January 31, 2009

Valentine's Parties - are set for 12:30 - 1:00 pm on Thursday, February 12th. This is an early-out day during parent-teacher conference week. Please get information to parents next week about what is going on your classroom so they can make plans.

Formative Assessment - First, thank you to Mark & Michelle for giving our district an update on what we are up to at Washington! It was good to hear what was going on in the district and see that although we often work independently, student learning is a common target across the board. Next week, our PD over formative assessment will continue at the MS auditorium. We have already received lots of great feedback via the survey. If you have not completed it, please do so now. If you were not in attendance, an email will be coming today to let you know how you will get up to speed before next Wednesday.

Homework Awards - Before you leave today, please turn in to Katherine (slight change!!):
1. The list of students who did not complete their work this week, and
2. The signed responsibility cards from students (please have students write their names on the cards)

Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences - You should begin to explain to students the importance of each child being present at conferences with their parents. The conversation is so much more meaningful when the child is explaining their own progress, triumphs and struggles. There are some AWESOME rubrics and forms located on the Huron Valley website (starting on page 13) to have your students fill out prior to conferences if you want to do student-led conferences. It would be valuable classroom time spent prior to conference week as the goals of student-led conferences are:

♦ To encourage students to accept responsibility for their learning
♦ To teach students to evaluate their academic performance
♦ To engage the parent, the student, and the teacher in honest dialogue
♦ To increase parent participation at conference time

If you want assistance, please see me soon! I'd love to help you set it up for your conferences!

When do we need to be here? - This question comes up each year during conferences and I want to make sure we are all on the same page about times that week. Many of you set up conferences outside the times on the calendar to meet the needs of parents. I appreciate this and I'm sure the parents do too. Know that Friday is an 8-hour comp-day so you must be in conferences or be working within the building that week for 8 hours outside the 8am-4pm work day. A couple teachers have already inquired about seeing if Bob Deter could come over to work with them on webpages and he is tentatively scheduling himself to be here (times to be announced). This would be a great use of time if your conferences do not fill the 8 hours. Also, some teachers have doubled the length of some conferences to ensure enough time for 'high need' students. Great idea too! Your schedule turned in to the office should include your 'office hours' for the week. Further questions, let me know.

Writing & Literacy Work - this has not been forgotten and information will come with our next step with the process. Remember: must focus on multiple tasks (like we ask our students to do) & our work is not a sprint!!

AEA 14 & 13 Merger - (from Connie Maxson, AEA 14 Administrator) "On January 27, the Loess Hills AEA 13 Board of Directors voted in support of the merger with Green Valley AEA 14, effective July 1, 2010. With this vote, the process of bringing the two agencies together begins. Many decisions will be made in the coming 17 months as we develop and implement a new AEA serving the schools of southwest Iowa. The first steps include: Preparation of a Plan for Merger. This plan is basically a “plan to plan”and provides limited detail about the new agency. Mark Draper, AEA 13 Associate Director, and David Van Horn, AEA 14 Associate Administrator, are responsible for writing the plan. Hearings must be held to give the public an opportunity for input in the development of the plan. The plan will then be presented to both boards for approval. It must then be submitted to and approved by the State Board of Education (Department of Education). We hope to submit the plan in April 2009. A joint board meeting is scheduled for February 5 in Red Oak.

Coming up…
February - Guidance will be health & puberty education month!
Feb 2 - Monday Assembly (Hit the Books Assembly at 2:45 pm) & PLC
Feb 4 - Teacher Quality Committee Mtg (4 pm @ Webster)
Feb 5 - Schedules for conference week must be turned in
Feb 9 - Parent Teacher Conferences 2pm-8pm
Feb 10 - AFTER SCHOOL MATH (Houghton State Bank)
Feb 10-11 - Barry will be at ICL Conference (DM)
Feb 12 - Parent Teacher Conferences 2pm-8pm
Feb 13 - NO SCHOOL
Feb 16 - PD @ IPS starting at 7:45 AM