Hawk Highlights

Thank you to staff members that participated in Challenge #11. Challenge #12 is a tie-in to the last challenge that also dealt with relationships. As discussed in Friday morning's faculty meeting, relationships with students are absolutely critical for their success. You never know what is inside a student's invisible backpack and a positive word can carry a student. For Challenge #12, try saying things to a student such as:

▪ You matter.

▪ You are somebody.

▪ I believe in you.

▪ You have the potential to be great!

▪ I enjoy having you in class.

Share your story at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPb3BOG-_wDN_GpCvzDL33xe1Y-xEWpKY4DmjnS0mP4/edit?usp=sharing

Also, a special thanks to staff members that purchased flowers for someone in our school as a part of the junior class relationship building fundraiser: Dave Williams, Jamie Williams, Nikki DiBuono, Anna Mitchell, Jen Kelly, Jenn Rodgers, Kat Lang, John Wilson, Ron Bythwood and Shanta Reynolds.

• New Email Signature: In a continual effort to standardize the brand of our school district and school, we will be using the image above in our email signatures for all emails sent externally. The image clearly describes what we do best for students and is easy to understand. People take notice when they see the same unique brand repeatedly, which furthers public recognition of our purpose. Please save the image above and insert it into your email signatures. Also, please add our vision after the image: The St. Georges Way: Every student & every teacher will learn and grow every day. Here are some additional directions on how to add the image if needed.

  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-and-add-a-signature-to-messages-8ee5d4f4-68fd-464a-a1c1-0e1c80bb27f2. Also, Christine Schumacher will add in-depth directions for different devices on schoology.
  

• February is CTE Month: The Association for Career & Technical Education has designated February as Career and Technical Education Month, or CTE Month. It's an annual public awareness campaign that takes place each February to celebrate the value of CTE and the achievements and accomplishments of CTE programs across the country. Our CTE teachers are celebrated for the impact their teaching and knowledge has on our students learning a skill or trade. A special thanks to each of our wonderful CTE instructors for working hard to ensure our students are learning and growing every day. We truly appreciate your continued efforts to prepare our students for post-secondary success. There is nothing more valuable than a hands-on minds-on education!

• ALICE Emergency Response Drill: Our ALICE drill is scheduled for February 25th at the beginning of 3rd period. All students and staff should be aware of the drill. Details discussed at last week's ACE Tech Day will be communicated in writing to staff this coming week.

• Food and Drinks In Classroom: During the last District liaison meeting custodians voiced their concerns about food and drinks being consumed in the classroom and throughout the building and students leaving messes and trash. Based on their recommendaton, we are asking that you not allow students to eat or drink in your classrooms.

• Freshmen Welcome Day: Freshman Welcome Day is scheduled for Saturday, March 21st from 9 am- 12 pm. Similar to last year, students that have been accepted into St. Georges will have the opportunity to come to our campus and have fun in our career areas, play carnival-like games in our gym, network, and learn more about our programming. We need staff members to participate in the event. EPER pay will be given to all participants at the $32/hour rate. Please provide your information at the link below to sign-up by the end of business, Thursday, February 20th. Details including specific assignments are forthcoming. In advance, we thank you for your participation. https://forms.gle/uJ7uDpvMwnWasxJG8

• CTSO Competition Update: Our SkillsUSA students competed in their leadership competitions this past week. It was great seeing the students dressed and prepared to represent SG in their competitions. Keep up the good work! See the picture of three of our Carpentry students', Brianna Nelson, Shatir Hall, and Cayden Hercules, promotional bulletin board that they presented in Wednesday's competition below. Web & Print, Information Technology, and our Construction Trades students are set to face off this week. We will be hosting the TeamWorks competition in our high bay Tuesday through Thursday. Feel free to stop by and watch our students compete.

• Join the Turtleneck Committee: Time to join the Turtleneck Committee is running out. Our last two Thursdays will be February 21st and February 28th. We encourage everyone to join the comradery and wear a turtleneck on those days. Join us at 7:32 am outside the Hawk Cafe to get your picture taken with the committee.
  

I really like using tools from my own writing to show the students how I also have to work at writing to grow. I also feel like modeling the type of writing that I am looking for will also help the students complete the assignment with more confidence. I do this when writing a lesson plan; I model how the process looks and sounds as I am writing for the preschoolers. I include scripted dialogue in the writing so the students understand the need for the planning process. ~Nikkie Bowe

I love the idea of interactive writing because the students are doing the lifting with your guidance. This is a strategy that I think would build confidence and independence in writing. When students are involved in the thinking process of writing, they are more likely to duplicate that on their own. I also think the piece about "re-reading to see how it sounds" is important to do together since that is what they SHOULD do with their own work, but often skip over. It's a perfect tool to teach the whole process from top to bottom.

In my classroom, I would probably tie this to an annotation activity. First kids would annotate for a given question, then I'd have them formulate a response together (either everyone on one google doc or by hand on the board) that answers the question using the annotations that they made. I would show them how in one text there can be multiple answers, and as a class we would write and revise different potential answers. I would then have kids share out how to incorporate evidence and as a class we'd pick the strongest one (clarity, accuracy, and flow). At this point, there would be time to discuss how to expand on evidence and finalizing it before reading it out loud one more time for revisions. ~Gin Conard

After looking at the information I feel as if I will and do use both the shared writing and the interactive writing techniques. Looking at the examples of both the students and the teacher I think I could do a bit better with both of these techniques and I plan on trying this in my up- coming unit. First, I will tell them information on the patient or even have a few students do a patient and then the students will have to call out ideas as to what will need to be in the report. I will lead them to what part of the report the information should be in. Then students will be writing reports and I will put the first sentence on the board and ask if someone else can come and put the next sentence on the board and so on. Doing these techniques aloud will allow the revision process to happen in real time. These activities will give the students a better understanding of the technical writing process. ~Cookie Immediato

In my class, I have used the technique of Shared Writing. When I first start off with a group of students, we write a model paragraph together so that they can see my expectations for a RAREE. Each student reads the same document and thinks about how they would answer the DBQ. Then we work as a class to write a paragraph on the board, and each student copies the paragraph onto his/her paper. Students discuss which piece of evidence is best for supporting their thesis and provide ideas on how to properly explain it. This will then serve as a model for the assignment being presented, as well as future assignments. ~Jen Janssen

The admin team had a great opportunity to recognize the next group of students receiving positive office referrals last Thursday. As always, we enjoyed the brief time with these students in the principal's conference room and really enjoyed calling home and congratulating their parents for supporting their students living our core values of being kind, being positive, being supportive, being innovative, and being a leader with integrity.

"I’d like to give a shout out to the wonderful inclusion team especially Megan Hackett, Sally Hines, and Jacky DiMascio who helped me out in so many ways this week when we had a lot of different things going on at once. These 3 amazing colleagues are truly SUPER HEROES to me. They do so much to support kids AND staff. Megan even took time at home to plan her own math lesson and taught it to an IM 2 class. The lesson was engaging and dynamic. She truly goes above and beyond to help the students." ~Kat Lang

"I want to thank Trish Williams for organizing and preparing our Teacher of the Year 2021 process. Trish does an outstanding job organizing the paperwork, scheduling the events, and recognizing our nominees that will be announced next week! Good luck to all!" ~Chad Harrison

"A special thanks to Jamie Williams and TJ Griffith for being flexible in prepping for this week's Web & Print SkillsUSA competition. They received last minute word on Friday about critical changes to the competition and they were able to move swiftly to be sure that students are supported." ~Chad Harrison

Monday, February 17th

• Presidents Day- Schools and Offices Closed

Tuesday, February 18th

• SkillsUSA-Teamworks Competition
• ACE: B Meeting @ 7:35 am
• Nutrition/Diabetes Workshop in Lecture Hall- 6-8 pm
• SkillsUSA TeamWorks and Web Design Competitions

Wednesday, February 19th

• SkillsUSA Teamworks, Cabinetmaking, and Computer Programming Competitions

Thursday, February 20th

• Department/Cluster/CTE Full Group Meeting
• SkillsUSA Teamworks, Computer Application, and Plumbing Competitions

Friday, February 21st

• NEA 10-Minute Meeting