Week of March 26th

UAI Staff News

Volume V

Issue 27

March 26th, 2018

[School Days 126-129]

[19 Days Remaining in MP5]      [48 Days Remaining in HS School Year]      [58 Days Remaining in MS School Year]

Announcements

More Footage of the Student Walkout.  Many thanks go to our friends from Project Occupy, in particular, Tom Griffin, for sharing his footage from the Student Walkout.  This weekend's continued activism, like that of Naomi Wilder and her amazing speech, continues to invigorate our work as educators and shapers of the future.  As we enter this last week before the vacation, take inspiration from our students' efforts, passion, and voice!

Staff Spotlights

Tom Wilson.  Last spring, Professor Andrea Silverman stopped by my office to pitch an idea to work with her on developing curriculum modules on Environment Engineering.   Immediately, I thought of Tom and quickly introduced the pair.  Tom took it from there and has created an amazing curriculum from scratch for our students.  Tom created a series of units and activities that not only hooked our students into the course, but they are also taking what they learned in Tom's class and effecting changes in their own lives.  The connection between his classroom and our girls' lives is electric and what distinguishes Tom this year!  If you have a chance, drop down to B49 to visit Tom's Environmental Science class.

Phillan Greaves.  Last Monday, Phillan & Sarah's 6th-grade humanities class was filmed to be featured in the training and promotion footage the Literacy Design Collaborative uses nationwide to advertise their work and to train new teachers to the program (many thanks to all the LDC teachers who helped, too!).  In her own words, Phillan would be the first to admit her own reticence in adopting the practices of LDC, but now in year two of her planning, her students are thriving with units and lessons that are thoroughly planned, collegially vetted, and crafted to leverage the most thinking from her students.  Phillan, along with Marsha and Rebecca, is spreading the success of our LDC work beyond just the video share. They are all part of the Urban Assembly's Literacy Leadership series and have hosted several UA schools this year to view their practices.  If you find yourself having similar questions about the investment in planning, make time to see Phillan in Room 311.  Her perspective and experience will provide you with invaluable insight!

To Dos This Week

Monday PD Grade Team Meetings.  With the snow day last week, all field trips were put into a kerfluffle.  I want to give time over to grade teams on Monday to finalize logistics for trips that have been rescheduled for this week.  

School Survey Final Push.  The DOE extended the deadline for parent surveys!  Please make another push to get those surveys back from your advisee's parents.  Nancy is still updating THIS DOCUMENT to let you know which of your advisors have brought them back from that distribution.  Please make sure that you call all homes on Tuesday of those students who still have outstanding surveys.  If any of your parents lost their survey (or didn't receive it), please see Nancy. She can provide you with the student code.  Our goal is to reach 80% of our parent surveys returned.  That means we need each advisor to get at least FOUR more surveys back by Thursday, 29MAR18

SEL Update

The girls have been working so hard researching the women they’ve chosen to highlight in their sheroe projects. They will be presenting them to their class on Monday & Tuesday using a rubric to review their peers work. They are really going to learn a lot about lesser known amazing females and which SEL skills they excelled in to make such an impact!

Per Session Opportunities

None this week