Did You Know?
The Chick-Fil-A Leadership Academy is collecting items for a local homeless shelter. Students are in the process of generating a list of items. Please be on the lookout for more information towards the end of the week about how you can support students with their impact project.
Please review the Equity Professional Learning Catalog and select your professional learning session(s) offered by our very own staff members. The catalog provides a brief overview of the sessions and registration information. We are looking forward to staff members having positive experiences and growing their professional knowledge and skills within the equity framework. A special thanks to all staff members facilitating the sessions. A reminder that snow hours will be awarded to after school facilitators and participants. Visit the catalog at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V-2zlxFef2o7S8COaeS0D2NgTfuh45PNTB0sknmtPYQ/edit?usp=sharing
There is a new alert for the yellow triangle in eSchool. There are now three different alert triangles, and four reasons for a student to have a yellow alert triangle. “M”= medical, alert, “S”= IEP, and Blank= English Language services or 504 plan. Click on the blank triangle and see the pop up window indicating the type of alert.
During the months of October and November, Terri Villa completed an audit of our snow hours process. The only finding that was of concern across the District was verifying the time and date of viewing a webinar. A timestamp was not always evident making it difficult to determine if the engagement with the webinar occurred outside of school hours. Terri has spoken with the school level administration, district administrators, and the NCCVTEA leadership. It was agreed to count the hours of the DOE mandatory webinars (child abuse reporting, suicide prevention, homeless youth, etc.) that are offered through PDMS/Schoology since it can be verified via PDMS. Since many webinars provide a good deal of information and can be very engaging, we do not want to disallow them. However, since these hours allow you to trade off work time in June, we must follow a new protocol to ensure that the hours can be verified. The new protocol would consist of the following:
- Webinars can be viewed together in groups at your school
- An attendance list must be signed and returned to a lead person within the school or district who will then record it into PDMS.
- The webinar name and viewing time will be recorded in PDMS in the title.
- As of Tuesday, November 26, 2019, the above protocol is in place and expected to be followed. If you have any questions, please contact your building administration. He or she will contact Terri, if necessary.
Please pick an item off the giving tree by Mrs. Gliniak's desk for a resident at Governor Bacon. Our Nurse Tech students are completing clinicals at their facility and are spearheading a service opportunity by sponsoring several residents. Please consider giving and please have all unwrapped items into Student Activities by Wednesday, December 4th. The items will be delivered on December 5th. Thank you for your generosity in helping out these residents who do not have any other visitors/family members to show them love during the holidays. See https://www.middletowntranscript.com/news/20191112/holiday-sponsors-needed-at-delaware-hospital-for-chronically-ill for more information.
The Nurse Tech Pinning Ceremony is scheduled for 6:30 pm, Thursday, December 5th, in the lecture hall. You are invited to come and support our CNAs and our Nurse Tech instructors who trained them!
Do you want to recognize a student for showing a growth mindset in your subject area? Please submit growth mindset nominations to your department/cluster chair by December 6th.
Just like in an athletic coaching session, you get out of instructional coaching what you put in. Here is an article by Nina J. Morel, author of Learning from Coaching: How Do I Work with an Instructional Coach to Grow as a Teacher? (ASCD, 2014), shares six tips for teachers to bring their A-game to the coaching process-and improve performance.
Please reach out to Christa, Christine, Debbie, Donna, and Ry to test out the 6 tips.
Questions to Ponder:
Reflect on the following questions after you read the article:
1. How do you typically prepare for a coaching session? Based on what you read, is there room for improvement?
2. What could help you stay more present during a coaching session?
3. What actions might you and your coach take to remain accountable after a coaching session?
Congratulations to Charlee Crawford, junior Early Childhood Education student, for her invitation and acceptance to compete in the Rekjavik International Games in Iceland. Charlee received the invitation from the National Scholastic Athletics Foundation (NSAF). The National Scholastic Athletics Foundation is an athlete-centric organization focused on providing elite competitions and developmental programs to American youth and high school track and field athletes. Charlee is in elite company. Since 1984, 36 Olympic medals have been accrued by NSAF alumni. Charlee is one of twelve athletes who will comprise the team. Team NSAF selection is based on a number of factors, the most important of which is the athlete's potential to represent this country in the future.
Elijah Gibson-Cook is co-oping with our Maintenance and Facilities Department. Mr. Williams had an opportunity to go to work with him last week and reported that Elijah explained and demonstrated the task that Mr. Williams had to do in order to accomplish the workload for the day. Mr. Williams was impressed with Elijah's skill set. Elijah also received a shout out from Mr. Al Schrum, Supervisor of Facilities. He reported that Elijah was the first student that has ever co-oped with his department. He was impressed with the work that Elijah is doing, and he is considering hiring more students based on Elijah's performance.
Please make sure you congratulate Charlie and Elijah for the great work that they are doing.
"A shout out to Vaughn Williams for being the first member to join "The Throwback Turtleneck Tuesday" committee:), which has been renamed the "Throwback Turtleneck Thursday" committee. The purpose of the committee is to stay warm, show school spirit, and to show we can have fun participating in a silly theme. If you don't want to immediately pull over a turtleneck, we are looking to add "Throwback Turtleneck Thursday" as the Thursday theme for our next Spirit Week. There isn't an official record for most people wearing turtlenecks, so the goal is to put a high number to capture and then stay in the Guinness World Records:) A special shout-out to Jessica Bell for looking it up! If you want to join the movement all you have to do is wear a Turtleneck on Thursdays and meet by the Hawk cafe at 7:30 am for a quick picture. Let the movement begin! ~Shanta Reynolds
"A shout out to the team for being one of 37 schools that earned Exceeds Expectations ratings in 2019 on the Delaware School Success Framework (DSSF). DSSF is the tool Delaware uses to measure school progress for federal reporting. Exceeds Expectations is the highest rating possible on the four-level scale. The overall ratings are determined based on multiple measures, such as student proficiency and growth in key subjects, high school graduation rates and the progress of English learners. ~Shanta Reynolds
Mrs. Yvette Santiago, NCCVT Board President, asked me to share the following message: Congratulations on exceeding expectations on the 2019 DE Schools Success Framework! Well done and keep up the great work. Please pass along my sentiments to the team and staff! ~Yvette Santiago, NCCVT Board President
"A shout out to Beth Kudlick for her efforts to support new ELA 1 teachers throughout the District. Beth has provided resources and materials to share at CATL meetings. In addition to having the materials, the new teachers feel supported by their district colleagues."
~Allen Sylvester, NCCVT ELA and Social Studies Instructional Specialist
