KUDOS!
- Please welcome Sarah Henningsen to the 7-8 team for these last few weeks. Sarah was serving as a teaching support person in 4th grade for a second classroom. She will be starting with us Monday, April 19th so please welcome her to the team!
- At last weeks board meeting the approval for Nick Ryan to become the next Karcher Middle School Principal was approved! Nick will be a great addition to BASD and the Burlington Community! An email was sent to all of you with more details about Nick and a welcome message from him as well!
- Thank you to the academic teachers who were willing to assist with lunch supervision this past Friday so that the elective staff could meet with us to discuss the elective schedules for next year! Your willingness and help is very appreciated! I believe the assistance was from: Scott Staude, Ellen Murphy, Kailee Smith, Patti Tenhagen, Mike Jones, and Kurt Rummler! I hope I did not forget anyone and apologize if I did!
Information/Reminders
This week:
- Certified Staff:
- This is a reminder to complete THIS survey for the Compensation Committee to analyze and use within their conversations and decisions about the compensation model for BASD. You are all encouraged to take the time to complete this survey as it relates to salary decisions for all certified staff.
- The survey will be open through the end of the day on Friday, April 23.
- Accurate Attendance!!!
- We will be using an automated calling system for students who are absent from school. It is VITAL that you take accurate attendance at the start of the school day!!!
- Monday, April 19 - 6-8 BLT Meeting from 2:40-3:30.
- We will be reviewing the finalizes schedule, asking if anything is missing, noticed, etc.
- Discuss spring parent-teacher conferences.
- Other items brought forward from BLT members.
- The link to the Zoom is in the Google Invite!
- State Required Forward Testing Starts this week!
- Please make sure all students have done the chromebook update!!!! They will not be able to take the assessments without the update!
- There are some extra headphones in the library for Karcher students to check out if needed for the exams. Students do need to return them after they are done testing for that day.
- Tuesday, April 20 - Start of our Forward Testing!!!
- All 7th grade students will be engaging in one ELA session within their ELA classes. We do have some small group testing taking place as well so please be cognizant and mindful in the hallways to ensure a quiet testing environment for our students!
- Thursday, April 22 - 7-10th grade State Testing
- All 11th and 12th grade students will engage in virtual learning on the 22nd.
- Our students will be engaging in the Forward Exam while the high school take the ACT Aspire. Both assessments are state assessments required by all public school districts.
- This is an extremely important assessment and one that all staff and students need to take seriously! Here are a few reminders of how we proctor the Forward Exams:
- Students cannot engage in anything else for the duration of time provided from DPI for the assessment. Meaning, if the Forward time schedule says 50 minutes and a student says they are done in 30 minutes quietly let them know that they won't be able to do anything else until the time provided is complete so why not look back through the questions and ensure you answered them correctly.
- Also, remind students to read the full question! Some questions tell students to be the best 2, etc so students need to read the full question to notice that.
- Lastly, NO student can submit their assessment until a staff member comes over to ensure they answered all the questions for the assessment. Once you verify they answered all the questions (there is a final screen that shows if they did or not) then they can submit. If they did not complete all the questions simply say, "It looks like you still need to answer number 9. Please go back to that question and answer it. Then I will come back over and double check that all questions have been answered prior to you submitting. Thank you!"
- Wednesday, April 21 - PLC Focus
- Please use your PLC time to look over your Essential Skill Rubrics and the language within your "At a Glance" documents to ensure the language is what needs to be used in Skyward! And... to make sure you are ready for the shift to Essential Skills grading practices come the fall as you will be shifting to a standards gradebook!!!
- Spring Parent/Teacher Conferences 7-8
- Please discuss with your teams this week how you would like to conduct spring P/T conferences! We will then discuss as a BLT on Monday, April 19 and make a decision.
- Summary Year Staff:
- If you have not scheduled your Announced Observation with Kim please do so ASAP!!!!!!
Other items relating to the end of the year and/or 6-8 staff!
- BLT - We will be meeting as a 6-8 team on Monday, April 19th after school. I will be inviting the 6th grade BLT members as our focus will be to review next year's schedule.
- "Closing of Karcher"
- Below are important dates for you to be aware of when it comes to the "Closing of Karcher". As you know, the current building will be coming down this June. Prior to that we have a series of events/needs to honor the memories and ensure the district has what it needs from old Karcher before then! Below are the series of events that will unfold in the weeks to come!
- "Celebrating Memories of 225 Robert St."
- The building will be open to the public (advertised for alumni groups) to walk through Karcher and reminisce about the good old days! These two dates will be Saturday, May 1st and Friday, May 7th.
- Friday, May 7th will be in the evening!
- For both of these your classrooms will be closed to the public. If you teach in large spaces (U-Lab, Band Room, 21st Century Lab, Library, STEM those spaces most likely will be open).
- We will have some volunteers around the building assisting the "self-guided" tour.
- Salvaging Mementos - June 4 & 5
- Both of these dates are set for staff and the community to purchase items of interest prior to demo. Think of this as a "rummage sale".
- The "why" behind taping items BASD wants with the colored tape in old Karcher (this past week with all K-12 administrators) was so that we know what we are keeping and what we have interest in selling.
- We will most likely have set locations in the building where all items for sale will be housed for the community to look through, again, still in the planning stages of this but wanted to share what we have determined so far!
- Initially we were thinking we would let community/staff come in with tools, etc and "take what they want" but this was determined to not be the desired plan for BASD. Therefore, what is above will be the basis of the plan, again... not totally thought out at this time but getting there!
- Police & Fire Training
- Following June 5th we have agreed to partner with the Burlington Police and Fire Departments for them to use old Karcher for necessary trainings prior to demo starting on June 14th.
- New Karcher Open House
- The new buildings interior will be completed this May with the furniture going in the building in May as well.
- The site, however, will not be completed, therefore, the new building will not be open for use until the start of the school year. We might use the office area for some district office staff throughout the summer as we work to remodel the 209 building for the new District Office location and remodel Lincoln School (where the current DO is located). However, student activities (camps, etc) will not be allowed to use the new building this summer.
- 6-8 Student Open House will take place at the start of the school year for the incoming 6-8th grade students and their families on August 31st.
- The dedication of the new building, with the Community Open House, will take place on September 25th. Perhaps you are wondering why after school starts? The desire is to have the building have some life to it... staff and student items in the building prior to a community open house!
- School Keys - End of the Year Return!!!
- So... EVERYONE... across the whole school district will need to turn in their keys to the head secretaries in each building. Each secretary was sent a list of all staff and all the issued keys you should have. At some point, it is suggested that you take the time (prior to the end of the year) to check-in and see if all the keys you have are the ones the district says you have. That way, if one is missing you have time to locate the key!
- Key turn in will be part of the staff check-out at the end of the school year.
- Just an FYI... 2021-2022 Start Times for K-5 (in the event you are curious)
- Teachers in all buildings will report from:
- 7:40-3:40
- However, Tuesdays will be PLC days with the start time of 7:30-3:40.
- Because we are asking that you come in 10 minutes earlier on Tuesdays then you have leave 10 minutes early on Fridays.
- School Start Times K-5
- Dyer, Waller, and Cooper (in the city schools)
- 8:10-3:20
- Lyons, Winkler (neighborhood schools)
- 8:15-3:25
- 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.
- Staff handbook language regarding the use of personal days:
- "personal leave will not be granted during the first or last week of a semester, or on an in-service day.”
- “personal leave during these periods may be approved for personal business that cannot be rescheduled for a different time at the discretion of the District Administrator or his designee.”
- 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.
Pictures from this week!
Check out this summative assessment from 7th grade math! Notice how the subskills are broken down at the top - so this assessment is assessing multiple subskills within the same assessment. By doing this the student and the teacher can see what areas they are proficient in (in this case 9.0 or higher) and which ones they still need work on (in this case finding slope). Much more specific feedback versus one overall score for the full summative. This is how all summatives should look in EVERY subject area!
Students in Patti Tenhagen's 7th grade math class completing a quiz on their computers using Google Forms. The focus of the quiz was for students to practice how they will see questions on the Forward Exam and understand what supplies they can use to solve the math problems.
The name of the school has gone up! This is looking back towards the main office (back right corner). The lower floor area is the commons and the upper windows about the "Karcher Middle School" letters is the Fitness Room!
