May 7, 2021

Honey-Do List

5/14    Schedule extra recess or choice time

5/15    Artifact Reflections due

5/21     Last day for adding ideas to the ESSA Jamboard

Buzz in My Brain

Appreciation:

• I am feeling guilty that the token gifts that I bought for teacher appreciation day have not come in yet. I am always late!
• I hope that the tokens will be welcome but not as meaningful as the appreciation that I try to show each of you as individuals and as the Lee Academy Family. 
• It is important that each of you knows how much I value your contributions to our community and your talents with teaching and caring for our students. 
• You make this job a pleasure. I look forward to coming to work each day and seeing what wonderful things are going to happen.  

New Principal

• Next Friday (5/14) we will have a new principal for the day!
• First grade was working on persuasive writing and a friend chose me as his audience and his purpose was to persuade me to let him be principal. 
• It was an authentic piece of writing and presented with pride and confidence
• Mr. Elliott Parker will be principal for one day on May 14th. 
• He is a fierce negotiator and wanted to cancel school for the day.  
• After tense negotiations, we agreed that as principal he can mandate extra recess or choice time. (Hopefully, it will not rain)
• Please plan on scheduling an extra recess or choice time for your students on 5/14. 

ESSA Jamboard

• As you may have heard the District will be receiving a significant influx of money from ESSA over the next three years
• The superintendent has said that at least 50% of the funding will be allocated to schools based on: the school improvement plan and other data sources
• We are in the very preliminary stages of gathering ideas through brainstorming about what this could look like at Lee Academy
• I would love to hear what your thoughts are about possible avenues worth pursuing
• Here are some guardrails to help guide your thinking:
•  Ideas should be about improving outcomes for students. Think of ways that we could measure success
• Think about investments in professional learning and growth, non-consumable materials etc.
• Ideas cannot be about adding new staff members as the funds are finite.

• Put your ideas on this Jamboard (You must be signed in with your BPS address to access. 
• Please add your thoughts by 5/21

Hiring and a Proposition

• I am excited to announce that a member of our Lee Academy Family will step into the science specialist role this fall. 
• Please join me in congratulating Marc as he starts the next chapter of his journey with us
• This leaves us with some unique opportunities that I would like you to seriously consider.
• Is there anyone interested in teaching third grade? 
• Is anyone interested in creating a looping strand?
• We could create a K2-1 loop and a 2-3 loop
• Change is a good thing and after this year I think we could all use an opportunity to mix things up.
• If you are interested please let me know ASAP

Student Desk

• Is anyone in a position where they can switch a desk for a table?
• Amelia is getting another in-person learner and we could really use a desk for that student. 

MCAS

Opting Out

• MA law does not contain an opt-out form or opt-out provision for MCAS. If parents decline to participate, parents should place their request in writing and understand that these data points will not be available. 

MCAS Grades 3-8 

• All students in Grades 3-8 are expected to participate in-person or remote. 
• Students who are not taking the test will be marked absent in Pearson. 
• In-person testing through TestNav App (district-owned computers only).
• Remote testing through the browser-based version of TestNav (personal devices are ok).
• “Remote MCAS” icon has been added to Clever for remote students 
• Schools can test simultaneously groups from the same class - separate sessions in Pearson for each (could be challenging to manage with one proctor).
• Student Test Login: (1) usernames are student-specific (2) passwords are PAN session-specific
• All students will test one session/per subject.
• CBT test session assigned (randomly) by Pearson to each student 
• PBT test session assigned by the Testing Coordinator: aim for 50/50 split
• paper-clip the Session 1 pages together (leaving Session 2 available to be taken) 
• paper-clip the Session 2 pages together (leaving Session 1 available to be taken).
• Schools may offer in-person testing for remote students if they can manage additional students on site.  

Support and Resources

The MCAS 2021 training module and other linked resources for schools’ training can be found here.

MCAS District Office Hours daily from 05/04-05/22: Morning (7:00-7:45 AM) and Afternoon (12:30-1:15 PM)

Artifacts

• For your formative/summative artifacts I am looking for a brief self-reflection (no more than 2 pages)
• Please include things you tried this year that worked/did not work and lessons learned as you grew in your professional practice. You can use these questions to guide your thinking: (If you read the Buzz in my brain these questions will not surprise you!):
• What are you currently learning about professionally? 
• What problem are you wrestling with within your practice? 
• Which skills are you trying to master?
• How is that learning going? How do you know?
• What do you think are your next steps of professional growth?
• I am looking for this reflection to be in the following three areas:
• Curriculum design
• Instruction/Student learning 
• Parent & Family Engagement

• This is all I need for artifacts. I am really looking forward to reading your reflections and having some rich professional conversations!