Week 15: November 30th-December 4th

Bullock Brief

Over the Thanksgiving break, I was certainly able to pause to reflect on the many blessings in my life.  YOU are certainly one of my greatest blessings.  I am proud to work along side such a passionate and dedicated group of educators.  Your compassion, grit, humor and student-centric focus are noted and appreciated.  I am so thankful for you!  

A week for duty.   The duty schedule is located at https://goo.gl/q9w1EJ.

Habit 7 schedule

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
D	E	A	B	C

Upcoming meetings and events for November 30th-December 4th and December 7th-11th.  
^{The most up-to-date calendar is located online in Google calendar.}

Event	Date	Start Time	Location
Book fair	November 30th-December 4th	All day	Platform 9 ¾
Business staff meeting	November 30th	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
3-5 RtI	December 1st	2:45pm	Stone’s room
AVID Site Team Meeting	December 1st	3:00pm	Schlott’s room
Midterm	December 2nd	All day	N/A
PLCs	December 2nd	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
BT 3 meeting	December 2nd	3:30pm	Tramway
EC year 1 and 2 meeting	December 2nd	3:30pm	?
Lighthouse + Discipline meeting	December 3rd	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
Book fair family night	December 3rd	5:00-7:00pm	Platform 9 ¾
SIT meeting	December 7th	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
Sanford Christmas Parade	December 7th	Meet at 5:30pm / parade at 7:00pm	Platform 9 ¾
K-2 RtI	December 8th	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
AVID District meeting	December 8th	3:00pm	Platform 9 ¾
BT 1 Meeting	December 8th	3:30pm	Tramway
ESL Parent Night	December 8th	5:30pm	Platform 9 ¾
LCS Board Meeting	December 8th	6:00pm	Lee County High School
K field trip to Marbles	December 9th	All day	Marbles
PLCs	December 9th	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
BT 2 meeting	December 10th	3:30pm	Tramway

Let's celebrate... Clubs...what a huge success!  The Thanksgiving break with time to savor the friends and family we love.

The Leader in Me monthly focus: Goals My goal for us this month, "Working with all staff members, ensure that 100% of students have an organized leadership notebook with section 1 up-to-date (at a minimum)." We must inspect what we expect.  We have given this process time, so hopefully everyone is ready to continue to move forward in a way that holds our students accountable while making students aware of their growth.  That is the ever important 'why' behind this endeavour.  Fifteen weeks into the school year, we can most certainly hold our students accountable for their leadership notebooks.   Please take time this week for students to review their leadership notebooks. At this point, all students at Bullock should have a Leadership Notebook with the following components.... Section 1: Wildly Important Goal = Includes the a WIG related to literacy at a minimum.  It is time to start adding personal, behavioral or other subjects to our WIG section.  In that section, students should be tracking literacy assessment and coloring in their ATBs.  For those that are ready, go ahead and move forward with setting strategies and score boarding.   Section 2: Additional data = This section should include other data such a quarterly exam results, mClass summaries, or other subjects not tracked as WIGS. Section 3: Leadership roles = This section is a work-in-progress.  This is where students should record their Leadership role.  Every child should have a Leadership role.   Section 4: Victories = This should be a spot to display victories and reflections on growth and success:  an engineer ticket, a note from the teacher, an award earned over the past quarter (every one should have been acknowledged at least once), etc.  Section 5: Student-led conferences = This section is a work-in-progress.  There are numerous other great resources (in addition to the ones Mr. Hurdt provided to you) at https://theleaderinmeonline.org/resources/leadership_notebooks.

What is WICOR?  I hope by now all staff members can share what is stands for....writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading to learn.  The past couple weeks we explored writing the "w" of WICOR. This week, let's deep dive into inquiry.  Inquiry, in a nutshell, is questioning. AVID simplified the Revised Blooms Taxonomy into 3 levels.  They are referred to as Costa's level of questioning.  The Common Core requires that students think and process at levels 2 and 3.  Take a look at the levels and trigger words/phrases.  In your upcoming plans, determine if you have developed tasks that include those trigger words and require students to debate, infer, investigate, discuss, compose, create, write an original piece, evaluate, etc.   How can you move your instruction from level 1 (restate, explain, describe, locate, define) to level 2 and 3 on Costa's?  Two engaging AVID lessons on lunar eclipses and vision skills for sports are available at the provided links.  Using AVID weekly is a great way to get started.   4th and 5th grade teachers, don't forget to check-out resources at https://my.avid.org/ for your lesson planning.  You should also use AVID Weekly.  The code is included below.    Name of School: B.T. Bullock Elementary School - Add Code: 600347   If you would like further information, see Ms. Gillette, Ms. Schlott or a 4th/5th grade teacher.

      

- Every child will increase reading skills based on their individual academic ability by middle of year mClass and/or Q2 quarterly assessments. - We will reduce discipline to 21 or fewer referrals per month by June 2016.

      

Nightly reading: Team, I am encountering many students that claim they do not have a book to read in their backpacks. It is a REQUIREMENT that all students have a level appropriate book to read at home every night. We cannot assume that they have reading material at home. This is a school-wide WIG and of the utmost importance.

      EVAAS:  As I am sure you have discovered, EVAAS scores for individual teachers have been posted.  Yay!  EVAAS provides rich data on students growth which is our school-wide WIG....growth.  Please take some time to review your EVAAS profile carefully.  Administration will be setting EVAAS review sessions over the next few weeks to discuss student growth with individual teachers.    

      Business staff meeting:  The agenda for Monday's business staff meeting is located here.

      Clean slate:  Monday marks the start of a new cycle for students to attend clubs (November 30th-December 17th).  Highlight what an awesome experience clubs were and work with students to "begin with the end in mind" this month so that they can attend clubs as well. Please also remember that students must follow the school-wide process for reflection and write-ups.  It is not fair for a students to miss clubs if the process has not been followed.  

      Christmas Parade:  We will have two groups in the Sanford Christmas parade this year:  the chorus and the Mr. and Ms. Leave a Legacy candidates (all of them).  If you would like to help with the parade, we would love to have you.

     Tech Tracker:  Please make sure to put all technical request on Tech Tracker.  Ms. Frausto is not supposed to work on requests that have not been placed on tech Tracker.

Instruction: Please carefully read the AVID information above.  Consider how you can include Costa level 2 or 3 questioning in your instruction.  Please also watch this short video on classroom management during Guided Reading located on the Teaching Channel.  Developing clear processes are imperative to maximizing instructional time.

      Brief sign-off:  Once you have read the Bullock Brief please sign-off here.  

Happy teaching!  

Week 14: November 23rd-24th

Bullock Brief

B week for duty.   The duty schedule is located at https://goo.gl/q9w1EJ.

Habit 7 schedule

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
B	C	Holiday	Holiday	Holiday

Upcoming meetings and events for November 23rd-24th and November 30th-December 4th.  
^{The most up-to-date calendar is located online in Google calendar.}

Event	Date	Start Time	Location
Committee Meetings	November 23rd	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
Club day!!!	November 24th	9:00-10:00	Various locations
K-2 RtI	November 24th	2:45	Stone’s room
Book fair	Nomveber 30th-December 4th	All day	Platform 9 ¾
Staff meeting	November 30th	2:45pm	Platform 9 ¾
3-5 RtI	December 1st	2:45pm	Stone’s room
AVID Site Team Meeting	December 1st	3:00pm	Schlott’s room
Midterm	December 2nd	All day	N/A
BT 3 meeting	December 2nd	3:30pm	Tramway
EC year 1 and 2 meeting	December 2nd	3:30pm	?
Book fair family night	December 2nd	5:00-7:00	Platform 9 ¾

Let's celebrate... Ms. Cole and 3rd grade for a wonderful Thanksgiving production. Ms. Townsend, Ms. O'Shaughnessy, Ms. Perrell, Ms. Pendley and Ms. McHugh for their help in preparing for clubs. Ms. Lyon, Ms. Babb, and Ms. Welch for synergizing to quickly and efficiently distribute communication to all our parents on Tuesday.   Ms. Dossenbach for preparing the Engineer spotlight.  It looks awesome and is a really special way to celebrate student leaders.   Our staff for banding together during a tough week to stay focused on student learning and supporting our students and staff.   A great compliment to our school by someone who knows all the schools in the county well. "B.T. Bullock has the toughest kids, but the best staff."  Those "tough" kids are the kids we love.  You change lives folks.  I already knew we had the BEST staff.  Way to go Bullock!

The Leader in Me monthly focus: Begin with the End in Mind.  Wonderful lesson plans can be found on leaderinme.org that are specific to our monthly focus AND grade level.   Check-out this video on goal and data tracking.

How did you incorporate more writing into your instruction last week?  Did you use an AVID strategy?  If not, determine a place to infuse more writing into your instruction to WICORize your lesson.  If you would like further information, see Ms. Gillette, Ms. Schlott or a 4th/5th grade teacher.

      

     Our school WIGS
- Every child will increase reading skills based on their individual academic ability by middle of year mClass and/or Q2 quarterly assessments.
- We will reduce discipline to 21 or fewer referrals per month by June 2016.
Discipline Data
- September 17
- October 36
   
Discipline WIG: Data from the months of October (and November...although incomplete) indicated a need to intervene to reign-in student behavior. We had our first week of some of our positive incentives with classroom Leaders on TRACK and on Spotlight on Engineers. Please see last week's brief for more details. We want to continue to provide avenues to celebrate student leadership. Please continue to remind students that they cannot participate in clubs or Leader on TRACK quarterly celebrations if they have had write-ups. Our focus will remain on academics.

      BIP:  Please make sure that students have plenty of work if they have been assigned to BIP.  Mr. Kelly should not need to interrupt class to get work for students.

      Clubs:  We will have clubs on Tuesday.  Please see the "clubs" email for specific details.  

      Staff lunch:  We will have a Thanksgiving pot luck on Monday and Tuesday.  

     Accident reports:  Please remember to complete an accident report for student injuries.  The form should be given to Ms. Kennedy for an administrators review and signature.  

      Cleanliness:  Please work with your students to ensure your classroom is clean and orderly.  It is imperative that our school is scholarly environment.  Remember to consider the way our environment smells and looks.  A clean environment serves as an indication of the pride you take in your work. 

      Communication:  Please be sure to return parents calls and emails within 24 hours.     

      Calendar review:  Please review the most updated version of the calendar located here and provide feedback to Ms. Slate.   

      Schoolstore.com fundraiser:  We ran out of cookie key chains for 4th and 5th grade.  They have been ordered and more are on the way.  We will pull the winner for Joe Bot the robot once we have gathered all the forms from 4th and 5th grade students.  .   

      Sharpen the Saw...reminder:  I would like to invite you all to join me and my family for the Reindeer Run in Aberdeen, NC on December 5th.  The run consists of a 5K, 12K and Egg Nog jog for kids.  Santa will be there!  The Reindeer Run is a great family event and a Clarke family tradition. We would love to see you there!  Find out more at the Reindeer Run website. 

Instruction: Please take some time to check-out this video on Guided Reading located on the Teaching Channel.  There are many videos in the series that provide some great pointers and guidelines for teaching reading.

      Brief sign-off:  Once you have read the Bullock Brief please sign-off here.