Sunday, October 13, 2019

The Middle Update 10/13/19

We are 6 weeks into the school year, and by all accounts we are off to a strong start.  Now our focus turns to maintaining the strong start, and being cognizant on the natural "morale cycle" of a typical school year, and doing our best to break it...by breaking it, I mean avoiding the dip, and keeping patience, mood, and enthusiasm at a high level no matter what month of the school year it is.  It's important to keep our focus from our Opening In-service in the front of us...today's "Resource of the Week" provides a solid explanation and reminder for why the takeaways from the "Building Equity" and "Lost at School" book make such a big difference for our students...how the adults handle difficult situations in school affect the environment and experience for all students.  I My conversations with other principals in the area, make me feel great about our journey to being the premier place for educating students...we are doing great, but always looking to get better.  Thank you for what you do!

 Resource of the Week
From the latest issue of Educational Leadership magazine, the article this week does a great job putting together the "why" behind the approaches we have been working on having with our students who display undesirable behaviors at times.  I benefited from reading this article at this time, and probably would benefit reading it every 4 weeks as a reminder.

"Trauma Informed Teaching Strategies" - Jessica Minehan

"When teachers (or all school staff) are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from traumatic stress and make small changes in the classroom (or approach) that foster a feeling of safety, it makes a huge difference in their ability to learn."

Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thank you to all for your efforts during Parent-Teacher Conferences last Thursday night.  As a reminder, Thursday (10/17) students will be dismissed at 1:15, and conference run from 2:00 - 8:00.  This connection time is a great opportunity to strengthen the home/school relationship and strengthen the support alliance between home and school.

PMS Calendar of Activities
A regular reminder to check the Middle School Calendar of Activities for activities that are coming up that may impact our normal schedule.  Students in our Leadership Group are working to organize activities for students during our Monthly Activity on October 30th.  Please let me know if there is anything you notice that should be added.

End of Quarter/Assembly Planning
We will be having a Middle School Assembly on November 15th.  Mrs. Andringa and I have been working on the planning for this event, and how we can spice it up, and link participation to some of the things we naturally do to generate some fun.  November 15th is a Friday, so we'll plan to extend the morning Homeroom time by about 5 minutes so that we can execute our normal Friday Homeroom lesson during this time, and we'll have students complete their goal reflections on the morning of the 14th...more information will follow for sure.

Safety Update
Our next Safety Drill will be on Tuesday, 10/22.  We'll have another Fire Drill, however this time, we'll practice our evacuation plan.  We practice this because this is what we'll do in the event of an actual fire in which we wouldn't be able to return to the building.  In the event of something like this, all Middle School students will move in a safe manner to the Aux Gym at the High School, and all Elementary students would report to the Kerr Gym.

Sub Calling Update (from Mr. Laib)
Cheryl Hebel will be the “day-of absence” sub caller for the following dates:

Friday morning Oct 25th.  Cheryl’s phone number is:  608-212-8110

If you are not well, please call either the evening before absence, until 9:00 PM, and the morning between 5:30-6:00 to be better able to secure a sub.  If you must leave a message, please leave your name, grade you teach, or in the case of para’s, who you work for and hours.


Images from the Week


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

The Middle Update 10/13/19

We are 6 weeks into the school year, and by all accounts we are off to a strong start.  Now our focus turns to maintaining the strong start, and being cognizant on the natural "morale cycle" of a typical school year, and doing our best to break it...by breaking it, I mean avoiding the dip, and keeping patience, mood, and enthusiasm at a high level no matter what month of the school year it is.  It's important to keep our focus from our Opening In-service in the front of us...today's "Resource of the Week" provides a solid explanation and reminder for why the takeaways from the "Building Equity" and "Lost at School" book make such a big difference for our students...how the adults handle difficult situations in school affect the environment and experience for all students.  I My conversations with other principals in the area, make me feel great about our journey to being the premier place for educating students...we are doing great, but always looking to get better.  Thank you for what you do!

 Resource of the Week
From the latest issue of Educational Leadership magazine, the article this week does a great job putting together the "why" behind the approaches we have been working on having with our students who display undesirable behaviors at times.  I benefited from reading this article at this time, and probably would benefit reading it every 4 weeks as a reminder.

"Trauma Informed Teaching Strategies" - Jessica Minehan

"When teachers (or all school staff) are proactive and responsive to the needs of students suffering from traumatic stress and make small changes in the classroom (or approach) that foster a feeling of safety, it makes a huge difference in their ability to learn."

Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thank you to all for your efforts during Parent-Teacher Conferences last Thursday night.  As a reminder, Thursday (10/17) students will be dismissed at 1:15, and conference run from 2:00 - 8:00.  This connection time is a great opportunity to strengthen the home/school relationship and strengthen the support alliance between home and school.

PMS Calendar of Activities
A regular reminder to check the Middle School Calendar of Activities for activities that are coming up that may impact our normal schedule.  Students in our Leadership Group are working to organize activities for students during our Monthly Activity on October 30th.  Please let me know if there is anything you notice that should be added.

End of Quarter/Assembly Planning
We will be having a Middle School Assembly on November 15th.  Mrs. Andringa and I have been working on the planning for this event, and how we can spice it up, and link participation to some of the things we naturally do to generate some fun.  November 15th is a Friday, so we'll plan to extend the morning Homeroom time by about 5 minutes so that we can execute our normal Friday Homeroom lesson during this time, and we'll have students complete their goal reflections on the morning of the 14th...more information will follow for sure.

Safety Update
Our next Safety Drill will be on Tuesday, 10/22.  We'll have another Fire Drill, however this time, we'll practice our evacuation plan.  We practice this because this is what we'll do in the event of an actual fire in which we wouldn't be able to return to the building.  In the event of something like this, all Middle School students will move in a safe manner to the Aux Gym at the High School, and all Elementary students would report to the Kerr Gym.

Sub Calling Update (from Mr. Laib)
Cheryl Hebel will be the “day-of absence” sub caller for the following dates:

Friday morning Oct 25th.  Cheryl’s phone number is:  608-212-8110

If you are not well, please call either the evening before absence, until 9:00 PM, and the morning between 5:30-6:00 to be better able to secure a sub.  If you must leave a message, please leave your name, grade you teach, or in the case of para’s, who you work for and hours.


Images from the Week