Happy Valentine's Day! WE Day is right around the corner and I want to thank all of the presenters for their hard work and preparation to prepare for this day. Equally important, I want to thank those of you that attend and actively collaborate with your colleagues. Over the last three years, we have continued to review feedback regarding WE Day sessions. If you have ideas for sessions, please feel free to send them to the C and I Team. There is no silly idea and we promise that we will not ask you to lead something if you aren't up for that. Professional Learning, especially days like WE Day, are a wonderful opportunity for us to stay up to date on the newest research, pedagogy and best practices for education. It is also an amazing opportunity to dialogue with other staff outside of your school building! WE Day is also...what we each choose to make of it. I hope you'll lean in to the spirit of learning and growing-I look forward to seeing you!

-Kate

Your Building MLT Team will be meeting this week! This team of educators from your building will meet to review your building watch list and progress monitoring data. Members of this team will also meet with teachers who have concerns about students not currently on an intervention cycle.

MTSS is designed to meet the needs of all students by ensuring that schools optimize data-driven decision making, progress monitoring, and evidence-based supports and strategies. It is a system of educating all of our students and educating each of them completely as a "whole" person.

Six Key Tenets of the MTSS Framework:

1. All students are capable of grade-level learning with adequate support.
2. MTSS is rooted in proactivity and prevention.
3. The system utilizes evidence-based practices.
4. Decisions and procedures are driven by school and student data.
5. The degree of support given to each student is based on their needs.
6. Implementation occurs schoolwide and requires stakeholder collaboration.

Novak, Katie. In Support of Students: A Leader's Guide to Equitable MTSS. Jossey-Bass, 2023

Did you sign up for your mandatory Wit and Wisdom Module 0 training for this Friday, February 14th at WE Day? If you do not attend WE Day, please connect with your coach after 2/19 to be trained on the required Module 0 that needs to take place this April or May. As a reminder, this includes 6 lessons that walk you and your learners through the thinking routines and structure of Wit and Wisdom. It will also prepare you for repeating Module 0 to start your school year next year. Everything you need to implement Module 0 will be given to you at WE Day.

Other important news regarding our implementation of Wit and Wisdom has to do with materials that are heading your way. Our first shipment of Module 1 will be arriving on or before February 14th. Media Clerks will be hard at work barcoding and entering these materials in Destiny (be sure to thank your Media Clerk when you get a chance). These materials include the Teacher Guide, student workbooks, and the text collection that comes with Module 1. These will be delivered to your classroom by April 1st. Our goal in doing this, is that you have ample time to get your hands on your materials and have them available at your fingertips when you are ready to dig in. This will also help you visualize what space or organizational strategies you want to consider for receiving Module 2 and 3. As a reminder, we will maintain using the resources Heggerty, Fundations and Geodes and will be sharing a sample schedule at your Module 0 training to see how they all fit together.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you don't see "Dashboard" in the dropdown as shown in the video, click Mange from the dropdown and then you can access the old waffle icon including the Dashboard from there. After finding the print updates in the search, you will need to click "Add to Dashboard" before you can open it and select Grade 5.

The Franklin County Sanitary Landfill is an engineering marvel designed to protect the environment and regulated by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Every year, the landfill receives more than a million tons of waste material from Franklin County homes, schools and businesses, and every year, SWACO is happy to provide free educational tours to thousands of school-aged children. If your classroom isn’t already on the schedule to tour the landfill and learn about why we should all be recycling, check out the many different types of presentations available to teachers and educators. Then call 614-782-9429 or email tours@swaco.org to schedule your visit. SWACO can even reimburse your school for up to $220 per bus trip to the landfill.

Explore, touch, play, reflect and feel the history with our carefully curated and researched Boxes. Each Box contains a special collection of objects, maps, images, documents, books and lesson plans.

The Museum in a Box Program is a great way to incorporate object-based learning into your classroom, library or community events, and it promotes learning and engagement.

The rental fee for each Box is $50 for a period of 14 days. This includes shipment to your school, library or organization.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as The Nation’s Report Card, is the only nationally representative and continuous assessment of what America's students know and are able to do in various subject areas. The reading and mathematics assessments for grades four and eight are administered in all states on a regular two-year cycle. The No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Acts mandated that all states and districts receiving Title I funding must participate in the biennial NAEP assessments in reading and mathematics in grades 4 and 8, effective with the 2003 NAEP assessment.

Ohio Results

• Nationally, the 2024 grade 4 and 8 reading results decreased from 2022.
• Grade 4 mathematics performance improved, but grade 8 math shows no significant change since 2022.

Is there a colleague that is doing wonderful things and deserves some recognition? Are they doing something that others could benefit from in another building? Take a minute to fill out the following form and they will be highlighted in an upcoming newsletter!

Explore the resources below to learn more about the UDL framework and how it supports students in all tiers, grade levels, and content areas.

Add your idea(s) to the Padlet below and gain new ideas to try! One lucky contributor will be randomly selected for a prize. To be eligible for the prize, you must include your name and building on your post.

If being more organized is one of your goals for 2025, check out the pre-built tables in Google Sheets! All of the pre-built tables are customizable so you can save time by choosing the one closest to your needs and make it yours! They can be used in a variety or ways like a to-do list where you can prioritize by importance or deadline and link/attach relevant documents or websites, a hub for managing digital resources for a unit, a project planner for planning a school event with deadlines, person completing the task, and relevant attachments... the possibilities are endless! Open up a new Google sheet and if it doesn't automatically come up in a side panel on the right, click Insert > Tables to browse and insert a pre-built table template.

The Essential Elements of High Quality Instruction create the conditions for students to learn and demonstrate our Portrait of a Graduate competencies. These competencies will help students be successful in school and post-graduation. Together, they make up the district’s Educational Framework.

Ohio Energy Project facilitates a Wind Turbine Design Challenge where HS students assist 4th grade students from across the district to construct wind turbines under various parameters. The content specifically aligns with 4th grade science standards and provides both elementary and high school students experience using multiple science and engineering practices.

The challenge is specifically designed to foster critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. The activities model scenarios and simulations often seen on the fifth grade Science OST. The stations are also designed to encourage critical thinking and problem solving among 4th graders, as well as between elementary and high school students.

This year, fourth graders are keeping track of the greatest mass of washers lifted in each classroom. Take a look at our district leaderboard and give a shout-out to the fourth graders in your school for their hard work and collaboration!!

Director of Elementary Curriculum & Instruction

Department of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction

thomak@westerville.k12.oh.us

C&I Schoology Course (Access Code: 788PV-QP5S9)

District Decision Making Trees: K-3 ELA, 4-5 ELA, Math

24-25 District Benchmark Document

Elementary Digital Products List

Instructional Support Menu - Reach Out To Your Coaches for their Individual Support menu

AR Callibration Guide

AR Family Info Sheet

Tier 1 Gold Standards