Weekly Update
Monday, March 3-Regular School Day- Read Across America Day!
Tuesday, March 4-Regular School Day
Wednesday, March 5-Regular School Day
Public Budget Hearing in GPAC at 7pm
Thursday, March 6-Regular School Day, Senior Citizen Brunch
Friday, March 7-Wear jeans and your Gator Gear!
Although it's a "regular" school week, there are school based activities going on like NAEP testing at Littleville and Read Across America Day on Monday.
Mid Year Survey-Final week to complete!
Each year at about this time, I send out a mid-year survey to ask educators to complete.
These questions have been asked the last three years and I'd like to see the comparative data over time, even with varied conditions occurring throughout the district. I really appreciate your consideration to complete this.
The feedback provided will be anonymous. I will review the survey results to determine our progress towards the district strategy plan and to gather staff perceptions of the culture of the district and of your school.
I will then take out any identifying information from the survey results and then share the information with the Leadership Team. The results will be used to help the Leadership Team reflect and to set priorities for our district moving forward.
As stated above, your responses WILL be anonymous, but I do ask you indicate your in-district school.
Please complete by March 7. I believe this will take about about 15 minutes to complete well, and I appreciate you taking the time and sharing your insights!
Professional Development Coming Up on March 18!
Here is the information regarding the March 18 half day Professional Development Sessions.
This year, most of our professional development is going to focus on our instructional vision. You will notice that these sessions are a continuation of our work back in November.
The PD committee and leadership team are working together to present meaningful PD designed to support our staff. It was our combined goal that we would engage together in the deep work of looking at our instructional practices as a whole staff. From there, the elements of voice and choice should be present in how we plan for and implement instructional shifts. This led to a much more instructive professional learning offering, with the understanding that we have worked closely with the professional learning providers to ensure that the planning involved teacher voice and choice as well as immediately applicable learning. We look forward to engaging in that work together and appreciate your attention to these training sessions offered on November 5th so you can fully engage in professional learning. Registration will open on February 24, 2025. Please log in to Smart PD and register for your professional development sessions. If you need help, here are instructions for Smart PD. If you registered for your session back in November, you do not need to register again.
District
Pre-K Pyramid Model
Presented by: Marlene Robbins
Audience: Pre-K Teachers and Paraprofessionals
Location: Pre-K Classrooms
Time: 1:00-4:30
Staff will continue the work on implementing the Pyramid model. This will include team collaboration, attention to the modules and self-reflection work.
District Nurses- Session TBD- Deanna will send a separate email
Gateway Regional School
Student Ownership of Learning Continuation from November 5, 2024
Presented by Lynch Leadership Academy from Boston College
Audience: Secondary teachers and paraprofessionals
Location: GRS High School Gymnasium
Time: 11:30-3:30
Teachers will engage in a learning experience where they are asked to inquire deeply, get curious, and dig into new material. Through this learning, we hope to uncover what instructional moves support increased discourse, deeper problem-solving, and productive struggle. This learning will then be applied to planning for our own classrooms with support from the Lynch Leadership Group. We will ground the work in the Classroom observation tool and our Instructional Vision (above), then build the connections with productive struggle throughout both the observation tool and the instructional vision.
Littleville Elementary School & Chester Elementary School
Productive Struggle Continuation from November 5, 2024
Presented by The New Teacher Project (TNTP)
Audience: Elementary teachers and paraprofessionals
Location: Gateway Regional Middle School Gymnasium
Time: 1:00-4:30
Staff will engage in a deep learning experience in ELA, and answer:
Are all students responsible for doing the thinking in this classroom?
Students do the majority of the work of the lesson: speaking/listening, reading, and/or writing.
Students reason and make meaning of texts to persevere through difficulty. When teachers provide support, students still own the complex thinking.
Students talk and ask questions about each other’s thinking in order to improve their understanding about the text or topic.
Students provide text evidence to support their ideas and use topic or text-specific language in their oral and/or written responses.
They will then have some supported planning time to engage in applying their learning from the session.
Please come to the PD with access to the ELA unit/lessons that will be teaching the week following the PD session. You don’t have to determine the exact lesson until they engage in the PD, but we want you to have the opportunity to apply the learning with your upcoming materials.
Optional Fire Extinguisher Training
The Huntington Fire Department will be offering an optional, hands-on Fire Extinguisher Training on March 24 after school. This is a great opportunity to learn how to properly use a fire extinguisher in case of an emergency.
📅 Date: March 24
⏰ Time: 3:40-4:30 PM
📍 Location: start in GPAC, but then will go outside
This training is optional but highly valuable, especially for increasing confidence in handling fire safety situations. If you’re interested, please complete this google form to sign up.
Chester staff-if you are interested in attending, please let Heather and Mark know so they can arrange coverage so you can slip out a little early.
March Instructional Vision Challenge! (THREE Prizes this month!)
We will continue into March with inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the fifth two bullets in the instructional vision are:
Students will push through challenge tasks with a positive attitude.
Staff will trust students to succeed after productive struggle.
Staff are invited to fill out a brief (2-3 sentences!) summary of how you are implementing this part of our vision. It can be specific or general, and it should clearly describe how your actions are moving this part of our instructional vision forward.
Here is the link to share!
https://padlet.com/ksmidy1/march-instructional-vision-challenge-7xmxexo3ycau0pe5
To add to the board, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner and write in your submission. Finally, hit Publish and voila! You're done!
Staff who share how they are implementing or supporting implementation of December's focus area of the instructional vision by March 31 will be entered to win a $50 gift card to one of the following locations: Carms, Common Table, Moltenbreys, Amazon, Big Y, Dunkin or at a place of your choice that I can get a gift card with relative ease 😂
District Data for your review
I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.
This week is a little different. I wanted to be sure that you saw a few state and federal communication bits that have been going out recently.
The US Department of Education wrote a Dear Colleague letter to educational institutions receiving federal funds notifying them that they must cease using race preferences and stereotypes as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, sanctions, discipline, and beyond.
The MA Governor and Attorney General issued an updated joint guidance regarding their expectations for DEI work in a press release.
Current regulations around bullying and expectations about anti-biased are state directed at this time, and therefore we will be staying the course with the work and expectations we have planned, as this guidance is not legally binding or directive.
