Rose Ferrero School

This month KUDOS go out to our October 2024 Employees of the Month. Our Certificated Employee of the month (pictured on the right) is Spanish DLI Kindergarten Teacher, Angelina Pinedo. Ms. Pinedo began her teaching career here in Soledad back in 1997. However, after making stops in Long Beach, and then back to Soledad H.S., and then on to Frank Ledesma’s Bilingual program, Ms. Pinedo finally landed at Rose Ferrero at the start of the 2014-15 school year teaching the fourth grade. And after teaching third grade the following year, she landed back in Kindergarten in 2016-17 and is now the Kindergarten teacher for our DLI Spanish classroom. Born and raised in Soledad, Ms. Pinedo had educators in her family as role models – her grandmother was a teacher, and her mother was a teacher before becoming a principal. Therefore, after earning her bachelors degree in psychology at UC Santa Cruz (a very proud “Banana Slug”, she is, [she will tell you]), she earned her teaching credential at San Jose State. To Ms. Pinedo, the joy of teaching comes from the excitement she sees in the eyes of her students as they learn, and are able to do, something new – something they have never done before. She also loves the classroom community of learners she is able to develop through the mutual respect she and her students have for one another. Finally, Ms. Pinedo will tell you that she truly believes in our school district and all of the wonderful things we do for all our students, from the PLC/RTI process to making mathematics visual and creative.

Our Classified Employee of the Month is Pupil Supervisor, Jordan Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez (pictured on the left) began working at Rose Ferrero as a Pupil Supervisor almost exactly one year ago (Oct. 2nd, 2023). Before coming to Rose, he worked for three years as a Corrections Officer, but did not find that work as “rewarding” as he does working with students (more on that below). Born and raised in Salinas, Mr. Ramirez graduated from Alisal H.S. in 2009, and went on to Gabilan J.C., in Gilroy, where he played basketball for two years. His next stop was in Florida at a Catholic University – Ava Maria – where he continued his basketball career playing on their team during his Junior and Senior years. Basketball continues to play a large role in Mr. Ramirez’s life as he is ready to begin his second year as Varsity Head Coach of the King City H.S. Basketball team. When asked, he will tell you that working with students – of all ages – is much more rewarding than working in Corrections. Mr. Ramirez says that he wants to make a difference in kids’ lives – to be a positive influence for those that do not have someone in their life they can turn to when they just need someone to talk to. Mr. Ramirez says that he likes the positive atmosphere we have established here at Rose Ferrero and wants to help keep that going by steering kids down the right path.

Congratulations to both of you – our Employees of the Month of October 2024. Having both of you on our team helps make Rose Ferrero the best it can be.

The link between teaching and learning is assessment: When teachers collect and analyze evidence, they can determine what students have learned and what they still need to learn. This process of checking for understanding should influence future instruction that students receive. Since understanding develops over time, teachers can use short, medium, and long cycles of assessment to increase the likelihood that students are learning.

Short-Cycle Assessments: These assessments are implemented within and between lessons, often several times during the lesson. They allow teachers to adjust the learning experiences in real time as the lesson unfolds. For example, asking students to respond to a poll or summarize their learning in writing during the lesson provides teachers with evidence of students’ current understanding. Using this information, teachers may decide to reteach a concept, meet with a small group of students, or accelerate the pace of the learning BEFORE the Medium-Cycle Assessment, or the preset, Common Formative Assessment.

Medium-Cycle Assessments: These assessments are very similar to our Common Formative Assessments, and they span several days or even weeks and occur at the end of major chunks of learning. These medium-cycle assessments give teachers the ability to revise future lessons based on students’ progress during or between units. For example, a quiz, practice test, or presentation provides teachers with information about students’ learning and understanding at specific points during the unit. Using this information, future lessons can be adjusted or skipped, depending on student performance. Medium-cycle assessment can be used by teacher teams to discuss teachers’ impact and generate ideas for improving students’ learning.

Long-Cycle Assessments: Similar to a End-of-Unit Assessment, these interim assessments serve as benchmarks across an academic standard or unit of study. Unlike short- and medium-cycle assessments, long-cycle assessments provide teachers with a longer view of what learning has occurred thus far, and how to gauge future learning such that teachers can pace instruction to meet course objectives. In addition to allowing teachers to adjust future units, the evidence from these assessments can be used to identify additional areas of intervention for students who are not yet responding to teachers’ ongoing efforts to adjust their learning ­experiences.

There are several ways to check for understanding, including:

• Non-verbal: Watching students as they engage in learning tasks provides teachers with information that they can use to adjust the learning. Teachers who develop expert noticing skills recognize when students are not understanding or applying what they are learning. For example, a teacher may notice that students have a strong number sense and then accelerate the lesson to focus on tasks that will challenge students. Or the teacher may notice that students use extensive personal connections while discussing texts and push them to integrate evidence from the text in their responses.
• Questions: Asking questions is the most common tool that teachers use to check for understanding, but it is not always the most effective because questions might be literal or too basic. For example, closed-ended questions prompt responses that are restricted to a limited set of possibilities, so they typically provide teachers with information about students’ surface-level understanding of factual and detail-oriented information. Open-ended questions, in contrast, allow for a free-form response to understand student thinking. They are more useful for checking for understanding because they provide teachers with opportunities to clarify what students understand and to probe knowledge and application.
• Writing: When students write, they share their thinking (another reason our students should spend more time writing!). Sometimes, writing helps students clarify their thinking. Analyzing student writing provides teachers with information about student understanding and what they still need to learn. Essays are not the only writing students should do to demonstrate their understanding. Shorter writing pieces are also useful in checking for understanding. The key is to provide students with a prompt that allows them to share what they know. One short writing piece that is commonly used is RAFT (role, audience, format, and topic), which helps students develop perspective as they write.

Regardless of the tools that are used to check for understanding, two points are important to consider. First, ensure that the assessment evidence that is collected builds over time. Short-cycle assessments should be logically connected with medium- and long-cycle assessments. Lack of alignment can result in missed opportunities to extend student learning. When assessment tools are nested, student understanding is monitored across time. Second, look for student strengths. When teachers choose to focus on strengths and assets, they are more likely to uphold high expectations for students, rather than focusing on deficits or gaps in learning. This positive mindset also ­reinforces teachers’ confidence because they recognize the impact they are having. In sum, teachers should regularly collect evidence from their students as they are learning, recognize the strengths their students demonstrate, and plan future instruction to accelerate learning.

The August/September Awards Assemblies & Special Recognition
Last Friday was our first Academic Awards Assemblies of the year. During the Kinder & First Grade Assembly and Second-Third Grade Assembly, teachers recognized students with the Growth Mindset Award, the Reader of the Month, and the Mathematician of the Month. The Fourth thru Sixth Grade Assembly was similar, with the addition of teachers recognizing their Writer of the Month.

In addition, at this beginning of the year assembly, we recognized students for their outstanding growth on the CAASPP last spring. Ten student’s names were presented to the audience for outstanding growth in Mathematics – the top student had 153 points of growth to Student number ten with 113 points of growth. Keep in mind that we look for student growth of at least 50 points, so these students really went beyond that number. However, the student with the most Growth on the 2023-24 CAASPP in Mathematics was Nestor Torres-Santiago with 164 points of Growth (pictured on the left of the photo below).

For ELA, The top student grew an astronomical 257 points from the previous year, all the way to student ten who gained 139 points of growth. However, Aiden Tavarez (pictured at the far right in the picture above) set the all-time Rose Ferrero record for growth on the CAASPP by increasing his score from last year by 293 points!

Finally, this past spring, we had three students earn perfect scores on the CAASPP!

Pictured from left to right (in the above photo), Alia Pinedo recorded a perfect 2730 on the 5th Grade ELA test, Isabel Aguilar scored a perfect 2730 on her 5th Grade ELA test, and a perfect 2740 on her Math assessment (the second year in a row she recorded a perfect score in ELA and Math, by the way!), and on the right is Valerie Amador, who scored a perfect 2690 on her 4th Grade ELA assessment! Congratulations to all of our scholars – Kinder thru Sixth Grade – who were recognized for their academic achievements for the months of August and September at Friday’s Awards Assemblies.

Thinking is something we do constantly, and since the brain is always in a state of activity, one of our responsibilities—as educators—is to teach students how to think and how to regulate this activity. This is one reason why the practice of teachers modeling their thinking in front of their students – using “I” statements – is such a powerful instructional practice. The process of being aware of and manipulating one's thinking is defined as metacognition.

Throughout the school day, there are many opportunities to develop students' metacognitive skills. As mentioned above, there is power in providing students with a think aloud that includes a clear model because it gives students insight into your thought process. Similar to the writing process, a modeling one’s thinking gives teachers an opportunity to demonstrate how to plan (prewrite), carry out (draft), monitor (proofread), and adjust (revise) thinking.

Coupled with a clear model (showing students how to do it), a think aloud provides students with the experience necessary to approach similar situations appropriately. Students can practice think alouds to bring awareness to their own thought processes. Not only will the students benefit, you—the teacher—can use the information as formative data to determine subsequent instructional steps.

Considering there are often multiple pathways to arrive at a solution, math activities create

many opportunities for students to showcase their thinking. One way to do this is by creating

a culture of learning in which students explain and demonstrate their thought process. This is

where Number Talks comes into play. Number talks are brief discussions (5–15 minutes) that

focus on student solutions for a single, carefully chosen mental math computation problem.

Students share their different mental math processes aloud while the teacher records their

thinking visually on a chart or board. The teacher often names the strategies each student

uses. Other students may question, critique, or build on the strategies that are shared. This

process works best when the teacher allows multiple students to share their solution strategies. If their thought processes are disparate, great! Students will be able to hear and

see the diversity of thinking among their peers.

An effective reader demonstrates understanding of what he or she reads. For comprehension

to take place, however, the reader must be cognizant of his or her understanding of the text.

Monitoring and clarifying—a metacognitive skill—is a reading strategy that a good reader

naturally applies. This strategy focuses on two aspects: awareness and regulation. The reader

monitors and regulates his or her comprehension by a) Noticing when something does not

make sense; b) Realizing that he or she is confused; and c) Knowing when to slow down and

reread. Teachers can showcase these strategies by—you guessed it—providing a think aloud

model of monitoring and regulating comprehension while reading. You can also ask students

to share instances when they have applied these strategies and how it helped them

understand the text.

Like math, science experiments are ideal for building metacognitive muscle, as monitoring

and adjusting thinking are an integral part of the scientific method. While students are

investigating and conducting their experiments in class, teachers have ideal opportunities to

ask questions: a) What new questions do you have? Why? b) What was an initial thought you

had that changed? Why? c) What do you need to do next? Why? d) What do you need to do

over? Why? e) Would it be a good idea to change variable x? Why or why not? In asking such questions, students must think about their thinking, revise their thinking, and even consider the effects of their decision-making.

Developing and creating independent learners is a common phrase found in the mission of

schools, globally. For students to be effective, independent learners, however, they must have metacognitive muscles. Why? He or she will have to constantly self-assess and make

decisions in order to reach learning goals. For example, the independent learner will need to

continually: a) Monitor where he or she is in relation to the goal; b) Monitor what is working; c) Monitor challenges he or she has experienced and think about challenges he or she will likely experience; d) Monitor gaps in learning; e) Think about the resources and supports that will be needed to attain the goal.

The brain is always doing one thing: thinking. As educators, one of our responsibilities is to

teach students how to think when they are in academic situations. Throughout any given

school day, we have many opportunities to teach metacognition and to provide students with metacognitive practice. If we do, we can help students strengthen the muscle that can lead to better decision-making and increased learning

1) Teachers: Please remember that assessment capable learning means that students can assess their own learning – they are aware of their current level of understanding in a learning area, they understand their learning path and are confident enough to take on the challenge. In order for students to understand how to do this, they need to have clear learning intentions and success criteria.

2) Teachers: Please remember to be outside on the yard for the 10 minutes of Yard Duty you share with your Grade-level Team. Sometimes we are short Pupil Supervisors, and we are counting on your presence out on the yard to keep our students safe. Thanks.

3) Teachers: Please remember to get your $250 ESSER order into Anabel as soon as possible. (Our deadline is Friday, Nov. 22nd, but the sooner you place your order, the sooner you will receive the items you ordered.)