District Student Achievement Team

Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to spread love to others in our community. Have you heard the idea of “paying it forward”? Instead of paying someone back for something, spread the kindness forward to others. You might just change the course of someone’s day without them even knowing it.

Not sure where to start? Here are some examples of random acts of kindness you can try:

• Pay for the coffee of the person in line behind you
• Clear off the car next to yours when it snows
• Take the time to send positive feedback telling their company or boss that they made you a happy customer.
• Give someone the gift of time. Simply take the time to spend time with the people you love. Research shows that prioritizing quality relationships has big effects on your happiness. So give some hours to let others take a break…or spend those hours with them for double benefits.
• Listen better. It’s easy to get caught up in our own lives. In the age of social media, we can get lost in the illusion of connectedness. But here’s a great idea we should all take note of: Let’s be kinder by listening to each other; by connecting with each other; and by forging better and stronger bonds with the people we care about (and who care about us) this Valentine’s Day.

To me, this is what Valentine’s should be. Another day to exhibit kindnesses, a day we are cognizant of the opportunities to bring joy to those around us, and a simple reminder that we should cherish those in our home and on our path.

https://www.candgnews.com/news/wwps-to-place-bond-proposal-on-may-5-ballot-116757

Technology Bond Project

The last major technology project of the 2017 bond issue is the replacement of our current district server and storage equipment with a Dell Hyperconverged Infrastructure. After more than six months of planning, the project was put out to bid in January 2020 and was awarded at the February 10, 2020 board meeting. The tentative timeline, which is contingent on hardware arrival, is to begin and complete a bulk of the upgrades over Spring break finishing up any punch list items before the school year ends. This project lays the foundation for future datacenter equipment that will operate IT within the district for years to come and will allow the district to scale resources without the need for another forklift upgrade.

MACUL

At our last Instructional Technology Team meeting we provided our team with resources about the upcoming MACUL technology conference that is being held in Grand Rapids on March 12th and 13th. We are hoping to send a team of four teachers in addition to Kevin Hustek and Kara Beal so that we can continue our visioning work that has been ongoing with Dr. Tara Nattrass, Education Strategist from Dell Technologies.

I am so proud of the work that the elementary team has contributed towards our curriculum and resource review efforts. A team of grade level representatives met on Wednesday, February 12th to review the essential standards within each grade level. This was only the latest step in a journey that began the summer of 2019. We're fortunate to have Rebecca Smolarak, Jennifer Moore, Jamie Nelson, Kathy Hribar, Mike Lukasave and Stacey Demarco represent their grade level as we work together to narrow down our search of new curriculum resource. Our next step will be to explore each of the sample resources to determine the level of depth provided within each learning essential, narrow down which resources we will pilot, and learn the evaluative tool we will use to determine the best fit for our system. Simultaneous to this work, the elementary team will be working on a professional learning plan for support of staff within the area of mathematics. If your're interested in learning more, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Collaboratively Created Vision Statement

Warren Woods Public Schools will provide research based elementary math instruction that promotes mathematical understanding by challenging students, while also engaging families in the learning process. We will provide a focused and coherent curriculum, using mathematics instruction and high quality assessments that meet the learning needs of each student. This curriculum will expose students to a variety of problem solving strategies and learning experiences. Using the Michigan Standards as a foundation, the curriculum will focus on essential concepts and process of mathematics. In meeting the demands of a changing world, our mathematics curriculum will prepare students to be independent learners that are able to think critically, problem solve, communicate, and collaborate.

We are fortunate to have a dynamic elementary literacy team. As you're aware, our Reading Recovery Literacy Support model is based on the idea of investing in excellent teachers. The training and support provided to staff is remarkable. As our literacy expertise has grown so to has the leadership demonstrated within the elementary teams. I am pleased to shared that two of our Reading Recovery providers, Karen Haraga and Lauren Franklin have stepped up to ensure we're able to provide additional Reading Recovery support to more students outside of the school day. I appreciate their time and willingness to serve our students.

We're also fortunate to have the Board's support in sending district representation to the National Reading Recovery conference in Columbus, Ohio. The team consisted of Kerri Devault, Elizabeth Kochajda, Nancy Sulkowski, Christine Walter, Scott Keen and Kara Beal. This team's charge is to ensure the learning is brought back to the team and we're able to build on the inspiring ideas presented by over 140 speakers within 100+ sessions. Educators who attended this literacy conference have a common goal, literacy success for all students. This conference has provided outstanding K-6 literacy professional development for over 35 years. Sponsored by a national reading association, the Reading Recovery Council of North America, it has grown to an internationally-recognized professional development conference with presenters and attendees from around the world. Known for building educator expertise to effectively teach struggling readers, it addresses all aspects K-6 literacy. Through increased educator knowledge, literacy instruction will be improved, and student needs will be met. Sessions are vetted by literacy leaders and tailored to the needs of educators focusing on effective teaching for positive student outcomes. Again a big thank you to our Board of Education for their support of our further development

As a team, we're also heard at work at planning a learning opportunity for our K-2 teachers to explore phonics resources. While we have a robust curriculum with Reading and Writing Workshop, we acknowledge and hear the feedback from our teachers that more attention needs to be paid to use of consistent resources to support our students in phonics. Our literacy coaches took time on Wednesday night to drive to Oakland University to learn more about phonics instruction and resources to support teachers. We are excited to bring this learning back with a small group of teachers on February 25th. The session will be facilitated by our district's literacy coaches.

Phonics Review

Thank you for the engagement of our secondary Social Studies team in a recent professional learning opportunity. We were fortunate to partner with other area schools to learn with and from one another with direction provided by Sean McBrady, MISD Social Studies Consultant. This is the first of a two part series aimed to promote a deep understanding of the content and instructional shifts required by the new SS state standards, and discuss grade level priorities, and collaborate with other area schools.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have questions, concerns, or feedback.

Email: kbeal@mywwps.org
Website: http://www.warrenwoods.misd.net/
Location: 12900 Frazho Road, Warren, MI, USA
Phone: 586.439.4469
Facebook: facebook.com/Warren-Woods-Public-Schools
Twitter: @WarrenWoodsPS