This monthly newsletter will help to provide our staff with the instructional resources and information needed in order to continue supporting our excellent academic program. It will be important to review these newsletters and refer to them as needed as they will contain important dates, links, and resources to support high-quality classroom instruction. Lesson planning, assessments, team meetings, programs, and initiatives will be posted and shared here. Should you have an item that should be shared or discussed, please do not hesitate to let me know!

Just a few reminders and helpful tips to keep in mind...

• Bring the positive energy to your class that you want your students to have.
• Set clear expectations for learning and behavior from the start of the year.
• Communicate early! Keep families informed. Don’t let the first time you contact a family be for a bad reason.
• Challenge our students to learn and maintain rigor in your lessons.
• Accountability can only be expected with support. Develop safety nets and supports for students, share them with their families, and then expect great things!
• Collaborate with your colleagues. Share what works in your classroom and seek help and collaboration when you need it.
• Love what you do! We have the greatest and most impactful jobs in the world. Don’t let anyone distract you or trick you into thinking anything different.

• Conquer Math - Ms. Coronado has registered all staff teaching mathematics in their annual Conquer Math professional development. Ms. Coronado will be placing your registration summary sheet in your mailboxes. Please submit your absence into AESOP as soon as possible to increase the likely hood we can get a substitute. Please submit the day as a "Professional Day".
• Spring Professional Development Academy - Please be sure to review the Spring Professional Development Catalog linked below to sign up for one or more of our staff's great offerings!
• Team Meetings - Thank you to all who provided input re: our grade level report cards. I will be developing draft report cards using the comments provided and sharing those out at our grade level Team Meetings in March and April. Please refer to the link in the Team Meetings section for the schedule of team meetings for the remainder of the school year. Please be reminded to not make plans during our scheduled team meeting times. Rescheduling these meetings is very difficult due to the number of team meetings each month. Thank you!
• Staff Reassignment or Transfer Request - As per the WBEA agreement, if you are interested in a NEW role for the 2024-2025 school year, please be sure to complete the Google Form linked below to submit your request for a NEW assignment or transfer for next school year. If you DO NOT want to be transferred or a new role, please do not complete this form. Use the Table of Contents on the left for the WBPS Change of Assignment of Transfer Form. All requests need to be submitted by 4:00 pm on Friday, March 8, 2024. Please reach out with any questions.

The topics below were identified as areas of focus that we will work on for the remainder of the school year through grade-level team meetings as well as district committees to ensure we receive all appropriate input and make adjustments accordingly.

Please be on the look out for emails from my office asking for volunteers for committees (as needed) to help us in these efforts. Thank you for anticipated participation!

• K-5 Math Resource Review and Discussion
• Do we replace what we have or do we invest in support to supplement what we have?
• Do we break up our math resources by grade level bands or continue with one resource for all?
• K-3 Report Card Improvements
• Trimesters for grades preK-3?
• Changing K-2 report cards from "4, 3, 2, or 1" to "Exceeding Expectations (EE), Meeting Expectations (ME), Approaching Expectations (AE), or Needs Support (NS)"?
• Moving 3rd grade from numerical grades to EE, ME, AE, or NS (see above).
• 4-8 Report Card Modifications
• Drop down menu with strong, descriptive comments
• Eliminate O/S/N for conduct and work ethic? Use comments to evaluate these areas?
• Other modifications?
• 5th - 8th Grade
• Use of student emails for communication (5th Grade)
• RealTime Student Portal - provide access for students to check grades and assignments in grades 5-8 without accessing parent portal (potential for unauthorized contact information changes ;))
• PreK-8 Districtwide Tutoring Grant
• The district has been granted preliminary approval for a grant that would bring live 1:1 online tutoring to all students 24 hours a day/7 days a week in all subjects. Teachers will also have the ability to assign tutoring for students and allow access for students to engage in tutoring sessions during class time in small groups. Middle School students will also have access to an online "Writing Lab" to submit papers for feedback before submitting assignments. More work to be done and more details to follow as we have them!

These plans are not finalized and should not be considered "done deals". These topics have been raised numerous times in our team meetings and are worthy of discussions to determine the merits of moving forward. All input into these topics are and will be welcomed. Thank you all for your constant efforts to make our instructional programs work for our students and our teachers!

Wednesday, March 6th - Parent/Teacher Conferences, Evening Conferences

Thursday, March 7th and Friday, March 8th - Parent/Teacher Conferences, Afternoon Conferences, Early Dismissal (1:16pm) for students

Tuesday, March 12th - Wanaque BOE Committee Meetings

Monday, March 18th - Staff In-Service, Early Dismissal (1:16pm) for students

Tuesday, March 19th - Wanaque Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 pm in the Haskell School Gymnasium

Friday, March 29th - Friday, April 5th - Spring Break, Schools Closed

Monday, April 8th - Schools Reopen

We are very fortunate to have a group of parents take up the responsibility for leading the Wanaque Haskell Education Foundation (WHEF). From the WHEF website (https://www.wanaquehaskellef.org/index.htm):

Together We Strive for Academic Excellence!
The Wanaque Haskell Education Foundation is a non-profit organization committed to improving Wanaque Borough's two public elementary schools. The officers, its 15 member Board of Trustees and many regular members are constantly striving to raise funds and supply material, programs or scholarships to the schools and its students. We need your support to continue making a difference! Please explore our new website for more information about what we do and how you can get involved.

The WHEF has a grant program intended to support innovative teacher efforts in the classroom that support student learning. Please reference the grant application linked below for additional details. Grant applications require the signatures of your building principal and superintendent. All grant applications are due by March 31, 2024. Please refer to the grant application for details and how to have questions answered. Good luck!

Through a grant from the NJDOE, the Wanaque School District is able to provide live, 1 on 1, online tutoring to all students in grades K-8 in any subject, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week through a platform called Pear Deck Tutor. In addition to the tutoring supports, our students also have access to the Writing Lab. Students can submit their writing to receive feedback and input before submitting the assignment to you. Please use the links and resources below to encourage your students to take advantage of these great tools!

DID YOU KNOW?

All students are academic language learners.

Academic language is used in school settings by all students-both native English speakers and English language learners alike. However, this type of language is particularly challenging for MLLs/ELLS. These students are beginning to acquire English while at the same time school tasks require a high level of English usage. English learners must develop literacy skills for each content area(English, Math, Science, Social Studies etc.) in their second languages as they simultaneously learn, comprehend, and apply content area concepts through their second language(Garcia & Godina, 2004; Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007).

Strategies to teach our MLLs/Ells learn academic vocabulary

• Pronounce the word clearly and have students repeat it chorally and then to a partner.

• Add actions(total physical response-TPR)

• Note homophones(sum and some) and subject-specific words(table)

• Grammar matters-(the square, to square, a square tile)

• Student-friendly definition recorded in personal glossary or graphic organizer

• Opportunity to use word in context

• Provide practice review time

• Use word across all four domains(listening, reading, speaking and writing)

“Bilingualism is an asset not a deficit”

We invite you to learn from your colleagues in our Professional Development Academy! Take a look at the great expertise available to you in our Spring Brochure! If you enjoyed the offerings this spring and feel you could contribute, sign up to teach a course for next year. Just a friendly reminder, staff are required to attend 6 credits in our Professional Development Academy as per the WBEA agreement. Enjoy!

NEW! Effective immediately, all tenured staff will no longer be required to submit your weekly lesson plans to an administrator for their review. It is still expected that staff continue to appropriately plan their lessons, collaborate with their colleagues, and be prepared to share lesson plans if requested. Feel free to use a format and style that works for you.

Non-tenured staff will still be required to submit weekly lesson plans to their building administrators. We will no longer be using Frontline for the submission of lesson plans. Mr. Alloy and Mr. Biggins will share plans that work best for each building and staff to share these plans. We will be utilizing Google Drive for this sharing, but additional details will be shared by the building principals. As was stated before, the format of these plans

I apologize for the frustrations and struggles experienced in trying to submit lesson plans through Frontline. I would much prefer our teachers to focus on the actual planning and implementation of lessons for our students than the physical act of submitting the lesson plans. I appreciate your patience and efforts. Thank you!

Thank you all for your input and cooperation with scheduling our monthly team meetings. Please be on time and ready to discuss class/grade/department data and have discussions about student growth, classroom instruction, professional development or programs. These team meetings will allow us to discuss how the district can support you and your students in the classroom! The schedule is linked below for your review.

During the 2022-2023 school year, our District Evaluation Advisory Committee (DEAC) met to review our then current evaluation tool for certificated staff (Marzano) and make a recommendation to either keep that evaluation tool or choose an evaluation tool that better fit our needs. After a few meetings, the determination was made to change our evaluation tool for certificated staff to the Danielson Framework for Teaching. This framework was better conducive to having conversations about teacher practice and lessening the rigidity of our former evaluation tool. It is our intention to transition to this new evaluation tool to support great teaching in our classrooms.

Now that we have had some professional development regarding the philosophy of the framework, I wanted to share the rubric for how observations will be scored. The same scoring using numbers 1-4 that equate to ineffective, partially effective, effective, and highly effective still apply. The central theme in scoring higher in the rubric is to move your classroom environment using your classroom routines, expectations, and lesson design to give students more and more responsibility for constructing their own learning. Please take time to review the rubric and when you meet with your administrator for a pre-observation meeting or post-observation, have conversations about how the rubric would look in your classroom. Please reach out with any questions!

Just a reminder:

Domain 1: Planning and Preparation - scored during announced (long) observations ONLY

Domain 2: Learning Environments - scored during announced (long) and unannounced (short observations)

Domain 3: Learning Experiences - scored during announced (long) and unannounced (short observations)

Domain 4: Principled Teaching - scored during summative evaluation.

As the 1st round of announced observations begin, please use the Frontline Professional Growth Module - Employee Evaluation Management (EEM) guidance document at the bottom of this newsletter in the RESOURCES section for help in completing the pre-observation form, reviewing and acknowledging your observation, or any of the other items that need to be completed in our Frontline system.

To provide clarity and a common understanding, we have constructed the WBPS Observation and Evaluation Handbook attached below. Contained in this handbook are all of the regulations, timelines, procedures, and other important information for district staff regarding AchieveNJ, SGOs, observations, evaluations, tenure, etc. Please use this handbook as a reference with any questions you might have regarding observations, evaluations, and associated items in the Wanaque Borough Public Schools.

The mandated trainings for all staff are available through Vector Solutions (formerly known as SafeSchools). Please log in using the link below using only your email address.

These trainings are mandated by the state of New Jersey and the NJ Department of Education and can be different based upon your position in the district and your service time in our district. Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to my office.

Over the summer, the district transitioned to a new website hosting service, Apptegy. This new website will have better functionality to enable us to better communicate our our learning communities. A part of this new website is a new phone app with great district information and the ability to receive all of our district notifications in one place. We invite you to download the app to your phone as well! Just scan the QR code! The app is available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.