Week of Feb 6th

UAI Staff News

Volume X

Issue 20

February 6th, 2023

Celebrating Black Female Excellence and The Beauty of Mathematics.  Mathematician, Fern Hunt, is best know for her work in applied mathematics and mathematical biology. Throughout her great career, she has been involved with biomathematics, patterns in genetic variation, and chaos theory.

Hunt was born in NYC on January 14, 1948, to Daphne Lindsay and Thomas Edward Hunt. Hunt's grandparents immigrated to the United States from Jamaica prior to World War I.  Her family lived in a primarily black housing project in Hampton. Her father did not graduate from high school, and though her mother attended Hunter College for two years, she did not earn a degree. 

When Hunt was 9 years old, her mother gifted her a chemistry set for Christmas, which sparked her early interest in science. Hunt's middle school science teacher, Charles Wilson, further encouraged Hunt to pursue math and science.  Hunt attended the Bronx High School of Science and it was during her time in high school that her primary focus shifted from science to mathematics.  After graduating high school, Hunt attended Bryn Mawr College, a small private college for women located in Pennsylvania.   She went on to earn a master's degree and PhD in mathematics from the Courant Institute of Mathematics at NYU in 1978. 

She currently works as an educator and presenter with the aim of encouraging women and minority students to pursue graduate degrees in mathematics and other STEM fields.

Hunt is a strong support of student choice, following one’s passion, and surrounding yourself with a strong support system, which are all factors that she credits to her own personal success in mathematics. (info taken from this site and Hunt's wikipedia page).

In this video, Hunt talks about the beauty of math in the world around us - she speaks my lingo!

  

Raising up accomplished black women in STEM is a core component of helping our students realize our mission.  Showing them the roads that folks like them take to their future achievements helps our students write themselves into a narrative that they may previously thought out of reach.  

Please continue your amazing work in celebrating Black History Month!

Important dates. 

• Tuesday, 07FEB23.  Snow Tubing Trip (Rescheduled)
• Tuesday, 14FEB23.  Progress Report #1 Grade Entry
• Friday, 10FEB23.  First Attendance Incentive Trip (To the Movies!)
• Monday, 20FEB-24FEB23.  Midwinter Break - NO SCHOOL
• Tuesday, 28FEB23.  Last Day of Black History Month (possible assembly day TBD)
• Tuesday, 14MAR23.  Progress Report #2 Grade Entry
• Wednesday, 22MAR23.  P/SAT in school day for all 10th & 11th Graders
• Thursday, 23MAR23.  Evening Parent Conferences 5-8PM (Remote)
• Friday, 24MAR23.  Afternoon Parent Conferences 11:50AM-2:50PM (Remote)
• Friday, 31MAR23.  End of MP3

Announcements & To Dos

Attendance Incentives and the Fab Five.  There have been some major improvements in both daily attendance and on-time attendance last week as a direct result of all your efforts!

We definitely started to see some improvements in our first period attendance last week!  300/432 students had PERFECT attendance last week AND may of you batted 100 last week - meaning 100% of your Fab Fie cohort had perfect attendance last week! 

Check out all the data on your students HERE in the tab called "Progress Monitoring"

Your efforts to connect in class and outreach to kids and families is working!!

Your attention to this is really helping us turn our attendance rate around!  

THANK YOU and keep it up!

Per Session Available for Digital Planning.  All Lessons and activities should be linked into the UAI Pacing Guide Template (or something that looks very similar - please get ok from Kiri first) THROUGH 14FEB23 and uploaded to THIS FOLDER to verify per session submission.

Make a copy of the template for yourself.  Type in the daily learning target and link the lesson or activity to the learning target.  Also link in the assessment of that learning target (exit ticket, activity, etc).  You will receive 2hrs per week of per session if all materials are linked for the pay period.  

Planning Ahead.  As you plan ahead, here are some important dates to keep in mind:

• NYS MS ELA Exam. Weds 19APR- Mon 24APR (21APR is Eid al-Fitr - NO SCHOOL)
• NYS MS Math Exam. Tues 02MAY- Thu 04May
• NYSESLAT Exam. Mon 15MAY- Fri 26May (Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing)
• US History Regent Exam.  Thu 01JUN23 - NO CLASSES for HS or 8th Grade
• Final Exam Week For All - Mon 05JUN-MON12JUN (Same Schedule as Benchmark Week)
• Regents Week Begins - 14JUN23
• We WILL be having a mock regents exam period after Spring Break some time in April/early May.  Exact dates and schedule still TBD.  Courses ending in Regent exams will use this data to structure regents prep for May/June.

Progress Reports & PID.   There will only be 2 progress reports for MP3.  With the mid-winter recess, and the timing of creating the progress reports, that's just how it worked out.  

Students are in danger of not promoting to the next grade if they failed 2 or more core (ELA, SOC, MAT, SCI) classes OR had less than 90% attendance for the fall. They will be receiving PID (promotion-in-doubt) letters from the school, and we'll be scheduling meetings with those students, their families over the next few weeks.   You can see that list on the PID tab in the Progress Reports.

When you distribute the report cards in advisory this week, please review them with your students.  If you have an advisee with low attendance or multiple failing grades, please let them know that we want to help them turn this around.  We're here to help.  They should also know that we have to send the letters home (it's a DOE rule), but the letters do not mean they will not promote.  If they can turn it around, they will go on to the next grade.  

Then work with them to make a goals - start small (e.g. first finish this week by coming to school each day), and then grow bigger (try to push yourself to go from 55 to 65 by the week after next).  

Per Session Postings

For ALL per session activities (view all 2022-23 postings here),
please complete Per Session Application For

Hiring Committee.  This posting is closed.  All who applied were staffed

Staffed:  Phillan, Marsha, Kelly, Judy, Liza, Sarah R, Thomas, Patti

SHSAT & SAT Prep.  Still open - No one has signed up yet.  Please email Kiri if you are interested!

Per Session Postings Now Closed