TOPS Middle School Weekly Update

September 7: Invite the August 29 cohort of students to CC sessions and send email

September 14: Day in the Park Outing

September 17: Staff Development Day, No School for Students

September 17: Constitution Day

September 17-19: TOPS Admin are out of the office at the Central Region Summit

September 17-21: Freedom Week

September 21: Invite the September 12 cohort of students to CC sessions and send email

September 21: Six Weeks 1 Ends

September 24: Grades are pulled at 8am for SW1 Report Card

October 8: P/T Conferences, No School for Students

October 9-12: Benchmark 1 Week

5 Days until Day in the Park Outing

6 Days until Constitution Day and Freedom Week Begins
10 Days until First Six Weeks Ends
15 Days until Compliancy Trainings (Region 10) are Due
22 Days until Benchmark 1 Opens

29 Days until Benchmark 1 Analysis Day

#DataNerd

Fun fact: Nerd: Dr. Seuss was the first person to use the word "nerd" in his 1950 book, If I Ran the Zoo. The word was used as a noun to describe one of his creatures, but a year later it appeared in a Newsweek article as Detroit teenage slang for someone who was "a drip or a square."

Pick 5 = 5 calls/day to students x 4 days/week = 20 calls/week

• Note them in Total View with "Pick5" in the subject line
• Don't focus solely on the struggling students. Call the ones that are doing wonderfully too.
• Try to make sure to reach out to every one of your students at least once/semester as you make your Pick5 calls.

See your lead if you have more questions. :-)

This information will be kept confidential, however if you are out sick or have technical issues we need access to your online school account.

Book Study for Professional Development

Purpose: Complete 6 hours of professional development related to your TTESS goal.

Book: Teacher will locate a book that is directly related to development in the focus area of their approved TTESS goal. The book will be approved by the teacher’s appraiser or principal. The cost of the book is not reimbursable.

Structure: Teachers can complete a book study together with another teacher that has a similar TTESS goal or individually. Reflections will be submitted to the appraiser and principal by the end of October, December, February, and April. Reflections can be completed by summarizing what was learned as an essay or any presentation format (PowerPoint, Screencastomatic, Jing, etc.). Teachers that completed a book study will complete a 3-5 minute presentation at a campus meeting in May to share new strategies or information that they learned.

I would like to highlight and share great organizational or instructional strategies that you are doing. If you have a great strategy to share or know someone else that does, please submit their name to this brief survey.

From Crystal Frost: Icebreakers for Building Class Culture

Yesterday when I was leading an 8th grade girls small group at church I had an epiphany. They were all new girls and even though they had been chatting with other friends before we “got to business” they all became very quiet within our small group. At first I thought it was a reflection on not liking me, or something I was doing wrong but then it hit me. They weren’t comfortable with each other and that was causing them not to participate in the discussion. And then I got hit with another thought. If kids in a person to person setting feel this way, I know our virtual students do too.

After that realization set in, I started thinking about how to foster a sense of community within our class as we start out. So today, instead of going full speed ahead into the lesson I took a step back. I explained to my students that participation is key to being successful but I realized that they needed to know each other to get to that level of comfort to participate. So I took 4 minutes at the beginning (set the timer) and told them I wanted to private message the person above them and below them one interesting thing about themselves and reply back to anyone who messages them. They LOVED it! Even better than them loving it, I saw almost 100% participation in that group in the BORs.

So my goal moving forward is to give them some icebreaker activity to create that community.

We have started to compile all of our QRGs and OMS tips and tricks documents into a QRG library on the Middle School Sharepoint site. Check it out!

Please share!

www.tinyurl.com/parent-shareastory

This form is to let the Sunshine Committee know if you or one of your fellow teachers has something that needs to be celebrated, recognized, or to help us come along and support them through a rough patch.

https://na2.docusign.net/Member/PowerFormSigning.aspx?PowerFormId=ad1d27e0-0508-4187-9975-ad9e5ca1522f

Forrest, Elizabeth, Crystal, and Heather must be added as moderators to all CC sessions.

Normal naming convention

• Beginning time-Ending time Content Grade/Class/Group_Name
  
• Class refers to Targeted (B); Advanced (A); Proficient (C)
• Group refers to the day you see them.
• For example –Proficient on Mondays is 1, Tuesdays 2, etc.
• example: 9:50-10:40 Math 6B1_Crow

Small group and reteach

• Same as normal naming convention except instead of the Class/Group you would insert SG for small group and TG for Targeted
• For example: 12:20-12:50 Math 6SG_Crow

Samples

Instructional Level Based Sessions: 9:50-10:40 Math 6B1_Crow

• A- Advanced, B-basic/targeted, C- Proficient; 1,2,3 are the sections you have. So your 1st Targeted Group is B1.

Small Group: 12:20-12:50 Math 6SG_Crow

Reteach: 9:50-10:40 Math 6RT_Crow

Boot Camp: 9:50-10:40 STAAR Math Boot Camp_Crow

Middle School Principal

Email: elnelson@k12.com
Website: https://tops.k12.com/
Phone: (469) 893-0366
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avzaelizabeth.brown
Twitter: @MrsENelsonTeach