Week of April 8th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 31

April 8th, 2019

(36 Instructional Days Remaining)

Announcements

Next Superintendent Visit.  Our next MPPR Superintendent Visit is on Wednesday, April 10th.  Debbie Afanadour is our new Deputy Superintendent (Richie became Superintendent himself last year).  This will be Deb's very first visit to UAI, so we definitely want to show our best.  For Wednesday, please

• Plan Student Look Fors.  Prepare a narrative lesson plan that highlights your best work in preparing for and demonstrating your own thinking around student thinking.  At this point in the year, the graphic organizers and worksheets aimed at supporting student thinking should be minimal and almost gone.  Let the student thinking shine on Wednesday
• Leverage Student Discourse:  Turn and talks and think pair shares maximize student participation in class discussions.  Use prompts that require discussion, not prompts that ask kids to identify facts.
• Make students Apply New Knowledge to Learn it:  For Wednesday, structure your lesson to maximize thinking time.  Increase the amount of time students have to apply factual understanding. For example, plan to have them actively use their own individual thinking to understand a text to learn (take two minutes to read an annotate this text) new information.  Then use a think pair share to have them apply it to expanding new thinking. 

• Plan Intentional Circulation. Be intentional about your circulation (who are you going to first and later and why).  Also plan your feedback to students as you go.  Before you send them to work, tell them what you are going to be looking for as you circulate and tell them what your expectations are for high-level thinking.  Your feedback then should be targeted at supporting them to get to that level of thinking.  

Last Push for Parent Surveys.   This is the last week for the surveys!  If you haven't done so already, talk to your advisees in class and get them to bring their parent's survey in to school!  We're still pushing to get to at least 60% response rate.  Big shout out to Tiffany who has been sharing her family's submission rates!  Thank you, Tiffany.  If anyone else has success, please do share.

Penultimate Marking Period.  We are into the 5th marking period which ends on April 18th.  With the change of SLC, this made the 5th MP short (just 19 days).  Grades will be due Wednesday, May 1st.  Report cards will be distributed to students on Friday, May 3rd.  The May 9th Evening Parent Conferences will be prioritized for students who fail a 5th MP class.  The year is rapidly coming to an end, and that is simultaneously exciting and stressful!  Here's the breakdown:

•  9 instructional days until Spring Break
• 11 instructional days until the NYS Middle School Math Exams
• 16 instructional days until Mock Regents (all kids in regents classes sit for Mock Regents)
• 30 instructional days until the June 3rd New Global Regents Exam
• 35 instructional days until High School Final Exams
• 36 instructional days until June Regents Week begins
• 38 instructional days until Middle School Final Exams
• 40 instructional days until 8th Grade Stepping Up
• 41 instructional days until High School Graduation and the Last Day of School

Staff Out This Week

• Monday 08APR:  
• No One

• Tuesday 09APR: 
• No One

• Wednesday 10APR:  Superintendent Visit
• No One

• Thursday 11APR: 11th Grade College Overnight Trip
• Doris & Danielle out - 11th Grade College Trip
• Brenda out - personal business
• Joanna out - personal business

• Friday 12APR: School Assembly last period
• No One

To Do This Week

Monday PD.  This Monday we will be kicking off our UAI series of PDs on continuing the work we started this year around uncovering bias.  Inspired by the Perception Institute and Paul Forbes, the PD committee has been working on Fridays to select texts and plan experiences to take the next step into uncovering our own biases.  We'll all meet together in 409 at 3PM. Here's the plan

• Monday, 08APR19.  Uncovering Our Own Biases
• Monday, 15APR19.  Understanding the Impact of Our Biases in Our Classrooms
• Monday, 29APR19.   Strategies to Limit the Impact of Bias in the Classroom
• Monday, 06MAY19.  Monthly Grade Team Meetings and Planning for May 9th Conferences
• Monday, 13MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part I
• Monday, 20MAY19.  Planning to Limit the Impact of Bias in Our Classrooms Part II

Tuesday Outreach. All classroom teachers should be reaching out to families of any student who is failing their class every week from now until the end of the year.  This is a shift from advisor outreach and a shift to classroom teacher in preparation for the May 9th Parent Conferences (which concentrate on failing students, not SLCs).  This weekly outreach should be updates on student progress.

• How is there attendance to class?
• How well are they participating in class, what can be improved?
• How well are they performing on class assessments?  What can families do to help?
• How well are they doing on class assignments?  What can families to do help?

As part of our Promotion In Doubt due diligence, we need to document our interventions.  Your contact home is part of that intervention.  Please make sure to enter your outreach into Skedula.  

Student Support Services Update