Regarding School Center

From TLC

"This is just reminder that the old School Center server will be decommissioned and taken out of service on January 1^st. This was originally scheduled for December 13^th, but several staff members have not yet moved their content over to Edline. The School Center server is starting to fail and since the platform is no longer supported, it has not been updated in over a year.  Please inform you staff they have until the end of the year to move any School Center content over to their Edline site, otherwise it will be lost. Thank you. " 

December 16, 2013

Although it was short, I think our December 9th faculty meeting was one of our more valuable ones.  Thank you for participating last week and for delivering the baskets this week.  I hope these final five days before break are both productive and smooth for all of us.

Hixson High Five Awards

Please take some time out of your busy schedules this week to recognize students, who may not otherwise be recognized, for their readiness, respect, and responsibility.  Students really do value and benefit from this personal feedback.  Click here to read more information about the High Five Award.  Click here to e-mail Mrs. Davis your nominee. She will need to receive this on or before 12/20/13.

January 6th, Records Day
We return from Winter Break on 1/6/14.  Elementary teachers have development on that day.  This year, these teachers will be at Hixson, instead of the high school, for this development.  You may stay in your rooms and come and go as you necessary.  Dr. Simpson will here next Friday to drop off some things off in rooms to be used on 1/6/14.

• The following rooms and spaces will not be used: 100, 102, 113, 120-124, 126, 200-203, 215, 216, 218, 220, 222, G1-G3, and the auditorium.  
• Of the rooms that will be used, some will be occupied from 8-11am (the 100s, annex, gym, and library) and some will be used from 10-11am (the 200s), as far as I know at this time.

January Faculty Meeting
Our January faculty meeting will be on 1/13/14.  Dr. Riss will visit for a portion of this meeting and some of our SSD teachers will facilitate an assessment adapting and modifying workshop so that we might learn to do this better on behalf of students who benefit from this accommodations.

A Reminder . . .

I'm sharing this reminder now and will share it again in January; it's come up in some conversations since the end of the first trimester:

• When problem solving about a student's achievement or behavior or writing an ILIP or when scheduling an IEP, 504, or evaluation/re-evaluation, please invite all the teachers on the student's schedule.
• Even though you will most likely be meeting during team time, we have supports in place for other teachers to attend, should they wish to do so.

And finally, here's the link to the assessment support post from last week.

December 9, 2013

My conversations with Hixson faculty and staff last week were important and energizing.  Thank you for your being so candid, for sharing so much, and for being vulnerable to the opportunity, despite how new it is as a part of our evaluation process.  I bragged to the parents on my blog last week about how passionate, knowledgeable, committed, thoughtful, reflective, and humble all of you are.  We are all necessary and valuable to the learning in the building.

Faculty Meeting

Click here for a reminder about our 12/9 faculty service project.  Thanks to those of you who have been donating items, and I am proud that all of us will be donating our time for this endeavor Monday after school.

Assessment Support
Click here for a reminder about assessment support as the semester draws to a close.  There are very few classrooms without students who may benefit from or who are required to have support for test-taking, whether this means alternative setting, having a test read or scribed, or requiring an adapted or modified assessment.  There is support for both teachers and students for all of this in the building.

The reminders below may seem obvious, but they are good reminders, nonetheless, I think.  

• Please proofread (or have someone else proofread).  Missing words, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation mistakes can sometimes be easy to miss.
• Make directions clear and concise (I should follow this as well).  Use shorter sentences over longer and more complex ones. Use text features (e.g., Directions) to help students understand how tests are organized.
• If you need help modifying or adapting, please ask.  Adaptations and modifications are often student specific.  Please be aware of the student for whom you are adapting or modifying.  (For example, true and false statements should be avoided for students with language or processing issues.)
• I believe it is more respectful and that it honors the confidentiality of the student better when adapted or modified tests are re-written (as opposed to just circling or highlighting those things to which a student with this accommodation should attend).  
• Pay attention to the space on the page, for answers, for reading, etc.  

I have noticed that many new tests are written and organized by goal, moving from less to more complex questions.  I think this is an excellent practice on behalf of our test-takers at Hixson.  Thank you.

Hixson High Five Awards

It's time to begin thinking about whom you might nominate for the Hixson High Five award.  Please take sometime out of your busy schedule to recognize students, who may not otherwise be recognized, for their readiness, respect, and responsibility.  Students really do value and benefit from this personal feedback.  Click here to read more information about the High Five Award.  Click here to e-mail Mrs. Davis your nominee. She will need to receive this on or before 12/20/13.

Adding Events to Hixson Calendars and Reserving Space
This video will be helpful to those of us needing to add events to our Hixson calendars and who need to reserve space.  Click here to view it.

Assessment Support Requests

With two weeks left in the semester, please do not forget to request assessment support as soon as possible. Please see below. 

A few clarifications about support: 

• Any student who is in the "red" or "yellow" may receive support. It is strongly recommended that you send all Read 180 students to receive support.
• "As needed" on an IEP indicates that this support is at the teacher's discretion, not the student's. If in doubt, please check with the student’s case manager.

If you are using new assessments and would like help creating a modified assessment, please let a SSD teacher, Jen Shaughnessy, or me know.

To request assessment support (test read, alternative setting, etc.), please use the Google form that has been added to the navigation bar above the doc on the Network (see picture below). 

Once the request has been received, support will be scheduled using the Hixson Staff Calendar, which can also be found on the Network. Please consult the calendar before requesting support. Due to limited resources, it is unlikely that there will be enough support for more than two assessments in the same class period.

If you need help with completing the form or accessing the calendar, please let Aimee Vogt know!

Adding Events to the Hixson Calendars and reserving the space

12/9 Faculty Meeting

Our 12/9 faculty meeting will be devoted to a service project on behalf of Hixson Middle School families in need.  In order to complete this project well, we will need donations of time, money, and food items.

We will all donate the hour of faculty meeting time on 12/9 to assembling these food baskets.  We will also need volunteers to donate some extra time for delivering these baskets the following week.

If you are interested and able to donate food items for these baskets, click here to go to Sign Up Genius to indicate what you are able to offer.  These food items must be brought in no later than noon on Monday, 12/9.

With great expectations,
Jason

December 2, 2013

I hope you had a happy and peaceful four-day weekend.  Wherever you were, with whatever joys or challenges you carried, I hope you were able to find time to relax and think about those people, experiences, and things for which you are grateful.

My weekend was spent primarily with my mother, and I had lot of time to be reflective.  I am thankful to return to school, to you, and to all of our students.

Summarizing: December's Thinking Strategy

I asked a friend how his Thanksgiving was. He started like this, "Well, Wednesday after noon around 1pm . . . ", and stopped around 4:30pm on Thursday, after what, I hope, was a polite interruption from me.  

He certainly could have benefited from this month's thinking strategy: Summarizing.  Click here for more information as well as the Reader's Toolkit, Think Mark, and Mini Lesson.  When students summarize, you can better judge the desired effect of some of our Marzano strategies, namely: Identifying Critical Information, Reviewing Content, and Practicing Skills, Strategies, and Processes.

I wonder if this strategy from the Differentiated Instruction tab might be helpful to students learning to summarize.  It's about partner re-telling.  Click here to read more.

Mid-Year Check-In

I'm looking forward to our mid-year check in.  It's a great way to summarize your year so far and your work toward your growth plan.  ;-) If you haven't scheduled time with me yet, please do! Both WGSD and SSD staff should click here to do this. I will use our 15 minutes for the following:

• How's your progress toward your growth plan (or what revisions will you be making to it)?
• What's going well that you are glad to share?
• What else might be on your mind for me to know?

Team Representative Meeting

I apologize for not sharing this reminder earlier.  Team representatives (just one from each team, although the everyone is welcomed) and I will meet after school on Monday, 12/2, at 3:30pm in Sherri Evans' room.  We'll build the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.  I have two agenda points so far:

• Spring Conferences, 2014.
• Discovery Check-in/Check-up

Since Spring conferences will affect all teachers, any teacher who is interested is welcomed to attend.

Hixson Holiday House Tour

I hope you will take some time to enjoy the House Tour this weekend.  It's the PTO's biggest fundraiser.  They use the proceeds from this to support our work and our students.