Monday Memo Week of October 26th

Essential Information                 

-  No Department Chair Meeting Today!

- LEARNING DESIGN TEAM: 

Please contribute your thoughts on learning opportunities at Hixson to the Learning Design Team by clicking here  This feedback is needed by Monday, November 16th

Our learning design team meets for the day on November 18th.  We will begin by reviewing and discussing this feedback including each person's thoughts on how we offer courses and learning experiences for kids and what opportunities people would like to see put in place for students over the next several years.  We will be using the Design Thinking process to draft prototypes based on your input, our goal is to send them out for your review prior to Thanksgiving break and continue the design thinking process.  Any changes for next year's schedule will be finalized by our staff through this method before mid-January.  All staff will receive updates and all information throughout the process so it is as transparent as possible.  Thank you for contributing your ideas and wishes for student learning offerings.

Schedule for PD Friday the 30th:

• 8-9:20- School For Today Study (district PD) (8-8:40 and 8:40-9:20)
• 9:30- 11- Small Group Planning (district PD)
• 11-12:15- Lunch on your own
• 12:15-1:15- PLCs- continue SLO work: common assessments
• 1:15-2:15- Accommodations in a 1:1 environment
• 2:15-3:15- Team PLC/ Work on your own

-  Friday October 30th PD Day @ Hixson.  Morning-District PD/Afternoon Building PD.  Morning session is 7-12 with Dr. Simpson.  Dr. Simpson will need to know which rooms we are using for his sessions.  Please click HERE to add your room to the list for Dr. Simpson.  He will need the following:  Thank you for assisting and hosting on Friday! 

-10 classrooms that can be used for meetings (preferably on the main level).  Please send the 10 room numbers and a map that includes the room numbers (ie: RM 220, RM 221, etc.).

-The classrooms where departments will meet (ie: science will meet in room 218, etc.).  This will be a great opportunity for science teachers at WGHS to see what science rooms at Hixson look like!

-Classrooms that other 9-12 departments may meet (ie: RM 305).  For example, I’ll tell the 9-12 business 
department that they’ll be able to meet in RM 305

-  In case you were wondering why we may have been slow getting to you last week (okay, Dr. Miller and Dr. Roberts were fine- I got hurt!) we completed the St. Louis Rock and Roll Half Marathon last Sunday.  The admin team that competes together stays together!!

I will be out today for two Dr. appointments including my ankle in my newest accessory, a giant orthopedic boot!  Please let me know if you need anything. See you all tomorrow!

Good to Know                              

-  It is Red Ribbon Week this week!

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Monday Memo Week of October 19th

Happy Monday Everyone!  Hope you enjoyed the three day weekend.  Thank you for making conferences meaningful for parents and students. I have a meeting set with CO regarding conferences for 16-17. I will keep you informed of the details. 

- No faculty PLC after school today, enjoy your afternoon everyone :)

-  i-Observation Professional Growth Plans are due today- Monday, October 19th.  Click the link below for a shared document containing examples of growth plan for different elements.  If you are struggling with choosing meaningful and realistic growth goals, you may choose to use the example in the document below (Monitoring Progress Relative to the Professional Growth and Development Plan) in addition to our common goal of "tracking student progress" and then choose a third focus area. Your evaluator will formatively work with you throughout the school year on your identified area(s) for growth.  Please click link below for examples:

 GROWTH PLAN EXAMPLES  

- Please ensure you are playing announcements for students each day before the 8:35 bell.  

- Remember, "He Named Me Malala" school trip tomorrow, 10-20. Please let us know who and how many students are not attending so we can plan accordingly for supervision and medical needs.  Students only turn in a form of they are not attending. 

Also, if you please let us know how many students need a lunch on your team, we will tell Ms. Linda in the cafeteria.  Thanks again for making this experience a reality for students. I'm personally calling my day today "Malala Monday" so please let me know how I can help your teams in any way as we prepare for tomorrow :)

Monday Memo Week of October 12th

Essential Information                 

Had a great weekend, got to go see Ohio State Football!
Brutus says hi Jenny, Eric, and Leslie!

-  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend in the crisp, cool air and sunshine!  We will have a great week, four long days and a three day weekend :)

-  No Monday Meeting Today, PLC next week 10/19

-  Conferences this week: October 13th Tuesday 4-8, Social courtesy organized IMOs dinner click here by noon Monday to order and send your 8$ to Dr. Vogt http://goo.gl/forms/SYthFFVz2R , Wednesday 1-5, and Oct 15th Thursday 4-8- PTO provides dinner!  Thank you.

-  i-Observation Professional Growth Plans are due Monday, October 19th.  Click the link below for a shared document containing examples of growth plan for different elements.  If you are struggling with choosing meaningful and realistic growth goals, you may choose to use the example in the document below (Monitoring Progress Relative to the Professional Growth and Development Plan) in addition to our common goal of "tracking student progress" and then choose a third focus area. Your evaluator will formatively work with you throughout the school year on your identified area(s) for growth.  Please click link below for examples:
 GROWTH PLAN EXAMPLES  

-  Would you like to be part of our Learning Design Collaborative team to create a long and short term plan for learning at Hixson?  Last year we formed what we called "scheduling committee" to look at strengths and areas for refinement in how we offer courses and learning opportunities for students.  The results of this team's work are reflected in the new lunch schedule this year.  There were many effective and viable ideas generated with this team's work last year which were put in a "parking lot" as we were uncertain as to the future of Hixson with the possible 6th-8th grade center.  Our Learning Design Collaborative team will continue this work from last year.  I am asking for volunteers who feel they can contribute to our vision for learning in the next five years.  We will continue this work by spending one full day off site in collaboration in the coming weeks.
Please click the link below and add your name if you are interested in participating in our team this year to brainstorm learning ideas to meet goals for 2016-2017 and beyond. 
PARTICIPATE IN HxMS LEARNING DESIGN COLLABORATIVE DAY

-  MALALA GRANT UPDATE:  we are still awaiting more information regarding the opportunity for our students to participate in seeing the Malala documentary.  As soon as it becomes available we will begin disseminating the information and permission slips immediately.

Good to Know                              

-   Please ensure you are playing announcements for students each day before the 8:35 bell.  We have an average of about 24 teachers showing the announcements and we need to be seeing 40-45 for all students to see. Thank you

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Monday Memo, Week of October 5th

Essential Information                 

-  Please ensure you are playing announcements for students each day before the 8:35 bell.  We have an average of about 24 teachers showing the announcements and we need to be seeing 40-45 for all students to see.  Please let me know if we can help you in any way.  Thank you!

-  PLC Today 3:30. Please bring your PLC binder and relevant materials.  Room assignments:

• ELA, Science, and electives (except PE) will meet in the cafeteria with Dr. Smith, Dr. Vogt, and Jill Right
• Social Studies and PE will meet in room 118 with Dr. Miller
• Math will meet in room 114 with Dr. Roberts

This PLC work will be focused on Learning Content and creating and finalizing the Rubric for your PLC's SLO. Here is the link to the template if your team feels ready to add content electronically to the Google document. Please be sure you make a copy and rename it by your grade level content area (8th Science) so everyone is not writing in the same document!!! SLO TEMPLATE

Click here for 9-21 PD video

-  i-Observation Professional Growth Plans are due Monday, October 19th.  Click the link below for a shared document containing examples of growth plan for different elements.  If you are struggling with choosing meaningful and realistic growth goals, you may choose to use the example in the document below (Monitoring Progress Relative to the Professional Growth and Development Plan) in addition to our common goal of "tracking student progress" and then choose a third focus area. Your evaluator will formatively work with you throughout the school year on your identified area(s) for growth.  Please click link below for examples:
-  https://docs.google.com/a/wgcloud.org/document/d/1dD-VZtiD4_luR4yraOqAKDwSDNFP_6m3TvyN6gupaBo/edit?usp=sharing GROWTH PLAN EXAMPLES


-  Scheduling Committee.  Please click the link below and add your name if you are interested in participating in our scheduling committee this year to brainstorm ideas for 2016-2017. 
JOIN SCHEDULING COMMITTEE


-  I have sent emails to teams if I need to schedule our team meeting this month.  Thanks!

September Walkthrough Data, 71 total walkthroughs 

Below you will find our baseline Walkthrough data from September. Our goals are to ensure we are seeing electives and core teams on an equitable basis and ensure individual teachers have increasingly higher numbers of WTs for feedback with a goal of 20-25 per teacher.

We are looking for a good balance of Teacher directed and student engaged instruction and an increase over time in the percentage of time differentiated instruction and proficiency scales/rubrics are observed.

Great start to the year everyone!  There are amazing learning and growth opportunities and experiences happening for our students each hour of every day!  :-)

As a side note, I will work with Mr. Heisel to get higher quality data images to you in the future!

43.7%- Electives 56.3% Core

 94.4% of the time Learning Goals are posted and 95.7% of the time Learning Goals are being utilized with students :)

 60.6% of the time Teacher Directed Instruction and 39.4% of the time Student Engaged Instruction.  This is a higher % for SE instruction than last year at this time :)

 33.3% of the time DI is observed

 100% of the time climate is conducive to learning :)

 39.9% of the time general or specific proficiency scale is posted/used with students

Good to Know                              

-  Conferences 10-13, 10-14, 10-15

-  You are the BEST STAFF EVER!!!!  You are appreciated!!!

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