MONDAY MEMO WEEK OF 1/30/2017
Morning Announcement and Pledge Schedule this week:1-30 Ms. Gado1-31 Ms. Slaughter1-25 Mr. Daniels1-26 Mr. Roddy1-27 Ms. Malinkrodt
Innovation hour is this Friday, February 3rd
February 6th at 3:30 Budget meeting with Dr. Roberts
Please send any items your classes have created for the School Board to the office by the end of the day Monday.
January Coat Drive this week:Hixson is collaborating with two of our outstanding young leaders at WGHS, Jared and Emma to assist them with their charitable work with the Little Bit Foundation:The Little Bit Foundation is a St. Louis based non profit with a mission to break down the barriers of learning for underprivileged youth in the area. They set up "closets" in schools that hand out essential supplies to students so that they can get the most of their education. They give out hygiene kits, food, clothing, medical care, eyeglasses, school supplies, etc. and most importantly act as a friend and a support unit for these kids that may not have it. They are in 24 schools I they St. Louis area with 40 on the wait list, and they have impacted over 300,000 students in their 15 years. This is the last week for the winter coat, hat, glove, and blanket drive for this Foundation. Jared and Emma have placed donation boxes in the main lobby at Hixson. Thank you for your support!
STAFFING MEETING:Tuesday morning of this week, our admin team will meet with Dr. Wiley and Dr. Simpson to discuss staffing in detail. More information will follow after this meeting.
SCHEDULING UPDATE: There are 2 tentative schedules at this time that are viable options for next year at this point (I will know more after the staffing meeting with Central). - Schedule A: “Current Schedule Flipped w/elective changes”
- Keeps full middle school teaming with the 4 blocked hours of core and blocked electives
- Allows for Semester electives, 7th grade electives will come off of the wheel
- WIll “flip” 7th and 8th grade core classes. In 17-18, 8th grade will teach in the morning and 7th grade will teach in the afternoon. It has been 3 years since the schedule was flipped.
- No mixed grade electives and therefore, no mixed grade lunches
- PE and Band blocked: 8th grade classes back to back and 7th grade classes back to back
- Elective team period
- Schedule B: “Prototype 6”- more drastic changes
- ⅞ grade mixed electives
- ⅞ grade mixed lunch
- Allows for Semester electives, 7th grade electives will come off of the wheel
- Elective team period
- PE blocked
- Teaming: teams have 2 consecutive class periods on team instead of 4
- Student day is somewhat more broken up to give more of a mix of cores and electives
- Order of scheduling: a lot of effort and thought by many has been put into the order in which we schedule. Here are the findings at this point:
- Teams
- SSD
- Electives, math/gems/gfa/PE and discovery
This results in the least amount of cross teaming. This also helps us not to track students and make sure teams and classes are diverse populations
COMMUNICATION FOCUS-PTAC (Principal-teacher advisory council): https://padlet.com/smith_stacie/lp5pgr3brg18Please contribute to the padlet using the link above to share what transparent and consistent communication looks like.
TEAM MEETING NOTES- JANUARY- Scheduling concerns
- Mixing 7 and 8 graders, positives? Negatives?
- If/when we do have mixed grade level classes, can math be considered one as well? Any student needing Algebra could be scheduled into any section of Algebra, regardless of if a 7th or 8th grade teacher is teaching it and the grade level of the peers.
- Student feedback as part of the process with major changes
- Improvement needed in announcement shows, including more monitoring: a student called another student on crutches by the name “cripple” We want to be sure the shows are meaningful and appropriate.
- SSD team pairings for next year
- Student concerns
- Group proposed to Dr. Simpson a change in Aesop to allow teachers to choose their sub and “lock” it into the system themselves. He said central will look into it and get back to us
ASATeachers, please remember to continue to walk your after school activity students out to the main entrance after ASA has ended. Thank you for keeping up with this, it is having a huge impact on student supervision.
Please remind students they should be off campus by 3:45 on Mondays and Fridays and by 4:15 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
Monday 1/3011:15 teacher meetingObservations
Tuesday, 1/31 **pledge from Mrs. Slaughter’s class at 8:35, no other announcements8:00- Staffing meeting with Dr. Wiley and Dr. Simpson: admin with be at CO1:00 Weekly tech meeting
Wednesday, 2/1930 Jill R.Observations
Thursday, 2/27:45 Mrs. EdwardsObservations 1:00- appointment
Friday, 2/3Innovation HourObservations
Schedule A: “Current Schedule Flipped w/elective changes”
- Keeps full middle school teaming with the 4 blocked hours of core and blocked electives
- Allows for Semester electives, 7th grade electives will come off of the wheel
- WIll “flip” 7th and 8th grade core classes. In 17-18, 8th grade will teach in the morning and 7th grade will teach in the afternoon. It has been 3 years since the schedule was flipped.
- No mixed grade electives and therefore, no mixed grade lunches
- PE and Band blocked: 8th grade classes back to back and 7th grade classes back to back
- Elective team period
Schedule B: “Prototype 6”- more drastic changes
- ⅞ grade mixed electives
- ⅞ grade mixed lunch
- Allows for Semester electives, 7th grade electives will come off of the wheel
- Elective team period
- PE blocked
- Teaming: teams have 2 consecutive class periods on team instead of 4
- Student day is somewhat more broken up to give more of a mix of cores and electives
Order of scheduling: a lot of effort and thought by many has been put into the order in which we schedule. Here are the findings at this point:
- Teams
- SSD
- Electives, math/gems/gfa/PE and discovery
Scheduling concerns
- Mixing 7 and 8 graders, positives? Negatives?
- If/when we do have mixed grade level classes, can math be considered one as well? Any student needing Algebra could be scheduled into any section of Algebra, regardless of if a 7th or 8th grade teacher is teaching it and the grade level of the peers.
- Student feedback as part of the process with major changes
Improvement needed in announcement shows, including more monitoring: a student called another student on crutches by the name “cripple” We want to be sure the shows are meaningful and appropriate.
SSD team pairings for next year
Student concerns
Group proposed to Dr. Simpson a change in Aesop to allow teachers to choose their sub and “lock” it into the system themselves. He said central will look into it and get back to us
