domingo, 23 de febrero de 2020

February 24, 2020

KARCHER STAFF BLOG



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Kudos
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  • Thank you to Jon Nelson and Eric Sulik for your organization and time into resilience week for our students!  Ending with the BHS DRIVEN day was awesome!  Great work to everyone for their efforts Friday!  Sometimes an adjusted schedule can be difficult and everyone flowed with the schedule beautifully!  
  • Kudos to Steve Berezowitz for your behind the scenes work to make sure all 8th grade course requests for their freshmen year were completed by the high school's deadline of this past Friday!  
  • Kudos as well to our internal team, Kurt Rummler, Mike Jones, Brad Ferstenou, Scott Staude, Kris Thomsen, and Kim Moss, when it comes to developing our houses and other scheduling needs for the 2020-2021 school year!  
  • Thank you to Barb Berezowitz and Andrea Hancock for allowing some class time to be used for all of our 7th graders to input their elective course requests into Skyward!  Thank you so much for being team players for our students!  
  • Kudos to Stephanie Rummler for setting up a fundraising event at Culvers this past week for student council!  They students (and the koala) did great!  
  • Lastly, thank you to our scheduling committee for your time and efforts as we continue to think through a potential bell schedule for the new 6-8 middle school!  The group is extremely collaborative and doing a great job trying to think outside the box as well!  
Article this week:  This article is a continuation from last week!  

UDL: A Blueprint for Learning Success

Spencer J. Salend and Catharine R. Whittaker

Teachers who implement Universal Design for Learning are educational architects, creating learning structures that support all students' success.

Step 4: Identify Barriers to Student Success

In formulating blueprints for universal design, architects examine the information they've collected about individuals and buildings to identify the barriers that may prevent some people from accessing and using specific aspects of the building. Similarly, in creating UDL instructional blueprints, educational architects identify factors that may hinder student success by reviewing the information they've collected related to students' individual characteristics and learning differences, the educational goals and learning objectives, and the learning environment. They ask themselves what barriers exist in the three components of UDL differentiation: (1) how content, learning activities and materials, directions, and academic language are presented; (2) how students are allowed to demonstrate what they know and can do; and (3) how students' attention, involvement, and motivation are fostered and maintained.
Dylan's teachers have identified several factors that seem to hinder his performance. They've noted that although Dylan is very engaged when learning about topics that interest him and using technology, he has difficulty paying attention, following directions, and completing his work during most large-group and small-group instruction. He also has trouble concentrating when he works alone to solve math word problems. During cooperative learning activities, Dylan's performance varies depending on the peers with whom he is working.

Step 5: Select UDL Solutions to Address the Barriers

Just as architects use universal design to remove barriers that limit access to buildings, educational architects employ UDL solutions to address the barriers to student success they have identified. UDL solutions are research-based instructional practices, accommodations, technologies, and policies that offer appropriate supports and challenges to students by providing multiple means of representation, action and expression, and engagement. Educational architects consider a range of evidence-based UDL solutions and select those that best address each student's learning differences.
Dylan's teachers have implemented several UDL solutions, which they also employ with some of Dylan's classmates who are in his small group for math. For example, they use color and enlarged type size to highlight important information in the math word problems they create. They make the problems more interesting and relevant to Dylan by incorporating animals and mechanical vehicles into them. They also use explicit instruction to teach word problems in small steps, and they've taught Dylan and other students to use manipulatives like Legos and graphic organizers like tape diagrams and number bonds (a mental picture of the relationship between a number and the parts that combine to make it). Students use response boards and think-alouds to explain their answers so that the teachers can monitor progress and give immediate and appropriate feedback.
To help Dylan follow directions and pay attention, his teachers present directions orally and visually, limit the number of directions presented at one time, and prompt him to paraphrase the directions. For any written task, they give him support to complete the first part. When improvement of writing is not the primary goal of the lesson, they allow him to respond orally. They have also taught Dylan to use a self-monitoring system to keep track of his on-task behavior. When he meets a goal, he earns time to work on a computer.
To promote positive relationships among students, the teachers provide social skills instruction and periodically implement community-building activities. For Dylan, they supplement their social skills instruction with social stories and role playing. For example, they've worked with Dylan to create and review brief, personal stories that illustrate appropriate behaviors during a range of social situations, such as how to listen without interrupting when others tell a funny story, or how to understand why a peer might be frowning.

Step 6: Ensure that UDL Solutions Are Well-Implemented

Architects develop detailed blueprints, specifying dimensions and materials to help ensure that buildings are built as they were designed. Educational architects also need to take steps to ensure that their UDL solutions are implemented well (McKenna, Flowers, & Ciullo, 2014). Educational architects make sure everyone understands the specific actions and conditions associated with the UDL solutions, including (a) when solutions will be employed; (b) which individuals will be responsible for implementing them; (c) what materials, resources, technologies, locations, and grouping arrangements will be needed for implementation; and (d) what preparation and education students and educators need.
To ensure fidelity in the implementation of the UDL solutions for Dylan, his teachers created a checklist of the essential features of the strategies. They periodically analyze lesson artifacts and samples of Dylan's work. They help Dylan learn the self-monitoring system by having him role-play how to pay attention and self-record, and they occasionally check his accuracy in using the system. As Dylan's teachers become sure that the UDL solutions are well implemented, they collect fidelity data less frequently.

Step 7: Evaluate the Efficacy, Acceptability, and Fidelity of UDL Solutions

Effective professionals in all fields examine the efficacy, acceptability, and fidelity of their practices. After UDL solutions have been implemented, educational architects collect and analyze classroom-based data to assess how the solutions are affecting student learning, behavior, and socialization (Salend, 2016). Through observations, self-reflection, and interviews with students, educators examine whether they and their students view the UDL solutions as appropriate and effective (Chorzempa, Maheady, & Salend, 2012). They also gather information to determine the extent to which the UDL solutions are being implemented with fidelity (McKenna, Flowers, & Ciullo, 2014). Effective and acceptable UDL solutions are continued as needed. Ineffective, unacceptable, or difficult-to-implement solutions are revised or replaced by other solutions.
Dylan's teachers use work samples, observations, interviews, and self-reflection to evaluate their UDL solutions. They periodically examine the data that provide evidence of Dylan's improvement in solving word problems, following directions, and paying attention. When they evaluate their efforts to help Dylan's socialization, teachers note that although they observe him socializing with more peers, these interactions tend to be brief and initiated by others, so they need to step up social skills instruction for him.
Dylan has said that he likes using the self-monitoring system and has offered ways to make it better—for example, he suggested that his self-recording sheet include a pictorial depicting him paying attention, and that he be allowed to choose a classmate to work on the computer with him if he achieves his goal. The teachers agree to try these strategies.

All of these strategies and skills relate to all of our students, especially our students who have an IEP!  
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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog! It was updated this past Thursday.
This week:
  • Monday, February 24 - District Essential Skill Committee Meeting in our Karcher library from 3:45 - 5:15.  
    • Our focus of the teacher team this week is to continue the development of a K-12 behavior rubric so that we have common language K-12!  This does mean ours will be tweaked to ensure consistency throughout the district.  
  • Tuesday, February 25 - The board of education will be in our building throughout the day.  Instead of the lunch with board members, like in the past, we have shifted to inviting board members to each building throughout the school year for a day.  Some may come at right way at the start of school and stay for a bit, some might come mid-day, or some at the end.  So... if you see board members popping into your classrooms they will be encouraged to do so in order for them to have a better idea of the things happening in our classrooms and schools!  
  • Tuesday, February 25 - Start of our new iTime rotation focused around Standards Mastery within iReady and the TDA Forward writing.  When working with our students on both of these the focus should be around what grade level proficiency work looks like as everything you will be doing with them is about practicing grade level standards.  
    • The updated list of where students should be going is linked on the first page of our Karcher Calendar (center column) 
  • Tuesday, February 25 - Scheduled Parent/Guardian/Teacher conferences from 4:00 - 6:00.  Thank you all for setting up your meetings with parents/guardians so that they are given the opportunity to meet with all of you so we support each other on their students growth and achievement.  
    • Please make sure you are at Karcher no later than 3:45 if you plan on leaving the building after school.  
    • Also... if a meeting with a parent/guardian runs a little over 6:00 please make sure we are professional and stay to talk with the family.  We should not be telling them you only have to stay until 6:00.  
    • On another note, if you predict you will have difficult or concerning conversation please let Annie or I know as we can sit in with the team.  
  • Wednesday, February 26 - PLC is within your content area teams continuing your work around Essential Skills.  This is a great time to focus on tweaks to rubrics, formative/summative assessments, analyzing student work to inform your instruction, etc.  
    • Special Education teachers will meet in Amanda Thate's room so that we can continue or conversation from the session you all had with Peggy Black.  
  • Wednesday, February 26 - Karcher Lucky Star night!  Lucky Star wanted to partner with BASD and give back to our schools!  They will be donating 20% of customer's bills that have a copy of the "coupon", can show the coupon via Facebook or email, or who bring up that they are there for Karcher. 
  • Thursday, February 27 - Guskey Conference in the Dells. 
    • Donna Sturdevant, Stacy Stoughton, Kailee Smith, and myself will be attending the conference as representatives for Karcher.  Some members of the District Essential Skill committee (K-12) will be going.  Guskey is a researcher that focuses heavily on "Grading for Learning"/standards-based grading practices.  Our BLT team read one of his books last year.  The high school is now reading the same book this year.  
    • We are excited to attend and eager to learn from him!    
  • Thursday, February 27 - 6-8 music conversation when it comes to scheduling prior to the scheduling committee the following day.  
    • Music has some unique components, we felt it was important for all the music teachers to get together to talk through how music can look while also remembering the importance of balance with the other elective areas.  Dr. Plank and Annie Phillips will also be with them during the meeting.  
    • Dustan and Rod... if you need help from me figuring out coverage for the end of the day so you can get to Dyer by 2:30 let me know!  More than happy to help talk through coverage. 
Friday, February 28 - Inservice day from 8:00 - 4:00
  • 7:00 - 12:00 - biometric screening times available. 
    • Below is the image showing the link and "how to" in order to sign up!  
  • 8:00 - 12:00 is district directed work time.  
    • Everyone except special education should be working on your Essential Skill work throughout the duration of the time.  Things to make sure are set for next year:  
      • At a glance documents for all courses.  Some of you, especially electives, have multiple classes.  Are your at a glance documents the same for each course?  If not we need multiple at a glance documents (and then also rubrics) for classes that are not the same.  
      • Within a subject area you should have the same standards but your emphasis might vary based on the course.  Just think about that and make sure your Essential Skill rubrics align to your work.  
      • Tweaks to rubrics, especially when thinking about the standard and proficiency.  Now that you have been using your rubrics, this year, this is a good time to make adjustments you see fit.  
      • This time would be perfect for creating common formative and summative assessments.  
        • When thinking formative, remember this should be or usually just be one subskill you are assessing as formative is FOR learning.  Formatives are quick pieces of evidence to inform students of their learning and inform you for your instruction.  Strategy groups then can come from your formative data as well depending on what you are noticing and noting about the student evidence.  
          • Formatives are more important than summatives as formatives are the moments where you can provide timely feedback to students about their learning and understanding of specific subskills (standards).  
        • Summative assessments are your moments in time where you believe students should be able to demonstrate proficiency on specific subskills.  Summatives should include multiple subskills and your assessment should be categorized by subskill.  Assessments should never be "I gotcha" moments but rather moments in time where students are able to demonstrate their understanding of subskills (standards).  
          • Less feedback can be given here as these are the moments where students should be ready and be able to demonstrate proficiency.  
      • These are all reminders we have talked about throughout our time working on Essential Skills but I wanted to plug in the reminders again to ensure consistency across all disciplines.  
      • I will be in the building starting at about 9:00 as I will be at Dyer from 8:00 - 9:00 to talk about the standards-based gradebook with the 6th grade staff.  
    • Special Education teachers:  
      • From 8:00 - 10:00 is your time to talk with the high school and Dyer about student transitions between buildings/grade levels.  
        • The location for this is the Ulab or large conference room (up to you guys on the location between the two).
      • I know the desire is for me to be present when you talk about 6th to 7th so talking through that transition starting at 9:00 would ensure I am able to be at the meeting with you.  If you are feeling more confident and want to just start at 8:00 with 6th to 7th go right ahead!!!  It is all about you guys and having time to meet with 6th grade and also with 9th grade/high school.  
      • From 10:00 - 12:00 you will be in the library with Kathy Merlo going over important reminders/training when it comes to our special education students.  
  • 12:00 - 1:00 - Scheduling Committee meeting in our Karcher library.  We will start when the majority of Dyer staff arrive.  Scott does plan on letting them leave Dyer at 11:45 so please be in the library by 12:00 (for those on the committee). 
    • Lunch will be provided again:  Subway, chips, & water.   
    • If the meeting goes beyond 1:00 we can continue the conversation as long as committee members are wanting too.  
  • 1:00 - 4:00 is teacher work time.  This time would be great for completing your mid-year SLOs and PPGs as they need to be submitted by March 3!  
Below is the information for the biometric screening.  If you have a hard time reading this Jill Sheeley sent this information to us on February 11th at 8:30am if you want to look for that email.  
Looking ahead:  

  • Monday, March 2 - BLT Meeting 
  • Tuesday, March 3 - Eric Sulik, Ryan Hoffman, Dr. Plank, and myself will be going to PHlab and Midwest to see their STEM programs in order to determine our STEM programming needs for the new middle school.  
  • Tuesday, March 3 - SLO & PPG is due!  
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Pictures from the week
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Student Council Culver's Night!  

BHS & Karcher DRIVEN day focused around resilience!






domingo, 16 de febrero de 2020

February 17, 2020

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Kudos
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  • Thank you to our special education department, Amanda Thate, Alyssa Riggs, Briana Harris, Kelly Fulton, and Joe VanDommelen, who had the opportunity to work with Peggy Black this past Friday as we are always working on continuous growth and improvement when it comes to our practices around IEPs and special education.  Thank you for your time and willingness to learn and grow!  
  • Thank you Jon Nelson for assisting administration and the building on Friday while I was at the principal conference and Annie attended the special education PD time with our team and Peggy Black.  Your willingness to be a goose is appreciated!  
  • Thank you to Stephanie Rummler for engaging our students with the epic Civil War battle!  Stephanie truly knows how to bring the skills and content to life!  
  • Thank you to our academic teams for your continued efforts to build in incentive days with our students to encourage and recognize positive character!  
  • Last but not least, thank you Steve Berezowitz for your behind the scenes work with all of our 8th graders and ensuring they all start their freshmen year off strong and on the right foot by assisting all of them with understanding the course selections and inputting them into the computer.  
Article this week:  

UDL: A Blueprint for Learning Success

Spencer J. Salend and Catharine R. Whittaker
Teachers who implement Universal Design for Learning are educational architects, creating learning structures that support all students' success.
Dylan is an enthusiastic 3rd grade student who wants to do well in his inclusive classroom. His teachers are concerned about his inconsistent performance, and they note that he's easily distracted and often doesn't follow instructions. When Dylan is able to concentrate, he can compute math facts on grade level, but he finds math word problems challenging. He is polite when interacting with adults, but friendships don't come easily to him.
Like Dylan, all students have learning strengths, challenges, and preferences that affect the way they learn. Recognizing that no two students are alike, effective educators differentiate their practices to accommodate their students' learning differences. One 21st-century framework educators can use to accomplish this goal is Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
UDL is rooted in the architectural concept of universal design, which calls for designing buildings, products, and services so that all individuals can use them. For example, a ramp represents a universal design that provides access for a variety of individuals who find stairs to be a barrier—not only people who use wheelchairs, but also people pushing strollers or making deliveries.
UDL is based on brain research that applies universal design to teaching and learning (CAST, 2011). To differentiate instruction for students with a range of learning differences, UDL provides multiple means of
  • ▪ Representation (presenting content in a variety of ways);
  • ▪ Action and expression (varying the ways in which students are encouraged to respond and show their learning); and
  • ▪ Engagement (using a range of practices to heighten student motivation).
Just as architects create blueprints to design buildings that everyone can use, the UDL framework encourages teachers to be educational architects who build student success (Salend, 2016). Here, we describe a seven-step pedagogical model to guide educational architects in developing UDL instructional blueprints. Let's see how educators might follow this model to create an instructional blueprint for Dylan.

Step 1: Understand Students' Learning Differences

Architects begin the design of a building by identifying the various individuals who will use the building. Educational architects start to design their classroom activities by seeking to understand each student's academic, behavioral, and social strengths, challenges, preferences, and interests, as well as their cultural, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds. Teachers gather this information through a range of assessment strategies: by observing students' interactions with others; reviewing their academic records; examining their work; surveying them (and others who know them) about their interests and activities; noting the learning conditions that affect their engagement and motivation; and analyzing their performance on classroom-based and standardized assessments (Doubet & Hockett, 2016).
Interviews with Dylan and his parents have revealed that he loves to talk about his dog, Legos, trains, boats, planes, being a movie producer, and the funny stories he reads. Dylan's teachers have observed that he performs well with technology, but struggles to pay attention during traditional academic instruction and becomes frustrated when solving word problems or writing extended responses. An analysis of his math assignments and assessments shows that he often makes mistakes because he skips steps or copies numbers incorrectly from one space to another. His teachers note that when the class learns anything related to mechanical vehicles, Dylan is the first to raise his hand. They also observe that when Dylan tries to make friends with peers, he seems to misread facial expressions and actions.

Step 2: Identify Educational Goals and Learning Objectives

In the initial stages of designing a building, architects also determine how individuals will use the building—what "goals" users must be able to accomplish. Similarly, educational architects begin to design student learning experiences by identifying the academic goals and learning objectives each student needs to master as a result of the instruction he or she receives. The goals for students who have individualized education plans (IEPs) or 504 plans should be consistent with those documents; the goals for students who are English language learners should be individualized based on their proficiency in English and their first language; and the goals for gifted-and-talented students should strengthen their critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity. Learning objectives may vary in the amount of content to be learned, the level of difficulty of that content, the pace at which students are expected to learn, and the ways in which students are expected to demonstrate their learning.
For example, Dylan receives instruction connected to his school's curriculum for all students, which is based on the Common Core State Standards. But whereas the Common Core stipulates that 3rd graders should be able to represent and solve multistep word problems involving multiplication and division, Dylan is still working on one-step problems—a goal that appears in his IEP. The Common Core standards for speaking and listening require that students "engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts." Dylan's challenges related to paying attention and maintaining friendships affect his proficiency on this standard. His IEP contains goals for paying attention when others are speaking and developing friendships with peers. Because there are other students in his class who also struggle with attention, his teachers often focus on these goals when designing group work.

Step 3: Examine Aspects of the Learning Environment

When designing buildings, architects identify the factors that may influence how a range of individuals will use the various spaces. Likewise, educational architects can perform an ecological assessment of the learning environments they create to examine the factors that may affect student performance. These factors may include their curricular, social, and behavioral expectations and interventions; technologies; assessment strategies; and classroom layout. An ecological assessment also identifies family involvement, collaboration strategies, available support personnel, and student interaction patterns that educators employ.

This article will continue into next week!
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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • To separate out information just pertaining to the new middle school I put together a blog just for the 6-8 KMS building!
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog. I will add information here when things come up and will always have the link here in the blog for all of you! It is also on the Karcher Calendar :)))
Overall reminders:
  • Parent/Guardian/Teacher Conferences - Conferences are on February 25 from 4:00 - 6:00pm.  
    • As teams please continue to contact parents we would like the opportunity to meet with for 15 minute time periods.    
    • Elective teachers please make sure you jump onto the meetings academic teachers are setting up or set up meetings within your team as well!  
    • Click HERE to access the Google Excel document our BLT created to track the conferences.  
  • 2019-2020 Budget:  
    • All of your department budgets should be spent by March 15 with the exception of field trips, food, and needed consumables.  
  • 2020-2021 Budget:  Please see the February 10th blog for all the information for next years budget needs and information.  
    • Next years budget documents are due to Kim by February 28!  
This week:
  • Extended Advisory this week:  
    • Monday will be regular extended advisory with your usual advisory students.  
    • Tuesday - Thursday students will be in advisory+!!!  
    • Friday - There is no advisory due to the BHS DRIVEN time, therefore, an adjusted bell schedule.  
  • Tuesday, February 18 - Come out and support our student council by having dinner at Culvers between 5:00 - 8:00!  
  • Wednesday, February 19 - Our goal is to have all of our 7th grade students enter their elective requests into Skyward during science class!  
  • Wednesday, February 19 - PLC time is for our Essential Skill work with your team!  
    • Continue your work with your content area team around your rubrics, creating formative & summative assessments, or analyzing your formative data to inform your instruction and strategy groups! 
    • Another thing you could think about using your PLC time for is your iTime groups.  
  • Wednesday, February 19 - Scheduling Committee Meeting at Dyer from 3:20 until the group is done!  Those on the committee please leave your PLC at 3:10 to get to Dyer. 
  • Thursday, February 20 - House split day for 2020-2021.  
  • Friday, February 21 - All 8th grade course requests for their freshmen year should be inputed in the computer.  The students have been doing this work with Steve Berezowitz.  
Looking ahead:  

  • Monday, February 24 - District Essential Skill Committee Meeting from 3:45-5:15.  
  • Tuesday, February 25 - Start of our iTime rotations using Standards Mastery and TDA work.  
  • Tuesday, February 25 - School Board Karcher Day.  
    • The board will be making their rounds throughout the school district to see all the great work happening in our schools.  They may pop into your rooms, observe the start of school, have lunch with students or staff, and simply be at Karcher to observe what all of our students and staff do!  
    • Perhaps this could be a great pot luck day!  Seeing as it is also P/T conferences it might be nice to have food that day so it can carry into dinner for staff as well.  Talk about it with your teams and if you guys want to someone shoot out the email about it... if you think a different day all for whatever the team decides!  
  • Tuesday, February 25 - Parent/Guardian/Teacher Conferences between 4:00 - 6:00pm.  
  • Wednesday, February 26 - Lucky Star Karcher night!  
    • Have dinner at Lucky Star stating you are there to support Karcher and we will get 20% of the total bill donated back to Karcher from Lucky Star!!!  
  • Friday, February 28 - 8:00 to 4:00 inservice.  
    • 8:00 - 12:00 will be Essential Skill time.  
    • 12:00 - 1:00 (or beyond) will be the next Scheduling Committee Meeting in our Karcher library
    • 1:00 - 4:00 is teacher work time. 
      • This would be a great time to use for your SLO and PPG work - they should both be submitted by March 3.  
    • Biometric Screening will also be taking place for any staff who missed the screening the first go around.  Time slots will be between 7:00 - 12:00.  
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Pictures from the week
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The epic Civil War battle!  Every student researches a person who participated in the Civil War and then takes on that role during the actual battle.  After the battle is over students are asked to compare their researched person to how it felt in the simulation.  










domingo, 9 de febrero de 2020

February 10, 2020



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Kudos
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  • Kudos to Dustan Eckmann and Liz Deger on a fabulous 5 - 12 strings concert this past Tuesday!  It is always awesome to see the progression of talent spanning from 5th grade to seniors!  And... playing a song all together - awesome!!!
  • Thank you BLT for tweaking our process for parent/guardian/teacher conferences that are coming up!  Your collaboration and team work is awesome!  
  • Kudos to Stephanie Rummler for leading the charge with our student council students at the Leadership Conference in Whitewater this past Wednesday and overseeing our 2nd annual SNOCO dance!  Both events were great experiences for students!  
  • And... thank you to the following staff members that came to chaperone and support the SNOCO dance!  Our events cannot go on without your support so thank you:  Kurt Rummler, Kris Thomsen, Suzanne Dunbar, Johnny Aguirre, Carmen Rivas, Eric Sulik, Mike Jones, and Officer Borchart!  Thanks again!  
  • Last but not least... we conducted interviews for our open ESL teaching position that is split between Karcher and BHS.  We are happy to share that Deanna Hawks will be joining our team starting this Tuesday!  Deanna earned her Bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, majoring in both Spanish and Linguistics.  She then went to the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee for her teaching certifications in both 6-12 Spanish and K-12 ESL.  She just finished student teaching this fall and is very eager and excited to be joining our teams at both Karcher and BHS!  
    • Karly Nadowlski will be assisting Monday through Thursday to help with the transition for Deanna.  
    • Deanna will be starting this Tuesday right away in the morning!  She will then start taking over the classes, etc this Friday!  
    • Please welcome Deanna to our team!  
Article this week:  As I was reading some articles about disciplinary literacy I cam across this table and felt it was a great synthesis to help us reflect on the use and intention of our lessons across all disciplines.  As we have recently been working on analyzing the TDAs and how all of us can "own" our data this table can help you reflect and think about what text you are pulling for your writing prompt and how we can support into what good readers and writers do!  

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Information/Reminders
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New Construction Information 
  • To separate out information just pertaining to the new middle school I put together a blog just for the 6-8 KMS building!
  • Click HERE to access the new building blog. I will add information here when things come up and will always have the link here in the blog for all of you! It is also on the Karcher Calendar :)))
Other overall important information:
  • Parent/Guardian/Teacher Conferences - Conferences are on February 25 from 4:00 - 6:00pm.  
    • As teams please continue your work you have started to secure parents/guardians that we would like to have the opportunity to talk with relating to their students growth and progress so far this school year.  
    • Our goal should be to secure 90% of the conferences you would like to have by the end of this week.  
    • Elective teachers please make sure you jump onto the meetings academic teachers are setting up or set up meetings within your team as well!  
    • Click HERE to access the Google Excel document our BLT created to track the conferences.  
  • Employee Portal & Ready Sub reminders 
    • This is just a reminder that we need all employees to put in their absences ASAP when the absence occurs.  Every employee should be going into Ready Sub and posting for a sub or indicating "no sub needed" for your absence.  
    • When possible, due to a sub shortage, if more than one person will be out for a planned absence on the same day please work together to determine if two subs are needed or one during your absence.  
  • 2019-2020 Budget:  
    • All of your department budgets should be spent by March 15 with the exception of field trips, food, and needed consumables.  
    • You cannot purchase a gift card with any school funds.  Therefore, do not purchase a gift card with the remaining funds you might have in your budget so that you can use the gift card later - this is not a legal practice.     
  • 2020-2021 Budget Information:
    • When determining your budget please think through the lens of what you need to support student learning versus what you want (would be nice to have but not a necessity).  
    • All forms are in Google Docs again.  Please complete all of our budget information in Google Docs.
      • Everyone needs to print a copy of your budget sheets and hand them to Kim and move your budget documents into THIS Karcher folder.  
    • When naming your budget documents please use this naming convention so that it is easy to search:  
      • Last Name - Budget Requisition Order Form   
      • Last Name - 2019-2020 Budget Worksheet Form   (Example:  Ebbers - Budget Requisition Order Form)
      • THIS form is what everyone needs to fill out for your entire budget.  This form indicates the total amount you need/want for the 2020-2021 school year. 
        • The above form is all Kim needs you to fill out if there are no items you need on your list prior to the start of the school year.  Meaning, if you are wanting to purchase items as you need them during the school year the above form is all you need to fill out.  
      • Use THIS form to request items that are needed for the start of the school year
        • If you are needing furniture for your classroom please fill out a separate Budget Requisition Form for these items.  When looking ahead we will only be purchasing furniture conducive to move to the new building, meaning, we simply need to be consistent on colors, etc.  So, keeping these items separate from your budget will assist with ensuring consistency.  
        • Example Budget Requisition Form - if you can just print off a shopping cart list 
        • It is preferred that all Amazon orders take place in August or later for the 2020-2021 school year as items requested now may not still be available in August.  
        • Also... with all online orders the goal will continue to be where we use our BASD credit card account.  
      • If you do not know your Function Number (Example:  English 122200) email or ask Kim and she will help with what your number is.  
      • Please send your budget information to Kim no later than February 28 
    • Reminder to utilize the Warehouse for items we already keep a supply of within the district versus using the building budget for those items - images below are warehouse items.    If you would like a copy of this Kim has it in the main office. 

This week:
    • Monday, February 10 - all of our 7th graders should have turned in their elective course requests!  Please collect your advisory student's course request forms, put them in the folder given to you, highlight names that have turned them in on your advisory sheet, and then turn in your folder to Kris Thomsen.  We, the office, will then work on collecting request sheets from students who have not turned theirs in yet.  
    • Monday, February 10 - Staff meeting from 2:40 - 3:00.  We will use this time for Jon Nelson and Eric Sulik to review next week's plans for advisory as our HS DRIVEN students are coming next Friday and our day will be atypical.  
    • Tuesday, February 11 - Special Education Department meeting (small conference room 2:40 - 3:15).  
    • Wednesday, February 12 - PLC is focused on Essential Skills this week (meeting wherever your team wants to meet) 
      • Everyone should be working on cleaning up rubrics, creating formative/summative assessments, or looking at formative student data to inform your instruction.   
      • Another item to look at between now and February 28th is your Essential Skills at a Glance document.  We need your Essential Skills and subskills to be accurate so that when we clone the behind the scenes standards-based gradebook course everything is correct when we clone.  We can edit after we clone it just saves time to fix it once versus for 8 sections of courses.  
        • Elective staff - thank you for getting Kris your adjustments already.  
        • Academic - you do have until our next inservice to take care of the At a Glance sheets.  
  • Friday, February 14 - co-teaching special education teachers will be participating in some professional development from 12:00 - 3:00 in the reading lounge (room across from the auditorium).  Peggy Black will be coming and working with our staff on what co-teaching 2.0 really is all about know, knowing we are in a world of the GRR model versus the 6 co-teaching strategies our teams first learned about 6-7 years ago.  
    • Special Education teachers... you are paired up sub wise with a staff member at the high school.  Please reach out to your HS partner so that they can put where your shared sub should go upon their arrival.  
    • Paired teams:  
      • Emily Boyd/Joe VanDommelen
      • Marnie Lukenbill/Kelly Fulton 
      • Ryan Mielke/Briana Harris 
      • Ashley Schilleman/Amanda Thate
      • Brian Skweres/Alyssa Riggs
    • The HS time with Peggy is from 8:00 - 11:00.  Subs will have travel time and lunch between 11:00 - 12:00.  Peggy too will be traveling from BHS to Karcher during that time frame.  
    • Annie Phillips will be attending the session with all of you in the afternoon.  Therefore, Jon Nelson will be in the office to cover admin.  
  • My schedule:  
    • I will be attending the AWSA Secondary Principals Conference starting Wednesday afternoon through Friday.  Therefore, I will be here briefly in the morning on Wednesday to work with our K-8 ID special education teachers around our Essential Skill work.  Then I will be leaving for the conference.  
Looking ahead:  

  • Tuesday, February 18 - Student council Culvers night from 5:00 - 8:00!  
  • Wednesday, February 19 - All 7th grade elective course requests entered in Skyward during science classes.  
  • Wednesday, February 19 - Scheduling Committee meeting starting at 3:20 @ Dyer in their library.  
  • Friday, February 21 - Adjusted bell schedule - BHS DRIVEN time with our students.  
  • Friday, February 21 - all 8th grade course requests completed.  
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Pictures from the week
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5-12 strings concert!


Girls volleyball is underway!


Life skills students working together to make their snack recipe!

SNOCO 2020!