December 11, 2020

Honey-Do List- December

December 11- Read the Hive. Tell your friends to read the Hive.

December 14- Huddle report Cards and January Assessments

December 16- Professional Learning- Session 3

December 20 - Fall Trimester Grading Window Closes. Grades must be posted.

December 22-   Report cards emailed home (will be done by office)

December 24 - January 4 - Winter Recess

January 18 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Pollinating Ideas 

The Power of High Expectations for Black Students

If we take our one-sided views of what success can look like and mean for black students, and hold high expectations for them, perhaps we will have fewer student-athletes and more students. When we hold high expectations, in whatever form they may come, the sociological phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies usually rings true. When I call my students geniuses three or four times a day, every day, I am not just doing it because that moniker sounds good. I am doing it because if students really believe that their teacher believes that they are smart, then they will spend a few more minutes studying and take a little more time when working on an assignment. And when they do that, they will get better grades. When they get better grades, they will believe that they are actual geniuses, and the whole chicken and egg thing cycles through again and again. There is power in fostering a culture of high expectations for your black students. Don’t read this and slip into thinking about discipline and behavior, we can talk about that another day. I am solely talking about academics. Suturing high expectations with academics creates a mindset of the next LeBron James, only outside of the sports grounds.

The Hive

• Remember that reading the Hive is an expectation.
• Thank you to those who read it each week
• Given the information in the Hive and questions I am asked sometimes, I can sense when readership has declined. 
• Please remind your friends to read as well. 
• I know it is a pain and everyone is overwhelmed but unless you want a cheesy video or another meeting I can't think of how to push out information to you.
• Let me know if you have a better idea (seriously let, me know)
• Report Cards

• We will be doing report cards in Aspen so that we can distribute them to parents efficiently
• Here is a tutorial on how to complete report cards in Aspen:
• How to post elementary grades in Aspen
• Report Card Comment Codes
• We will be emailing report cards to families on December 22, 2020 

Huddle

• We will be having a Huddle Monday at 3:15. 
• The purpose of the Huddle is to answer questions you have about report cards and parent conferences
• If there is time we will also discuss the scheduling of January Assessments. 

Reopening

• I have heard through the BPS Grapevine that the BTU has informed teachers that the District is reopening on January 4th for Students that are high priority in-person learners. 
• I do not know that this is actually true
• I know the superintendent would like this to happen but that there are many hurdles to be jumped between now and then including BPHC approval AND Transportation routing
• As soon as I know you will know but as of now from sources very high up in the planning, this is unconfirmed. 

Lexia Electronic Resources

• As I alluded to last week there are many components of Lexia that we are not using 
• Lexia has provided resources and lessons available that can be used electronically. 
• They may not be perfect but they could save us from reinventing the wheel in some cases
• If you go into "My Lexia" (the same place you should be checking your students' data)
• On the left of the screen in dark blue, there is a resources tab. Click that tab
• On the screen it takes you to you will see: Core5 Resources Hub  Click that tab (I am not sure this link in the Hive will work outside of Clever)
• You will see this section New! Digital Lexia Skill Builders and Lexia Lesson Slide Decks Click that link
• There are a plethora of electronic resources there that you can post to your Google classrooms or SeeSaw.
• Try one of them out this week. 

Teachers Using Lexia Data

I want to shout out the following teachers who have signed in at least once during the past week to monitor their students' progress.

• Meredith     
• Rose                          
• Danielle       
• Taydavia      
• Marc 
• Noreen
• Lindsay
• Keri          

Professional Learning

• Pre-work: Please read chapter 4 of Cultivating Genius: Toward the Pursuit of Skills
• Pre-thinking: Consider what your grade level team will use the work time for.  We will have roughly 45 minutes to continue working toward incorporating more culturally and historically responsive teaching into the student experience at your grade level. It could be used to finish fleshing out your action plan OR to begin one of the steps on your action plan.  For example, Grade 2 plans to use the work time to begin researching books about different careers to use in our reading/writing unit on Career Studies.  
• Join Zoom Meeting https://k12-bostonpublicschools.zoom.us/j/84695739465?pwd=TkNIcDVHUlh0OHd0RjduOUJJTkIrdz09

Climate Survey

• Do not forget to do the teacher climate survey for the district.
• Please encourage families to do the Family Climate Survey as well
• I know how hard everyone is working and there is great stuff happening. 
• I want you to get recognition for that!

Student Awards 

• Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week 
• I do think I will do a K video and a grade 1-3 video again. I just have not split the script yet, 
• Though we are not awarding certificates for time spent on the usage of Lexia 65% of our students met the usage requirements over the last 4 weeks. This is an increase of 11% over last week's 4-week average however it continues to include Thanksgiving week.
• From 9/1/20-12/11/20, We have increased from 30% of our students working on grade level material to 33% working on grade-level material
• From 9/1/20-12/11/20, We have increased from 2% of our students working on above grade level material to 9% working on above grade-level material 
• This is an increase of 2% over the past week whoo hoo)
• From 9/1/20-12/11/20, We have decreased the percentage of students working on below grade level material from 69% to 58%. A decrease of 11%. Way to go team!

• 24% of our students met their Puzzle Requirement in STMath. This is down 3% from last week

Gratitude

I came across this poem by Joanna Fuchs that made me think of each of you:

If I could teach you, teacher,

I'd teach you how much more

you have accomplished

than you think you have.

I'd show you the seeds

you planted years ago

that are now coming into bloom.

I'd reveal to you the young minds

that have expanded under your care,

the hearts that are serving others

because they had you as a role model.

If I could teach you, teacher,

I'd show you the positive effect

you have had on me and my life.

Your homework is

to know your value to the world,

to acknowledge it, to believe it.

Thank you, teacher.

~Joanna Fuchs

December 4, 2020

Honey-Do List- December

December 20 - Fall Trimester Grading Window Closes (grades K-5, K-6, K-8)

December 24 - January 4 - Winter Recess

January 18 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Pollinating Ideas 

Double Jeopardy:

How Third Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation

Annie E. Casey Foundation

• About 16 percent of children who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade do not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers.
• For children who were poor for at least a year and were not reading proficiently, the proportion failing to graduate rose to 26 percent.
• For children who were poor, lived in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, and not reading proficiently, the proportion jumped to 35 percent.
• Overall, 22 percent of children who lived in poverty do not graduate from high school compared to 6 percent of those who have never been poor. 
• The figure rises to 32 percent for students spending more than half of their childhood in poverty.
• Even among poor children who were proficient readers in third grade, 11 percent still did not finish high school. That compares to 9 percent of subpar third-grade readers who have never been poor.
• About 31 percent of poor African-American students and 33 percent of poor Hispanic students who did not hit the third-grade proficiency mark failed to graduate. These rates are greater than those for White students with poor reading skills. 
• But the racial and ethnic graduation gaps disappear when students master reading by the end of third grade and are not living in poverty.

Pushy Principal 

• It has been brought to my attention that some people feel as if Lexia and STMath are being pushed heavily
• I know Art and thanks for noticing (This is one of my favorite lines from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation)  I use lines from the movie a lot around this time of year. 

Lexia

• When it comes to Lexia it is a research-validated part of a blended learning strategy that has proven effective for students. I have linked a study here. 
• Lexia should be part of a blended learning strategy. We have not yet provided professional development opportunities for teachers to fully-integrate the program. 
• Therefore at this time, it is not expected that we are taking full advantage of the program. 
• Lexia is not intended to systematically teach phonemic awareness or phonics. That remains the job of the teacher. 
• Lexia is intended to be an extra dose of those skills and an opportunity to independently practice, 
• Given the times we find ourselves in, I rushed getting it into your hands so that students would have a high-quality, research-based, asynchronous resource to use. 
• Even without the integration into daily instruction and the active review of data to plan lessons the program could provide gains in supporting our students on their reading journeys
• In order for any gains to be realized students need to at least be meeting their weekly dosage. 
• The highest dosage is 60 minutes (12 minutes a day of active participation on the platform)
• I am pushing the dosage and would like to see more of our students working on grade-appropriate skills. 
• There have also been questions about how a student was placed in the program. 
• If you are interested check this page about auto-placement out
• Please do not reset a student or manually change a student's placement without talking to me
• I can see cases where we may want to have students retake the auto placer in grades 2 and 3

STMath

• ST Math is new to us but is not new in many other parts of the country
• Based on a successful 1 year MCAS study DESE has identified it as a promising program. 
• ST Math has reduced language demands which results in students being able to experience higher levels of success without the demands of language slowing them down. 
• Check out the data here and read some of the other state reports if you feel like being a data nerd like me
• As with Lexia, the success of STMath is dependent on the usage and completion of puzzles at grade level. 
• It is a high-quality asynchronous math resource for our students and we should be using it to its full potential. 

Report Cards 

• The grading window for this crazy trimester closes on 12/20.
• We will continue to use the District Report Card that is in Aspen so that report cards can be emailed to families
• IEP Progress reports need to be completed at the same time as the report cards
• We will not hold parent-teacher conferences until the week of January 11th. 
• I would like us to think of a creative way that we can take our conferences to advance our anti-racist work through mutual goal setting and collaboration for the second half of the school year.  

Health Metrics

Mayor Walsh and Chief Martinez announced a new metric to measure COVID-19 infection rates in Boston after weeks of reviewing data and out of a commitment to reporting data that most accurately reflects Boston’s positivity rate
The new metric accounts for new positive cases out of all tests during the time frame reported (90 days)

• This will more closely report the positive rate in the city for the reporting period because it measures all positive cases against all negative cases
• The City was previously taking a person-level approach looking at a cumulative time frame that looks back to the beginning of the epidemic - that meant each person tested was counted only once since the beginning of the pandemic, even if they had repeated testing
• That didn’t give an accurate picture of the current infection rate because it only counted new positives but not new negatives
• The new metric is a hybrid between person-level and test-level positivity and will exclude college level testing due to their high rate of testing on campuses
• This is one of six metrics that the City reviews, including:

• New Positive Tests for COVID-19 in Boston Residents: This tells us how many new cases we’re seeing each day and how quickly COVID-19 is spreading in Boston
• Number of COVID-19 Molecular Tests Performed: This helps us to understand whether we are performing a consistent amount of testing among Boston residents.
• COVID-19 Emergency Department Visits to Boston Hospitals: This metric looks at the broader impact of COVID-19 on hospital emergency departments. This number is a representation of the overall impact of COVID-19 on hospital emergency departments.
• Availability of Adult ICU and Adult Medical/ Surgical Beds at Boston Hospitals: This tells us how many inpatient beds are open at hospitals to treat patients.
• Percentage of Non-Surge Adult ICU Beds Occupied at Boston Hospitals: This tells us how full our Boston hospital adult ICUs are and indicates when hospitals may need to start using surge beds to care for patients.

Google Chat 

• We have disabled Google Chat for all students given the students' lack of responsibility and kindness when using the feature. 

 

Student Awards 

• Here is the link to check out who is receiving awards this week 
• I do think I will do a K video and a grade 1-3 video again. I just have not split the script yet, 
• Though we are not awarding certificates for time spent on the usage of Lexia 54% of our students met the usage requirements over the last 4 weeks. This is a decrease of 6% over last week's 4-week average however it included Thanksgiving week.
• From 9/1/20-12/4/20, We have increased from 30% of our students working on grade level material to 35% working on grade-level material
• From 9/1/20-12/4/20, We have increased from 2% of our students working on above grade level material to 7% working on above grade-level material

• 27% of our students met their Puzzle Requirement in STMath. This is down 1% from the week before thanksgiving

ESL Observation

• I am late to the table of getting my SEI Endorsement on my principal license. It is one of those things that you don't need if you are a superintendent or working in a central office. (fun fact)
• As part of the RETELL for administrator class, I need to observe classrooms to see teachers using SEI strategies. 
• Does anyone want to volunteer?