
District Student Achievement Team
September 2019
Welcome Back
It’s already mid-September and that means that summer is definitely coming to an end. Actually, summer won’t officially end till next week. But there’s no need to feel sad about it, because we’ve kicked off another great year in Warren Woods Public Schools and look forward to continuing our work together to help improve student achievement. This team aims to provide an opportunity to learn new ways to collaborate, bring awareness to progress and our efforts within the district, and to help us grow together as a learning community.
This summer we were fortunate to welcome some outstanding new instructional staff to our team. The addition of new staff provide an opportunity for new ideas and a fresh perspective.
This year were excited to welcome:
· Brian Potts, Briarwood Elementary First Grade
· Rebecca Smolarek, Briarwood Elementary Kindergarten
· Rachel Woelkers, Westwood Elementary Fifth Grade
· Alissa Lamorand, Westwood Elementary Fourth grade
· Monica Bisha, Warren Woods Middle School Social Studies
· Jessica Rose, Briarwood & Pinewood Elementary Art Teacher
· Meagan Wilson, Warren Woods Middle School Math Teacher
· Abbey Moehlau Warren Woods Middle School Counselor
· Melissa Baccus, Warren Woods Tower High School Social Studies Teacher
· Kyle Tisler, Warren Woods Tower Science Teacher
· Windiellen Stallman, Warren Woods Middle School Special Education Teacher
· Elizabeth Mors, Warren Woods Middle School Science Teacher
Lastly, as we kick off the year, I would be remiss if I didn’t thank you for your leadership and participation on our District Student Achievement Team. Your engagement is an invaluable asset that helps us continually improve and positively impact student achievement.
2019 New Teacher Orientation
SCHOOL UPDATES
Bond Update
Assessment Update
We've recently initiated our Fall NWEA testing for students in kindergarten through eleventh grade. This data is powerful to our classroom teachers, as well as our building and district level teams. We strive to use this data to make informed instructional decisions at the classroom, building, and district levels. Teachers are preparing students for this experience by engaging them in the goal setting process, educating students what the test means, and how we use the results. The test is unique in that the goal isn’t to get a 100%. Students intentionally only get 50% of the questions because it is an adaptive test. MAP Growth measures what students know, regardless of their grade level. It also measures growth over time, allowing us to track students’ progress throughout the school year and across multiple years. This feature makes it possible for our teachers to pinpoint what each child needs in order to learn best.
We continue to work with our NWEA support team to provide support and training to our instructional teams. We look forward to the upcoming October NWEA data coaching training with our leadership team.
The state has also recently released the 2018-19 M-Step results. We will have an opportunity to review this data in more depth during on meeting on September 26th. If you’d like a sneak peak, please feel free to peruse the information by visiting MiSchool data using the link below.
Special Education Update
Instructional Technology Update
Technology Support
Just a friendly reminder to our staff, if you have a technology issue, please submit a Helpdesk Ticket through the SchoolDude system. If you’re unable to submit a ticket due to any reason, please ask a colleague or someone in the office to submit one on your behalf. It is imperative that a ticket be submitted since we only have two technicians to service the technology needs of the entire school district.
Technology Upgrades
There were a number of routine and bond related technology upgrades implemented over this past summer, some of which are still in progress even as the school year has gotten underway. Aside from infrastructure upgrades that are in the walls and/or above the ceilings, below are a few highlights of projects that are both visible and can be felt, or will soon be.
Nearly 95% of our computers district wide have been upgraded from the old Windows 7 operating system to the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system. The remaining 5% of the computers that haven’t yet been upgraded are computers that are scheduled to soon be replaced. This operating system upgrade was necessary due to Windows 7 becoming end of life and also not being supported on computers that have been acquired within the past 12 months and into the future. Our staff and students have been very receptive to this necessary upgrade and any reported bugs of glitches have been quickly resolved.
Our previous district wide phone system that was beginning to have a lot of technical issues was fully replaced with a new state of the art voice-over-IP system that is much more robust and flexible. All of the telephone handsets district wide now have caller ID and a missed call history. While these may seem like minor features, they are a huge improvement for our classrooms and staff. Previously classrooms didn’t have these features and if a teacher was across the room, helping a student, or in the hallway and heard their phone ring, they would have to run and try to grab it before the call went to voice mail. In this example, now they can simply press the history button to see who called and return the call right away.
A new swipe card access control system is still being implemented. This project has been a rather large undertaking and is still being rolled out. There are numerous external doors at the school buildings throughout the district that, once the project is complete, will allow our staff to badge in with a swipe card. Card readers, some door hardware, and programming still need to be completed at the buildings, as well as configuring the permissions and printing out badge swipe cards for all of our staff. While this project is more of a facilities function, there is a technology component because of how it interfaces to the network which is why it is being mentioned here. More information to come in a future update!
Lastly, as part of the bond initiative, all of our teaching staff will be getting a district laptop. The order was placed late this summer and the technology department is awaiting delivery of the various pieces to arrive. Once everything arrives, the technology team will begin to image and load each laptop, inventory it, and then work with the building principals on a deployment plan to get the laptops into the teachers hands. As a reminder, these laptops will not be replacing the classroom desktop computers that are connected to projectors, SMART boards, document cameras, etc. Due to the wide range and age of said equipment, there isn’t a way to integrate laptops with ease to our end users without causing problematic glitches, errors, blue screens, crashes, etc.
The long range plan is to remove the old classroom desktop computers at a time that we can begin to replace the projectors, SMART boards, document cameras, etc. with equipment that supports wireless connectivity in a standardized way that allows our teachers to move between rooms and buildings without the need for special software, configurations, etc. In the mean-time, once the laptops are deployed, our teaching staff will be able to utilize the flexibility of their laptops as supplemental technology in the classroom (attendance, gradebook, resources), for staff meetings, professional development, PLC meetings, etc. More information to come in a future update!
State and Federal Programs - Grant Updates
Title I
Celebration!
This past summer we were proud to offer a sweet treats and book give away. It was a beautiful night and great opportunity to see our families and promote the love of reading with our students. We look forward to our future events. Listed below you'll find a flyer that provide our drafted plans for events this year. While, admittedly, many of them are still in work in progress, we are excited to look at new ways to engage our families and use these opportunities to create lasting partnerships with our parents. More information will be coming about our planned events.
31A State At-Risk Funds - all levels and buildings
Section 31a programming supports the Top 10 in 10 strategic goals, specifically seeking to reduce the impact of high-risk factors on students. Our 31A State At-Risk funds are intended to help us address our student attendance concerns, improve proficiency in reading and mathematics, and being career and college ready by high school graduation.
List below is some of the “At-Risk" criteria:
Economically disadvantaged
English learner
Chronically absent
Victim of child abuse or neglect
Immigrant who has immigrated within the immediately preceding 3 years
Did not achieve proficiency on the English Language Arts (ELA), mathematics, science, or social studies State summative assessments
At risk of not meeting the LEA's core academic curricular objectives in ELA or mathematics based on local assessments
While a state budget still has not been resolved, we are actively working to implement our 31A supports to students. Some of these activities include attendance liaisons intended to help improve communication between our families and schools & encourage regular attendance and academic and behavior interventionists. Much time will be spent this year on digging into our data and reviewing our existing programming and supports to generate new ideas on how we can best serve our at-risk students. Due to Michigan's accountability measures, this year will be spent identifying our most dire needs and may be forced to redirect 31A funds (not yet allocated by the state) to specific areas of need. This will be an ongoing process and we're thankful that the state has provided some guidance on how to approach this work.
35A Additional Instructional Time Funds - Elementary Level
About Us
Email: kbeal@mywwps.org
Website: http://www.warrenwoods.misd.net/
Location: 12900 Frazho Road, Warren, MI, USA
Phone: 586.439.4469
Facebook: facebook.com/Warren-Woods-Public-Schools
Twitter: @WarrenWoodsPS