domingo, 28 de marzo de 2021

March 29, 2021

KUDOS!!!

Thank you again to our BLT team for your commitment to our students and staff. Coming forward to share your concerns about a block schedule for 7th and 8th grade students were great points! As I always tell Annie... I don't want you to just agree with me. You are here to bring a different perspective, question each other's ideas, and work collaboratively as a team. You all did that!!! That is what I have always hoped for within a leadership team - a team that is not afraid to bring up concerns as the concerns need to be brought to the table to make the best decisions! True GEESE for sure :)))))) Listen to your flock - they are your team :)
We had a HUGE group of staff wanting to participate in the new Karcher Middle School Principal interviews. The first round of interviews will be taking place this Wednesday starting mid-morning and going into the evening. We will be bringing in 9 candidates from a pool of 49 people. Each of the candidates will engage in about a 20 minute screener with Annie Phillips, Ryan Heft, Steve Plank, and myself. Then, from there we will narrow down the 9 candidates to return for the second interviews on Wednesday, April 7th. During the second interview process the candidates will rotate through a series of tasks/interviews/tour of new school. It is these interviews, on April 7, where the full team interested in assisting will be asked to participate!

This is the group who have asked to participate:

Melissa Miskell, Jess Maike, Carrie Heck, Susie Fleischman, Andrea Hancock, Patti Tennhagen, Kailee Smith, Stephanie Rummler, Kurt Rummler, Shannon Sonnenberg, Deanna Hawk, Rod Stoughton, Suzanne Dunbar, Steve Berezowitz, Michelle Pulera, and Kim Moss.

Article this week: With the return to 5 days in-person instruction this article is fitting!

How Teachers Can Welcome Remote Students Returning to In-Person Learning

For many teachers, change seems to be the only consistent part of this school year. Whenever they get into a comfortable groove, new policies or student options require them to adjust their teaching style and develop new lesson plans.

The latest hurdle facing instructors is the return to in-person teaching as previously remote students head back to the classroom. Some students plan to return in January at the start of the spring semester, while others trickle in every few months.

These returning students can create challenges for teachers who want to keep everyone in their classrooms on the same page. Keep reading to learn how you can help these students both academically and in terms of social-emotional development.

Be Prepared to Help Your Students Navigate Change

Both you and your students have become experts in handling last-minute decisions by parents, administrators, and state officials this year. However, there may be a few changes that catch your students off guard as they try to re-enter the classroom.

For example, growing COVID-19 cases are causing some districts to reverse their plans for in-person learning. In one Virginia district, 6,800 students were supposed to return to in-person learning in November, but that decision was pushed back as coronavirus cases spiked.

“The current health metrics for COVID-19 cases in our community now exceed the threshold to expand our in-person learning,” Scott Brabrand, superintendent of Fairfax County schools in Virginia, said in a statement. “We made this decision as soon as new health metrics were released…We always anticipated the need to potentially adjust our return to school plans as necessary during this ongoing pandemic.”

Schools that move forward with in-person instruction also need to determine best practices for enforcing CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus. In some cases, educators are taking a softer approach to make these guidelines positive habits that will be practiced in the long term.

“Discipline is the last option for COVID non-compliance,” Brad Hatch, assistant superintendent of secondary education at the Altoona School District in Pennsylvania, says. “We are hoping that everyone accepts individual responsibility when it comes to social distancing and masking.”

As students return to the classroom, teachers need to step in as public health advocates, encouraging parents and their kids to take the pandemic seriously in order to protect everyone.

“In-person learning is crucial for students to thrive,” the team at Public Health Insider for Seattle and King County writes. “Returning to in-classroom education will require all of us to keep rates of community spread as low as possible…Together all of us – caregivers, students, school staff and community partners – can be an active part of keeping everyone healthy and learning together.”

If everyone works together to keep the spread of COVID-19 low, then in-person teaching can resume for more students and schools can stay open.

Your Role as a Counselor and Adult In Your Students’ Lives

Along with stepping in as a public health guide this year, many teachers are also tapping into their training as counselors and advocates for students who are returning to in-person learning.

In a guide created for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Debra Reicher, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, encourages teachers to understand the situations students have experienced outside of the school environment.

“While some children are grieving the loss of a parent, others may be enjoying increased quality time at home,” she writes. “Some children are experiencing and suffering great financial loss and may be hungry and lacking in school supplies.”

Research has found a rise in domestic violence rates this year, she adds, and some students are lacking supervision as their parents take on extra work to pay the bills. Knowing what each of your students is going through can guide you to help them in the best ways possible.

Additionally, there is a right and a wrong way to help students cope with the rise of COVID-19 cases and their anxiety about returning to school. For example, the mental health professionals at Anxiety Canada want teachers to be encouraging but caution against using blanket reassurance statements, like “everything will be fine,” or “there is nothing to be worried about.”

While you mean well, these phrases can invalidate concerns students have, lack substance, and can actually “create doubt and uncertainty that may drive a need for further reassurance.”

Instead, be honest about the situation. Talk openly with your students to help them better understand their fears and the steps schools are taking to protect them.

Consider How Your Students Have Changed This Year

The students you teach this year are going to be different from the kids who normally enter your classroom. Their development path has changed because of the pandemic — but this can be a good thing.

“The unprecedented level of responsibility that school students of all ages have had to embrace is worth both celebrating and harnessing,” Dr. Carl Leonard and Dr. Gail Brown write at Teacher Magazine. “Building on these new levels of confidence and autonomy is another way for teachers to show they genuinely care for their students, creating a safe and supportive learning environment where students are challenged to strive for success.”

You may find that your students are more autonomous this year or work better on their own than in previous years. You can take steps to create lessons that reward this and encourage these positive traits.

In fact, the learned responsibilities of this year’s students might help you keep your classroom safer from COVID-19.

“It can be exasperating, as a child, to hear your parents remind you of something you think you already know,” Katherine Cusumano writes at The New York Times. The same can be said for students listening to teachers give instructions they are already aware of. “Instead, whether regarding hand hygiene or social distancing, ask kids what they should do and let them lead the conversation. This helps reinforce habits and allows them to take ownership of the process.”

This gives students ownership over the tasks, rather than feeling they need to unquestioningly do what they are told.

Don’t Pressure Students to Immediately Catch Up

Returning students (and their parents) are likely nervous enough about heading back to in-person learning. As an educator, you don’t want to immediately overwhelm them — especially if they are behind in areas they can’t easily catch up in.

“If a student didn’t get speech therapy for two months, it’s not like you can start the school year and just cram in two months of speech therapy in a month’s time,” Lauren Morando Rhim, Ph.D., cofounder and executive director at the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools, says. “You might be able to offer extra hours or weekend services, but I’m guessing it’s going to be a long, slower progress.”

The team at Lexia Learning encourages educators to develop lesson plans with a focus on social-emotional learning, incorporating collaboration, communication, teamwork and self-awareness into the lessons. These will help students better understand their own mental state after nine months of living during a pandemic. The students will build lifelong skills while at the same time help them feel more comfortable in the classroom, which in turn can give them the confidence to catch up on knowledge gaps.

“There’s this idea that kids are behind, or that there’s this catching up to do,” Kathleen Osta, managing director at the National Equity Project, tells the American Psychological Association. “We would argue that rather than focus on learning loss, we need to help our young people process what they have learned and experienced during this tumultuous time—and nothing could be more important than their social and emotional wellness.”

That said, there are ways to help your formerly-remote students keep up with their peers, or at least take on a few extra tasks if they want to fill in any holes in their education.

“Break standards into smaller, manageable units,” writes special education teacher Kathryn Nieves. “Shortened time frames mean that objectives will take longer to teach, practice, and master, so segmenting lessons can help with planning and teaching.”

With this segmentation, you won’t have to use a full lesson to review the material, but rather a smaller unit or idea that your students can briefly review.

It’s Okay to Rebuild Your Lesson Plans from the Ground Up

While this year has been challenging — and it’s only the fall semester — there are some benefits to the pandemic and the upheaval in teaching. As educators are looking for ways to “make do” during this time, many teachers are using the pandemic to throw out old lesson plans that weren’t working and develop new ideas with new tools to engage students.

“Everyone has to rethink their teaching,” Jenn Wolfe, New York State’s 2021 Teacher of the Year, says. “Old lesson plans are out the window. There is much more talk about instruction, and teacher-to-teacher collaboration has become the norm in the faculty room.”

These new lessons not only engage students, but teach educators new ways of thinking about lesson planning. Innovation has become mainstream as teachers at all levels and budgets have tried different approaches this year.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced education innovation into the heart of almost every education system around the globe,” write Emiliana Vegas and Rebecca Winthrop, co-directors and senior fellows at the Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution. “The question is no longer how to scale innovations from the margin to the center of education systems but how to transform education systems so that they will source, support, and sustain those innovations.”

Essentially, how can school districts support educators so innovative learning isn’t a luxury that only teachers in well-funded schools can take advantage of? How can their engaging lesson plans and new ways of thinking reduce inequality in learning and reach students from all backgrounds?

As students head back to school for in-person learning, teachers are also looking to add more meaning to the lesson plans again, something that might have gotten lost as educators rushed to online learning last spring.

“There was a lot of, watch this video, fill in this worksheet,” says Jana Beth Francis, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning at Daviess County Public Schools. “Kids weren’t thinking about their work. So that’s the first step we’re taking in planning for the fall.”

It speaks volumes about the drive and passion that educators have when a global crisis is viewed as an opportunity to create something amazing from the ashes of a chaotic school year.

“Our teachers are just resilient,” Matthew Gutierrez, Ed.D., superintendent of the Seguin Independent School District in Texas, says. “They give 100 percent to everything and rise up to every challenge.”

There will likely be more challenges related to COVID-19 as we approach the one-year mark of the pandemic, but educators, students and parents can all work together to overcome issues and learn in the best ways possible.

Information/Reminders:

Monday, March 29 - Forward Exam Test Prep

Please make sure our time in iTime is extremely intentional for all students to spiral review standards from the fall, review prior grade level concepts of importance, and ensure we have students engage in practice problems with the use of the iReady Standards Mastery questions.
This is an expectation within all iTimes for all teachers who have an iTime. Please plan this out with your teams.
The first Forward Exam Test will be on April 22 - so make plans starting this week until April 22.

Monday, March 29 - Burlington Connected Meeting in the BHS library from 2:40-3:00 to discuss how Burlington Connected will function alongside our in-person students.
Wednesday, March 31 - BASD Sponsored COVID Vaccination Day.

This is a virtual day for all students K-12.
Please make sure you send what students should work on virtually by 8:00am on the 31st.
7:15-7:45am - BLT Meeting to finalize Forward Exam plans.

We have decided to use April 22 as a full day for testing. All 7-10th grade students will be attending while the 11-12th graders have a virtual learning day. All of our 7th grade testing would be completed and 8th grade we would then just need to figure out a schedule for the Science and Social Studies portions of the Forward Exam.

8:00-9:00 - Microaggressions conversation/survey.

Kurt Rummler will be taking the lead with the team focusing around the impact of microaggressions. This aligns with the work we have been doing all year with the National Equity Project.
This will take place in the BHS library.

Wednesday, March 31 - Screener MS Principal Interviews

Annie Phillips, Ryan Heft, Steve Plank, and myself will be starting interviews at 11:30 through 5:00pm at Karcher.

Friday, April 2 - No School!

Looking Ahead...

HERE is the teacher schedules for the start of 5 days in-person on April 6. Please let your BLT member know if you see any errors, mistakes, or items missing!
Monday, April 5 - Inservice Day (8:00-4:00)

8:00 - 11:30 is teacher work time - focus this time on the return to in-person
11:30-12:30 lunch on your own
12:30-1:30 - Building Level Time

Focus on looking at our Microaggression Staff Survey Data to see themes, trends, and discuss next steps.
Gain information on how we will tag items for the move to new Karcher.

1:30-4:00 - Time at old Karcher taping items that should go to new Karcher (the process we will be using K-12 will be explained to the team at the end of the 12:30-1:30 building level time).

Thursday, May 20 - 8th Grade Recognition

In the past BLT has asked to move the recognition to an evening time. This is the year to do it, especially given that so many families have most likely missed work numerous times due to COVID. Therefore, we will be holding our 8th grade recognition Thursday night starting at 7:00pm.
It is the expectation that all 8th grade advisory teachers and staff for musical performances are in attendance.
Those who would like to come but don't have an 8th grade advisory we will have a set section for you to sit in.

Friday, May 21 - Last day of school!!!

No school for 8th graders
Early release @ 12:00 for our 7th graders.
This would be a great day to use as a team building day, transition day (in the future), etc.

We will not be able to take students over to the new school for the transition piece at this time.

May 24th and May 25th

There have been questions about May 24th and 25th when it comes to expectations and the "why".
May 24th is an inservice day where the focus of that day will be checkout - you won't be able to check out on Friday, May 21st. The second thing we will be focusing on for the 24th is ensuring everything is ready for all of the moves that have to happen across the school district.

Section 12.03, page 52 of the employee handbook states that personal leave days will not be granted during the first or last week of a semester, on a parent-teacher conference day, or on an inservice day.

May 25th is a comp day for certified staff. There are always two comp days built into the calendar - one 1st semester (was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Break) and for 2nd semester it will be May 25th. These comp days are put in place for the 8 hours of parent/teacher conference time used within the semester. So, because you are attending those times for conferences you get a day off, which, in this case is the 25th.

Picture from this past week!

Pictures from 6-8 Karcher in the last two weeks!

Main entrance vestibule/reception area.

Main entrance vestibule

Reception Area

Center of the building. Four science classrooms in the windows on the right top wall in the wood area. Fitness room behind the wall to the left. Commons below.

Standing next to the elevator. The hallway takes you to the 6th grade academic wing.

Benches and display cases on the shared wall with the Fitness Room.

Overlooking the commons area from the other side of the building. The main office/entrance is on the other side of the image on the right.

A student bathroom.

Entrance to an academic wing.

SGI (Small Group Instructional Space)

Academic corridor with three designated learning spaces within the corridor.

Within a learning studio. These two specific rooms are ELA classrooms.

Inside a learning studio, academic classroom.

Beyond the windows are two math classrooms. Flexible student furniture will be in the hallway area on the corridor side of the windows. The black item hanging on the wall on the right is where a TV will be mounted. You will see those throughout the building.

End of an academic wing - the space beyond the vacuum is an extra classroom. Then you see an SGI and behind the SGI is a medium sized Flex Room for about 15 students.

Looking back towards the entrance of an academic wing.

Hallway between the upstairs science and the self-contained spaces. The space below the long horizontal lights will also be flexible seating within the hallway. The rooms to the left are self-contained, right is science.

Inside a science classroom on the top floor.

Inside a science classroom on the second floor.

Inside a science classroom on the second floor looking into the joining science classroom.

Inside top floor science.

Inside top level science.

Inside a top level science room looking towards the Fitness Room.

Self-contained life skills space.

SGI space

STEM Room 3 - may also serve as a Spanish room for some hours of the day.

Inside STEM 3

Inside STEM 3 looking into the large STEM room, STEM 2.

Art classroom

Art workroom area

Commons area.

Install of the wood floor in the gym from start to finish!

Stairs on the gym side of the commons area.

Below are our BASD student's work in relation to honoring Black History Month! Head on in, have a coffee, and check out our students art and words when it comes to the importance of celebrating our differences and working to ensure all people have a sense of belonging.

Students in PE doing a solid station workout!

domingo, 21 de marzo de 2021

March 22, 2021

KUDOS!!!

Thank you to all of our teachers for getting your 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 budgets completed! I appreciate your timeliness and great questions along the way! Kim and I will reviewing them this week, reaching out to those whom we may have questions and discussing with Ruth Schenning for approval.

Article this week: As we roll into the Forward Exam time frame here is a great article as a reminder for everyone on the importance of reading and vocabulary development - in every content area!

Text Prep

Doug Buehl

Frontloading can address gaps in academic knowledge so students are prepared to read complex texts.

What does it take to comprehend a complex disciplinary text in science, social studies, mathematics, technical subjects, or other disciplines? Many of our conversations these days have centered on close readings, text-based questioning, and evidence-based responding. But what if what you need to know for satisfactory comprehension isn't in the text?

Authors and readers depend on one another—each is expected to contribute some of what is necessary for comprehension. Texts would be interminably long if authors had to tell readers everything they need to know. In effect, the reader's task is to reach an understanding with the author, a "meeting of the minds." The result is a fusion of what an author says (text-based considerations) and what the reader brings as prior knowledge and experience (knowledge-based considerations).

Background knowledge has long been established as a make-or-break variable for reading comprehension. In their research synthesis of factors affecting comprehension, Alexander and Jetton termed knowledge as "the scaffold for text-based learning."1 Literacy researcher P. David Pearson described this dynamic as a virtuous cycle: "Knowledge begets comprehension begets knowledge."2

Building Bridges

Although all students bring an amazing array of knowledge and experiences to the classroom, this knowledge base is diverse and may or may not be a match for the knowledge demands of disciplinary texts. Gaps in academic knowledge—of the topics, concepts, practices, and vocabulary at the core of learning a discipline—can stymie even concerted efforts to comprehend a complex disciplinary text.

Frontloading, the scaffolding that precedes the reading of complex texts, anticipates academic knowledge gaps and builds bridges between the knowledge students bring and the knowledge demands of a text. Frontloading does not negate the reader's responsibility to work a complex text to achieve understanding. Frontloading should not be a foretelling of what the text says before students read; that's the reader's job to figure out. Instead, frontloading sets the stage for successful comprehension by establishing how this text intersects with the specialized knowledge building that has been in progress during the study of the discipline.

Following are three approaches to frontloading that are of particular importance to reading complex disciplinary texts.

Provide a Refresher

Author references to previous learning are a constant in disciplinary texts. Some authors implant these reminders to prompt readers to connect new material with prior knowledge. Although authors may expect students to mentally refresh what they've learned, we cannot trust that this will happen. It's tempting for students to peremptorily glide over such references without thoughtful pauses to integrate the new with the known.

In particular, students who come to the text with academic knowledge gaps benefit from a meaningful review of prior learning. Unfortunately, when an oral review is conducted, the persons who least need more practice verbalizing understandings—the teacher and a handful of knowledgeable student volunteers—tend to do all the talking. Such reviews tend to be cursory; the momentum is to move on to the new material.

In contrast, effective reviews ensure that every student is engaged in activating and verbalizing previously learned content. In these reviews, all students verbalize what they already know by sharing with partners or in collaborative groups, rather than merely through whole-class listening and sporadic participation. What follows are some ways that students can examine their knowledge banks as a prelude to reading a text that extends, qualifies, or questions prior knowledge.

Quick writes. Quick writes are an easy, low-tech method of review frontloading. With a timer set at a modest expectation (say three minutes), students respond to an informal writing prompt touching on relevant content, such as, "A science word I connect to volcanoes is ___ because ___" or "A common mistake when balancing equations is ___, so it's important to ___."

Quick writes are subsequently read and discussed with partners or in groups to expand the review. Or students can record their quick writes on sticky notes, which can be circulated among several students for a silent review of what their classmates recalled, and later posted on a board. Alternatively, the notes can be organized and summarized as a group activity. Many teachers find quick writes to be great class starters or wrap-up activities for those few extra minutes at the end of class.

Knowledge maps. Another review method engages partners or small groups in generating significant terms affiliated with a central concept. Group members must explain each term and justify its significance to understanding the central concept.

In one variation, groups can create a knowledge map—a kind of concept map exhibiting at least five key terms or pieces of information related to the central concept. For example, for the core concept "aristocracy," students may attach words like elites, ancient Greeks, and inherited wealth in advance of studying the French Revolution. A class knowledge map can be constructed by soliciting items from each group, with the expectation that each item be explained and justified.

Frontloading activities such as these are not intended to devolve into look-up-and-copy Googling exercises. However, after groups have exhausted ideas through collaboration, allowing students to consult their notes and class materials to augment their maps reinforces the usefulness of these resources.

Spark the Conversation

One of the most valuable scaffolding resources students have is one another. Collaborative conversations are rich ways to pool available background knowledge on a topic. How you start these conversations is key.

Thought-provoking statements. Proposing thought-provoking statements gets the conversation rolling and disseminates background knowledge. For example, in a culinary arts class, the statement "organic foods are healthier than nonorganic foods" will likely lead to lively conversation. For this prompt, students create a T-chart and jot down at least two reasons for "yes" and two reasons for "no." Next, students elaborate on their two lists with partners or in groups and later in whole-group sharing. Student conversations could surface a number of relevant background-knowledge hits. Some students may interject comments about the use of pesticides or antibiotics, genetically modified foods, food-borne pathogens, cost and availability, controversies over organic labeling, and so forth.

Arguable statements that cannot be categorically resolved are especially intriguing conversation starters. Students must use the texts to locate evidence that does or does not support the statement. They must decide whether the evidence is sufficient and reliable, and determine the extent to which future inquiry and research can contribute to understanding this issue.

Prediction and anticipation guides. In a variation of thought-provoking frontloading, prediction and anticipation guides present four to six arguable statements. In Figure 1, students respond to statements about a unit on digestion.

Figure 1. Mythbusters: Truth or Myth? (Prediction and Anticipation Guide)

What does the evidence say? Place a check in the "Truth" column if you predict the statement can be supported by scientific evidence. Place a check in the "Myth" column if you predict the statement is not supported by scientific evidence. Share with your partner your reasons for checking "Truth" or "Myth" and any evidence behind your choice.
Truth	Myth
_____	_____	The "average" American overeats on Thanksgiving.
_____	_____	Overeating every once in a while is relatively harmless, as long as you compensate by eating less afterward.
_____	_____	A person may feel sleepy after a heavy Thanksgiving meal because turkey contains a chemical that makes one drowsy.
_____	_____	A stomach can expand to hold an average of about six cups of food during a single meal.
_____	_____	If you eat too much, your stomach could burst.
_____	_____	A big meal can trigger a heart attack.

Notice that each statement is written as an argument—a conclusion, generalization, explanation, or interpretation. None is a straightforward statement of fact (even the 4th statement, which looks factual, is a generalization and needs qualification). Merely asking students to respond to fact statements encourages a dynamic of "do you know this piece of information," which can lead to skimming the text for answers rather than careful reading to locate evidence. Also notice that students' personal opinions are not solicited.

After individual deliberations, students meet with partners or in groups to share which statements might be supported by the research. When they read the text, students annotate it by numbering places where the author talks about each statement.

Afterward, students return to their partners or groups to negotiate which statements can be confirmed by the evidence, which should be rewritten to be consistent with the evidence, and which have conflicting evidence and cannot be confirmed or rejected. The whole class then "argues" each statement citing evidence from the text.

Predict Through Vocabulary Knowledge

A third frontloading approach engages students in examining and speculating about key vocabulary lifted from a text they will subsequently read. In a sense, they will preview the language—the academic discourse—crucial to comprehension.

Some of the words selected should be review terms, some should be important general vocabulary likely known to students, and some should be domain-specific vocabulary that will be introduced in the text.

Rather than merely telling students definitions of difficult vocabulary, this process engages students in exploring the possible relationships between the words, sharing current knowledge about known terms, and predicting possible meanings.

Exploring related words. One vocabulary-frontloading option involves developing two lists of key vocabulary terms used by an author. Column A should emphasize domain-specific vocabulary and new terms introduced by the author. Column B should contain words that most students know, including general words associated with the topic. For example, the vocabulary lists in Figure 2 prepare students to read a biology text.

Figure 2. Sample Vocabulary Lists

Column A	Column B
extinct	cloning
biotechnology	Woolly Mammoth
DNA	scientists
donor animal	back to life
ecosystem	survive
species	cells
genetic	laboratory
biodiversity	living things
preserved tissue	endangered

Vocabulary frontloading is intended to be a team activity. Partners examine the two lists, talk over current knowledge about the words, and decide on a series of plausible pairs that make meaningful links. A pair must connect a word from column A with a word from column B using prior word knowledge and predictions and then provide a rationale for the connection.

For example, some students might pair extinct with Woolly Mammoth, as this animal is now extinct. Others may pair extinct with survive, as extinct animals have not survived, or extinct with endangered, as endangered animals could become extinct.

The goal is on-topic conversation that explores key language of the text and anticipates material that will be covered by the author.

Vocabulary previewing. A variation of vocabulary frontloading provides students with key terms in the order they appear in the text. Partners talk over the terms and then write a predictive paragraph using all terms and following the list's order. The sequence can suggest to students possible relationships between terms and help them theorize about potential meanings of unknown vocabulary. For example, the following is a succession of key terms for a social studies text: redistrict, undemocratic, gerrymander, favoritism, incumbent, legislature, voters, constituency, majority, political party, hard-core base, reform, bipartisan commission.

The author introduces two terms that are probably new to students—gerrymander and bipartisan commission. The rest are either review terms or words that are generally known. The order of the terms provides students with an impression of what the author will tell them.

Both vocabulary-frontloading practices sensitize students to be alert for how the author uses this language. Vocabulary frontloading is an excellent setup for students to practice using designated words to write a post-reading summary of the text.

Why Frontloading Matters

Frontloading practices should be segued into the ongoing flow of knowledge building within a discipline. The reading of a text, of course, should be situated within the natural progression of learning about topics within a discipline. Instructional activities that develop disciplinary knowledge—classroom inquiry, hands-on activity, student collaborations, teacher presentations, and interactions with multimedia—all prepare students to read complex texts by introducing concepts and providing a baseline for further learning.

Frontloading focuses on assumed knowledge—what an author expects readers to know—that can derail comprehension if it's not acquired. Frontloading provides much-needed scaffolding for students who come to our classrooms lacking access to academic knowledge in their out-of-school lives. Particularly promising are frontloading practices structured so that students can take advantage of one another as knowledge assets—an untapped resource in many classrooms.

Information/Reminders

Summary Year Teachers

Please reach out to Kim to schedule your announced observation so that it is on both your calendar and mine! Many of you only have this observation still needed. If you have more than one floating out there I will be working to complete all observations no later than the end of April.
Please also make sure your Self-Review is complete along with the pre-observation form prior to the announced observation.

Non-Summary Year Teachers

Annie and/or myself will be completing any minis needed for you! Some of you I have already completed but I wanted to share that Annie may be with me and/or completing your mini as she works to also assist with MLP and teaching coaching.

All Certified Staff

Please make sure you are keeping up with your SLO and PPGs! Many of you have not submitted your mid-year and that is needed ASAP for review and final submission! Then, remember, to leave for the summer all of your MLP items need to be completed prior to checkout so be thinking about your timing and planning when it comes to the review of SLO data and final PPG work.

Warehouse...

If you happen to be doing any "house cleaning" in the coming weeks please do not send anything to the warehouse. Our goal is to either throw things away that are old (curricular wise and/or furniture wise) and/or leave the items at old Karcher for now. The warehouse has lost a significant amount of space as we changed the use of some of the warehouse to house WIN. This is a much needed change as it provides a "home" for WIN while also assisting the district with purging items we no longer need.

This Week...

Monday, March 22 - BLT Meeting from 2:40-3:30 via Zoom.

Our BLT team will review the Return to 5 Days Slides with the goal of sending out information to students/families this Wednesday.

Wednesday, March 24 - Special Education Meeting at 2:00 via Zoom.
Sometime this week or next week please have students complete the update for the Forward Exam - talk with your teams as to the system/process your team will use to ensure this is done for all students!

Link for Forward Exam Update for students to do on their chrome books