Thursday, 24MAR15.  Women's History Month Full School Assembly (12:00-2:30PM)
  • Friday, 25MAR15.  Good Friday, NO SCHOOL
  • Monday, 28MAR15. Staff PD and Grade Team Meetings
  • Monday, 04APR15. Pod Relaunch and Grade Team Meetings
  • Tuesday, 05APR15 thru Thursday, 07APR15.  Middle School NYS ELA Exam
  • Wednesday, 13APR15 thru Friday, 15APR15.  Middle School NYS Math Exam
  • Friday, 15APR15.  5th Marking Period Ends
  • Monday, 11APR15. Pods and Grade Team Meetings
  • Monday, 18APR15. Pods and Grade Team Meetings
  • Monday, 18APR15.  6th Marking Period Begins
  • Wednesday, 20APR15.  5th Marking Period Grades Due at 3PM
  • Friday, 22APR15.  5th MP Progress Report Distributed 8th Period
  • Friday, 22APR15.  Poetry Slam Full School Assembly 1:45-2:30PM
  • Monday, 25APR15 thru Friday 29APR15 - Spring Recess, NO SCHOOL
For All UAI School Important Dates, please add "UAI School" calendar to your google calendars.





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