What a wonderful first week of school! Thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication in giving our students the confidence and hope to succeed this year in all of our classes.
Our first week ended with Maureen's Team taking the Ice Bucket Challenge on the back patio. Much thanks to everyone who participated. If you were unable to participate, please either pass along the Ice Bucket Challenge by engaging in it and then posting a photo on social media with the hashtag #breastcancer and linking it to BCRFCure (Breast Cancer Research Foundation-- Maureen's choice) or by making a donation to this foundation on your own.
What a great way to start the year-- united as a Jerome family with Maureen in her courageous battle! Enjoy these videos and photos of staff getting cold and wet and loving it-- all for Maureen!
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| Maureen's Team right after the Ice Bucket Challenge! |
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| Wow! That's a lot of ice water! |
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| Happy enthusiasm for dumping water on admin team! :) |
This weekend I finished a great book, Revolutionize Assessment by Rick Stiggins. The admin team has been reading this great, short resource that discuss What We Assess, Why We Assess and How We Assess with good and poor examples of each. We will be using this resource to help us move forward in assessment, but his main point is clear:
"The process of measuring student achievement and using results to inform instructional decision may offer more promise for promoting learner success then any other instructional practice or school improvement innovation at our disposal." Wow! Classroom assessment practices make the difference, just as we have seen as we looked as previous research such as Hattie and Dylan William.
He goes on to say that "we could quite literally double the rate of student learning simply by using day-to-day classroom assessments in more thoughtful, purposeful ways."
As your same-subject teams meet and plan, please consider how we can continue to engage in frequent, formative assessment every 10-12 minutes, as Schomoker suggests, to better ensure student learning DURING class and improve our everyday, classroom assessments.
For this week:
Monday: The District Twitter chat for teachers, admins or anyone interested is #dubchat and is every Monday 7:30 - 8:30 PM. It's a great way to connect with other educators.
Our admin team meetings are every Monday from 8:50 AM - 9:50 AM. If you have items that you believe we should be aware and discuss of feel free to send us those items to us. If you ever want to sit in on these meetings, particularly those of you interested in being an admin, feel free to drop by.
Tuesday: 7:20 AM. I will be meeting with the new Student Council officers for the first time this year. Much thanks to Lacey Knapp and Kelly Kanitz for serving as advisers this year! It will be great to see how our student government and its new structure grows this year.
Wednesday: Feel free to use Wednesdays as your same-subject team time until it becomes official sometime in September. You can also use other days, depending on what you can coordinate until the official Collaboration time starts. Please be sure you are continuing to meet as a team at least once per week to focus on learning and assessment. There are still some things to work out with the district on the new Collaboration time, as we mentioned at the first staff meeting. Our first Principal meeting is 9/2 and we hope to know more then.
Friday: First football game at UA! Come out and support the Celts!
Looking ahead--
Sept. 1: No School; Labor Day
Sept. 4: First Department Chair meeting, 7:15 AM in the media center. Please send items for the agenda that you believe we should discuss prior to the first staff meeting.
Sept. 5: First home football game vs. Pick North and Freshman Tailgate. Come out as a Jerome family and cheer on the Celts!
Sept. 10: First Staff Meeting; 7:15 AM. Coffee provided. :)
Sept. 19: Homecoming Parade-- It is not too early to plan to participate in this wonderful Jerome tradition. Please invite your clubs, teams and organizations to be in the parade down Brand Road from Indian Run Church starting at 5:30 PM. We will then cheer on the Celtics vs.Bradley. Homecoming Queen and King will be announced at Pre-game.
Sept. 20: Homecoming Dance 8-11 PM
Have a terrific week!
Cathy
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