Honey-Do List
5/21-5/27 Schedule Retention Meeting if Needed
5/28 Complete Survey related to items in this Hive
5/28 Complete booking appointments for retention meetings
6/1-6/18 Schedule Evaluation Meeting
Save The Date:
LAPS Summer Meetings 9/1 & 9/2
New Survey with Each BUZZ Edition
- Moving forward each edition of the Buzz will have a survey linked to it.
- The survey will be open to the Thursday before the next edition of the Buzz (5/27)
- This is a way to increase two-way communication by having a means for you to provide thoughts and opinions.
- It will also help to insure that everyone is accessing all of the information here.
- This is a way to save us having to have too many meetings
- It is required that EVERYONE complete the survey
- This week's survey can be found here
Buzz in My Brain
Appreciation:
The ENTIRE K0/K1 team for pulling together and being a team. It has been a week where life has intruded on your team and you all pulled together to keep kids happy and learning while supporting each other. (Even with broken bathrooms) Thank you!
Taydavia for having the courage to do what was right for students' social-emotional well-being even if the meltdown occured with the principal in the room. It was a masterful move.
Retention
- Please schedule appointments to discuss any students you would like to have considered for retention.
- This meeting should take a team approach if you can manage to sync schedules
- To this meeting please bring:
- The mastery task that you gave the student that shows his/her level of mastery of grade-level standards. This must be a grade-level task.
- The interventions that have been tried with the student and progress monitoring of their efficacy
- Evidence of frequent communication to the family
- Recommendation for summer programming
- Please review the district guidance below:
The district is taking a more nuanced approach to making retention decisions this year. I know this is something that many of you were concerned about.
As we make decisions about Promotion and Retention, we will adhere to the following guidance:
- There shall be no retention of any student in Kindergarten
- Teachers should offer mastery tasks to students who are on the verge of being retained; if a student can demonstrate mastery, s/he should not be retained
- Teachers should continue to have pass/fail decision-making and partner with the student’s family
To consider retention if such discussion is warranted:
- Retention should be based on a lack of evidence of “meeting or exceeding the essential
- standards;” decisions must be grounded in evidence
- To be considered for retention, there must be evidence of other interventions:
- the student must be reviewed by the school-based Student Success Team using benchmark requirements and the student’s current academic performance
- evidence of a clear, teacher-developed intervention plan to include checkpoints with family to ensure timely and consistent communication
- small group instruction and intervention based on the student’s instructional needs with progress monitoring
- Evidence of frequent communication with the student’s family
- Promotion can be contingent upon successful participation and completion of summer programming
- The School Leader will have final sign-off (after conversations with all stakeholders)
The National Association of School Psychologists says that holding a child back is “unlikely to
address the problems a child is facing” and promoting a student “without additional support is not
likely to be an effective solution either.” On the whole, studies have shown that children who are
retained do not do better over time. If the decision is made to retain a student, it is critical that we establish what will be done differently during the grade that is repeated. SIMPLIFYING LANGAUGE
- One of my pandemic lessons has been to keep it simple.
- I have been really trying to be more precise about the language I use so that it is clear and understood by all.
- Another pandemic lesson is that we need to increase the amount of parent voice that we have in our community.
- We have 5 families that are doing all of the heavy lifting for parent involvement and requests.
- I am unsure of what our full community needs because voice is so limited.
- I am hoping that by re-writing some key documents and being sure to have them translated who we are will be clearer to families.
- I am also hoping that the precision of language will help as we write our school plan and gain the ESSER funds we need
- Below I am sharing the District Mission and Vision as well as a draft School Mission and Vision
- I am also sharing a series of commitments that we make to each other and our LAPS community. My proposal is that this replaces the older covenant document and that we co-develop a set of norms that we will use in meetings.
- On this week's survey please indicate how you feel about the draft mission, vision, and agreements
Vision and Mission
District Mission:
Every child, in every classroom, in every school gets what they need
District Vision:
A nation-leading, student-centered public school district providing equitable, and excellent, well-rounded education that prepares every student for success in college, career, and life.
School Mission (draft):
Our LAPS Community will empower students to be actively engaged in the learning process - taking action, problem-solving, making decisions, asking questions, sharing their knowledge with others within and outside the classroom.
School Vision (draft):
Students will find joy and purpose in their identity as a learner, member of a larger community, and changemaker in school and beyond.
Covenant:
Proposed Draft Agreements- Adapted From RBT
We are a Learning Organization
- We are learners. We deliberately continue to learn about improving our craft.
- We are reflective and inquire into our own practice
- We take risks knowing it is safe to be vulnerable in front of colleagues
- We invite others into our teaching space to see our practice and provide us with honest, constructive feedback so that we can grow
We Lean into Teams and Data
- We are interdependent with our colleagues. We all share the work as well as the student learning results
- We are non-defensive when we examine our teaching as it is related to student results
- We constantly use data, including student work, to re-focus our instruction
We Exhibit Passion and Push
- We have urgency and push ourselves to do better for our marginalized students
- We are committed to infusing "Smart is something you can get" in classroom practices, classroom structure, school policies and school procedures
We Create a Caring and Inclusive Environment
- We care, appreciate, recognize, build relationships, learn the individual stories of the people in our community and create traditions that the community looks forward to.
We Hold and Demand High Expectations of Ourselves and Each Other
- We have high expectations for the development and growth of teaching practoce that results in outstanding student learning outcomes
- We communicate honestly and openly and are willing to have messy and difficult conversations with each other.
- We have a culture of respect and collaboration
Masks Outside
- We have had family requests to follow DESE public health guidance and to allow children to remove their masks at recess.
- As of right now, the district has not updated the policy that students must be masked at all times
- I would like to get the temperature of our team regarding students wearing masks outside at recess to inform our actions moving forward.
- There is a question on the survey regarding your thoughts.
Coming Up
- Scheduling appoints for Evaluation review
- End of the Year Celebrations
- ESSER Equity Roundtable
- Professional Development Calendar
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.
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)
