Quote:
“Continuous effort – not strength or
intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.”
-Winston
Churchill
Weekly
Blast!
Monday, October 29th
8:00AM-4:00PM Backwards Planning Training – Jenny Brown
Tuesday, October 30th
8:00AM-8:50AM Comprehension Toolkit
8:00AM-4:00PM Backwards Planning Training – Jenny Brown
Wednesday, October 31st Happy Halloween!
* No staff
development or Math Olympiad this week
9:55AM-10:15AM School Halloween Parade
Thursday, November 1st Happy Birthday Andrea Willis!
12:30PM-3:30PM Feeder Mtg– Jenny Brown
Friday, November 2nd
Reminders/
Announcements/Opportunities
•
Comprehension Toolkit Class – Please register
before Tuesday morning.
Week 1 – Tuesday, October 30th
at 8:00 am
Week 2 – Tuesday, November 13th
at 8:00 am or Wednesday, November 14th at 4:15 pm
Week 3 – Wednesday, November 28th
at 4:15 pm or Thursday, November 29th at 8:00
Week 4 – Tuesday, December 4th
at 8:00 am or Wednesday, December 5th at 4:15 pm
• Please abide by the departure
times when your class is on a field trip.
We are charged extra fees when we exceed contracted times.
•
Halloween Party 2012 –
Parties (9:15-9:55), Parade (9:55-10:15), Regular classroom routine resumes (10:30). If you have students who do not wish to
participate in the Halloween festivities, they can arrive at school at 10:30. Parade route will be sent out early in the
week.
•
When you receive a green note at the end of the day informing students
about how they are to get home, please be sure to give it directly to the
student.
Go For the GOLD!
• Thank you to everyone for your role in
promoting Digger Dash. We raised $33,000
for classroom libraries! Amazing!
• Have anyone you want to
recognize? Please let Libby know.
Golden Nuggets
Lounge
Duty: Hawk/Holtzer
Friday
Treats: First & Second
Morning
Announcements & Recycling: Fleet
Morning
Supervision: Graham, Marchese, Nelson,
Braden, Hurley
Additional CITE Question &
Answers
Is highly effective
attainable and in my control?
Yes! To be highly effective teachers need to meet the
learning targets under standards 1-5 and be meeting them consistently in the
spring. The consistency measure was the frequency component that we
talked about at our staff meeting. Remember we are looking at frequency
for each learning target (highly effective = 90-100% of the time) like
standards based grading. This means we are looking for a trend of
implementation in the spring. It is ok to be learning and building background
knowledge on what each standard and learning target now.
How many highly effective teachers can we have in one school?
There is no set number of how many highly effective teachers
a school can have. It is fair to say, however, that we are all at
different stages of our learning and knowledge of content. We also need
to take into account the fact that many of the learning targets on CITE are new
targets. It is my job to build everyone’s background knowledge and create
learning opportunities so that we all can be successful in the spring, but just
like our students we all learn at different paces. Because of this I would
assume that we would have a range of ratings in the spring. Again this is
because we all learn at different rates, we all have different levels of experience
and background knowledge and there are a lot of new learning targets on
CITE. We have to remember that a ranking of effective is a good thing and
that it is showing we are learning and making growth.
What does highly effective look like?
At our next staff meeting we will complete an activity where
we are all able to more clearly see the difference between effective and highly
effective. When I look at the two categories the notable differences are
the following: students are involved in conversations about their learning
targets and assessment data, teachers are designing lessons based on their
individual students’ needs as noted in informal and formal assessment data,
students are being challenged to think critically and develop as problem
solvers and creators. For me the emphasis is on kids owning their learning and
teachers knowing their individual students. Again, at our staff meeting,
teams will work together to identify what this looks like in your classrooms.
Does your rating follow you next year?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that your rating does
impact the percentage that you would receive as a raise based upon available money.
No in the sense that you are evaluated each year and your rating could
change. A change in a rating could be due to many factors, including a
different building focus for the following year (writing versus reading).
This could also be due to a teachers’ ability to address a different group of
students’ academic or social/emotional needs.
Do
the students’ in your class impact your rating?
The learning targets under the standards emphasize your
knowledge of your individual students and your ability to address students’
needs so in this sense yes. Your students change each year so your
ability to plan and your instruction should change to meet those students who
are sitting in front of you.
How
will students’ different achievement levels impact my rating?
Student growth, or standard 6, which is not included
in CITE this year accounts for students being at different levels.
Student growth measures are based on where individual students are currently
performing. Teachers will be evaluated by law in 2014-2015 by how much growth
individual students have made based on where each individual child started in
the beginning of that school year. As mentioned at our meeting, the state and
District are working to determine the assessments that will measure student
growth. I will continue to keep you updated as we have more information on the
assessments that will be used to measure student growth. A pilot for using a
District assessment is happening this year, but this must be approved by the
state. This is to ensure that student growth and therefore teacher pay is
being determined by a measure that is valid and reliable.
Is my summative rating based on my one formal observation?
Can it include the many informal observations my evaluator has seen over
time?
The summative evaluation is a combination of formal and
informal evidence collected by the teacher and evaluator over the course of the
school year. This is great news as I am already able to document many
wonderful things that I see in your classrooms everyday! Yeah!
Keep
the questions coming. I am more than happy to talk with you too about questions
or concerns that you have. I am happy to work through this with you because the
more familiar you are with the process the less daunting it hopefully will
seem!
