Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Week of 12/18/23
Something Personal
Wishing you and yours a fabulous break and a promising New Year!
Something Professional
DEI Staff Meeting for 1/23:
On 1/23 we will have our second district organized staff meeting around DEI. Last year we did community circles, and this year we are doing breakout sessions based on an instructional strategy (that supports DEI). We need you to express your interest in breakout sessions. Please fill out the survey below so we can get it organized!
CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT THE FORM!
Team Tre--Ordering extended until this Friday
As many of you know, this past spring the Barton Family learned that Tre, Michelle and Neil's son, has a cancerous mass growing in his brain. He started chemo and radiation in May and just finished another treatment this week! Please show your support for Tre and the Barton Family by purchasing a TEAM Tre t-shirt. Let's make this a great fundraiser for the family or one of the many local organizations supporting the family during this time.🤍
Tips when ordering... Enter your own address when you reach shipping so it matches with your billing address. Then in the comment section list your connection to the family (ex - Greece CSD Paddy Hill, Greece CSD Facilities, Hilton CSD Quest, Family, Neighborhood, etc.) as this will help us get shirts to the right location. The link will be open till 12/15 and shirts will arrive early to mid January. Please reach out to anyone below with questions. Thank you for your support!
Save the Date!
From Jess Pignato for those Interested!
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Week of 12/11/23
Something Personal
I currently have the pleasure of co-leading a book study with the extended cabinet based on the book Radical Candor. Although this book has a heavy emphasis on leadership roles and how radical candor becomes a useful tool to communicate as a supervisor, there is a ton of carry over to the work we do with one another, as well as how we communicate in general with our students, our families, and one another.
The book breaks down four types of communication:
Radical candor (a warm demander would use radical candor, no??), which is the goal when communicating, occurs when you have a lot of care for the other person, and you intentionally make a lot of emotional deposits, but you can also be honest and direct regarding what you need. When you have to challenge, you are honest yet never make it personal.
To learn more about radical candor, check out the video below:
I'd encourage you to chew on this idea and consider what radical candor might look like within your job.
Something Professional
Student Action...Let's GO!
NEW Tues 12/19 Deadline
for Girlbucks Slime Orderss
Kayla Shaw and Lucy
DiBattisto run a little non-profit called “Girlbucks”. They are selling
customized homemade slime as stocking stuffers for the holidays. All
proceeds go to purchasing food for the Hilton Cadet Cupboard. Below is
the order form for slime. Please give cash to Kristen and either print out
the order form or email her the details by the end of the day on Tues 12/19.
All orders will be brought to school by Fri 12/22. There are so many choices!
Holiday Breakfast: CIA Reminder
When: Tuesday, December19th at 8 am
Where: Café
What: Staff Holiday Breakfast...all are welcome!
Link to sign up: CLICK HERE!
Need-to-Know:Most people enjoy warm items so consider a breakfast pizza, a casserole, or a quiche.
Please bring an empty mug for coffee, juice, tea, or cocoa.
MTSS Consultation Data
Current MTSS problem solving meeting data:
|
Total Forms |
27 |
|
Level Breakdown |
K: 2 1-2: 11 3-4: 5 5-6: 9 |
|
Gender |
M: 17 F: 10 |
|
Reasons |
SEL: 8 Academic: 11 Screening: 4 504 Request: 4 |
|
|
|
From Office of Instruction
Interventionists will
begin putting goals and progress monitoring data for some students into
e-doctrina. This will trigger emails to those associated in IC with those
students. Attached is a tip sheet for how teachers can set up a rule in
their email to automatically route the eDoctrina notification emails to an
email folder set up for this purpose. This would keep the emails from
cluttering anyone's inbox but would also make them available to teachers who
have the student on their roster.
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Week of 12/4/23
Something Personal
One of the harder conversations to have with our own children is that life can be really hard, quite unfair at times, and down-right tricky. Stress is everywhere and is there for the taking. But despite that, and with so much out of our control, we still can choose gratitude, happiness, and joy! Joy...this time of year that word pops up a lot!
This week I stepped away for one day--just one day--and returned to my office looking like the elves workshop. I can be the Grinch, or so I've been told, but it was great how the fun of others quickly became my joy and laugh for the day. A place where we can have some fun and find some joy is the kind of place I want to be.
Choosing joy is hard sometimes, but our learners provide us with the perfect example of what this can look like. As a building, and as a larger culture, I admire how we find time to play, joke, and take great care of one another. To me, that is joy--as wild as this month can be, I hope you find plenty of joy and laughter. It's there to notice!
Something Professional
Team Tre
As many of you know,
this past spring the Barton Family learned that Tre, Michelle and Neil's son,
has a cancerous mass growing in his brain. He started chemo and radiation
in May and just finished another treatment this week! Please show your
support for Tre and the Barton Family by purchasing a TEAM Tre t-shirt. Let's
make this a great fundraiser for the family or one of the many local
organizations supporting the family during this time.🤍
Tips when ordering... Enter your own address when you reach shipping so it
matches with your billing address. Then in the comment section list your
connection to the family (ex - Greece CSD Paddy Hill, Greece CSD Facilities,
Hilton CSD Quest, Family, Neighborhood, etc.) as this will help us get shirts
to the right location. The link will be open till 12/15 and shirts will
arrive early to mid January. Please reach out to anyone below with
questions. Thank you for your support!
Bivona Lessons (SEL)
Due to staffing issues at Bivona, lessons this year will not be held during health (minus one K room where we had to fit it in). The schedule will be shared out in the near future.
Highlighting Students (IB)
Last year, we began a project to identify students within the district who exemplify the IB learner profile traits (inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open minded, caring, risk takers, balanced, reflective).
If you teach or know of a student who embodies one or more of the learner profile attributes through actions inside or outside of school, please contact Steve Cudzilo or Grace Scism so we can reach out to the student and family and highlight them! Students would be highlighted with the posters you see hanging in the security entrance. We hope to receive enough submissions that we can rotate these posters on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Thank you for helping us to highlight our students.
“Incredible things can be done simply if we are
committed to making them happen.”
-Sadhguru
Stephen Cudzilo
IB Middle Year Program Coordinator
Hilton Central School District
Remind?
For some reason, those that were on Remind last year, and part of our Lead Learners class, did not all get transfered over this year. If you are not getting the reminders from me, and you would like to, please use the link below to join the class.
Furniture Reminder
If you have not done so yet, please fill out this spread sheet. Gracias!
Vertical Teams
When: 12/12/23 @ 8 am
Where: QUEST Cafe
What: We will go into our vertical teams, but before that, we will be taking a survey for our SIT team on communication and volunteerism.
Need-to-Know: The One School One Book group will be using this time to form an additional adhoc group, so if you are interested in joining them, feel free to peel off of your current group to support their efforts.
Another Need-to-Know: At SIT this week, it was discussed that TA's sometimes want to be part of this work. Please know this is open to anyone as the goal is to serve our incredible school.
SIT Update
- SIT reviewed that we are in the process of working on budgets. Make sure your team and department is represented at the meeting in January! See last post for details!
- We are moving up the timeline for schedules this year. Our goal is to have the building schedule complete by the end of March, so that level leaders and interventionists can have a shot at building classroom schedules that fit with interventions and tier 1 instruction.
- SIT unpacked the parent/family survey. Our hope is that we get a good number of staff also complete the survey. From there, we will share best practices, our findings, and our actions going forward. In the words of Brene Brown, "clear is kind!"
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Week of 11/27/23
Something Personal
This is your brain on deep reading! This podcast was shared with me this week from one of our lead learners, and it was quite fascinating. Check it out!
Something Professional
Lockdown FYI
Next week we will have an unannounced lockdown.
From our friends in tech
This week, Remind announced that they were joining the ParentSquare family. In the email Remind sent to communicate this, they shared that nothing would change for users, with RemindHub continuing to operate as usual for customers. Following the announcement, we reached out to our Remind representative and will continue to communicate with them regarding any implications for 2024-2025.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In alignment with other district
account settings, we will be updating the password requirements for staff
Infinite Campus accounts on December 14. Passwords for Infinite Campus will
need to be 14 characters and will be required to be changed every 180
days.
If your Infinite Campus password
isn't currently 14 characters and/or hasn't been changed in the past six
months, please log into your account and update your password. A tip sheet
on how to do so can be seen here. If you don't do so by
December 14, you will be required to change your password when first
logging in on December 14.
If you need further assistance
changing your password in Infinite Campus, please submit a ticket in incidentIQ
ticket here. Thank you for your continued support in
protecting student and staff data.
Testing Dates!
Budget Heads Up
On January 19th at 8 am we will have our official budget meeting. Because we do not have a formal management team due to the changes in SIT, please have a department or level representative plan to join this meeting in order to speak on behalf of the team. Mrs. Pickering, who is cc’ed on this email, is our BOE member assigned to our budget team and may be joining us if she is free (welcome, Nancy!). Like the past five years, we will review the requests that you have made for your level/department, talk about it as a group, and then will use that meeting to create our budget for 24-25.
A few need-to-know items:
- Here is the link to fill out your
requests; please have this filled out a week before the January 8th: CLICK
HERE FOR BUDGET FORM . Level leaders will be adding
this to the agenda prior to this date!
- I will be sharing the budget
expenses, by level, with level leaders at our meeting this Friday. If you
do not have a level leader, please swing by to see Paula on Friday to get
the amount (department).
- Our budget for this year will be frozen January 1.
This mean spending should be in to Paula prior. On January 1, all money
will go to a common line and we will make any larger, school-based
purchases. In the past, we have purchased some larger items for levels and
teams with remaining funds, so please know it’s okay to not spend it
all…it gets put toward the common good.
From B and G
Hilton Central School
District
2023
Guidelines for Holiday Decorations
_________________________________
Holidays are a wonderful time of year!
During this season of celebration, it is
important to maintain the safest possible environment for our students, visitors,
and employees. Please follow the guidelines below as you add your individualized
touch to your classrooms or offices.
•
No combustible materials in stairways
•
Do not cover doors, or vision panel windows in doors with decorations
•
No more than 20% of walls in hallways can be decorated
•
No more than 50% of any classroom wall can be decorated
•
No decorations within 10 feet of an exit door
•
No decorations on or near safety devices such as: fire extinguishers,
fire alarm pull switches, horn/strobe fire alarms, exit signs, emergency
eyewash or safety showers, emergency lockdown switches, fire suppression
systems.
•
Do not hang anything from the ceiling
•
Keep exit routes and exit doors clear and unobstructed
•
Do not block or cover electrical panels
•
No open flames or candles
•
No heating devices or extension cords
•
No combustible products on unit ventilator – heating system
•
All electrically operated holiday decorations need to be visually inspected
by your building custodian or a district maintenance staff member prior to use
•
No holiday lights up longer than 60 days as they also are considered
temporary lighting by OSHA
•
Christmas lights must be UL approved, and light strands should not
be strung together
Tech Update
FOMO? Have you said "why didn't I know about that tech tool"? Do you wish you had signed up for one of the Tech ELITE (Empowering Learning in 1:1 Tech Environment) Classes? There's still time that you can complete two 3.75 hour classes for ½ an in-service credit. Starting now is one of our most popular classes, ELITE Webinar Choice Board. Where you get to choose from several curated videos to make your own learning path. Starting in March is Tech Tools for retrieval practice, brain dumps, spacing, interleaving and other science-based ways to learn and retain information. Also starting in March is Level up Learning with Library Digital Resources. Go to Frontline and sign up for them now.
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Week of 11/13/23
Something Personal
There will be no blog on the short week next week. Please know that there are so many kids, families, and colleagues that are grateful for you. I'm grateful to work with each of you. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Something Professional
Report Cards
Report cards get posted to parents on 11/22. The window closes on 11/20!
Furniture Needs
We have some money to replace some furniture, however, our goal is to have Please have this spreadsheet filled out for your room by 12/3/23. Click on the link, find your room, and share the current state of
click here to fill out regarding condition of your furniture
MTSS Update
- We have officially closed out cycle 1. Thank you for your timely inputting of data in order to help the team form groups for the next cycle.
- K lab has officially started!
- The next cycle begins after Thanksgiving. Interventionists will be reaching out to share new groups and to discuss scheduling--some of this has already begun.
Canva
Did you know Canva allows students the ability to create simple animations they can use to show their learning? It's a great way to differentiate, allow for creativity and make learning stick. Check out a few content area specific examples. Each one of these only took about 10 to 15 minutes to create. So, it's a quick and easy activity that can have a huge impact on long term retention of content.
How
might you use animations? Want more ideas or help showing your students
how to do this? Reach out to Jason Cring or Jess Thompson.
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Week of 11/6/23
Something Personal
Factors of Happiness (thanks to the lead learner who passed this along to me!)
This infograph titled “8 Factors of Happiness” is worthy of
revisiting whenever you notice discomfort. I’ve found the quickest way to
dispel unhappiness is to ask myself introspective questions to find the source.
Based on these 8 factors of happiness, I would ask myself:
- Am I feeling
suspicion and resentment?
- Am I living
in the past (or in the future)?
- Am I wasting
time and energy fighting conditions I can’t change?
- Am I
isolating myself or withdrawing from the world?
- Am I
indulging in self-pity?
- Am I
expecting too much of myself?
I then continue the line of questioning to gain more
self-awareness or I pivot to an easy gratitude practice, like listing 10 things
that make me happy on my fingers. This usually gets me out of my head and back
to the present moment, as well as in alignment with the values and experiences
that make me happy. — CD
Something Professional
Feast: lunch and plan. Click on the link if you are a classroom teacher.
Click here to sign up for a plan and duty free lunch for FEAST!
Week of Feast reminders
There are a lot of moving parts next week. I ask for flexibility and
understanding if things change or shift from what was planned. Everyone is
doing their best and juggling a lot. Time to show why QUEST is the best school
around!
◦ We have people in new roles or new to QUEST this year. Feast pros look out
for the newbie’s. Lastly, if you don’t know,ask someone. This isn’t the time or
place to go rouge.
◦ We are guests in the kitchen. Leave it cleaner than you found it. Rules are
different in this kitchen than your kitchen at home. Make sure you are extra
kinda and friendly to the kitchen staff.
◦ Make sure you are using gloves at all times when handling food.
◦ Food should never be left out unattended or on the floor.
◦ Make sure you fill out Google docs in email sent by me. This is what is going
to be used to create schedule for reheating food and when we will need to use
the kitchen
◦ Bre created an ingredient and allergen card to put in front of EACH dish. I
will email them out and Bre printed out copies and put them in the office.
Allergy kids should be first through the lines. This will help cut down on
cross contamination. Please remind servers of this and looking for allergy
stickers.
◦ Pole point parents will coordinate with Lyza day of Feast for getting things
out of coolers and food when it is ready. This is to prevent too many cooks in
the kitchen.
Lastly, thank you for your cooperation! This is the 29th QUEST Feast, let’s
make it the best yet!!
November 14
There will be no specials on November 14th. This is considered a consultation day. Please follow the previously shared schedule for the 21st.
Reminder for Classroom Teachers:
Classroom teacher assessments need to be in eDoctrina by the end of the day on Monday, November 13.
Thursday, November 2, 2023
Week of 10/30/23
Something Personal
This week I saw an example of a student in a tough emotional spot and a group of lead learners jumping to their side. It was amazing to see, and I couldn't help but think about what a nurturing environment we have created at QUEST.
There's this term "unconditional love" which is often tied to the what a parent feels for their child, or perhaps that of a very best friend. This idea, whether we have been fortunate to experience it or not, follows the belief that the care you have for someone is without conditions. They mess up, you still care. They slip, you care. Your care is not dependent on anything other than that responsibility to be there with grace and love.
I would argue that the greatest classrooms have this belief front and center. No matter what mistakes a child makes, no matter how many times they push our button, the care is still the same. And these beliefs are communicated and articulated both verbally and nonverbally. This.Is.Hard.
Our students all come from different homes, and we adults all come from different upbringings as well, but the greatest opportunity we can give each other and our students is a "nothing is going to change my mind about how awesome you are" kind of belief. We are human, we have emotions, people can rub us the wrong way...but this idea is worth the pursuit. Again, this-is-hard.
For those that are interested, check out this podcast that unpacks it much more eloquently than I can.
Something Professional
No Meeting Weeks
Next week we begin no meeting weeks, where we have no building scheduled meetings until Thanksgiving. For those new to the Q, this is a time where we honor the amount of work that goes into three-way conferences and report cards. Please use the extra time to stay afloat.
Parking on Tuesday, 11/7
On Tuesday, 11/7, the district has a big retirement breakfast and presentation occurring in central office. They are expecting near 125 people, some of which have issues with walking.
If you don't mind and are able, it would be awesome if we could park behind the school on Tuesday. Although this is not convenient, this is the kind of school we are and it's a chance to do a nice deed. Thanks!
Report Cards
Report cards are officially open. Please email me right away if you see an error that needs to be rectified through Tom.
Derek out Wednesday
I will be out of the building on Wednesday of next week. Katie Jo will be in.
MTSS Update
November 10th will mark the end the first
inaugural MTSS Cycle. Our Interventionists will suspend instruction from
the 10th until after Thanksgiving break. During that time they
will be assessing students, forming groups, creating new intervention schedules
and planning and preparing for the next cycle of interventions.
Intervention cycle #2 will begin on November 27th.
Friday, October 27, 2023
From tech.
Good morning all,
I am attaching the info
for how parents can login to see report cards on IC as well as troubleshooting
tips from the Data Team if you would like to share out with teachers. I am sure
they will have parents asking (at least new parents anyway) or post on the Hubs
if you haven't already. Have a great weekend!
Thursday, October 26, 2023
Week of 10/23/23
Something Personal
When I became a new dad and simultaneously embraced the role of a school leader, I found myself grappling with newfound stress. Over time, I learned that the goal isn't to evade stress – as life can be inherently stressful – but to cultivate greater resilience and persistence in the face of stress. This way, emotions associated with stress don't dictate our responses, which parallels the principles of the 'Zones of Regulation' framework.
In our line of work, the world's ever-increasing demands, and the constant deluge of media and information can easily become overwhelming, especially when combined with personal challenges. This is a recipe for heightened stress. No matter the challenges, I've discovered inspiration in Andrew Huberman, a scientist and podcaster from Stanford. Dr. Huberman outlines the five pillars of health, grounded in scientific research, which, when practiced daily, can have a profound impact on our ability to perform effectively each day. Initially, this focus is for one's own well-being, but it also has a lasting positive effect on personal and professional relationships.
Why am I sharing this with a school full of educators? As we approach a more stressful time of the year, the rituals, habits, and self-care practices we proactively adopt significantly influence our overall health, happiness, and effectiveness. In my view, every educator deserves to feel their best, and by doing so, they can provide the best for their students. I encourage you to enjoy the short podcast clip.
Something Professional
November 14th is a Consultation Day
November 14th is a Consultation Day. There will be no specials that day, as well as no teacher led interventions, as interventionists and special area teachers will be in meetings all morning.
Connection Survey...for kids!
Last year, we held a staff meeting where we checked in on which students we felt we were connected to. From there we made some observations based on the data.
It was mentioned by many that there would be a desire to survey students. This serves that purpose.
Task: please use this survey, for grades 1-6. K, we are leaving your kids off of this at this time given being so new to QUEST at this point in the year. Please have students complete this by 11/9/23
Primary teachers: given your students are the youngest ones taking this survey, it is suggested that you do this whole group or in a guided way. Please reach out if you need support in administration.
MTSS
Check out this really good slide-deck to better understand how to interpret MAP scores.
We are two weeks into having a new process for MTSS. Here's what it has looked like thus far. As always, our caMp team is open to feedback if there are things you think will help us with our systems! Don't hesitate to reach out!
Monday, October 23, 2023
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Week of 10/16/23
Something Personal
One of the greatest perks of being a principal is getting to be in rooms and see great instruction happening, and getting to see our values lived out. I am unable to capture all the awesome practices that I see in a single post, but check out some of the effective decisions happening around our school.
Responsive Classroom in Music:
Coach K, the former Duke Basketball coach used to run short practices that were packed with learning. Every second was accounted for and conditioning was infused into the pace of the drills. There was little time for sitting.
I witnessed the same in a music classroom. Students were doing the work the entire time, and the teacher would stop, redirect, offer choice, offer a quick teaching point, and then get them right back into the learning.
In speaking with the teacher, this approach has stemmed from her learning around responsive classroom. Definitely check it out below!
Zones of Regulation as musicians:
We all know we have an SEL Zones pilot occurring, but it was super cool to see it prior to a music lesson. Students had these private clips to self assess where they were emotionally, and what that meant for them as musicians. Can you imagine a world where all of our students know how to regulate their feelings? That level of emotional intelligence is incredible to consider.
Inquiry and a call to action in math:
I sat in a math lesson where the students went through an inquiry process, presented their learning, and then at the end they had to consider what action they could take as a result of their learning. Inquiry based school, action focused school...really great to see!
Learning being brought to life by bringing in professionals:
Not gonna lie, his voice is very distinct and it was quite cool to have Glenn Johnson at QUEST. More so, seeing a planner brought to life through an outside professional was powerful for student learning.
Learning should be transdisciplinary:
I was invited down to check out these homes (engineering) made to withstand a dust storm (science standards), which tied to the book Esperanza Rising (ELA Standards). Let's have two cheers for transdisciplinary learning!
Students being told who they are:
These students pictured were being called artists in art, as the teacher models what great artists do. Math time? Call them mathematicians. Reading? Call them readers. Writing? Call them writers. This little language shift can have a big impact on a child!
A team starting their meeting by connection before content:
At a level meeting I attended, they started with the question "who is the most famous person you met." Connecting before content matters, and it sets a tone for a relaxed, psychologically safe meeting. If you read this far, you'll never guess who John met: Taylor Swift! Just kidding, but thanks for reading the entire post!
Something professional
Remind?
If you are not signed up for remind from the school lens, and you'd like those reminders, please use the link HERE .
SIT Updates:
- The Halloween parade will go @ 9:30 on the side walk that follows the perimeter of the bus loop. We will keep this method for years to come, so we can expect it to be the same next year. If it rains, parents will be invited to sit on the bleachers in the gym and our parade can cut through the gym so parents can sit in the bleachers and see the kids go by.
- Our district has a Rapid Response Team. If you have larger questions about district safety, please bring these to a SIT rep. or Derek so we can bring these to this team.
- Morning meeting days we are experiencing breakfast line issues. Please enforce the following: -No student should be eating in their classroom unsupervised. Students should go right to the breakfast line off the bus and go immediately back to class (no waiting for class unsupervised). -We will have three staff members sweeping hallways at the start of the meeting.
MTSS Update
We continue to work to improve our process based on your feedback. Thanks for giving us patience as we grow a new system.
Consider this: you are seeing a red flag with a student and you want support. You want support so you fill out the consultation form. What happens after you click submit?
- caMp meets on Tuesdays. We review the forms and within a day of our caMp meeting, you will be contacted for a sit down meeting.
- You will sit down for a consultation and action planning.
- You will receive a summary of the plan from the person who consulted with you!
Staff Meeting Reminder
When: 10/24 at 7:50 am
Where: See below. Go to your assigned location.
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