Leading with Faith
June 4, 2024
by Chris Riso
6/14/24 Complete 2024-25 Professional Development Plan (Recommended)
6/16/24 Complete 12 Required Drills; Four must be Lockdown Drills
6/27/24 NYSED Nonpublic Safety Equipment (NPSE) Claims Due
7/1/24 First day 2024-2025 Textbook Orders are allowed
TBD NYSED Elementary School AIS Claims Due
8/1/24 NYSED MST/STEM Grant Submission Deadline
End of Year Checklist for Government Programs:
Order Hardware, Software and Library Materials from the District of Location to use up any remaining funds.
Eight required Fire Drills and four required Lockdown Drills have been completed.
Complete a written 2024-2025 Professional Development Plan based on identified student concerns and faculty/school needs.
Arrange for Title I, Title IIa, Title III, and Title IVa consultation with the public school district of school location prior to signing the “Written Affirmation of LEA Consultation” form in August. You will need to consult with other districts for Title I funding and services, only, based on qualified 2023-2024 free/reduced or similar poverty lunch counts.
Based on your Professional Development Plan for 2024-2025, start to think about where you will “keep” your Title IIa funds: with the School District of location, Erie 1 BOCES, NYSCIRS, or any combination of those three options.
2023-2024 Mandated Services Folder – Payroll Report, Benefits Reports, Receipts (BOCES; Scoring Workshop Fees; calculator purchases), Test Scorer Training Agendas & Sign in Sheets, Test Rosters with status clearly identified (Completed vs. Opt-outs; Exempt Students), copy of your Comprehensive Attendance Policy, copy of your Documentation of Integration of Required Instruction in 7th and 8th Grade (DIRI-Mandate 9), copy of school calendar showing student days in attendance and teacher days worked (after removing snow days).
Request and complete your School-specific Mandated Services Excel spreadsheet in July or August (update the “days in the year”; enter a “1” for each staff member participating on Mandates; update to actual payroll and benefits totals, not estimates).
School Safety Plan – If not updated recently, set up June or summer meetings to update or convert your emergency plan to a “School Safety Plan” before school begins next fall.
Review NYS Teacher Certification Status of your teachers.
Textbook Ordering – follow district or BOCES procedures and meet deadlines.
NYSED Elementary AIS Reimbursement Request due date TBA.
NYSED MST Teacher Reimbursement Request is due 8/1/23 (when available).
NYSED SEDREF Summer Update Due 7/12/24: The annual State Education Department Reference Application (SEDREF) Summer Update (School Administrators Listing) was posted to the Information and Reporting Services Portal (IRSP) on the New York State Education Business Application Portal (NYSED Portal) on June 1st. Catholic Schools should download their listings from the IRSP for review and update by the July 12th deadline. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Information and Reporting Services at Datasupport. Here is how to access your file and return it to NYSED:
Go to the NYSED Business Portal and click on the Information and Reporting Services Portal (IRSP) application.
You will be presented with the IRSP “Available Files from SED” Announcements page. This page will provide information regarding available files and download links for specific files/reports. In addition, you will also have access to the upload utility where files can be uploaded.
Find the title of the file you wish to download and click on it. The last item on your list should be “2024 Summer SEDREF Update - Nonpublic Schools” - this is the file you should download using the ⬇️ icon.
If your system has a default Download location set up on your computer, the file may automatically download to that location. If you do NOT have a default location set up, you should see a window asking you to “Browse/choose a location” to download the file (if so, choose a desired location on your local machine or network).
Once the file download is complete, view the downloaded file by navigating to the location chosen by you on your local machine or network.
Review the downloaded document and update it if needed. Incorrect information should be lined out and the correct information written immediately to the right. If no changes were made, please indicate “No Changes” on the document.
You have four options for returning the completed document by the 7/12/24 deadline:
Upload back to the IRSP
Scan and return to datasupport@nysed.gov with the subject as “SEDREF Summer Update”
Fax to 518-474-4351
Mail to NYS Education Department, Information and Reporting Services, Rm. 860 EBA, 89 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12234
by Julie Gajewski
From Good to Great: How Professional Development Transforms Teaching and Leadership
As part of our Strategic Planning Process for Catholic Education and Middle States Accreditation, we recently brainstormed a vision for the next 5, 10 years, and beyond. Thank you for your enthusiasm and ideas for the future. One of our immediate priorities in today’s dynamic educational landscape is continuous professional development for effective teaching and leadership, ensuring educators can meet the diverse needs of their students.
In Catholic education, a key goal is to help students discover their talents, fostering lifelong learning and personal growth. Our approach aims to guide students to become their best selves and live virtuous lives. We strive to develop teachers and school leaders who embody these lifelong behaviors through their commitment to ongoing professional development.
Just as athletes like Michael Jordan and Serena Williams continually refine their skills, school principals and teachers must engage in ongoing professional development to excel in their roles. Michael Jordan's career exemplifies perseverance and resilience in the face of setbacks, qualities that educators can emulate to view challenges as opportunities for growth.
The Catholic Schools Department of Education is excited to assist our schools with professional development planning. After reviewing academic data from the STAR assessments and 2022-2023 NYS ELA and math tests, along with feedback from the May 22 Principal Meeting, we have developed the following academic goals:
Science Curriculum: By June 2025, the PK-8 science curriculum will be mapped and reviewed with selected textbooks and resources. A committee, supported by professional development, will meet to achieve this, with progress tracked quarterly.
Instructional Improvement: By June 2025, each grade-level data team will use test and assessment data to identify 1-3 instructional improvement areas, aiming for a 3-5% increase in student proficiency. Supported by data team meetings and professional development, progress will be monitored three times a year.
Next Steps:
Schools will independently or collaboratively complete a professional development plan using their school data. Please submit these plans to Julie Gajewski via email by June 30.
We plan to launch professional development sessions with Erie 1 BOCES and other providers this summer. Principals, please complete the survey regarding summer dates by Friday, June 7.
Identify any teachers interested in curriculum development for science in grades PK-8. We aim to recruit elementary, middle, and high school teachers to work on curriculum maps for grades PK-5 and 6-8, as well as for the Regents courses Living Environment and Earth Science.
Consult with your STAR Champion to check their availability for attending a summer session focused on the MTSS framework and developing grade-level data teams.
Leadership Retreat
Calling all school leaders: Interested in learning more about leadership and grit. Check out the leadership retreat offered by Erie 1 BOCES this summer.
“Growing as a Leader from the Inside Out”
August 1 and 2 at Holiday Valley Resort in Ellicottville
Professional development for educators is not just a pathway to personal growth; it is vital for fostering a vibrant and dynamic learning environment for students. We look forward to collaborating with local BOCES providers and other professional developers to provide ongoing professional development for our teachers and principals.
by Laurie Wojtaszczyk
Schools that administered CBT exams for 3 – 8 exams: Please read this note regarding constructed responses available in Nextera from the 2024 testing.
The Renaissance website went through an update this week. If you have issues logging in, please reset your password. If you still have issues contact me and I will assist you. Renaissance is working on the problem as quickly as they can. Thank you for your patience.
You have until June 10th to complete the remainder of your STAR testing for all students. Thank you for completing this during our testing window.
by Nancy DiBerardino
The Character Virtue for June is Joy. Please submit your names here by June 14th.
Our calendar for the 2024-2025 year is ready, but is subject to change as the year progresses.
by Rachel Zeller
“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” — Leonardo Da Vinci
I recently had a conversation with a parent who was confused about what their child does in my classroom.
"I thought you teach Technology," they said.
"I do," I replied, then added, "But that's only one part of what I do." I then explained how though I do include tech as part of my curriculum, "T" is among five other, equally important letters.
Here's my opinion: Technology is absolutely important for todays young learners.
Here's my other opinion: Technology should absolutely not be the primary focus of STREAM education.
In 2021, Sadlier published a blog post in which the author noted:
"A successful STREAM approach seamlessly integrates ideas from the six disciplines into learning experiences. It is a vision that requires planning, development, support, collaboration, and communication."I couldn't agree more.
Another conversation I'll share from this week was with my sister, who works at SUNY University at Albany as a Library Strategist and Librarian. She mentioned a recent strategy session she'd had with some stakeholders where they indicated that higher education is becoming more and more incorporative with fields of study reaching far beyond any one particular major or concentration.
This isn't actually recent news. A study published in the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in 2010 concludes,"Based on the study findings, interdisciplinary teaching appeared to improve our preservice teachers’ ability to develop and reflect on curriculum, instruction, and assessment."I won't cite all of the additional articles I found in researching this post, but the interdisciplinary approach is happening in higher education, and it is the responsibility of those who are raising the next generation (parents and educators alike) to make sure our students have access to it as much as we can.
There are schools within our diocese who have chosen a strong emphasis on Technology when the topic of STREAM education comes up. In times past, this was certainly what educators across STEM/STEAM and STREAM were mainly focused on. However, as modern technology moves at a speed that even outpaces our current generation of elementary/middle school learners (and too often, our instructors!), any technology learning and usage in the classroom needs to be done deliberately and with care.
Some educators can be too reliant, keeping their students in front of screens more than providing opportunities for open, real-time discussion and interaction. Some educators are the opposite - perhaps using tech to show movies, but otherwise sticking to paper and pencils. It is crucial that educators find ways to strike the balance that most benefits our students.
A 2022 Edutopia article notes,
"When using technology in the elementary classroom, be judicious and intentional. Before implementing it, consider your goals for using it and whether it provides a functional improvement to a learning task. Documenting student learning, providing extra student support via audio or video, and enhancing student creation capabilities are all excellent ways for technology to improve the teaching and learning process."
In order to do this, educators need many opportunities (and the willingness) to have professional development that will enable them to keep better pace with classroom tech tools. If there are only a few teachers in the building who use tech (I call them Tech Gurus) as a singular instructional piece, it leaves open vulnerabilities such as:
- Students will not get the continuity and practice that they need (and truly they need some practice every single day!)
- If any of those Tech Gurus move on to other endeavors, it is very difficult to replace them with another TG that has the same knowledge set.
On the other hand, if for example the use of Google Classroom becomes the norm in most grades, then the students, parents, and even teachers who currently struggle, will quickly become adept at what to do with it. It is with routine use that users will develop the basic technological skills that are needed to move them into high school and beyond.
A well-rounded Catholic STREAM education should be looking at subjects and learning through an interdisciplinary lens, wherein there is collaboration within the building instructors (and beyond) which allows for congruent learning experiences. In doing so, this will inevitably lead to our vision of "Educating the Whole Child".
(c) Rachel J.L. Zeller 2024
All opinions and thoughts expressed are my own.
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Works Cited
Bertrand, Marja G., and Immaculate K. Namukasa. “A Pedagogical Model for STEAM Education.” Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, no. 2, Emerald, Apr. 2022, pp. 169–91. Crossref, doi:10.1108/jrit-12-2021-0081.
Campbell, Cynthia, and Mary Beth Henning. “Planning, Teaching, and Assessing Elementary Education Interdisciplinary Curriculum.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, no. Volume 22, Issue 2, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2010, pp. 179–86. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ930151.pdf, https://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/index.php.
ISSN 1812-9129
Johnston, Allie. STREAM: A Catholic Interdisciplinary Approach to Learning. Sadlier, Inc, 5 Apr. 2021, https://www.sadlier.com/religion/blog/how-to-integrate-stream-curriculum-and-stream-learning-into-religious-education.
McMahon, Molly. “Nurturing Excellence: Exploring Whole-Child Education in U.S. Catholic Schools.” NCEA Talk, 22 Feb. 2024, https://nceatalk.org/2024/02/nurturing-excellence-exploring-whole-child-education-in-u-s-catholic-schools/.
Robinson, Avra. “Effective Uses of Technology in Elementary School | Edutopia.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 21 Jan. 2022, https://www.edutopia.org/article/effective-uses-technology-elementary-school.
Torchia, Rebecca. “Technology in the Classroom & The Benefits for K-12 Schools | EdTech Magazine.” Technology Solutions That Drive Education, CDW, 16 Sept. 2022, https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2022/09/benefits-integrating-technology-todays-k-12-classrooms-perfcon.
Wyttenbach, Melodie, et al. “Whole Child Education in United States Catholic Schools: A Roche Center Conceptualisation and Framework for Analysis.” International Studies in Catholic Education, Informa UK Limited, Oct. 2023, pp. 1–18. Crossref, doi:10.1080/19422539.2023.2267703.
