January 29th to February 2nd

TED Talk of the Week

This TED Talk reminds us how important movement for creativity.  Want to be more creative? Go for a walk.

Thank you!

• 4th grade team, Dan, Theresa, and Francis for leading a great assembly on Tuesday.  It was wonderful seeing our students celebrating respect in the ES! 
• John C for organizing the MIT student visits to ES classrooms.  This was a great way to see some of the things our students will be doing next year in the maker space lab.Allan, June, Francis, and Layne for running an informative Shrek the musical parent meeting.  You are creating an emotionally safe environment for our community.
• ELL team for offering language support classes for students who need the extra help.  You are ensuring all our students have the tools to be successful at KISJ.
• Sara, Theresa, and Neyda for hosting suicide training sessions in the computer lab.  Your support and snacks help make the course a bit more positive. 
• Ryk for leading the Friday PD session.  You helped create a shared understanding of how we can use assessment date to move our students forward. 

From Neil, our Substitute Coordinator  

As the year progresses, lesson plan quality submitted to the sub office has a tendency to decline. This makes it difficult for the substitutes to effectively continue learning in the absence of the regular teachers. Please consider using the sub lesson plan templates (found on your divisional intranet page) linked on the leave requests. The templates ensure the subs are able to execute lesson plans more effectively and efficiently.

A few quick further notes teachers can do to help the sub office:

• Please do not submit lesson plans as a Pages doc. Pages docs share very poorly and the sub office quite often struggles to open them when we need them. 
• Please do not use the "Use my emergency plans" option unless it is an emergency. We prefer to reserve those plans for emergencies. It is okay to submit incomplete lesson plans if the day you are requesting is too far in the future to effectively plan the entire lesson. This helps the sub office keep information organized and in one place. 
• Please don't forget to specify what assignments should be collected in your lesson plans. 

We would also appreciate it if you could fill out this short survey! It will help the sub office improve our services in the future.

Support for our Students

Beginning January 22nd

• Students who do not use the connecting language in class or in the hallways will receive a reminder from their teacher. 
• If a specialist gives a student a reminder, they will email the HRT the students name.
• If a Student receives multiple reminders during the day the HRT will send an email to Cynthia, Bin, and Bonnie with the students name
• The ES Office will then organize a time for the student to receive extra language support during 1 activity class. These classes are planned by the ELL Specialist teachers.

This is an example of the types of activities the students will do in the support classes.

"Round Table Activity" which works as follows:

Sentence Stems Roundtable

Prepare a list of unfinished sentences and give one copy to each student in class. Allow 10 minutes or so for students to complete the sentences in writing, using true facts from material they’ve read or learned about recently. Students then partner up and share responses. Ask them to rotate after a set amount of time and share with a new partner.  To ensure the student(s) have access to the sentence stems, they will be given a pre-printed list of sentence stems which they must have during whole group time. That way they can refer to those sentence stems in class.

F&P Testing Dates

The ES should have all F&P testing done by January 31st.  If this is not possible let Jim or Ryk know so we can support.

Housing Requests

If you are interested in relocating next academic year please fill out this form for HR, the deadline for requests is February 1st, 2018.  Please do not email Amos with requests.  

Suicide Prevention

Please review this presentation and follow the links.  Once you have completed your training, upload your certificated to this folder: Elementary School. This training was supposed to be completed by January 15th but the due date has been extended until January 31st.  Only new teachers need to take this training. If you can not complete it by then, please contact Amos.

For the optional Suicide Prevention Training sessions, these times are available for staff to join. Please let Sara Roberts know if you are interested in attending and which day(s) you would like to come. Snacks will be provided.

Monday- January 29th from 4:15-5:15

Upcoming PD in the ES

February 2nd - Department Meeting by Division

February 9th - Division Department Meetings

February 23rd - K-12 Department Meetings

March 2nd - Divisional Meeting