domingo, 28 de febrero de 2016

February 29th

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for

February 22 - February 26

Students will be added on Tuesday. Three students were absent when we were going to catch the picture. We will try to get all 6 on Monday or Tuesday and then post.

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Kudos

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Congrats to Wynne Slusar for turning 40 this past week! Big milestone and what better way to celebrate than with donuts! Thank you Lori Iverson for bringing in all the carbs!
Congrats also to Brad Ferstenou for hitting his milestone of 30! And thank you Kris Thomsen for setting up the pot luck and the 30 somethings for Brad. Great idea :)
Thank you Ellen Murphy, Grace Jorgenson, Jacob Malewicki, Kurt Rummler, Jenny Geyso, and Alyssa Riggs for all of your hard work on February 23rd working through the start of what our ELA curriculum and literacy infusion will look like for the 2016-2017 school year.
Thank you Molly Ebbers and Wendy Zeman for all of your work on February 25th working through what our Reading and Math interventions will look like for the 2016-2017 school year.
And... a shout out to Connie Zinnen for coming over to Karcher for two full days (ELA day and intervention day) this past week to help all of us work through our questions, ideas, concerns, etc as we move into the 2016-2017 school year - Thank you!

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Reminders

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Monday morning with students - February 29th:

Children's Books and Bullying Assembly with DRIVEN students from the high school. Here are the Google documents that go along with Monday - please make sure you look everything over so you are ready for Monday!

Students staying back in the library Students will all stay in the library and work on compass, an alternative assignment, and/or homework.
Bullying Assembly
Teacher Schedule, Room Assignments, Walking Map

Monday afternoon - in-service for teaching staff - February 29th (1:00 - 3:00)

1:00 - 1:10 - Karcher Companions - Katie Newholm, Sue Bekken, and Erika Fons will be talking to staff about their new club/organization they will be starting up. They are in need of one regular education teacher who would be willing to also be a club advisor for this group.
1:10 - 1:30ish - Suzanne Dunbar, our Librarian is coming to assist with some library tools that can help staff and students.
1:30 on... ELA Curriculum - brief discussion for the 2016-2017 school year.
Scheduling for the 2016-2017 school year - where we are in the process...
Student Led Conferences - touch base and show the advisory powerpoint each advisory teacher will use.
PBIS - Data and Karcher Character Bucks
Student Goal Sheets - applied academic teachers please come with your 15-20 students you would like to write a positive message to and then the academic teachers will divide out the rest. Special education teachers please make sure you give your 15-20 student list to a team member of yours as you will be working on Forward Exam needs for our special education students.
We will not be working on the MAPs test at this time... from looking at the list above we will not have adequate time to work through the tests... I will find another time to get this in.

Monday afternoon - Special Education Teachers - February 29th

You have the afternoon to work your IEPs for your students and state testing. Here is what Gail emailed you regarding this: Due to the additional paperwork requirements that special education will have on behalf of state testing and DPI form changes, you will be granted prep time from 1:00to 3:00 on that day. The support staff from district office will be making the rounds to answer your questions and to assist in any way possible.

KCB Rewards:

Month of March - Hallway DJ - Students will be able to turn in the name of a song they would like have played during our common passing time for a certain number of KCBs - Matt will be sharing details at the staff meeting.
March 11th is the next FNL from 5:00-7:00pm. If you are able and willing to assist please let Mike Jones know.
March 18th - students will be able to use their KCBs to buy items during lunch. The food menu has been updated and Matt will be sharing the menu with staff on March 11th.

Tuesday - March 1st - Start of scheduling...

Members of each house will be working on dividing students into houses and working on the beginning stages of scheduling. Special Education teachers will also be involved assisting with the needs of our special education students.

Tech Tuesday - March 1st: Molly will be assisting staff with creating an interactive slideshow in Google Slides, super cool way to use Slides. If interested Molly will start at 2:40 in her room.
PLC this week are in your classrooms continuing your work with standards and common assessments. Thank you to those of you who made a copy of your work so far, if you have not made a paper copy and placed in my mailbox please do so by the end of this week.
Forward Exam information: Forward Exam Information from DPI
Reminder - lunch detention and collecting of KCBs is located in Jennifer Pelnar's room.
Advisory teachers - Google Slide Format

Please make sure you are finalizing your student led conferences for each of your advisory students.

March 1st - Deadline for students to have their items added to their E-portfolios for student led conferences.

Classroom teachers please make sure you are checking the folders pertaining to your subject area and providing time within your class for students to add necessary artifacts.

Band-O-Rama is March 7th @ 7:00pm @ BHS gym.
March 7 & 14 will be an extended advisory time for students to work on their student led conferences presentation to their parents. This time should be used to practice presenting for their conferences held on either the 14th or 22nd.

Student led conferences/parent-teacher conferences are March 14 and March 22 from 4:00 - 8:00.
Student Led times are at 4:00 and 6:00
Parent/Teacher conferences held in the library will be from 4:45 - 5:45 and 6:45 - 8:00

National Junior Honors Society awards will be held on March 21st in the BHS auditorium starting at 6:30pm.

See Mike Jones or Stephanie Rummler for details.

March 24 - 8th grade Hive House field trip to Discovery World.
And we can't forget that spring break starts March 25th!!! Coming up fairly quickly :)

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Pictures from the week

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Some pictures from volleyball this week. The girls and coaches are having a great season so far!

Article of the week:
Continuation from last...

Leading to Change / Effective Grading Practices

Douglas B. Reeves

High-Stakes Grading

The Alliance for Excellent Education estimated that the annual cost of high school failure exceeds $330 billion ("An Economic Case," 2007). Some of these failures are no doubt caused by excessive absences and poor student performance. But, as the experiment at the beginning of this column clearly indicates, many failures are caused by the differences in teacher grading policies.

Do another experiment: Randomly select 30 course failures from the last semester, and determine the cause for failure. Two common causes are missing homework and poor performance on a single major assignment—a term paper, lab, or project. What would it mean to your school if you could reduce the number of failing grades resulting solely from uncompleted homework?

The stakes of grading practices are not limited to student failure. When grading policies improve, discipline and morale almost always follow. For example, Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, achieved a remarkable reduction in course failures through focused attention on improved feedback and intervention for students (Reeves, 2006). I recently checked in with the school, and Principal Joel McKinney reported that the success of this challenging urban school (74 percent free and reduced-price lunch, high mobility, and increasing numbers of English language learners) did not stop with reducing 9th and 10th grade failures. As of fall 2007, enrollment in advanced placement classes had increased 32 percent; suspensions had declined 67 percent; elective opportunities in music, art, and technology had increased; class cuts and tardiness had fallen significantly; teacher morale and school climate had noticeably improved—and the course failure rate had continued to decline (personal communication, December 5, 2007). When schools take steps to reduce failures, lots of good things happen.

The Steps to Take

Although changing grading systems is a challenging leadership task, the benefits are so great that it's worth doing.

First, create a sense of urgency. Identify the exact cost of inconsistent grading practices. How many failures can we prevent this semester if we improve our grading practices?

Second, identify teacher leaders who are already improving policies. Chances are that some teachers in your school have already eliminated the use of the average and the zero on a 100-point scale and created meaningful opportunities for corrective feedback outside of grades. Provide a forum for these teachers to share their insights with colleagues and lead the effort to develop improved policies.

Third, get the facts; gather evidence that will create a rationale for decision making. At the end of the day, your choices about teaching practice must be guided by evidence, not opinions. For example, although many people sincerely believe that giving poor grades as a punishment is effective, Guskey (2000) has marshaled 90 years of evidence to the contrary.

Fourth, reassure parents, students, and teachers that certain things will not change. Students will still have letter grades, transcripts, honor rolls, individualized education plans, and everything else that they have counted on as part of their grading system. What they won't have is irrational grading policies that give students widely different grades for the same work.

The benefits of effective grading practices are not limited to a reduced failure rate—although that benefit alone is sufficient to justify change. When student failures decrease, student behavior improves, faculty morale is better, resources allocated to remedial courses and course repetitions are reduced, and resources invested in electives and advanced courses increase. When was the last time a single change in your school accomplished all that?

Calendar for March:

domingo, 21 de febrero de 2016

February 22nd

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for

February 15 - February 19

Mackenzie Leach (Diamond)

Mackenzie has a great sense of humor. She is a quite leader in the classroom and is always making good choices.

Seth Chamberlin (Onyx)

Seth always has a positive attitude, works hard, is actively engaged, participates regularly, and works well with others.

Anthony Galgano (KCB)

Anthony is always walking around with a smile on his face. He also always has a positive "Karcher Way" attitude.

Antonio Villa (Applied Academic)

Antonio comes to class with a positive attitude and puts forth exemplary effort.

Cody Lunsmann (Silver)

Cody has a positive attitude and is always willing to help teachers and students alike.

Wendy Villigran (Hive)

Wendy continues to demonstrate all of "The Karcher Way" characteristics, but this week she was especially responsible with her work.

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Kudos

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Kris Thomsen was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Kris and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
Congrats to Jeri Nettesheim and all 15 of our Academic Bowl students who competed in Whitewater. This was the FIRST year we have ever had an Academic Bowl team and they placed 2nd as a team!!! Individual winners are listed below in the pictures section of the blog.
Thank you to Marian Hancock as she has entered all the students applied academic selections in record speed! Thank you Marian for your hard work with scheduling.

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Reminders

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Budgets should have been turned in to Kim by February 19th. If you have not done so please get those to Kim yesterday as I need time to look over all the budgets in order to meet my deadlines.
Forward Exam information is slowly coming out.

The exam window is between March 28 - May 20.
BASD has decided that our district will start exams after April 11th.
Practice exam questions should be available starting February 28th.
The exams we need to give are:

7th grade: ELA & Math
8th grade: ELA, Math, Science, & Social Studies.
We will be creating a schedule to accommodate students taking these exams in their specific content areas (ex: ELA with ELA teachers) we will work on that schedule soon.

Forward Exam Information from DPI

We have moved the lunch detention room to Jennifer Pelnar's room... please assist students in knowing that Ms. Waki's room is no longer the room to go to for detentions or for turning in KCBs.
Tech Tuesday this week: Molly will be assisting staff with how to change the agendas for students within their student led conference eportfolios. Take advantage of this time starting at 2:40 in Molly's room.
PLCs this week are for standards and common assessments. After the PLC please print a copy of your work and put it in my mailbox.
February 29th morning schedule is listed below. Patti Tenhagen also sent out a more detailed agenda via email. Please see Patti, Alyssa Riggs, Jack Schmidt, or Matt Behringer if you have questions about the morning of February 29th.
February 29th afternoon in-service from 1:00 - 3:00

Special Education teachers, counselors, and ELL coordinators will be with Gail for the afternoon working on the accommodations for students regarding the Forward Exam. Gail will be in contact regarding the location for this meeting.
The rest of the staff will meet in the library...

Katie Newholm and Erika Fons will be talking for about 10 minutes regarding Karcher Companions - a new program we are looking to start in the next few weeks.
Student Goal Sheets - Please bring your advisory goal sheets to the in-service as we will take some time to distribute/decide which student's goal sheets you are going to write a positive comment. The expectation is for each staff member to have approximately 15 students each. Applied Academic teachers please come to the in-service with your 15-20 students already picked out (write them on a piece of paper) in order to speed up the process. The academic teachers will then split up the students that are left after applied academics choose. Also those teachers who will not be present due to the Gail meeting please get your 15-20 names to someone on your advisory team so they can pull yours for you as well.
Quick conversation about ELA changes for the 2016-2017 school year.
Lastly... wait for it... staff will be taking the MAPS tests in order for all staff members to get a sense of what it is the students are tested on. Staff will then be partaking in some reflection activities as well in order to ensure what we are focusing on in our classrooms align with the types of questions asked in the MAP tests.

Advisory teachers - make sure you are calling your advisory student's parents/guardians to schedule their student led conference. Everyone should be entering each of your parents/guardians selected times on this Google Slide Format

Please make sure you work on making your contacts this week.

March 1st is the deadline for students to have all of their items added to their student led eportfolios. Classroom teachers please make sure you are checking the folders pertaining to your subject area and providing time within your class for students to add necessary artifacts.
Band-O-Rama is March 7th @ 7:00pm @ BHS gym.
March 7 & 14 will be an extended advisory time for students to work on their student led conferences presentation to their parents. This time should be used to practice presenting for their conferences held on either the 14th or 22nd.

Student led conferences/parent-teacher conferences are March 14 and March 22 from 4:00 - 8:00.
Student Led times are at 4:00 and 6:00
Parent/Teacher conferences held in the library will be from 4:45 - 5:45 and 6:45 - 8:00

National Junior Honors Society awards will be held on March 21st in the BHS auditorium starting at 6:30pm.

See Mike Jones or Stephanie Rummler for details.

And we can't forget that spring break starts March 25th!!! Coming up fairly quickly :)

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Pictures from the week

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We should all be very proud of our 15 students (10 Karcher, 5 Dyer) who competed in the Academic Bowl held in Whitewater. This is the FIRST TIME EVER that we have had a team representing from middle school and they took 2ND PLACE as a team!!! Jeri Nettesheim was their advising representative from Karcher.

The following students placed individually as follows:

Quentin Holle - 1st Place Social Studies

Tyler Duesing - 3rd place Science

Al Jost - 1st place Social Studies

Kaden Kafar - 2nd place Math

Jacob Lyon - 2nd place ELA

Jacob Follis - ist place Math

Katie Rummler - 2nd place ELA

Hailey Hotvedt - 3rd place Social Studies

Drew Stutzman - 3rd place ELA

The enter group for the Academic Bowl...

Students working with Ms. Fons and Ms. Schmidt within group with the focus being partner communication.

Students in Ms. Rummler and Mr. Schmidt's classes partaking in a North vs. South war simulation. Each student had a specific role (solider, general, medic, etc) Great way to bring history to life for our students.

Article of the week:

Leading to Change / Effective Grading Practices

Douglas B. Reeves

If you wanted to make just one change that would immediately reduce student failure rates, then the most effective place to start would be challenging prevailing grading practices. How can I be so sure? Try this experiment in your next faculty meeting. Ask your colleagues to calculate the final grade for a student who receives the following 10 grades during a semester: C, C, MA(Missing Assignment), D, C, B, MA, MA, B, A. I have done this experiment with thousands of teachers and administrators in the United States, Canada, and Argentina. Every time—bar none—I get the same results: The final grades range from F to A and include everything in between.

As this experiment demonstrates, the difference between failure and the honor roll often depends on the grading policies of the teacher. To reduce the failure rate, schools don't need a new curriculum, a new principal, new teachers, or new technology. They just need a better grading system.

Ineffective Grading

The results of my experiment are not surprising. Guskey and Bailey (2001) and Marzano (2000) have synthesized decades of research with similar findings. Neither the weight of scholarship nor common sense seems to have influenced grading policies in many schools. Practices vary greatly among teachers in the same school—and even worse, the practices best supported by research are rarely in evidence.

For example, the most effective grading practices provide accurate, specific, timely feedback designed to improve student performance (Marzano 2000, 2007; O'Connor, 2007). In the best classrooms, grades are only one of many types of feedback provided to students. Music teachers and athletic coaches routinely provide abundant feedback to students and only occasionally associate a grade with the feedback. Teachers in visual arts, drafting, culinary arts, or computer programming allow students to create a portfolio to show their best work, knowing that the mistakes made in the course of the semester were not failures, but lessons learned on the way to success. In each of these cases, "failures" along the way are not averaged into a calculation of the final grade.

Contrast these effective practices with three commonly used grading policies that are so ineffective they can be labeled as toxic. First is the use of zeroes for missing work. Despite evidence that grading as punishment does not work (Guskey, 2000) and the mathematical flaw in the use of the zero on a 100-point scale (Reeves, 2004), many teachers routinely maintain this policy in the mistaken belief that it will lead to improved student performance. Defenders of the zero claim that students need to have consequences for flouting the teacher's authority and failing to turn in work on time. They're right, but the appropriate consequence is not a zero; it's completing the work—before, during, or after school, during study periods, at "quiet tables" at lunch, or in other settings.

Second is the practice of using the average of all scores throughout the semester, a formula that presumes that the learning early in the semester is as important as learning at the end of the semester (Marzano, 2000; O'Connor, 2007). Interestingly, when teachers and administrators have been students in my graduate courses, they routinely insist that they should be evaluated on the basis of their understanding at the end of the semester rather than their work throughout the term.

Third is the use of the "semester killer"—the single project, test, lab, paper, or other assignment that will make or break students. This practice puts 18 weeks of work at risk based on a project that might, at most, have consumed four weeks of the semester.

A small but growing number of school systems are tackling the issue head-on with comprehensive plans for effective grading practices. (The policy developed by one such district, Grand Island Public Schools in Nebraska, is available athttp://wikiassessments.editme.com/files/GradingandReporting/G%26R%20Guiding%20Docs.pdf.)

But even in districts that have attempted to put effective grading policies in place, enforcement is often inconsistent. Grading seems to be regarded as the last frontier of individual teacher discretion. The same school leaders and community members who would be indignant if sports referees were inconsistent in their rulings continue to tolerate inconsistencies that have devastating effects on student achievement.

A continuation of this article will be in next week's blog...

Schedule for February 29th:

Calendar for February and March:

domingo, 14 de febrero de 2016

February 15th

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for

February 8 - February 12

Tyler Honzelka (Diamond)

Tyler is always respectful and friendly to everyone at Karcher. He always has a positive attitude and a smile on his face.

Tyler Hunter (Onyx)

Tyler consistently displays "The Karcher Way" in both his attitude and his academics. Keep up the great work Tyler!

Courtney Hegemann (Applied Academic)

Courtney has really stepped up this semester and shown "The Karcher Way" by exhibiting all traits during band.

Payton Lueth-Lunetta (Silver)

Payton is consistently a positive influence on his peers; he truly leads by example.

Alex Peterson (Hive)

Alex continues to be kind and compassionate with all of his peer interactions in the classroom and the hallway.

Lauren Beachem (Not in Picture)

Lauren is very kind to her peers and responsible with completing her work. She does a great job following "The Karcher Way".

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Kudos

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Kris Thomsen was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Kris and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
Thank you Marilee Hoffman and all of the students who made Culver's Night a success on February 9th! Great job and thank you to those who went out to Culvers to support Karcher activities :)
Thank you Molly Ebbers for taking on and leading Tech Tuesdays for our staff! We all really appreciate the time and effort you put in to assisting with technology needs as we move to 1:1 next year.
Kudos to Hans Block and Marilee Hoffman for going outside of your comfort zones by integrating technology into your fitness unit! Students created iMovies in order to demonstrate their understanding of specific fitness techniques.
Here is an amazing letter written from a Pewaukee coach about our coach - Mike Jones. Thank you Mike for instilling positive character traits in all that you do for our student body!

Here is the email received regarding Mike Jones:

Dear Mr. Hoffman,

I am one of the eighth grade volleyball coaches in Pewaukee. My team played against your eighth grade A team, and I want to pass on some of my thoughts from yesterday's game regarding your coach.

I was incredibly impressed and appreciative of the coach from the eighth grade A team. We played his girls yesterday afternoon in Pewaukee, and it was clear from the start that his team had a superior skill set over my girls. With an easy first game victory, he challenged some of his top players to play different positions than what they usually play in order to make them more versatile players. He also replaced some of the stronger servers, even after they started serving, to get the lesser skilled girls more practice in serving in a game setting.

The Burlington team won both the first and second game, thus already securing the victory. Then in game three, he didn't revert back to a must-win mentality when my team started pulling ahead. My team ended up winning the third game, which is a huge confidence booster for my team.

Your coach made several classy moves where he emphasized competition and skill development over a must-win mentality. I have coached against other coaches in the conference who would not and have not made the same decisions.

In my opinion, you have an excellent coach. Thank you.

Scott Roehl

8th Grade Black Volleyball Coach

Asa Clark Middle School

Pewaukee School District

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Reminders

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iTime changes will begin February 15th with the focus of all iTime groups on: English/Reading, Math, SSR, or Compass.
February 15 -BLT meeting @ 2:40 in the library
February 16 - Tech Tuesday with Molly Ebbers in room 24.

Focus: Organizing Google Drive
Start time of 2:40 and stay as long as you want to stay!

February 17 - Literacy PLC - staff will meet in the library and work with their content area teams to discuss the strategy determining importance and how each teacher will infuse the strategy into your classroom lesson design.
February 19 - All course selection sheets are needed back from the academic teachers.
Starting the first week in March we will be working on scheduling students for the 2016-2017 school year. All applied academic sections have been entered into Skyward and I will begin working on the schedule this week.
Teachers:

Just a reminder to make sure you are taking your attendance within the first 5 minutes of advisory and ensuring it is accurate.
Please check your sub folders and adjust necessary items to reflect courses you have for second semester.
Budgets are due to Kim by February 19th.

Reminder: If you are taking supplies from the main office and you are taking the last item or close to the last item please let Jane know the supply item is getting low so she can order more.

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Pictures from the week

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Ms. Hoffman's students working in groups integrating technology with fitness!

Ms. Rummler's social studies students working on Rube Goldberg machines to mimic/explain historical events.

Article of the week:

Focus on Learning, Not Grades

In the Classroom with Brad Kuntz

Brad Kuntz

I used to hear this often from students: "I didn't do very well on the test. Is there any extra credit I can do to raise my grade?" Or: "I'm so close to a B in class, how can I earn some more points?" Less often did students inquire about improving upon a particular component of the unit's content.

The past decades of education have trained students and teachers to focus on grades rather than learning. Unfortunately, grades are generally an account of points earned through various activities that are influenced by artificial deadlines, grade inflation, extra credit, and subjectivity. It's time for us to change the student mind-set currently focused on reaching a particular percentage and instead empower them to take charge of their learning and measure their own success.

Proficiency-based education focuses on specific learning targets and the demonstration of a student's proficiency with the content. It allows students multiple opportunities to prove their understanding, and incorporates flexibility for individual learners rather than pushing all students through the content at the same pace regardless of their comprehension of the material. It creates a partnership between the teacher and student with regard to a student's progress, and it increases a student's ownership of her own learning. At that point, grades actually do indicate what a student has learned and is able to do.

Although entire schools are discussing transitioning to a similar system, it's possible for individual teachers to include the core concepts of proficiency-based learning immediately. First, condense all of the standards you teach into a manageable set of learning targets phrased in a way students can understand. Provide students with a checklist of these targets. Review the targets daily to remind students which ones were covered previously and which ones you'll be working with today. Refer to these targets each time you cover new material. Label all homework and classroom activities with a learning target so students understand the focus and can refer to the appropriate notes for a reminder of how to work with the content.

Engage students in a conversation about what it means to demonstrate proficiency. Give them opportunities to show proficiency with each target as you move through a unit. If a student does not meet a satisfactory level of performance on one target, provide another opportunity, rather than simply recording a poor quiz score in the gradebook and moving on. Before attempting the assessment again, however, the student must come in for additional support, prove he's practiced more, or complete some enrichment activity so that he's not just trying again before he's ready. When students show proficiency on each learning target throughout the unit, they can move to the final assessment of that unit.

With a proficiency-based learning system, teachers can more accurately pinpoint which concepts an individual student is struggling with. It gives order and structure to the content, like a path on a map. Students can clearly see what is expected of them, they can monitor their progress through a unit, and they can self-evaluate their comprehension as they prepare for assessments. If implemented well, a student will no longer ask for extra credit, but rather for an opportunity to demonstrate that she understands the content. She will know exactly what to do in order to reach her academic goals. For the teacher, you can finally speak with your students about their learning rather than their points!

Calendar for February and March:

domingo, 7 de febrero de 2016

February 8th

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for

February 1st - February 5th

Selena Casiano (Hive)

Selena displays a positive attitude consistently throughout the year so far. She is very kind and leads by example.

Summer Amann (Onyx)

Summer is actively engaged in class, personable, and polite. She is a responsible student council representative for her advisory.

Nathaniel Cortez (Diamond)

Nathan has been a consistent hard worker this year. His effort is noticed within his performance in class and on tests. He is always a productive member within his group and works well with all of his peers.

Gian Delgado (Applied Academic)

Gian has a great attitude and is always stepping up to help others in his classes.

Jacob Klug (Silver)

Jacob is a team player and leads by example whether it is on the basketball court, the classroom, or in the hallways.

Casey Christiansen (Karcher Bucks)

Casey is a hard working student. She is very responsible for doing her homework and always puts forth 100% effort!

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Kudos

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Jacob Malewicki was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Jake and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
The 7-12 Strings Concert put on a great show this past week! Nice job Nick Buendia!!! Rod Stoughton also assisted by adding the extra flare to the concert on the guitar and Nick stepped in to play the drums as well for a few pieces. Nice job to both of you! Was a great performance :)
Thank you to those of you who assisted with the discussion about student led conferences this week!

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Reminders

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Scheduling:

Course selection sheets should have been turned in by February 5th (last Friday) by our current 7th graders. Once we have all of them we will get the course selection sheets to each house, special education department, and interventionists in order to assist with academic selections for their 8th grade year.
The 8th grade students will receive their course selection sheets this week - after 8th grade Open House on Monday night (February 8 from 5:30 - 7:25)

Staff Meeting Monday, February 8, to discuss student led conferences.
Monday night board meeting starts at 7:00 followed by a report from Plunkett Raysich Architects at 7:30pm - at this meeting we will be hearing about the costs involved regarding our current buildings.
Molly Ebbers will be starting up "Tech Tuesdays" in her classroom from 2:40 - 3:30.

This Tuesday, February 9, she will be continuing with assistance regarding Google Classroom.
Any and all staff are invited to attend and are can leave when you need to - relaxed atmosphere to assist with technology questions as we progress through the school year.

Culver's Night is Tuesday, February 9, from 5:00 - 8:00 to support our Student Council. All the proceeds will go to all activities at Karcher. Stop out and you never know... you might win something free!!!
PLC Wednesday, February 10 - The new literacy tool, determining importance, will be presented by Jenny Geyso, Molly Ebbers, and Patti Tenhagen.

Staff will then be asked to show how they will be incorporating the strategy into their own classroom instruction. You will have time on February 17 to work within your content regarding the strategy.

February 10 - 12 - I will be at the AWSA Principals Conference. Matt will be in the building on Thursday and Friday.
February 12 - Half day in-service. Teaching staff I ask that you use the 1:00 - 3:00 time to work on one or all of the following items (start in the library briefly with Matt @ 1:00):

Mid-Year Review for your SLO
MAP Data/iTime - mapping out the next rotation or finalize February 15 iTime.
Standards/Common Assessment Google Document.

Just a reminder, February 15 we will be changing how we operate for iTime with the focus being on:

English/Reading intervention/enrichment
Math intervention/enrichment
Compass
SSR

Teachers:

Just a reminder to make sure you are taking your attendance within the first 5 minutes of advisory and ensuring it is accurate.
Please check your sub folders and adjust necessary items to reflect courses you have for second semester.
Budgets are due to Kim by February 19th.

Reminder: If you are taking supplies from the main office and you are taking the last item or close to the last item please let Jane know the supply item is getting low so she can order more.
Cell Phones - As we started off in September cell phones should not be in the classroom visible unless requested by the teacher. If a student does have their cell phone out at an inappropriate time please utilize your cell phone jail within your classroom. Chronic cases should be brought to the office and entered in Skyward as a referral.