TOPS High School Weekly Update

Week of August 20, 2018

Empower to Learn. Equip to Succeed.

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August 20-24: Student Orientation with Content Teachers

Monday: English I, English II, Algebra I
Throughout week, as per master schedule: All Other Core and Electives

August 20-31: Boot Camp for English I, English II, and Algebra I Tues-Fri

September 3: Labor Day, No School

September 4: Full Master Schedule Begins

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10 Days until Instructional Level CC Sessions Begin
10 Days until Grades Pulled for the first Progress Report
10 Days until the Fall TTESS Announced Formal Appraisal Window Opens
19 Days until Constitution Day and Freedom Week Begins
23 Days until First Six Weeks Ends
29 Days until Compliancy Trainings (Region 10) are Due
34 Days until Benchmark 1 Opens

1. Continue to work on the Beginning of Year Checklist

2. New Blackboard Rooms were created for all high school teachers. Please let me know if did not receive the links.

3. Set your grade scheme for your course(s) by COB on Friday, August 17.

4. Plan for staff meetings and alternating content/grade level meetings.

2:30-3:00 Content/Grade Level Meetings

3:00-3:30 Campus Meeting (cancelled on 1st Wed. of the month)

3:00-4:00 TOPS All-Staff Meetings on 1st Wednesdays

5. Back-to School PD Follow Up

PowerPoints and Handouts from Back to School PD have been uploaded to SharePoint for your reference. Click here.

If you attended any of these presentations by Julie Terry, please complete this survey.

Increasing Academic Learning Time (all teachers)
Questioning Techniques (HS math teachers)
Teaching Math Like a Mystery (EL and MS math teachers)

Communications Regarding RES/TXVA and ourselves

We are not to market K12 or K12 schools (TVAH/TOPS or elsewhere) to iSVA (RES’ new online school) students. This includes any and all communication, including phone calls, texts, social media, or general conversation. In essence, if you are a K12 employee, do not discuss TXVA with any RES employee, stakeholder, or student (former or present).

If you recall previous messages about this topic, the message has not changed: “TXVA did not close. Instead—the name, curriculum, and management changed.”

If you encounter yourself in a situation as to where you feel uncomfortable, you are welcome to use the above statement.

Recommended Browser for all users

This summer, K12 sent an email message to all Learning Coaches reminding families to use Firefox when accessing course content. Due to flash compatibility issues, users of Chrome may have issues with course content loading. After testing, it has been determined Firefox is the most compatible browser for all courses and platform needs. In an effort to be proactive, a popup internet detector has been installed on the OLS only that will remind families of the preferred browser, Mozilla Firefox, should they be accessing the platform or coursework with any other browser.

Please help by constantly messaging the following to your families:

For the best user experience, we recommend accessing your online classes using the Mozilla Firefox browser. To download the most recent version of Firefox, please visit: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/.

Reminder for families: Set up Blackboard Collaborate

The following message was provided to students this summer, but we encourage you to continue to remind families of the reminders below:

Set up Blackboard Collaborate

Make sure your mic and audio are working before your first class by completing the Audio Setup Wizard in the Class Connect Configuration Room. Click here to get started.

Note: On August 1, 2018, Blackboard Collaborate released a new version of their software. If you downloaded the software before then, here are some quick steps to ensure you have the latest update.

Class Connect Session Naming Conventions

Forrest, Becky, Ashley, and Michelle 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 Algebra I B1_Pesek

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 Algebra I SG_Pesek

Samples

Instructional Level Based Sessions: 9:50-10:40 Algebra I B1_Pesek