Week of January 1st

UAI Staff News

Volume V

Issue 17

January 2nd, 2018

[School Days 74-77]

Announcements

Happy New Year!  Welcome back from the holiday break!  Hopefully, everyone made the time to relax and recharge over the break.  As we jump back into the flow on Tuesday, we will be wrapping up the final days of the fall term - marking the midway point of the year already!  Despite the roller coaster that the world experienced in 2017, UAI had a strong year.  2018 is shaping up even stronger.  Classroom planning and instruction are stronger than it has ever been across grades and classes.  Classroom removals are at all-time lows, reflecting the strength of positive learning environments.  These are both results of everyone's hard work and dedication towards continually pushing towards the highest possible quality lessons and experiences for our students!  Let's keep pushing and make 2018 the best year for UAI yet!

Winter Field Trips.  The last week before the break had a lot of different trips for the high school.  Many thanks to the teams that organized these wonderful experiences for our girls, and to Mr. Brodie who provided the teams with loads of support to make it all work!

Lady Eagle Home Game.  This Friday is the next home game for our Adams Campus Lady Eagles basketball team.  Our young athletes are currently undefeated this season.  So, come show your support this Friday by coming to the game.  It's at 4:30PM and in our gym.  Hope to see you there!

This Week's To Dos

[REMINDER] Prepare for Upcoming Midyear Reviews.  Reviews will begin next week!  As a reminder, please reflect on the following.  Please bring the blue items with you for the review.

• Focus School Goal.  Our main priority goal this year is to increase instructional rigor and student intellectual engagement [Rigorous Instruction & Collaborative Teachers].  To achieve this, we have focused on through improved planning & assessment.  Between now, and your midyear review, reflect on  your progress with the following:

• Improvement in Planning (e.g. UAI Pacing Calendar, Narrative Lesson Plans, Backwards-Designed Unit Plans)
• Impact on Student Learning (e.g. samples of Student Work with your feedback, Student achievement (analysis of student grades in course or performance on tests/benchmarks), Student Academic Growth)
• Growth in Co-planning with Peer Teachers/Coaches (e.g. quality of planning, quality of lesson execution (Advance Observations) impact on student learning, outcomes of co-planning survey - please click the link to take it now) 

• Second School Goal.  The second goal that we will discuss during midyears is our school goal around increasing Strong Family Ties.  Our goal is to increase strong family community ties by increasing both quantity and quality of in-person and phone interactions between teachers and families.  This year, each student in your advisory should have had at least 4 interactions and at least 1 in person, all documented in Skedula:  1 welcome to UAI phone call in September; at least 1 in-person visit during MP1, MP2, or SLCs; and at least 2 10-15 minute phone calls for MP1, MP2, or SLC.   Specifically, review and reflect on the following data points:
• Number of successful contacts (in person and phone) per advisee (as evidenced by Skedula anecdotals) 
• Growth Advisee attendance rates from September (you can see this in Skedula)
• Academic Performance of Advisees from MP1 to MP2 (again Skedula)

• Midyear Reflection and Refocus. The Midyear is your opportunity to stop, review your various data points, and reflect on your growth and development.  As teachers, we often get too wrapped up in keeping students doing and busy and we don't make the time to step back and evaluate longer-term progress as shown through student thinking and achievement.  This is one of the big times in the year to take stock of our work thus far.  Where we are strong, we will continue. Where we struggle, we will analyze and refocus spring goals for growth.  Here are some logistical things to keep in mind
• First Year at UAI?  Teachers who are in their first year at UAI or are up for tenure can expect to be scheduled first for their reviews (schedule will be released next week).   More explicit details on the Midyear will come in next week's blog.  For this week, look back at your planning documents and reflect on your student outcomes (Do your lesson plans result in positive student outcomes? How do you know? Why or why not?)
• Are you up for Tenure this year?  Teachers who are coming up for tenure are required to submit a formal portfolio of any of the documents or data points listed above.  These will become part of their final portfolio of work to be submitted for tenure recommendation.  The portfolio consists of three parts (1) a letter explaining why you merit tenure and how the documents you submit are illustrative of your growth and achievement (THIS YEAR - we will add more later); (2) samples of student work (with feedback that shows how students used your feedback to improve performance; (3) complete UAI Pacing Calendar with linked samples of Narrative Lesson Plans and all Units are Linked.
• Everyone else?  You will have the same reflection question:  Do your lesson plans result in positive student outcomes? How do you know? Why or why not? - most importantly, how do you plan to show Kiri/Annie your progress through planning documents and student work?