November 20, 2020

Honey-Do List- November

Nothing for the rest of this month!

Buzzing Along- Important Upcoming Dates

November 25 - half-day of school

November 26-27 - Thanksgiving - no school

December 2 - Cultivating Genius Professional Learning - 4-6pm

December 2 - Boston School Committee Meeting - 5pm

December 24 - January 4 - Winter Recess

January 18 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Building Hours Next Week

Due to the Holiday next week the building will only be open on Tuesday. 

Pollinating Ideas (This will be a new weekly section)

Teachers reveal their expectations in the learning opportunities they provide

The Progress of Educational Reform Vol 13 No.6

It is human nature to form instant impressions, perceptions, and expectations of those with whom we come into contact. At the beginning of each school year, teachers must quickly gauge academic expectations for a classroom full of students they have only just met, in order to ensure that each child’s interests, strengths, and weaknesses are accounted for and effectively addressed throughout the year. However, teachers run the risk of setting inappropriate expectations of some students, which can negatively influence their attitudes and behavior towards those learners. Without realizing it, teachers reveal expectations in learning opportunities provided. A teacher might set lower standards for historically low-achieving students or he/she might perceive various student's behaviors differently. A delayed response from a non-minority, more affluent student might be perceived as thoughtful consideration, while the same delayed response from a minority, lower-income student might be considered as a lack of understanding. These differences in teacher behavior convey expectations to students, which can significantly affect their own behavior in ways that impede academic achievement. These negative teacher effects are estimated to account for 5-10% of the variance in student achievement.

Inclusion-Done Right (Hopefully)

• This week I raised my hand to be involved in the Phase 0 and Phase 1 District pilot of inclusion practices
• We are the community to help design the guardrails to get an inclusive model that is staffed and funded appropriately
• We have proven that we can be creative and do the right thing for kids (look at our hybrid model)
• Recognizing how overwhelmed we all are I wanted to give you a heads up that I may be looking for people to join a working group in the very near future
• Here is the Phase 0 work:
• What did you do?How did your school get here? What went well? What would you change? What supports did you need? Or wish you had?
• What parts of the what are you most interested in working on?
• Phase 0 schools should have most of these things already. Helping to build out how Phase 1 schools will set these things up during their planning year. 
• Need to build out the check list focusing on what needs to be in place for a school to successfully make this transition.
• Examples of documentation we have been thinking about for the guardrails:
• Staff Engagement Plan
• Community/Family Engagement Plan
• Inclusion Plan
• Class Structure Changes
• Budget Changes
• Curriculum Changes
• Facility Needs/Inventory
• Scheduling Changes

Lexia

School to Home Resources

• Lexia has some really nice school to home resources available on their website. 
• I really appreciated the student choice boards at each grade level they may be a good non-screen resource for families.  

Student Awards

Why

• I am sure you know by now that sometimes I do things without completely explaining why. 
• I started the student awards because I wanted to start building the students' identities as learners and introduce the concept that by building a strong and powerful brain through hard work, focus, and meeting/surpassing goals all options are open to you as you get older.
• I do the shout out video and follow up with a mailed certificate and a small note with stickers to each individual student. Even if they are siblings living in the same house they each get their own piece of mail. 
• For students that I know are working particularly hard and may just miss a goal I call and offer verbal encouragement. This is usually 1 or 2 students a week. 
• I added two new shout outs this week for grade levelsto encourage class collaboration rather than individual goals. 
• JiJi's Class of the Week Award for the class that has completed the most puzzles at 
• First Class Traveler Award for the class that completed the most minutes in Lexia
• I start the process on Wednesday and usually get the notes in the mail Monday evening or Tuesday morning. 
• I chose Lexia and STMath because they were objective measures where the students are also able to see their own progress. 
• I have seen Lexia be wildly successful with launching students as readers and strengthening their skills in past lives.
• The lack of language in ST allows students who may not otherwise be comfortable in approaching language-based activities to find a high level of success
• As a team, we have been wildly successful in getting students to engage in these tasks. The increase in the number of students meeting goals and attaining shoutouts each week has been astounding. 
• This week 19 students finished a level in Lexia. 

Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week in Grades 1-3

Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week in K0-K2

• We have 136 students enrolled in K2-3
• We have 49 students enrolled in K0-K1
• There are 185 learners enrolled at Lee Academy (This is starting to sound like a math problem)

• 13% of our K2-3 students completed a Level in Lexia this week (That's an increase of 4%)
• 5 (3%) Students completed levels in their grade-level band
• 2 (1%) completed a level above their grade level band (Both K0/K1)

• 20% of our K0/K1 Students met their Lexia time requirements this week (That's steady with last week)
• Though we are not awarding certificates for time spent on the usage of Lexia 61% of our students met the usage requirements over the last 4 weeks. This is an increase of 6% over last week's 4-week average
• 86% of our students have had some Lexia usage this week
• Let's keep the upward trend going!

• 28% of our students met their Puzzle Requirement in STMath. This is up 10% though there has been a drop in some grade levels

From the District

Professional Development Opportunity

Engaging Students Remotely Using Math Routines

Description: Teachers will learn several rich mathematical routines that allow students to engage in mathematical thinking remotely. These routines provide entry points for all learners, allow students to build on each other's ideas and keep students thinking at the center of discussion allowing for an equitable mathematical experience.

Thursday, December 10th 4:00-5:30 pm Grades K-6

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5164884022?pwd=d3JjY3NmY2F2QnVTV3h6SVlUSUZXZz09

Zoom Updates 

Is your Zoom missing functionality or not working as it should? Zoom updates frequently (around every 7-10 days), so please make sure you are running the latest version of Zoom. In addition, check out our recommended Zoom security settings to ensure you are running meetings safely and responsibly.

Virtual Field Trips

The Focus on team has curated the virtual field trip opportunities linked here. 

Closing Gratitude

This Thanksgiving feels so different than any that has come before. I know that many of you may be struggling with not being able to see beloved family members. I hope that you can find ways to connect with others during the break, take some quiet time for yourself, find some beauty in the splendor of nature, and just be. I am thankful to have each of you in my life. You help me grow and become a better human every day. Please take care of yourself over break and feed your soul!

November 13, 2020

Honey-Do List- November

11/17/20          Completed reading of chapters 1 & 2 of "Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for                             Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy"

11/18/20           Complete this form about interim assessment

Buzzing Along- Important Upcoming Dates

11/18/20   Professional Development Session 1 "Cultivating Genius"     4-6 PM

Pollinating Ideas (This will be a new weekly section)

From: The Power of Teacher Expectations, Education Next, Vol. 18 No.1

by Seth Gershenson and Nicholas Papageorge

There are good reasons to assume that teachers’ beliefs and expectations can influence student success—an idea that has been embraced by parents, students, teachers, and policymakers. During graduation season each year, proud valedictorians thank the nurturing adults in their lives for pushing them to do their best. President George W. Bush famously criticized the “soft bigotry of low expectations” in support of his education-reform agenda. More recently, 2015 National Teacher of the Year Shanna Peeples declared, “You have to ignore it when a child says, ‘I don’t want to,’ because what they’re really saying is, ‘I don’t think I can and I need you to believe in me until I can believe in myself.’”

However, despite abundant anecdotes and theories suggesting a causal effect of teachers’ expectations on student outcomes, documenting its presence and size has been challenging. The reason is simple: positive correlations between what teachers expect and what students ultimately accomplish might simply result from teachers being skilled observers. In practice, distinguishing between accurate and biased expectations is difficult, because both teacher expectations and student outcomes are likely influenced by factors that researchers are unable to observe. Anecdotally, we believe that teachers’ expectations are important. But just how important might they be? And could differences in teachers’ expectations of white students and black students help to explain gaps in key outcomes such as college enrollment and completion?

To explore these questions, we analyze the federal Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, which followed a cohort of 10th-grade students for a decade. Among other questions, the students’ teachers were asked whether they expected their students to complete a four-year college degree. We use these responses to first document the presence of racial bias in teachers’ expectations, and then study the effects of differences in teacher expectations on students’ likelihood of completing college.

Our analysis supports the conventional wisdom that teacher expectations matter. College completion rates are systematically higher for students whose teachers had higher expectations for them. More troublingly, we also find that white teachers, who comprise the vast majority of American educators, have far lower expectations for black students than they do for similarly situated white students. This evidence suggests that to raise student attainment, particularly among students of color, elevating teacher expectations, eliminating racial bias, and hiring a more diverse teaching force are worthy goals.

When Expectation Becomes Reality

As a senior at her predominantly low-income Latino high school in south-central Los Angeles, Desiree Martinez told one of her teachers she dreamed of attending UCLA. In an open letter published years later, after she earned her degree, she recalled this response:

“You let out a sigh; I watched as a frown and puzzled look quickly grew on your face. You commented, ‘I don’t know why counselors push students into these schools they’re not ready for.’ My heart fell as you continued, ‘students only get their hearts broken when they don’t get into those schools and the students that do get in come back as dropouts.'”

Martinez then confided in a different teacher, who encouraged her not to let “people like that be the reason to hold you back.” Now the first in her family to graduate from college, Martinez plans to become an educator, and thanked the encouraging teacher for “pushing me when I needed it the most.” The pessimistic teacher was white; the optimistic teacher was Latino.

Teacher expectations are not always so overtly shared. In more common daily scenarios, how might they influence students’ self-perceptions and performance? Students might perceive and emotionally react to low or high teacher expectations, which could benefit or damage the quality of their work. Or, they might actively modify their own expectations and, in turn, their behavior to conform to what they believe teachers expect of them. Alternatively, teachers with expectations for certain types of students may modify how they teach, evaluate, and advise them, and in the case of low expectations, could perhaps shift their attention, time, and effort to other students.

Each of these possibilities creates feedback loops that trigger self-fulfilling prophecies: intentionally or not, teacher expectations cause student outcomes to converge on what were initially incorrect expectations.

Lexia

Scope and Sequence

• I thought that I would share with you the levels that align with grade-level work so that you can gauge how students' level completion is aligning with grade-level standards.
• The vast majority of our students are working asynchronously below nationally normed grade-level standards
• We will continue to award level completion because these students are persevering and completing the work
• I would like to think about how we as a staff can increase our expectations for use so that we are leveraging this tool to its maximum potential.

Level 1:                K1

Levels 2-5:           K2

Levels 6-9            1st

Levels 10-12        2nd

Levels 13-15        3rd

• 14 K0/K1 Students have completed level 1
• 6 Students have gone on to complete at least 1 level outside of their Grade band
• 9 K2 students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 5
• 0 1st grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 9
• 3 2nd grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 12
• 0 3rd grade students have completed a level within their Grade level band there are no students that have completed a level above level 15

ST Math

• We need to rethink our weekly goal for STMath to be about puzzle completion vs. time spent. 
• ST Math uses puzzle completion as a proxy for students getting through a grade level's standards during the course of a year. 

K1:        20 Puzzles/ week

K2-1:     40 Puzzles/week

2-3:        60 Puzzles/week

Student Awards

Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week

• We have 136 students enrolled in K2-3
• We have 49 students enrolled in K0-K1
• There are 185 learners enrolled at Lee Academy (This is starting to sound like a math problem)

• 9% of our K2-3 students completed a Level in Lexia this week
• One of our K1 students completed level 3

• 20% of our K0/K1 Students met their Lexia time requirements this week
• Though we are not awarding certificates for time spent on the usage of Lexia 55% of our students met the usage requirements over the last 4 weeks. This is a rate that has been slowly increasing. 
• Let's keep the upward trend going!

• 18% of our students met their Puzzle Requirement in STMath

Common Assessments

• We have a common assessment mandate from the district for our students in ELA and math.
• Where we have a choice is in whether we want to give the BPS Assessment or the  MAP math assessment
• At first, I defaulted to the district interim because we are familiar with that but then I was thinking the national norming of the MAPGrowth testing might make it more desirable to see how our learners are doing compared to peers nationally.
• We would need to be committed to having every student assessed.
• The low number of students assessed for reading really made the data less useful for us as a learning community
• Both tests would need to be administered remotely
• Please complete this two-question form by 11/18 to let me know which assessment we should go with. 

Fraudulent Unemployment Claims

• This happened to me! I received an unemployment benefit packet in the mail today!
• At this time the district is experiencing high volumes of fraudulent unemployment claims. This is a nationwide issue, and the state is working hard to deny all false claims. If you receive a letter in the mail for an unemployment claim that you did not initiate, please complete a form using the link below for the state to investigate. 
• The Office of Human Capital (OHC) will begin sending notifications to let employees know when we receive a claim that we believe to be fraudulent. The OHC team managing unemployment claims is responding to the state and flagging all claims with fraud for the state's immediate attention. 
• Should you have any questions regarding unemployment claims please contact Jania Bell jbell4@bostonpublicschools.org
• State of Massachusetts Unemployment Fraud Reporting:
• https://www.mass.gov/forms/unemployment-fraud-reporting-form

November 6, 2020

Honey-Do List- November

11/10/20         Thoughts on 1 student of the week per class vs. 3

11/10/20         Thoughts on Lexia recognition for K0/K1

11/17/20          Completed reading of chapters 1 & 2 of "Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for                             Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy"

11/6 /20           Digital Picture and BitMoji to Jodi

Buzzing Along- Important Upcoming Dates

11/9/20        Lee Academy BitMoji School Goes Live. Will be communicated to the families via Buzz

• From Last Week's Hive: If you have a BitMoji Classroom I would love to link it to our office (Click on the ball in my office or Ms. Jen's name in the Gallery)

11/11/20    No School- Veteran's Day

Principal's Video Post

• I will be prerecording a video celebration of our students that will be in your inbox by 8:00am on Mondays. 
• I would like to see the percentage of students receiving certificates increase. 
• We currently only have 23% of our students completing the target number of puzzles in STMath at their grade level. This is from the past week
• Over the past 4 weeks, only 50% of our students met their usage requirements in Lexia
• I will mail students their certificates and they will be recognized in our Bitmoji School
• We will recognize our students in a variety of ways

Student of the Week

• Please provide me with the name of the student of the week in your classroom and the reason why you selected them by Saturday at 6:00
• At the leadership team, we discussed having a student of the week in all 3 areas (Safe, Responsible, Respectful)
• I would like to hear your thoughts on this. We could recognize more students this way but given our relatively small class sizes, it may feel a bit like everyone gets a trophy and dilute the meaningfulness. 
• Please let me know via email, by 11/10, that yes you think this is a good way to proceed or no keep it at 1 student per clas

Lexia Certificates

• Students who have completed a level will receive a certificate
• The scope and sequence only calls for K0/K1 to complete one level
• At the leadership team, we discussed having K0/K1 students who completed their prescribed amount of time a certificate
• Please let me know via email by 11/10 if you think that this is a good way to proceed
• This week we have 2 K0/K1 students receiving certificates
• There are 13 students (7%) schoolwide receiving certificates for completing a level this week. 

ST Math Certificates

• Students who have completed the prescribed number of puzzles will receive a certificate
• K0/K1= 20 Puzzles
• K2-1= 40 Puzzles
• 2-3 = 60 Puzzles
• There are 42 (23%) students receiving certificates for the week of 11/2

Birthdays of the Week (2 for this week)

• This week we will celebrate birthdays for the first two weeks of November. 
• We will celebrate September and October birthdays at their 1/2 Birthdays in March and April

Lexia Resources

• The Lexia website has a resource page that may help you leverage the program 
• There are both student support materials and parent communication resources available
• Members of the leadership team have formed a small subcommittee. This group is exploring the quality of Lexia PD (from last week's Hive) and will report back on the quality of the offerings. 

Office Hours

• This was an exercise in futility, frustration, and guilt for me. 
• Though I miss people just popping by my office we are leveraging texts and emails to get our questions answered
• I will no longer be signing on every morning at 8:30 for drop-in hours 
• I will hold 8:30 office hours to discuss certain timely topics. Attendance at these will be voluntary. 
• If you would like a standing meeting with me please let me know and we will schedule. 

COVID

• The Governor had an interesting press conference today at 1:30
• I have linked it here
• Here is the Globe article summarizing the press conference
• Please listen carefully to the press conference and the scientific evidence that he and the doctor are citing
• Today Joseph Allen from Harvard's Chan School of Public Health conducted a DESE sponsored webinar for superintendents and facilities directors
• Here is the Chan School of Health's June Report on the Reopening of Schools
• I am sure that many of you have read it but in case you would like a refresher
• Based on what the Governor is saying and our experiences with how we welcomed back HIPP students I believe that if the district reopens we should fight to implement our full hybrid model. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts
• As an aside, listen to the Republican Governor's thoughts on Donald Trump at the end of the conference