The Week Ahead

January 6-10

Exciting Baby News!

Our 2nd grade family has grown! Brittany Kerns welcomed her precious bundle of joy, William Randall Kerns a bit earlier than expected. Both Mama and baby are doing well. William is currently in the NICU receiving lots of love and care. Let’s send all our love, prayers, and well wishes to Brittany, Lowden, and their little baby boy during this special time. 💕👶✨

Welcome Mr. Lewis!

Please join me in welcoming Mr. Donnovan Lewis, our new CCR teacher! Mr. Lewis graduated from NC State in December. He student taught at Holly Springs Elementary in the fall. It will take a little time for Mr. Lewis to get access to platforms like ECATS as he is starting off as a long-term sub. Thank you for your patience during this transition.

2024-2025 Grading Grids

Quarters in pink mean they're ready!

2025 School Goals

Overall Goal: Earn School Grade B (70% proficient)

Goal 1: ALL subgroups will meet or exceed growth in reading, math & science as reported by EVAAS.
Goal 2: The percent of students demonstrating proficiency will increase in

Reading from 49.2% to 68%
Math from 66.7% to 77%
Science from 67% to 90%

MOY mClass Benchmark Reminders

MOY mClass Testing Window: January 10 - February 3

High Impact Strategy Share

December: Think, Ink, Pair, Share

Effect Size: 0.79

When using Think, Ink, Pair, Share, we ask students to respond to a question and give them independent THINK time to process their response. Then, they INK by writing their thoughts on a sticky note or in a journal. Lastly, students PAIR up (using collaborative pairs) with their partners to share what they wrote down. The "INK" adds extra bang for your buck and increases the effect size as compared to the regular Think, Pair, Share protocol.

November: Distributive Summarizing

Effect Size: 1.00

Distributed Summarizing is stopping strategically at several points during a lesson to let students think about and solidify their learning through thinking, writing/sketching, or conversing about what was just taught.

Repeating to remember not only helps solidify new learning, but also helps in resetting attention spans, which is approximately their chronological age+ 1-2 minutes. (Rule of thumb, stop every 10 minutes)

You can use collaborative pairs at strategic points throughout the lesson to help with Distributed Summarizing!

October: Numbered Heads

Effect Size: 0.92

Numbered heads is a cooperative learning activity consisting of four steps. Students are assigned a number. The teacher announces the task and time limit. Students put their heads together, do the activity, and ensure the whole group completes the task.

As with any new strategy or procedure, be sure to provide explicit instructions, modeling, and practice time before expecting perfection and before giving up!

January Car Wash Sign Up

Science Fair Viewing Information

The VSES Science/STEM Fair will be taking place the week we come back from break.

Mrs. Weaver in the media center is allowing classrooms to do a walk through on

Tuesday, January 7th and Wednesday, January 8th any time after 11:45 am through 3:00 pm.

Please take 10 minutes or more to walk your class through so they can see all the great work our students have done! We have 58 students signed up this year!!!! It's also a great to spread the word for next year's fair.

3rd/4th/5th grade teachers:

Students participating should be released on Thursday after morning announcements so they can set up around 8:40/8:45. Judges will begin judging at 9:00 am. Thanks to all those who offered or accepted the call to help!

Spirit Night Staff Participation

Sign up to get a Papa John's Pizza Wednesday night!

2024-2025 Picture Folder

Let's capture the magic of this school year by adding pictures to our picture folder located in our shared drive!

2024-2025 Yearbook Information

Order your yearbook NOW to guarantee your yearbook arrives the first week of June. Waiting until later means you'll have to pick it up during the summer, and why wait when you can have it sooner?

🎨 Customize your yearbook with 2 FREE personalized pages featuring your favorite photos of your student(s)! It's a unique keepsake they'll treasure forever.

Have questions? Feel free to reach out to Kim Schuh and she would be happy to help! 📚✨

Staff Favorite Things

January 21 Protected Teacher Workday

We are thrilled to learn and grow together at our January 21st workday! We’ve curated some amazing session options based on your feedback, designed to leave you feeling inspired and energized to try something new. To help us plan effectively, please make your Interest-Based Session selections using this form by Friday, January 10.

While all teachers are required to attend both sessions, we’re excited to extend an open invitation to all staff to join sessions that spark their interest. Teachers, if you have tasks that your Instructional Assistant can help with during the day, IAs are welcome to hang back during session times to help get things done in the classroom.

If you have any questions, reach out to Ashley. We can’t wait to collaborate and grow together!

Share Attendance Concerns Here!

Important Quarter 2 Dates

Below are important dates to keep us on track for celebrating our students' successes and the effectiveness of your instruction! We will highlight this growth in our Q1 SIP Quarterly Review. These dates are created to help us pace our work and not get overwhelmed.

January 7: Staff Meeting
January 14: Committee Meetings
January 15: CDAT
January 17: Quarter 2 Ends
January 21: Protected Teacher Workday
January 28

Report Cards Go Home
Staff Meeting

February 4: LeaderSIP
February 11: Committee Meetings
February 12: CDAT Meetings
February 14: Data Due in Spreadsheet (including MOY mclass data), data Triangulation, and quarterly review documents completed
February 18: SIP Q2 Quarterly Review