January 29, 2010

Board Meeting - At the Wednesday night board meeting, Mr. Laughlin and I shared our staffing plans for the 2010-11 school year. No decisions were made that night and the board will meet next on February 8 to take public comments and possibly make decisions. As mentioned in our staff meeting, our admin team hopes to have final staffing decisions in February. If you have specific questions or did not get a copy of the staffing proposal, please see me.

Rooms & Computers – We have had several evening activities at Washington the past few months – including last night. Before I left yesterday, six rooms were unlocked and all the rooms had laptops and/or computers in them. After some recent theft issues in the district, this would be a good time to remind all staff to lock your doors when you leave for the evening. Thank you for making sure this happens.

Grant - The Pepsi grant application is on Google.docs for anyone to edit. So far, only one person has added ideas!!  Please help when you can!

Parent-STUDENT-Teacher Conferences  - A reminder that I would like for all your students to be involved in conferences by making an effort to get the students involved. Info about student led conferences can be found here. See last week’s memo, but I will not be available the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of conference week.  I do want to attend at least one conference with each teacher. Thank you!

Valentine’s Parties -Have you called your parent helpers yet? The party is scheduled for Thursday, February 11 – after lunch recess.

PLC Update - February 3 will be a building PLC day. We will meet as a building team at 1:45 pm in Mrs. Timmerman’s room – please bring your Anthony Mohammad book with you as we will share out some of our “ah-hah’s” in preparation for his February 15th visit. Since both teams were close to having the MISIC benchmark work completed, I would like for teams to complete that during your weekly PLC time if possible. Our administration team and/or ICC team will discuss when we will find the time to come back to the curriculum work. The weather has not been kind to our PLC work this month!!

Scheduled your last or only observation with me yet? If not, please do so today.

Upcoming Dates to Note...
Feb 1 - Barry at ICC meeting
Feb 3 - Bldg PLC; TQC Mtg @ 4 pm
Feb 8-10 - Barry, Kunze, Guerra & Graber at ICLC (DSM)
Feb 8 - PT Conferences (Early Out)
Feb 11 - PT Conferences (Early Out)
Feb 12 - No School
Feb 15 - No School (All day PD @ HS)

Anthony Muhammad Resources

Dr. Muhammad's Facebook page

Very interesting "Focused Conversation with Anthony Muhammad"

Every Child Can Learn

"The whole concept of PLC is to bring teachers together, structure that conversation and to share those ideas that work in someone else's classroom so you can use them and they'll work in your classroom and of course to "work" means to get every kid learning," McNeece said.

And in the end, Dr. Muhammad believes it's going to take belief among each school team to do whatever it takes in assuring all students learn at the highest level possible.

"If you follow a traditional method and nobody learns, but you've taught them, then teaching doesn't necessarily mean learning, Dr. Muhammad says. "In the PLC movement... we strive to mesh the two that good instruction is justified by student learning."