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| Courtesy @dylanwilliam via Twitter |
Dear Staff,
We hope this President's Day finds you warm at home with your families enjoying a long Valentine's and President's Day weekend. Brrrrrr. Certainly the cold is a good incentive to stay in the warmth in our homes and hearts.
We have certainly had a busy weekend for Celtic athletics. Boys BB traveled to Westerville South for a championship game for the OCC and lost to a highly motivated South team, avenging their earlier loss to us. Our Celtic Hockey team had a marathon game Friday night vs. Orange in the Blue Jackets Cup, losing in a shoot-out after 5 Overtimes! Our wrestling team hosted their huge All-North Tourney on Saturday and our Girls and Boys Swimming Team each placed second in Sectionals. Our Gymnasts also placed second in the OCC's and our Cheerleaders took second overall in the OCC"s. Wow!
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| Students and staff traveled to South for the big Neon-out game Friday! Much thanks to Peggy Kill for bravely chaperoning our students on the Spirit Bus! |
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| Did you know Jen Rodgers is also an artist! Check out the scheduling artwork in the GIC! Yes, that's the Bauers on the left and Jen and Peggy on the right! |
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| Dun Zhang and the Chinese I students kick off Chinese New Year with cooking traditional Chinese dumplings! |
This Week:
Tuesday: Tomorrow I will be a part of a Battelle for Kids Conference SOAR at OCLC at midday on prioritizing collaboration and intervention in a master schedule. It is always great to share and learn from other PLC schools.
Wednesday: Working Wednesday: You should received your SMART goals Google Doc. Please make sure that you have updated your SMART goals document by the end of this week, indicating your progress on your first semester SMART goal as well as setting your second semester goal. All should be updated by Friday. The rest of the time should be spent on your team's PLC work, including common interventions.
Wednesday we are also hosting a testing assembly for all freshmen and sophomores to give important updated testing info as well as test-taking strategies. Here are the procedures for Wednesday--
1. Freshmen and sophomores will be in first period and homeroom as normally scheduled. It is important to take attendance at the beginning of Homeroom. Then at the end of Homeroom we will dismiss all freshmen and sophomores to the CPA by grade level. All freshmen and sophomores will miss second period and be in class as regularly scheduled for the remainder of the day. Teachers do not need to attend; please use this time to collaborate or work.
Thursday: Our Musical Mary Poppins starts Thursday and continues through Saturday. What a great family fun play!
Friday: PTO Breakfast for all Staff; PAC Meeting 5th period.
Friday is also our last regular season Boys BB game vs. Westerville Central and is Senior Night for the players and Cheerleaders. The boys are 19-2 and have a chance to finish the regular season with 20 wins, a new record for us.
Saturday: Hockey Team enters State Tourney play at 6 PM at the Ice Haus. Swimming is at Districts at OSU. Good luck to all of our teams and coaches in Tourney play.
Saturday is also the Dublin Lit Conference. Much thanks to everyone who has signed up to bring back great literacy strategies to our staff to help make our students more successful.
Important Testing Information:
Feb. 23- 25: PARCC English testing for all freshmen. It is important that as we start three weeks of testing we do our best to support our students during this stressful time. Please do not schedule any other assessments or major projects during Feb. 23 - 25 for freshmen. We need them to be able to focus on doing their best on these high stakes tests for graduation quality points.
Please also remember that freshmen will be missing their first, second and third period classes on these testing days and will be stressed in those classes that our mixed grade levels. Please again do not expect them to have or complete homework or other work for those classes they are missing during the testing windows.
There are no 2-hour delays for Feb. 23 - 25 and we will depend on you to inform your students of all room changes due to testing. It will be a team effort!
March 2-6: OGT Week and PARCC Math and Physical Science testing. Again, please review your lesson plans and make sure you are not assigning any other assessments or large projects for freshmen and sophomores during PARCC/OGT week. We do have 2-hour delays March 2-6 with classes being short on the adjusted bell schedule. Freshmen and sophomores need to focus on doing their best on these assessments and should have no other assessments and very limited, if any, homework.
March 9: All Government students testing Ohio End-of-Course Government. These include first and second semester Gov students. Exception are those AP Gov students who register for the AP Gov exam on or before March 6. (Testing large group)
March 10: All US History (includes Studies) students test Ohio End-of-Course US History. Exception AP History students who register on or before March 9. (Testing large group)
We know it is extremely difficult to keep moving forward in instruction with so much assessment but it is important to support students as much as we can without adding the additional stress of other assessments or new work. Thanks for your understanding and support of this new era of testing.
Here are a couple of good resources to help encourage our students and ourselves in our Growth Mindset work.
In addition, as we continue to explore grading and grading practices, this chart is an excellent resource on homework.
Looking ahead:
Friday, Feb. 27: Jerome Variety Show, 7 PM. Much thanks to Diane Murphy and Michael Cook for organizing this Junior class fundraiser.
Feb. 27: No School for students. PD Day for staff. You will be getting more information about this but it will include working on the work as well gathering staff input on assessment.
March 13: End of third grading period.
As we enter our stressful assessment time for students, parents and staff, it is good to remember some of those best principles of research that will help guide our thoughts and work.
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| Jon Gordon reminds us to love, care and serve others in our servant leadership in The Carpenter. Image via @jongordon11 via Twitter. |
Have a terrific week! Thanks for all you do every day for each other and for our students and families!
Cathy
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