Bus Duty

Morning: 

If you are am bus duty, there are two things you need to keep in mind: 

1)Please help us by letting kids who are getting breakfast in @ 8:35.
2) When the buses release at 8:40, please make sure you are in a spot where you can see the edges (first and last bus). I call this securing the edges. The purpose of this is to make sure that no kids wander away from the entrance of the school.


Afternoon: 

A few reminders and clean up work related to our afternoon bus duty: 

1) No student should be outside at the end of the day without adults there. Please be sure not to release students until the second dismissal, and kids who are leaving with a teacher who has bus duty should go out with the teacher. There are times where I look outside and see students who are not supervised, unfortunately. I know this is not intentional, but we have to be clear with our students on this. Safety and service corp. are not to go out until the bus duty folks are out there.
2) If you are in the two outside positions, please make sure that we secure the edges. We have had some students who have attempted to walk away from their buses in the past, so making sure that all edges are secure is a must for us.

Safety

In light of Casey's video message this am, if you hear any students discussing walking out as a protest, please contact me immediately. The district does not anticipate this trickling down to our level, and it should not be staff led, but if you were to hear kids having any conversations about it, especially at our upper levels, please report it to me immediately.

Thanks!

Keep Plugging

22nd Century Classrooms @ QUEST

Team,

I attended a meeting this week where I sat with interior designers from Labella and learned about 22nd century classrooms: intentional learning spaces designed to maximize retention, attention, motivation, learning, and achievement through the integration of technology, providing engaging experiences for students and faculty (taken from slide show). More than that, it was also communicated that QUEST will be allowed 8 classrooms to be flipped into this style of classroom. This means working with the architects and kids to redesign your space, and having this new style purchased and placed in your classroom starting December of next year. YES!

In the future I will be sending out a presentation related to this where you can view some visuals of 22nd century classrooms, but the week of March 26-30th we will have an application shared, and due at the end of that week.  Interested classrooms can apply, and the following will be chosen:

• one K classroom
• two primary classrooms
• two elementary classrooms
• two intermediate classrooms 
• our computer lab

The reason for flipping the lab is so all can be impacted whether or not your room has been transformed. 

If you are interested in having your classroom flipped, you would need to: 

• Understand that the interior designers will want to observe your room and space, work with you and your kids, and will have to support this transition (make sure your room is ready) next Christmas break. There will be some time requirements.
• May be a place where future QUEST tours will happen. 
• Be committed to staying at QUEST. Obviously you are always free to leave if you don't love this awesome place, but I'd prefer people to apply who plan on staying for a while so that we can see how this impacts kids--I don't simply want to pass the furniture on to someone who did not sign up for it. Don't worry, you don't have to sign a commitment letter! :)

The downside is that we will have to pick if more than the number above shows an interest at a given level. To select and to be fair, I will be removing names from the applications that get submitted and will have a team of those who did not apply pick based on the content of the application. The application asks general questions about how this will change your instruction, how it will influence your classroom management, etc., so the selection would be based on the quality of answers and impact on kids. 

I'm really excited for this and I would encourage you to join me in thanking Mr. Geist and Dr. K in allowing us this opportunity. QUEST is getting the largest amount of classrooms flipped at this time, but I believe we will continue to add to that number for years to come. Living out the value of progressiveness--our aspirational value--starts with having cutting edge classrooms. 

 

RtI Nugget

On Thursday, I stumbled upon the primary team having a stand up meeting--minus one member who had another obligation at that time. Obviously, my excitement bubbled over. Stand up meetings are quick, 2-5 minute meetings in a place where you HAVE to stand. Standing is a requirement because once you sit you tend to go deeper. It's a way to talk about business issues: the field trip coming up, sharing a copy of something you are using that day, giving the team a heads up about a student, answering a survey question for your admin. team representative. It is a time to be productive, infect one another with positive energy, and to discuss logistics of the clerical sides of our job. Seeing that same level classrooms are miles apart because of our pole organization, this is a perfect solution and a great way to stay in touch. It also fosters great team communication. What in the world does this have to do with RtI?

As mentioned last week, how we meet as a team matters. With an RtI approach to team meetings, Mattos, the guru of RtI, recommends 45 minutes a week to discuss all things RtI, while using four central questions as the focus: What do we want kids to know, understand, and do? (Kud) How will we know they have it? (assessment) How will we respond? (interventions). I would argue that our current team meetings are meaningful, but that it is easy to spend the time talking about the business of our jobs because there is never enough time for it all. This helps to clear that up a bit so you can feel less overwhelmed and have a small, but deep, to-do list at level and department meetings.

Consider what might happen if you had 1-2 of these a week with your team/department to discuss business. Our cafeteria monitors have started this practice and do a daily huddle at the end of lunch (no more than 3 minutes). The little things we do can alleviate work stress, build a collaborative--we are all in this together--spirit, and become a glue that holds a team together during these busy months.

Core and aspiration values being shown through this approach: all, minus mindfulness.

WE are QUEST!

Looking Ahead

Maybe next time instead of my read aloud?

Some Reminders/Need-to-Knows

• Portfolio share should be completed by the end of this month. If you are having difficulty getting a parent in and would like me to make a friendly call, don't hesitate to ask.
• Admin. Team will be discussing placement at our next meeting (March 15). If you have an opinion you would like heard, please be sure to communicate with your rep. prior.
• Student safety continues to be a hot topic, and rightfully so. As we continue to improve our practices as a school to ensure we are all as safe as possible, I'd like to remind you of  the following: 

1. Download Navigate on your phone or have it saved as a favorite on your school computer. Being able to communicate with me and those leading during an emergency is crucial. 
2. Please make sure doors are never propped.
3. Report any concerns related to visitors or students to me and Dave I. The district also has a confidential reporting line that you can use if there is a threat.
4. Continue to sign-out when you take your students to the creek or other "off-campus" sites.
5. Review safety procedures with students.
6. Keep in mind that our plan, and the details of it, should remain confidential and should not be shared publicly (this is for safety reasons). There are general plans the district has on its website that can be shared. Any parent questions about safety can be directed to me, or reach out and I will help you wordsmith. 
7. Be sure to give a heads up to the security desk when you know a parent is coming in for lunch or you are expecting visitors. Parents were provided the expectation of communicating with you through our handbook.
8. Keep being rock-stars and building connections. There is nothing better for a struggling child than a school of adults who go out of their way to connect with them.

Looking Ahead

RtI Nugget: RtI School-Wide Team vs. Teacher Teams

At the start of our RtI journey, it was mentioned that RtI is not simply the meetings you attend with our psychologist when you want an individualized action plan or additional support for a student. That is a slice of RtI, but it is not all of RtI. Instead, there are essentially two sides that we have to make sure are rock solid if we are going to support all of our learners.

1) Teacher Teams: Teacher teams collaborate to determine essential standards/learning, look at evidence of student learning based on those standards, and then respond. In addition, they also make sure that tier 1 for all students is a home run. Together, they look at data, collaborate around interventions for all students (even high achievers can receive interventions), and work as a professional learning community. They put students into intervention groups and provide support, often times together (WIN times). This occurs in ongoing cycles.

These teams should consist of:

-level teachers
-specialists
-any SRP support that works with that level
-school leadership (when needed)

2)School-Wide Team: Despite intervention efforts at the tier 2 level from teacher teams, some students may still need more support with behavior, attendance, academics, or motivation. When a student is not making adequate growth with interventions, they would be brought to an RtI meeting with the school-wide team (IST). At these meetings, action plans are created and timelines are set. Although a student may be brought to this table and end up with more individualized support per the created action plan, they should still receive daily tier 1 instruction and be part of any intervention time that the teacher team has developed for their students. These interventions are to supplement all the great things already happening not supplant it.

These teams should consist of:

-mental health team
-specialists
-special education teacher
-gen ed. teacher
-school leadership

As you can see, we have elements of both that give us a strong readiness for RtI--in my eyes, we are going to completely thrive with this shift (when we get to that point...slow and steady:) ). With that, however, there will be some tweaks that we may have to consider related to how teacher teams collaborate and how the school-wide team operates. I've heard a lot of people mention that QUEST used to operate a bit more like this, so I am excited to see how we bring some of that back as we look to benefit our awesome kids.