Adjusting Our Sails

Welcome back!  I am excited to get to work and I hope you are too.  We have missed 6 instructional days so far...that is 48 hours of instruction.  48 hours equals 2,880 minutes of learning that we will have to work to recover.  I reviewed the state laws on waivers of days missed and current legislation says that you may only have a waiver if there is a history of multiple missed days and those districts that are eligible are those in the western part of the state.  So, we are working on a few options (adding minutes to days, turning workdays into school days, combination of both, etc.) and will definitely give you guys a chance to provide feedback and share your thoughts on ways to recover this valuable time.  We hope to have a solid plan soon.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their hard work on Friday, October 7th. While our Arts Teachers planned for their upcoming intervention groups (which begin Monday), our Homeroom Teachers learned more about i-Ready.  We, those at the PD, also learned that we would need to use this tool to Progress Monitor our students as well as assess their knowledge on grade level curriculum through "unit assessments".  This was new information for the team who helped select this program and I thank you again for being flexible and still continuing to "attend" to what we were learning.  Since the Internet is not working at school currently and we are unsure when it will be up, please be flexible and wait for guidance from Mr. Thomas on when these assessments will begin.  I could feel the excitement of the group about the ease of this program so I know that once we have a plan up and running and our technology is up we will all be appreciate of this change.  Our next PD focused on i-Ready and how to use diagnostic information is currently planned for our November Workday but this might have to change due to current Internet issues and the number of days we have missed.

As you can gather, we are all adjusting our sails at this time.  I know that some of our TCEA families are still suffering and have large needs that loom over them right now.  We have a plan in place to help connect them to help and Dr. Caine will be leading this effort.  If someone reaches out to you with a need, please email her with family's information.  You might wonder, at times, what can you do to help out those families at this time.  You can of course donate your time, money and supplies to organizations collecting items at this time.  I also want to remind you that you can do what you do best at this moment as well.  You can provide our students "normalcy".  Children love consistency and I can guarantee that for most kids this past week held little of this.  Let's give our students as awesome week and although the Internet is not working and things might not go as smoothly as they could do not let this deter you from creating learning opportunities for your students that engage them.



One of the best stories I heard this week was the story of how...
2 Strangers And A Drone Help Rescue Veteran Trapped By N.C. Flooding

See the link below for more information.

http://n.pr/2dldeoY

If you visit Quavas Hart's Twitter Page you can see that he thanks Full Sail, a school in Florida, for training that helped him create this rescue opportunity.  I am sure that there are staff members at Full Sail feeling very happy for teaching Quavas what he knows.  Just think...we could be educating students that lead up future rescue missions and will be able to save someone based on something we teach them this year.  See how valuable a minute wasted can be?


Hope everyone has had a awesome weekend and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Angela

Week of October 17-21, 2016
*No recess outside until told otherwise

Monday, October 17

• Interventions Begin (or continue in some grades)
• Book Fair Setup
• IS Mtg in Cafe at 3:30
• Board Mtg in Music Room at 5:15

Tuesday, October 18

• Book fair
• 5th-7th PLC at 8:30
• Arts PLC at 9:30-10:00
• K PLC  at 10
• 1st/2nd PLC at 12
• 3rd/4th PLC at 1
• EC/ Support Staff at 2
• Raising Chameleons of Character at 7 PM

Wednesday, October 19

• Book fair
• IS Plans Due
• Beginning Teacher Meeting at 3:30 (Anyone volunteer to host us?)

Thursday, October 20

• Book fair
• Read to Achieve Retest
• FEO Mtg at 3:30 (would like at least 3 staff members to attend)

Friday, October 21

• Book fair
• Read to Achieve Makeup Test
• FEO Story Book Dance TBD (Waiting to hear confirmation on DJ)