Winfield Middle School Parent Blog
11/07/16
Now that basketball season resumes, we are #BackInBusiness
We hosted Van Far for our first Friday Night Basketball, splitting the 2 games. The girls finished in #doubledigits and the boys got on board quickly with a ten point lead and never gave it up!
Well done, Coaches, Players, Cheerleaders and Fans!
One thing…
Periodically, we get requests. We might be asked to deliver a note, stop by and pick up an item, ask a question or some other simple, one dimensional task. In the office, we call that “One thing!” It might sound like, “Mr McCracken, would you pick up the envelope from Bus 26, please?” I’d head to bus duty with every intention of grabbing the envelope but on the way, seeing 300 of my favorite people heading home for the day, crossing the field, with the trees all filled with squirrels, I just might see one, get distracted and almost forget my duty. As a school, we have “one thing” to do but often times we too get distracted. On the whiteboard in my office, I have listed my top five top goals for our Middle School. They are:
ELA
MATH
SCIENCE
DISCIPLINE
PARENTS
A visiting team of parents joined me Friday for a quick chat, and we discussed these goals among other concerns. They wondered about the PARENT goal and how they could contribute. Some goals are simple to measure, like MATH or Discipline or a basketball game ending at 43-30, good guys. We look at scores or number of student infractions that get written up and we can determine if we are heading towards those cairns or trail guides or markers. But a goal like PARENTS is a bit harder to quantify. For instance, do we count how many phone calls we get? How many calls we make? How many parents we talk to at the football game? How many hits on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Remind or Weebly? Of course, we expect these to be ever increasing, but how do we know if there is enough? There may be a clue to lead us, especially when relationships are involved. As long as our relationships are healthy open and transparent, communication seems sufficient. Yet when there is an issue, problem or concern, it often stems from the lack of communication or miscommunication or a misconstrued verbal or written message. We spend lots of time helping our students make good decisions, talk nice and avoid toxic people, but do we do the same?
Therefore, to ensure we maximize our communication, we are planning another PEPSI WITH THE PRINCIPAL meeting. Much like the format of a traditional Town Hall Meeting, we will be discussing current success, things to continue, things to cease and things to start. This meeting will be on December 7th, at 5:30 pm in the middle school commons. Please join us with your thinking caps ready to go!
Note that consistent follow-through on that free throw!
Every shot looks the SAME.
Practice makes perfect? NO?
Perfect practice makes perfect!
Now for the Academic!
Data, Data, Data
Above, framed in Blue, we see how well we are doing as a district. The Red outlines just the middle school. We want to be complete in our service to the community and this may identify some areas we can work on. Please support us by providing a good place for students to study and work, a charged Chromebook daily, daily reading of SOMETHING and any other support materials as necessary. Thank you.
My Take-Aways from our Early Release last Wednesday!
When visited by Jay Reese from the State, I was struck by the results. Trying to justify and vindicate myself, I considered all our various initiatives and wondered about our next steps! We have so many things going on, and we may be spread too thin. However, he left us a few take-aways, among those, surrounding empathy towards students, disenfranchised students, curriculum alignment and engaging lessons. He alluded to us needing time to finish this conversation over the next few months but I am excited to see where it takes us. Working through issues, concerns and obstacles with our team gives me hope and encouragement for our future. He mentioned cooperation, working together, collaborating and sharing interventions on what is working.
I must say, I am impressed by the work over the past few weeks as we have begun to review weak points and consider curriculum deficiencies. Together, that will help us narrow the gap between achievement and sub-groups.
We also heard Scott Taylor from eValuate. He had a few take-aways for us to consider. Namely, a daily, regular and consistent eValuate revisiting, in the form of a problem of the day, post teaching each question from the test, warm up, team teach, or some type of repeated exposure to their problems, format and presentation in an effort to acclimatize student to the new MAP test. Here is our current snapshot, all the way through October.
Building Progress Snapshot - eValuate
2015 - October Snapshot
2016 - October Snapshot
The top figure in Red shows last year’s status at the end of October with the Green bottom showing growth as we start off this year’s cycle. In math, 22% climbed up to 25% and ELA bumped from 45 -46% when compared year to year.
2016 October Progress
Note: These two charts in green show Math at 4% and 3 % last year.
This year we are at 4% & 5% 
Note: ELA was at 18% last year.
This year we are at 24%
Our PBiS behavior data...
Thist shows that, due to a dramatic drop in major infractions, our focus can be on the minor events, addressing these behaviors with regularity and consistency.
Happy Halloween
On Halloween, our MATHLETES held class in the commons working on stations, groups, estimating, number sense and spatial reasoning. Everything from guessing the number of candy corns in a glass jar to mathematical puzzles themed around the haunted day and challenged students.
RED CARD/BLACK CARD STATUS
(Think grades, behavior and attendance)
Many students have managed to attend school according to expectations, behave properly, and achieve higher marks in their academic endeavors. Building wide, 156 students have met those proficient standard expectations. Through the Red Card/Black Card Programs, they earn discounts to events, special incentive days and events like the Costume Social, pictured below.
HOW MANY OF EACH GRADE EARN THIS STATUS?
61- 6th graders
48- 7th graders
56- 8th graders
Halloween began a bit early for some this year. At the Costume Social, we all took a break and dressed to impress.
FFA / Veterans Week at the Middle School
Election Week-November 2016
Monday
- District Wide: FFA “Merica Day” - RED WHITE AND BLUE
- Cross Country Banquet
Tuesday
- District Wide - Favorite Tractor Company
- Winfield Basketball Tournament
- 7th Grade at Home: First game at 4:00
- Elsberry Basketball Tournament
- 8th Grade at Elsberry: First game at 6:30
Wednesday
- District Wide - US State Apparel Day
- Brunswick Trip Two
- Winfield Basketball Tournament
- 7th Grade at Home: First game at 4:00
- Elsberry Basketball Tournament
- 8th Grade at Elsberry: First game at 6:30
Thursday
- District Wide - Camo, Support our Troops
- Tentative Pizza Hut trip for Fundraising sales
- Two groups
- C Flamm
- K Gross
- Winfield Basketball Tournament
- 7th Grade at Home: First game at 4:00
- Elsberry Basketball Tournament
- 8th Grade at Elsberry: First game TBD
Friday
- District Wide - Flannel Friday
- Veterans Day Assembly at the Middle School 8:00 AM
- Special Veteran Guests, the Primary and Intermediate Schools and Media will all be present
- http://selfiewithasoldier.com/ at the big Army Truck!
- Ceremony
- Continental Breakfast for Vets and their Student
Ongoing/Upcoming
- November 16 Early Release theme
- Building PD Focus
No Shave November
or
A Month Full of Thankfulness?
This month, let’s focus on how much we have, as a country, community, school, family and as individuals. After spending time with a foreign exchange student from Tanzania, the phrase “first world problems” took on a whole new meaning. Where he is from, EVERYTHING is different. He left the USA with mixed emotions. While longing to return to his family, he admitted to enjoying the luxury of Lincoln County and Winfield School District. For instance, at the Middle School contains:
- Formative Assessment
- eValuate/MAP Incentives like Brunswick
- Curriculum Development
- Parent / Teacher Conferences
- Under-resourced learners
- Student/Teacher Relationships
- Fundraising to afford extra activities
- Chromebooks for All
- Ac Lab Challenges/Assemblies
- Digital Dream Work
- MobyMax for all
- eValuate for all,
- Results Review
- eValuate Problem of the Day
- Newspapers in Education
- NewsELA
- Data Walls
- NEE Teacher Evaluations
- Units of Instruction
- Indicators & Strategies
- Lesson Plans
- Word Walls
- Pacing Guides
- Student led lessons
- Bully prevention initiatives
- Student Clubs
- Chess Club
- Yearbook
- Pokemon
- Athletics
- Cheerleading
- Art Club
- Thrive Presentations
- Lesson Plans
- Readers/Writers Workshop
- Curriculum Maps
- Student Self Reported Grades
- Teacher Support
- Collaborative Work Grant
- Math Consultants
- ELA Trainers
- Teacher Collaboration
- Block Scheduling in ELA
- Student Centered Classrooms
- Lunch Lessons
- Binder Content Meetings
- Parent Positive Postcards Home
- PBiS
- WOWs, tokens, tickets
- SWBAT
- Collaboration Days
- Pepsi (& Pizza*) with the Principal
- Staff Celebrations
I look at this list of current initiatives, programs, events and routines we practice here at the middle school and I question how much I take for granted. Have I grown spoiled and accustomed to these things? Have I become entitled to all this? Where have I shifted my focus on myself and not on those around me? Where have I become distracted and no longer focused on the ONE THING?
Focusing,
Tom McCracken
No comments:
Post a Comment