Showing posts with label Principal's Messages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Principal's Messages. Show all posts
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Principals Message - May 2012 Edition
Dear JHS 13 Community,
The end of the year is racing in. With the excitement of summer break, I find daydreaming to be more difficult to fight off. For me, summer means sitting on a beach somewhere, the luxury of reduced working hours, more time with my son in the park and in Lasker pool, sipping on cocktails outdoors at a couple of restaurants, and time with the family. The daydreaming is great because it motivates me. It creates goals for my efforts now. In order for my daydreaming to be visions or my goals, a big investment has to be made now. June is the cost. I am willing to sacrifice the month of June to have my daydreams come true in July and August. It has to be June because that is when we are all together to do the key part for next year…PLAN AND PREPARE. The challenge is we need to close out this year at the highest point of achievement possible. The gridiron message of this Principal’s Message is “How do we use June to close out a powerful year and set up for an even better next year?” It comes down to working as a team and supporting each other often and frequently. If we support each other every moment, we may not have to sacrifice June after all.
In summary, this year we get to close out the portfolio process for a second year in a row. It was a great experience last year. Through clear expectations, positive reinforcement, parents teaming with students and teachers, students teaming with teachers, and teachers teaming with students, we were able to have our highest promotional rate in the last three years. We need to continue to coach our students in preparing, editing, revising, and producing level three more or more work. If the student is not a level three student, we will be teaching him or her what level three work looks like so they can set goals of their own next year. In addition, we get to encourage students to come to school to achieve their highest attendance rate ever and the school’s highest attendance rate ever. If we echo the message everyday multiple times a day in a way that empowers our students to choose responsibility, then we will end our year on the highest point of achievement. This involves every one of us showing up for the remainder of the year with our “A” game. Definition of “A” game – thoroughly prepared, motivated to motivate others, ready to create breakthrough with at least one person each day, and checking in with at least five colleagues to make sure they are bringing their “A” game. It sounds so simple. I can be. It’s as difficult as you make it or as easy as you like it to be.
Next year? Next year planning is the best part of June. It is the time to create the most powerful vision possible. It is the school goals followed by the instructional and organizational efforts that will make those goals a reality. The dream would be to use some sort of phone booth, travel in time to a conference room, put the vision-goals-action plans together, and come back to the present with everything complete so we can concentrate on closing out the school year. If you have not figured it out yet, believe it or not, that is not possible. The challenge…We need to produce as much time as possible NOW to put as many of us in the same room to carve out a vision, set some goals, and put action plans together. Most importantly, we get to set those action plans moving with a nice chunck of accountability to each other to ensure success before we leave on June 27th. We want to be able to come back in late August picking up where we left off in June.
The cabinet has put a proposal together how we can close out this school year and plan for the next one. The key word to our ingenuity is “Empowerment.” We want to get as many people involved with the entire process. We understand, as much as we would want everyone to be involved with everything, it is not humanly possible. We want everyone carving out the organizational system and instructional initiative in June. We also know that is not possible. If we can generate teams to take the leadership role of the areas of need of the school, collect input from everyone, and deliver an action plan with “empowerment” as the nucleus, we believe we can successfully close out the school year on the highest achievement point possible and formulate the best action plans for next school year. We want everyone to be heard in one capacity or another. We will achieve this through strong communication, supporting each other, and working as a team.
The cabinet will be meeting with people individually and/or with teams. We will provide a list of deliverables in the clearest expectations possible, a list of resources available, and methods on how to request more resources. Each group will get to plan out a calendar for June to deliver action plans and set the action plans in motion. Examples of some of the deliverables we are looking to produce are class lists, curriculum maps, first unit lesson plans, student handbook, teacher rating criteria, marking period grading criteria, portfolio continuity, and more.
The key word is “empowerment.” The cabinet’s goal is get everyone involved in one capacity or another. We want everyone to realize they are vital piece to the success of the school whether a student, school aide, parent, parent coordinator, teacher, secretary, paraprofessional, etc. We will be counting on everyone to trust and own the process to create the best school possible. Destination: Excellence!
If you have any questions about the process, please feel free to speak to any cabinet member (Mr. Young, Dr. Phelps, Ms. McKinley, Mr. Fareed, and Mr. Michelman).
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Principals Message - March 2012 Edition
Dear JHS 13 Community,
I hope you had a wonderful break. It was our first one where the state exams are right when we return to school. It should not have stopped us from catching up with family and friends. It should not have prevented us from taking care of our own needs such as catching up with sleep or even getting outside to relax or workout. We did offer Test Prep over the break. Great attendance would have been the entire school showing up but we did have a good number of students who went above and beyond to get a few days of test preparation in during break. Thank you so much to the wonderful staff who hosted the students such as Dr. Phelps, Mr. Demant, Ms. Ruiz, Ms. Murphy, Mr. Edgar, and Jacob Scott. Thank you to the parents who supported their children in sending them to the Test Prep sessions.
I am making the focus of this Principal’s Message the recent State Quality Review. There is so much we can take away from the preparation we invested into the process and the preliminary feedback we received from the reviewers. For starters, besides the assembling of binders which we all agreed was not the best use of our time, we had to do even more preparation in gathering evidence of the work we do with our students. In addition, we needed to re-launch some initiatives we put together last year with the improvements we gathered in the hibernation process. These responsibilities left us three weeks to do about three months worth of work. The cabinet agreed we were only going to commit our energies toward areas in which the school was going to be forwarded (not including the binders – as this was a requirement from the state in getting the quality review in motion).
The evidence gathering needs to transfer to our day-to-day work. We live in the great city of New York. There is no other system that has more accountability. If we are going to be successful here than we need to hold ourselves accountable with the day-to-day gathering of evidence that we are meeting the needs of our students. A huge catalyst for this is going to be the student goals we re-launched recently. It is going to be a tremendous amount of work that will be the connecting piece to teacher goals, progress grades, targets, differentiation in the classroom, and gathering evidence of meeting the needs of students.
In order for this to happen, we need to align the student goals to the pre-assessment results and develop targets accordingly. The key part to this is communicating those targets to the students and parents and creating a plan with the student on how to reach the targets. Ideally, parents are going to want to be a part of the development of the plan. From there, it is about assessing student progress toward meeting their goals. Then we fall into the continuous cycle of assess, target, and teach. With the amount of resources we have available, additional support can be provided through test prep classes, through one-on-one or group tutoring, through our afterschool programs, and through our collaborative in the classroom partnerships. The assessments and progress are tracked on a goal sheet in the classroom portfolio and in the online gradebook, which is accessible to students. Parents and students can monitor using the online access to the gradebook or by simply viewing the students’ portfolio.
Here is where it all comes together. If students meet their targets, then teachers meet their goals, students receive 100% on 35% of their grades, and students are one more step toward reaching proficiency as the goals and units are aligned to the common core standards or the state exam. The efforts have to be made in grading the assessment results in a timely manner (especially the pre-assessment), setting goals and communicating the goals, developing a plan with the students to meet those goals, and building lessons to forward all students in meeting their goals (differentiation and conferencing has to be eventually be built in to improve a teacher’s ability to meet the needs of his or her students).
The State Quality Review (SQR) determined we needed to improve our teacher management of behavior issues, expand the amount of opportunities teachers have to outside professional development, and to improve the number of strategies teachers have to meeting the needs of our students. Again, when the student goals are fully implemented, we will be able to identify a population of students who we struggle to help meet their goals. From there, we will need to expand our repertoire of strategies to meet those students’ needs. Colleagues or administration will offer some of those strategies, but a good number of strategies will have to be accessed through outside support. Some of those barriers for certain teachers will have to be management strategies for specific behavior issues. Regardless, the main component allowing us to measure progress but also identify staff needs would be the student goals.
I am truly grateful for the State Quality Review process. We were asked a great number of questions encouraging us to reflect on where we are today. It also gave us feedback (that will be elaborated on later down the road), which is a key element in improving in education in all capacities and levels. The SQR process gave us great feedback on how important student goals are to the success of our school. It is our responsibility to invest our efforts in using them to improve student achievement and close the gap of communication that exists between staff and students. Lets work together to put student goals at the forefront and align it to all of our responsibilities so we can ensure success for everyone. Two Tests! One Dream! To be the best, we must be a team!
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
I hope you had a wonderful break. It was our first one where the state exams are right when we return to school. It should not have stopped us from catching up with family and friends. It should not have prevented us from taking care of our own needs such as catching up with sleep or even getting outside to relax or workout. We did offer Test Prep over the break. Great attendance would have been the entire school showing up but we did have a good number of students who went above and beyond to get a few days of test preparation in during break. Thank you so much to the wonderful staff who hosted the students such as Dr. Phelps, Mr. Demant, Ms. Ruiz, Ms. Murphy, Mr. Edgar, and Jacob Scott. Thank you to the parents who supported their children in sending them to the Test Prep sessions.
I am making the focus of this Principal’s Message the recent State Quality Review. There is so much we can take away from the preparation we invested into the process and the preliminary feedback we received from the reviewers. For starters, besides the assembling of binders which we all agreed was not the best use of our time, we had to do even more preparation in gathering evidence of the work we do with our students. In addition, we needed to re-launch some initiatives we put together last year with the improvements we gathered in the hibernation process. These responsibilities left us three weeks to do about three months worth of work. The cabinet agreed we were only going to commit our energies toward areas in which the school was going to be forwarded (not including the binders – as this was a requirement from the state in getting the quality review in motion).
The evidence gathering needs to transfer to our day-to-day work. We live in the great city of New York. There is no other system that has more accountability. If we are going to be successful here than we need to hold ourselves accountable with the day-to-day gathering of evidence that we are meeting the needs of our students. A huge catalyst for this is going to be the student goals we re-launched recently. It is going to be a tremendous amount of work that will be the connecting piece to teacher goals, progress grades, targets, differentiation in the classroom, and gathering evidence of meeting the needs of students.
In order for this to happen, we need to align the student goals to the pre-assessment results and develop targets accordingly. The key part to this is communicating those targets to the students and parents and creating a plan with the student on how to reach the targets. Ideally, parents are going to want to be a part of the development of the plan. From there, it is about assessing student progress toward meeting their goals. Then we fall into the continuous cycle of assess, target, and teach. With the amount of resources we have available, additional support can be provided through test prep classes, through one-on-one or group tutoring, through our afterschool programs, and through our collaborative in the classroom partnerships. The assessments and progress are tracked on a goal sheet in the classroom portfolio and in the online gradebook, which is accessible to students. Parents and students can monitor using the online access to the gradebook or by simply viewing the students’ portfolio.
Here is where it all comes together. If students meet their targets, then teachers meet their goals, students receive 100% on 35% of their grades, and students are one more step toward reaching proficiency as the goals and units are aligned to the common core standards or the state exam. The efforts have to be made in grading the assessment results in a timely manner (especially the pre-assessment), setting goals and communicating the goals, developing a plan with the students to meet those goals, and building lessons to forward all students in meeting their goals (differentiation and conferencing has to be eventually be built in to improve a teacher’s ability to meet the needs of his or her students).
The State Quality Review (SQR) determined we needed to improve our teacher management of behavior issues, expand the amount of opportunities teachers have to outside professional development, and to improve the number of strategies teachers have to meeting the needs of our students. Again, when the student goals are fully implemented, we will be able to identify a population of students who we struggle to help meet their goals. From there, we will need to expand our repertoire of strategies to meet those students’ needs. Colleagues or administration will offer some of those strategies, but a good number of strategies will have to be accessed through outside support. Some of those barriers for certain teachers will have to be management strategies for specific behavior issues. Regardless, the main component allowing us to measure progress but also identify staff needs would be the student goals.
I am truly grateful for the State Quality Review process. We were asked a great number of questions encouraging us to reflect on where we are today. It also gave us feedback (that will be elaborated on later down the road), which is a key element in improving in education in all capacities and levels. The SQR process gave us great feedback on how important student goals are to the success of our school. It is our responsibility to invest our efforts in using them to improve student achievement and close the gap of communication that exists between staff and students. Lets work together to put student goals at the forefront and align it to all of our responsibilities so we can ensure success for everyone. Two Tests! One Dream! To be the best, we must be a team!
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Principal's Message - February Edition 2012
Dear JHS 13 Community,
There are less than 35 Days until the ELA exam and Math exam. The urgency to prepare our students for these exams is increasing as the days go by. Our latest promotional assessment in January showed significant improvements from November. We are hoping the next assessment (March 6th and 7th) will continue to show progress. To ensure our students are ready for the exam, we need to be taking advantage of every second, minute, period, and program in our school.
We set up the Saturday Academy to support preparation for the exams. We have only been pulling in about 50 students. Our goal is to triple this population. We need the help of our parents to make sure our children are attending and are focused when they are there. We will continue to invest efforts into the recruitment so our goal is met. In fact, students with low attendance will be offered Saturday Academy days to reduce the number of absences he or she currently has. This could be the difference maker in catching these students up on the instruction they have been missing but also increase their chances of passing the state exams.
Everyone can contribute to improving our student results by investing efforts into several initiatives. The first is making sure our students are reading as much as possible. Whether it’s a magazine or a book, we need our children to be pushing through the article or chapter. We cannot settle for low-level books either like comic books or illustrated books. We need to build up our students stamina to read an entire piece within a limited amount of time. Parents, we can do this buy purchasing magazines related to your child’s interests. Teachers, reading can be moved into every lesson if we truly wanted it that way. Reading is exercise for our children, and they need to be in shape by April 17th.
The second is to develop as many opportunities during the school day or week to have students read and write. It could range between short response questions using the RAFT method or essays. Regardless, students need to improve their ability to convert their thoughts into written words. This comes from repeated opportunities in classes throughout the day and constant feedback on how to improve. This will help students perform better on both the math and ELA state exams. Parents can encourage their children to read and summarize or write a response from one of the character’s point-of-view, write a journal, write a reaction to an article, or even write a letter to a family member. Computers help in motivating our babies to engage in the writing process.
The third is student feedback. If you are not giving back at least two to three assignments per week or posting assignments on your bulletin board with teacher feedback, then you are leaving the students to figure out how to improve on their own. Obviously, leaving it to a 11 to 14 year old child to find out on their own what is the correct way to critically think, analyze, predict, etc…then we are setting them up for failure. Students need to be receiving clear and thorough feedback as much as possible. This should not be only left to “x’s” and checks letting them know if an answer is correct or wrong. There should be written feedback or the use of a rubric to communicate areas of success and how the student can improve. Parents can read through their homework assignments or proofread any writing they do for personal reasons or for work. The feedback is gold in forwarding our students for the state exam.
Again, the urgency to prepare our students for the state exams is now. If you are not investing your time into better supporting our children, then you need to begin as soon as possible. This is not a task only for ELA and Math teachers. It begins with parents making sure their children are reading and writing at home. It continues with any teacher of any subject using data to drive instruction, providing opportunities to read and write during class, and giving students as much feedback as possible.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SCHOOL GOALS ARE? STATUS UPDATE
35% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The latest exam results from the ELA and Math mock exams will be our last clear picture of what our students know. It is our responsibility to take this information and address the areas our students need to improve. We need to prioritize according to the expectations of the state exams. There are certain skills and content which will be stressed more than others. It does not make sense to reiterate skills and content that will barely be covered on the state exams. We have to use our time wisely. Since we are unable to go over every single standard in a short amount of time, we need to identify our prioritize according to areas of weakness and the expectations of the state exam.
The exam this Tuesday will be the last chance for our students to get a practice testing environment before the actual test. It is important for us to identify students who still struggle to complete the test in the allocated time. We can explore ways to create more time for the student or get the student support in using his or her time more efficiently.
92% ATTENDANCE
We continue to fluctuate from 89% to numbers as high as 95% for daily attendance. Our students who take a day each week are holding the rest of the school from reaching excellence. The school has made these students a priority.
We have been setting up contracts, meeting with students, and referring families to the Administration for Children Services to combat excessive absences. We will continue with these efforts when students have over 13 absences. We will need the community to further promote attendance by urging students to get to school on time and to make students feel welcomed when they return from an absence. We will not be able to improve our daily percentage if we do not work as a community to improve our attendance. We are currently at 91.7%. This is 0.3% below our goal for the year. Please take the time to speak to a student who struggles to come to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON AT LEAST 80% OF THE CATEGORIES
Several committees have been working hard to assess our current status with communication. It has been a very interesting process. We have identified every constituent and who they speak to in our community. To further the process, we have conducted several surveys to get input from as many constituents as possible. For instance, the parent survey administered at the beginning of the year showed a need to improve the conference process. Too many parents were sitting and waiting to meet with a teacher. For the February conference, we adjusted the appointment process. Parents were given a schedule upon entrance. This reduced the wait time significantly. By having a strict schedule, conferences were more targeted and parents were able to meet with all of their children’s teachers.
The recent teacher feedback showed an improvement in clear expectations of the discipline code. In fact, the results were doubled revealing a clearer understanding of how the system is organized. We will continue to use the surveys to improve the school. Thank you to everyone who has filled one out or is about to fill out one.
PARENTS – IF YOU HAVE NOT FILLED OUT A CITY-WIDE SURVEY, YOU NEED TO DO IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. IT IS THE GREEN ENVELOPE YOUR CHILD MIGHT HAVE PUT IN HIS OR HER BAG.
MOVING AT LEAST 25% OF OUR SPECIAL EDUCATION POPULATION TO A LESS RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Students continue to be brought before the Child Study Team for a less restrictive environment. Special education is only supposed to be a temporary placement. If we do not devote time to helping students step into a regular education setting, then we are holding them back from reaching their full potential. We are urging parents and teachers to identify ANY special education children who are great candidates to move to a less restrictive environment. That could include a self-contain student to Inclusive (ICT), a SETSS student no longer receiving those services or even cutting down the number of days, or a mandated student for counseling. Its about teaching the child to excel in an environment where there is less support. If we are not making this a priority, we are risking these students futures as they could be devoured in high school by the quick reduction of supports when moving on from middle school.
If you have not done it yet, please refer a student to the Child Study Team to be placed in a less restrictive environment. If the child is not moved, there will at least be a plan to make it happen at a later date. Make a difference today.
There are less than 35 Days until the ELA exam and Math exam. The urgency to prepare our students for these exams is increasing as the days go by. Our latest promotional assessment in January showed significant improvements from November. We are hoping the next assessment (March 6th and 7th) will continue to show progress. To ensure our students are ready for the exam, we need to be taking advantage of every second, minute, period, and program in our school.
We set up the Saturday Academy to support preparation for the exams. We have only been pulling in about 50 students. Our goal is to triple this population. We need the help of our parents to make sure our children are attending and are focused when they are there. We will continue to invest efforts into the recruitment so our goal is met. In fact, students with low attendance will be offered Saturday Academy days to reduce the number of absences he or she currently has. This could be the difference maker in catching these students up on the instruction they have been missing but also increase their chances of passing the state exams.
Everyone can contribute to improving our student results by investing efforts into several initiatives. The first is making sure our students are reading as much as possible. Whether it’s a magazine or a book, we need our children to be pushing through the article or chapter. We cannot settle for low-level books either like comic books or illustrated books. We need to build up our students stamina to read an entire piece within a limited amount of time. Parents, we can do this buy purchasing magazines related to your child’s interests. Teachers, reading can be moved into every lesson if we truly wanted it that way. Reading is exercise for our children, and they need to be in shape by April 17th.
The second is to develop as many opportunities during the school day or week to have students read and write. It could range between short response questions using the RAFT method or essays. Regardless, students need to improve their ability to convert their thoughts into written words. This comes from repeated opportunities in classes throughout the day and constant feedback on how to improve. This will help students perform better on both the math and ELA state exams. Parents can encourage their children to read and summarize or write a response from one of the character’s point-of-view, write a journal, write a reaction to an article, or even write a letter to a family member. Computers help in motivating our babies to engage in the writing process.
The third is student feedback. If you are not giving back at least two to three assignments per week or posting assignments on your bulletin board with teacher feedback, then you are leaving the students to figure out how to improve on their own. Obviously, leaving it to a 11 to 14 year old child to find out on their own what is the correct way to critically think, analyze, predict, etc…then we are setting them up for failure. Students need to be receiving clear and thorough feedback as much as possible. This should not be only left to “x’s” and checks letting them know if an answer is correct or wrong. There should be written feedback or the use of a rubric to communicate areas of success and how the student can improve. Parents can read through their homework assignments or proofread any writing they do for personal reasons or for work. The feedback is gold in forwarding our students for the state exam.
Again, the urgency to prepare our students for the state exams is now. If you are not investing your time into better supporting our children, then you need to begin as soon as possible. This is not a task only for ELA and Math teachers. It begins with parents making sure their children are reading and writing at home. It continues with any teacher of any subject using data to drive instruction, providing opportunities to read and write during class, and giving students as much feedback as possible.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SCHOOL GOALS ARE? STATUS UPDATE
35% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The latest exam results from the ELA and Math mock exams will be our last clear picture of what our students know. It is our responsibility to take this information and address the areas our students need to improve. We need to prioritize according to the expectations of the state exams. There are certain skills and content which will be stressed more than others. It does not make sense to reiterate skills and content that will barely be covered on the state exams. We have to use our time wisely. Since we are unable to go over every single standard in a short amount of time, we need to identify our prioritize according to areas of weakness and the expectations of the state exam.
The exam this Tuesday will be the last chance for our students to get a practice testing environment before the actual test. It is important for us to identify students who still struggle to complete the test in the allocated time. We can explore ways to create more time for the student or get the student support in using his or her time more efficiently.
92% ATTENDANCE
We continue to fluctuate from 89% to numbers as high as 95% for daily attendance. Our students who take a day each week are holding the rest of the school from reaching excellence. The school has made these students a priority.
We have been setting up contracts, meeting with students, and referring families to the Administration for Children Services to combat excessive absences. We will continue with these efforts when students have over 13 absences. We will need the community to further promote attendance by urging students to get to school on time and to make students feel welcomed when they return from an absence. We will not be able to improve our daily percentage if we do not work as a community to improve our attendance. We are currently at 91.7%. This is 0.3% below our goal for the year. Please take the time to speak to a student who struggles to come to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON AT LEAST 80% OF THE CATEGORIES
Several committees have been working hard to assess our current status with communication. It has been a very interesting process. We have identified every constituent and who they speak to in our community. To further the process, we have conducted several surveys to get input from as many constituents as possible. For instance, the parent survey administered at the beginning of the year showed a need to improve the conference process. Too many parents were sitting and waiting to meet with a teacher. For the February conference, we adjusted the appointment process. Parents were given a schedule upon entrance. This reduced the wait time significantly. By having a strict schedule, conferences were more targeted and parents were able to meet with all of their children’s teachers.
The recent teacher feedback showed an improvement in clear expectations of the discipline code. In fact, the results were doubled revealing a clearer understanding of how the system is organized. We will continue to use the surveys to improve the school. Thank you to everyone who has filled one out or is about to fill out one.
PARENTS – IF YOU HAVE NOT FILLED OUT A CITY-WIDE SURVEY, YOU NEED TO DO IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. IT IS THE GREEN ENVELOPE YOUR CHILD MIGHT HAVE PUT IN HIS OR HER BAG.
MOVING AT LEAST 25% OF OUR SPECIAL EDUCATION POPULATION TO A LESS RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Students continue to be brought before the Child Study Team for a less restrictive environment. Special education is only supposed to be a temporary placement. If we do not devote time to helping students step into a regular education setting, then we are holding them back from reaching their full potential. We are urging parents and teachers to identify ANY special education children who are great candidates to move to a less restrictive environment. That could include a self-contain student to Inclusive (ICT), a SETSS student no longer receiving those services or even cutting down the number of days, or a mandated student for counseling. Its about teaching the child to excel in an environment where there is less support. If we are not making this a priority, we are risking these students futures as they could be devoured in high school by the quick reduction of supports when moving on from middle school.
If you have not done it yet, please refer a student to the Child Study Team to be placed in a less restrictive environment. If the child is not moved, there will at least be a plan to make it happen at a later date. Make a difference today.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Principal's Message - January Edition 2011-2012
Dear JHS 13 Family,
The school year is moving along brilliantly. We have just passed our mid-year mark and we are closing in on the state exams. All interventions are in place and we have are clear plan on how we expect to prepare our children for the state exams. In short, we have Saturday Academy fully running. During Saturdays, we are concentrating our attention on improving attendance and matching specifically what needs to be taught to give our students the best chance to reach proficiency (scoring 3's or 4's). Our next intervention is one-on-one or small group tutoring. We have gathered a substantial number of people to provide small group and one-on-one during the school day. This allows for us to give targeted help to a good number of students who are unable to devote extra time to preparing for the state exam outside of our regular hours. Finally, we will be expanding our after school academics to include tailored instruction to assist students in catching up on topics we covered during the school year which will be crucial in performing well on the state exam. These initiatives will forward our school to do well this coming April on the tests.
On another note, our school has been placed on the School in Need of Improvement List. Because we were only able to produce 15% proficient students on both the ELA and Math exam, we were identified for needing additional support by the state of New York. Two of our school goals are to increase our number of proficient students by at least 35% on both the ELA and Math exams. We are confident that if we execute the plan described in the first paragraph and provide strong support to our teachers in improving their teaching, we will achieve both goals. The bright side of being placed on the list is we receive feedback from experts on how we can continue to improve our school and we get additional funding to pay for our programs at the school. In other words, our students are in great hands.
On February 13th, we will be launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our Positive Behavior Campaign will be used to continue to improve the culture of our school. Some of the initiatives the campaign has included are the surveys given to staff and parents. Our latest push has been the zero-tolerance for horse playing. Finally, we revised our discipline code to simplify the system so the expectations were clear to both staff and students. The purpose of hosting a launch ceremony is to increase student and staff buy-in so they can be a part of the process of shifting the culture of the school where everyone can be successful. A great way for parents to be a part of the Positive Behavior Campaign is to learn the discipline code so everyone can communicate the expectations of proper conduct to our children. Another way, if time permits, is to attend our events or stay in communication with the school to check on our babies. Finally, the number one way for parents to support thePositiveBehavior Campaign is to teach our students how to express themselves and how to engage in a productive conversation with adults and with their peers.
At this point, parents should have received three progress reports, and two report cards. All these documents are essential in staying on top of our students' achievement and making sure they meet promotional criteria. Every child must pass ELA and Math class AND both state exams. For the 8th grade, they must pass all of their core subjects. If any child has failed a class twice, then this marking period is important. That means the child has to earn at least a 75 to increase his or her chances of being promoted at the end of the school year. In addition, EVERY CHILD MUST HAVE 15 OR LESS ABSENCES IN ORDER TO AVOID SUMMER SCHOOL OR BEING HELD OVER. Many parents have been doing a wonderful job staying connected to the school by calling me, calling the school, e-mailing, or even stopping by. I want to encourage for more parents to take advantage of our open door policy. Test the power of involvement by finding a way to make a difference. Two tests! One dream! To be the best, we must be a team! Destination! Excellence!
With Love and Dedicaiton,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
The school year is moving along brilliantly. We have just passed our mid-year mark and we are closing in on the state exams. All interventions are in place and we have are clear plan on how we expect to prepare our children for the state exams. In short, we have Saturday Academy fully running. During Saturdays, we are concentrating our attention on improving attendance and matching specifically what needs to be taught to give our students the best chance to reach proficiency (scoring 3's or 4's). Our next intervention is one-on-one or small group tutoring. We have gathered a substantial number of people to provide small group and one-on-one during the school day. This allows for us to give targeted help to a good number of students who are unable to devote extra time to preparing for the state exam outside of our regular hours. Finally, we will be expanding our after school academics to include tailored instruction to assist students in catching up on topics we covered during the school year which will be crucial in performing well on the state exam. These initiatives will forward our school to do well this coming April on the tests.
On another note, our school has been placed on the School in Need of Improvement List. Because we were only able to produce 15% proficient students on both the ELA and Math exam, we were identified for needing additional support by the state of New York. Two of our school goals are to increase our number of proficient students by at least 35% on both the ELA and Math exams. We are confident that if we execute the plan described in the first paragraph and provide strong support to our teachers in improving their teaching, we will achieve both goals. The bright side of being placed on the list is we receive feedback from experts on how we can continue to improve our school and we get additional funding to pay for our programs at the school. In other words, our students are in great hands.
On February 13th, we will be launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our Positive Behavior Campaign will be used to continue to improve the culture of our school. Some of the initiatives the campaign has included are the surveys given to staff and parents. Our latest push has been the zero-tolerance for horse playing. Finally, we revised our discipline code to simplify the system so the expectations were clear to both staff and students. The purpose of hosting a launch ceremony is to increase student and staff buy-in so they can be a part of the process of shifting the culture of the school where everyone can be successful. A great way for parents to be a part of the Positive Behavior Campaign is to learn the discipline code so everyone can communicate the expectations of proper conduct to our children. Another way, if time permits, is to attend our events or stay in communication with the school to check on our babies. Finally, the number one way for parents to support thePositiveBehavior Campaign is to teach our students how to express themselves and how to engage in a productive conversation with adults and with their peers.
At this point, parents should have received three progress reports, and two report cards. All these documents are essential in staying on top of our students' achievement and making sure they meet promotional criteria. Every child must pass ELA and Math class AND both state exams. For the 8th grade, they must pass all of their core subjects. If any child has failed a class twice, then this marking period is important. That means the child has to earn at least a 75 to increase his or her chances of being promoted at the end of the school year. In addition, EVERY CHILD MUST HAVE 15 OR LESS ABSENCES IN ORDER TO AVOID SUMMER SCHOOL OR BEING HELD OVER. Many parents have been doing a wonderful job staying connected to the school by calling me, calling the school, e-mailing, or even stopping by. I want to encourage for more parents to take advantage of our open door policy. Test the power of involvement by finding a way to make a difference. Two tests! One dream! To be the best, we must be a team! Destination! Excellence!
With Love and Dedicaiton,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Monday, January 2, 2012
Principal's Message - December Edition 2011-2012
Dear JHS 13 Family,
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful break and a rewarding holiday. It is always important to take time to be with family and to service our bodies with relaxation and some necessary sleep. Hopefully, there were enough family and/or friends surrounding parents to care for young ones. Everyone needs time. Thank goodness for my in-laws, I was able to sleep in at least one morning. As usual, being away from school, I missed everyone. Its not the same in the morning when there is no one to say “Destination: Excellence!” with. As much as I enjoyed catching up with family and friends, I greatly enjoy being around all of you. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.
The best part about getting back is we get to pick up where we left off. We have an exciting second half of the year (Technically, the second half begins on January 17th). We will be closing out the second marking period in two weeks. Just in the month of January, we have several significant events taking place. For starters, we have the 1st Marking period celebration of the Principal’s List, Honor Roll, and Honorable Mention. We will also be bidding farewell (for now) to Mrs. Vargas who will be giving birth some time this month. While we say good-bye to her, we also welcome our newest staff member, Mr. Monte Brown, who will be taking over her program. On January 24th, we will be taking our second promotional assessment. Just like in November, it will provide further validation in June for students in meeting promotional criteria. It is imperative every student is present for this exam. It will be essential evidence for any student to be promoted. Finally, on January 31st, we will be officially launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our motto of “Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Safe” will be plastered all over the walls. We will be teaming with Jets wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, to kick off the celebration right. He will also be recognizing the 17 most improved Students from the first marking period to the second.
Instructionally, we have three months to prepare for the state exams. By collecting assessment results, we can determine whether or not we are doing enough to move our students. We have committed to a 35% increase in proficient students this year (students scoring a level 3 or 4). For ELA and Math, these targets are very achievable. According to our data, we are behind in reaching those goals in both subjects. With this information, we have to determine what needs to be done to reach our achievable markers. For instance, in early November, we identified two groups of students who had scored poorly on a math unit assessment. We were able to provide additional instructional time for those students so they could continue with the new content but catch up on what they missed. Its efforts like this that will guarantee higher student achievement. City Year, our Regis Interns, and our Test Prep Classes can be further utilized to provide intervention services for students who need to be caught up or to reinforce skills to secure students are on course to reach proficiency. In addition, we are starting our Saturday Academy the last week of January. Although it will be open to all students, there will be a population of students who will be mandated to attend. More information will be sent out in the next few weeks. We will continue to use the data to determine our use of resources and action plans with test prep and shared reading.
On a last note, but not at all less important, winter is upon us. It is vital that we stress the importance of students coming to school. We will need all efforts from all adults (Parents, family members, guardians, teachers, staff, crossing guards, etc…) to get our students to attend. If it’s cold, then we need to bundle our babies up. It should not deter anyone from coming to school. If a child is sick, then lets get him or her to a doctor to make sure the absence is excused. I need to remind parents, calling the school to let us know a child is sick does not make it an excused absence. Although we appreciate the phone call, please make sure the child is brought to the doctor. One day away from school is missed information or missed opportunity to excel. “Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, WE MUST BE A TEAM!”
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful break and a rewarding holiday. It is always important to take time to be with family and to service our bodies with relaxation and some necessary sleep. Hopefully, there were enough family and/or friends surrounding parents to care for young ones. Everyone needs time. Thank goodness for my in-laws, I was able to sleep in at least one morning. As usual, being away from school, I missed everyone. Its not the same in the morning when there is no one to say “Destination: Excellence!” with. As much as I enjoyed catching up with family and friends, I greatly enjoy being around all of you. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.
The best part about getting back is we get to pick up where we left off. We have an exciting second half of the year (Technically, the second half begins on January 17th). We will be closing out the second marking period in two weeks. Just in the month of January, we have several significant events taking place. For starters, we have the 1st Marking period celebration of the Principal’s List, Honor Roll, and Honorable Mention. We will also be bidding farewell (for now) to Mrs. Vargas who will be giving birth some time this month. While we say good-bye to her, we also welcome our newest staff member, Mr. Monte Brown, who will be taking over her program. On January 24th, we will be taking our second promotional assessment. Just like in November, it will provide further validation in June for students in meeting promotional criteria. It is imperative every student is present for this exam. It will be essential evidence for any student to be promoted. Finally, on January 31st, we will be officially launching our Positive Behavior Campaign. Our motto of “Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Safe” will be plastered all over the walls. We will be teaming with Jets wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, to kick off the celebration right. He will also be recognizing the 17 most improved Students from the first marking period to the second.
Instructionally, we have three months to prepare for the state exams. By collecting assessment results, we can determine whether or not we are doing enough to move our students. We have committed to a 35% increase in proficient students this year (students scoring a level 3 or 4). For ELA and Math, these targets are very achievable. According to our data, we are behind in reaching those goals in both subjects. With this information, we have to determine what needs to be done to reach our achievable markers. For instance, in early November, we identified two groups of students who had scored poorly on a math unit assessment. We were able to provide additional instructional time for those students so they could continue with the new content but catch up on what they missed. Its efforts like this that will guarantee higher student achievement. City Year, our Regis Interns, and our Test Prep Classes can be further utilized to provide intervention services for students who need to be caught up or to reinforce skills to secure students are on course to reach proficiency. In addition, we are starting our Saturday Academy the last week of January. Although it will be open to all students, there will be a population of students who will be mandated to attend. More information will be sent out in the next few weeks. We will continue to use the data to determine our use of resources and action plans with test prep and shared reading.
On a last note, but not at all less important, winter is upon us. It is vital that we stress the importance of students coming to school. We will need all efforts from all adults (Parents, family members, guardians, teachers, staff, crossing guards, etc…) to get our students to attend. If it’s cold, then we need to bundle our babies up. It should not deter anyone from coming to school. If a child is sick, then lets get him or her to a doctor to make sure the absence is excused. I need to remind parents, calling the school to let us know a child is sick does not make it an excused absence. Although we appreciate the phone call, please make sure the child is brought to the doctor. One day away from school is missed information or missed opportunity to excel. “Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, WE MUST BE A TEAM!”
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Principal's Message - November Edition 2011-2012
Dear JHS 13 Community,
We are quickly approaching the holiday vacation. This is when it will be essential for us to know how close we are to reaching our school goals. With our focus on attendance, the ELA exam, the math exam, culture and community, and improving our support for Special Education students, meeting our goals will continue to transform our school to an ideal learning environment. With our goal of 35% increase in proficient students for both ELA and Math, it is imperative we do not wait until the exams to find out how well our students are being prepared.
We have built our unit exams to be our system to assess student progress in getting ready for the state tests. These unit tests include key standards identifying what our students need to be able to do to be successful on the state exam. By teaching and assessing these key standards we can monitor our children to see if they are ready to take the state exam. For teachers, by using progress measurement and the unit test as such a large portion of the child's grade we can clearly see how well we are preparing our students for the state exam. For parents, you can look at your child's grades especially on tests to see how they are going to do. With the numbers in front of our face, we can be proactive about the results we are seeing right now. There are so many support systems available at our school. If we identify a child who needs key concepts to be re-taught, we have the resources to do so. With our test prep classes, after school programs, partnerships, SES providers, and hard working staff, we can make sure every child is prepared for the state exams.
Our recent learning environment survey yielded great progression from last year. Teacher satisfaction has improved and parent satisfaction has greatly improved. The feedback we collected from teachers brought light to several improvements that needed to be made to our discipline code and some issues with communication. Our teacher surveys showed gains in 100% of the areas inquired in the City-Wide Survey. Our parent surveys collected from every parent who attended our parent-teacher conferences revealed that 92% of our parents feel that their child is safe at our school, that their child is supported, and the school promotes learning with positive messages and displaying student work. Over 88% of our parents believe the school has a positive vibe, their children are being academically challenged, and teachers are holding their child to a high standard. Our next step is to survey our students. We are anxious to work out the collection process so we can continue to improve the school.
Attendance team has built several new systems to promote higher attendance. One initiative is posting the attendance of the previous day. Although it may seem minor, it has reiterated the importance of attendance. It has built a culture of awareness which is an essential step in improving the attendance. We currently are at 92% attendance. We will be working rigorously to battle the winter drop we face every year due to illnesses and students avoiding the cold. We are asking all parents to be aware of your child(ren)’s attendance to make sure no school days will have to be made up during summer school. We will continue with our strong communication and reiteration of the importance of attendance. We will move into individual student contracts to provide additional support and to review steps with the family of what needs to be done for the student to be promoted to the next grade level. The reality of the situation is if students are not attending school, then they are not learning. If they are not learning, then they will not be ready for high school or even college. Our vision is for every child to get into the high school he or she prefers.
Last year, out of all of the students performing at a level one on the state exam, 70% of them were special education. With those results, it is urgent we make some significant changes to help our special education.
Our special education goal is to move 25% of our special education population into a less restrictive environment. The concept of special education was developed as a temporary setting. Unfortunately, the setting has become permanent for too many students in our school system. Our vision is to improve the goal setting process for the Individual Evaluation Plan (IEP) and use the benchmarks as a determining factor of proper setting. If students continue to meet their goals or are certain to reach their goals, then they will be referred to the child study team. After a thorough review process, a decision will be made to mainstream with potential support or reduce the amount of support by provided during the week depending on the current setting and the progress the child has taken. We believe the more students that move to a less restrictive environment, the higher they will perform on the state assessments.
As you can see, we are progressing toward reaching our goal. We have strong action plans to ensure success. Our school was recently given SINI Status which is a “School In Need of Improvement.” With our recent dip in scores, it is understandable how we have been placed on the list. I am confident with our latest initiatives and the incredible hard work of our staff and parents we will see a significant improvement. I am guaranteeing we will be rated above average in 80% of all the categories for all constituents on the city-wide survey. I am also guaranteeing we will be removed from the SINI list by next school year (2012-2013). Finally, we will improve at least one letter grade on the next Progress Report. If there was a way to be removed from the Persistently Dangerous School List in a single year, we would achieve that as well. Unfortunately, it is a mandatory two year status.
Our students are in great hands. They are buying into our motto “Two Tests, One Dream. To be the best, we must be a team!” They are stepping up to the expectations we have laid down before them. It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure every child is progressing to the next performance level on the state exams. Let’s accept this challenge in continue toward our destination of excellence. Thank you for all that you do and what you will do.
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
We are quickly approaching the holiday vacation. This is when it will be essential for us to know how close we are to reaching our school goals. With our focus on attendance, the ELA exam, the math exam, culture and community, and improving our support for Special Education students, meeting our goals will continue to transform our school to an ideal learning environment. With our goal of 35% increase in proficient students for both ELA and Math, it is imperative we do not wait until the exams to find out how well our students are being prepared.
We have built our unit exams to be our system to assess student progress in getting ready for the state tests. These unit tests include key standards identifying what our students need to be able to do to be successful on the state exam. By teaching and assessing these key standards we can monitor our children to see if they are ready to take the state exam. For teachers, by using progress measurement and the unit test as such a large portion of the child's grade we can clearly see how well we are preparing our students for the state exam. For parents, you can look at your child's grades especially on tests to see how they are going to do. With the numbers in front of our face, we can be proactive about the results we are seeing right now. There are so many support systems available at our school. If we identify a child who needs key concepts to be re-taught, we have the resources to do so. With our test prep classes, after school programs, partnerships, SES providers, and hard working staff, we can make sure every child is prepared for the state exams.
Our recent learning environment survey yielded great progression from last year. Teacher satisfaction has improved and parent satisfaction has greatly improved. The feedback we collected from teachers brought light to several improvements that needed to be made to our discipline code and some issues with communication. Our teacher surveys showed gains in 100% of the areas inquired in the City-Wide Survey. Our parent surveys collected from every parent who attended our parent-teacher conferences revealed that 92% of our parents feel that their child is safe at our school, that their child is supported, and the school promotes learning with positive messages and displaying student work. Over 88% of our parents believe the school has a positive vibe, their children are being academically challenged, and teachers are holding their child to a high standard. Our next step is to survey our students. We are anxious to work out the collection process so we can continue to improve the school.
Attendance team has built several new systems to promote higher attendance. One initiative is posting the attendance of the previous day. Although it may seem minor, it has reiterated the importance of attendance. It has built a culture of awareness which is an essential step in improving the attendance. We currently are at 92% attendance. We will be working rigorously to battle the winter drop we face every year due to illnesses and students avoiding the cold. We are asking all parents to be aware of your child(ren)’s attendance to make sure no school days will have to be made up during summer school. We will continue with our strong communication and reiteration of the importance of attendance. We will move into individual student contracts to provide additional support and to review steps with the family of what needs to be done for the student to be promoted to the next grade level. The reality of the situation is if students are not attending school, then they are not learning. If they are not learning, then they will not be ready for high school or even college. Our vision is for every child to get into the high school he or she prefers.
Last year, out of all of the students performing at a level one on the state exam, 70% of them were special education. With those results, it is urgent we make some significant changes to help our special education.
Our special education goal is to move 25% of our special education population into a less restrictive environment. The concept of special education was developed as a temporary setting. Unfortunately, the setting has become permanent for too many students in our school system. Our vision is to improve the goal setting process for the Individual Evaluation Plan (IEP) and use the benchmarks as a determining factor of proper setting. If students continue to meet their goals or are certain to reach their goals, then they will be referred to the child study team. After a thorough review process, a decision will be made to mainstream with potential support or reduce the amount of support by provided during the week depending on the current setting and the progress the child has taken. We believe the more students that move to a less restrictive environment, the higher they will perform on the state assessments.
As you can see, we are progressing toward reaching our goal. We have strong action plans to ensure success. Our school was recently given SINI Status which is a “School In Need of Improvement.” With our recent dip in scores, it is understandable how we have been placed on the list. I am confident with our latest initiatives and the incredible hard work of our staff and parents we will see a significant improvement. I am guaranteeing we will be rated above average in 80% of all the categories for all constituents on the city-wide survey. I am also guaranteeing we will be removed from the SINI list by next school year (2012-2013). Finally, we will improve at least one letter grade on the next Progress Report. If there was a way to be removed from the Persistently Dangerous School List in a single year, we would achieve that as well. Unfortunately, it is a mandatory two year status.
Our students are in great hands. They are buying into our motto “Two Tests, One Dream. To be the best, we must be a team!” They are stepping up to the expectations we have laid down before them. It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure every child is progressing to the next performance level on the state exams. Let’s accept this challenge in continue toward our destination of excellence. Thank you for all that you do and what you will do.
Yours Truly,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Friday, November 4, 2011
Principal's Message October Edition 2011
Dear JHS 13 Community,
Happy belated Halloween! This school year has really blasted off with great momentum. In other words, we are firing on all cylinders, playing at our best, and driving it home. This is on all areas of the community. Parents are reaching out and showing the importance of being involved. Teachers are teaching and building a culture of success. The main office is working diligently to make sure all student information is accurate and up-to-date. The student management office is supporting both parents and teachers in providing the best education for our students. The counseling team is being relentless about making sure each child gets the support they need to be successful. Finally, the administrative team is keeping the goals clear to everyone and driving the school to achieve 100% of those goals.
We have our parent teacher conferences coming up on November 17th from 1pm to 3pm and from 6pm to 8pm. It is one of the best opportunities for all members of the community to really connect on making sure all of our students are getting ready for the state exams and doing what it takes to be a strong reader, remarkable writer, and excellent critical thinker. All parents will get the opportunity to meet with teachers with administrators, with students, and even counselors. In addition, the school will be hosting a pot luck and open house for prospective students. We are encouraging all parents to bring your best dish to share with staff and other families. It is not only going to be an informative evening, it is going to be a festive occasion for all of us to give thanks for the strong community we are building. I can't wait to see you there.
On another note, through my observations and conversations with students, I have noticed a pattern of results that I cannot sit back and watch. My vision is a world where everyone is empowered to live in contribution and create joy for all. One important ability that all members of our community must have to create this world is the ability to communicate how we each feel. I see this important skill lacking with our students. The unfortunate part is it's resulting in situations that could have been easily diffused. When a child or even an adult struggles to communicate their feelings and solves their conflicts or situations with actions, relationships are broken and opportunities for friendships are destroyed. Most of the time when we choose action, we forget to use one of the most important gifts we were all given, our brains (the other being our hearts).
One of the initiatives we are launching this month is a conflict resolution lessons throughout an18 week duration of time. The core of the 9 lessons works with our children on productively communicating their feelings and issues. By getting students to move towards words rather than actions we are developing their critical thinking and, most importantly, teaching them how to work out their issues where we can create a win-win situation. Actions result in one winner and one loser. Many of our students believe this is the only way it can happen. What we will be working on is through communication we can achieve a result that both parties can walk away feeling good about a productive adult conversation. We hope parents at home can reiterate this message. As an entire community, it is essential we model this at all times so students can learn from our actions.
Communicating feelings can be as basic as, "when you bumped into me, you made me feel like I was invisible." This drives a response, "sorry about that. I didn't mean to bump into you." Instead of one student threatening or making remarks about the other child when he or she gets bumped into, we get a conversation as a result. As adults, especially on a bad day, we have an inclination to respond with actions. The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we want our children to handle these situations and then proceed in that fashion. Our goal is to live today but build toward a better tomorrow. By encouraging our children to talk out their conflicts, we are building a much better tomorrow. Imagine if we could eliminate violence and war? It starts with us showing our children how we can be better people so they can in turn teach others. It's truly what we make of those little opportunities that become huge waves that affect our future. It starts with you. When you come to parent-teacher conferences, we can share more information of what we are going over with the students.
Ideally, it is to get our students comfortable with expressing themselves especially with their learning. If we can get each of our students to let us know when they do not understand words, when they are truly confused, when they are intimidated by a subject, or when they do not feel comfortable going to a teacher for help. Self-expression is the key to the success of a child. Working together as an entire community, we can build a school full of students who know how to articulate themselves. We just have to commit ourselves to creating this culture. I share this because I know it is achievable. We just have to work together.
Finally, we have recently seen a large increase on candy intake. This is no coincidence since Halloween has just passed. Kids are not eating nutritious breakfasts and lunches. This is impacting their participation in school especially when their sugar high runs out and they become irritable and lack the focus. Please support their education by making sure they are getting the proper vitamins and eating real food rather than Snickers, Swedish Fish (This is a frequent one since they only cost 25 cents), lollipops, etc… Even as the year continues, we need to make sure our children are feeding their bodies nourishment.
As we continue this year, please ask our children what they are reading in school and continue to ask for them to explain and write as often as possible. These are daily small tasks that can ensure every child succeeds on the state exam. Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, we must be a team! DESTINATION: EXCELLENCE!
See you all at Parent-Teacher Conferences!
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Happy belated Halloween! This school year has really blasted off with great momentum. In other words, we are firing on all cylinders, playing at our best, and driving it home. This is on all areas of the community. Parents are reaching out and showing the importance of being involved. Teachers are teaching and building a culture of success. The main office is working diligently to make sure all student information is accurate and up-to-date. The student management office is supporting both parents and teachers in providing the best education for our students. The counseling team is being relentless about making sure each child gets the support they need to be successful. Finally, the administrative team is keeping the goals clear to everyone and driving the school to achieve 100% of those goals.
We have our parent teacher conferences coming up on November 17th from 1pm to 3pm and from 6pm to 8pm. It is one of the best opportunities for all members of the community to really connect on making sure all of our students are getting ready for the state exams and doing what it takes to be a strong reader, remarkable writer, and excellent critical thinker. All parents will get the opportunity to meet with teachers with administrators, with students, and even counselors. In addition, the school will be hosting a pot luck and open house for prospective students. We are encouraging all parents to bring your best dish to share with staff and other families. It is not only going to be an informative evening, it is going to be a festive occasion for all of us to give thanks for the strong community we are building. I can't wait to see you there.
On another note, through my observations and conversations with students, I have noticed a pattern of results that I cannot sit back and watch. My vision is a world where everyone is empowered to live in contribution and create joy for all. One important ability that all members of our community must have to create this world is the ability to communicate how we each feel. I see this important skill lacking with our students. The unfortunate part is it's resulting in situations that could have been easily diffused. When a child or even an adult struggles to communicate their feelings and solves their conflicts or situations with actions, relationships are broken and opportunities for friendships are destroyed. Most of the time when we choose action, we forget to use one of the most important gifts we were all given, our brains (the other being our hearts).
One of the initiatives we are launching this month is a conflict resolution lessons throughout an18 week duration of time. The core of the 9 lessons works with our children on productively communicating their feelings and issues. By getting students to move towards words rather than actions we are developing their critical thinking and, most importantly, teaching them how to work out their issues where we can create a win-win situation. Actions result in one winner and one loser. Many of our students believe this is the only way it can happen. What we will be working on is through communication we can achieve a result that both parties can walk away feeling good about a productive adult conversation. We hope parents at home can reiterate this message. As an entire community, it is essential we model this at all times so students can learn from our actions.
Communicating feelings can be as basic as, "when you bumped into me, you made me feel like I was invisible." This drives a response, "sorry about that. I didn't mean to bump into you." Instead of one student threatening or making remarks about the other child when he or she gets bumped into, we get a conversation as a result. As adults, especially on a bad day, we have an inclination to respond with actions. The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we want our children to handle these situations and then proceed in that fashion. Our goal is to live today but build toward a better tomorrow. By encouraging our children to talk out their conflicts, we are building a much better tomorrow. Imagine if we could eliminate violence and war? It starts with us showing our children how we can be better people so they can in turn teach others. It's truly what we make of those little opportunities that become huge waves that affect our future. It starts with you. When you come to parent-teacher conferences, we can share more information of what we are going over with the students.
Ideally, it is to get our students comfortable with expressing themselves especially with their learning. If we can get each of our students to let us know when they do not understand words, when they are truly confused, when they are intimidated by a subject, or when they do not feel comfortable going to a teacher for help. Self-expression is the key to the success of a child. Working together as an entire community, we can build a school full of students who know how to articulate themselves. We just have to commit ourselves to creating this culture. I share this because I know it is achievable. We just have to work together.
Finally, we have recently seen a large increase on candy intake. This is no coincidence since Halloween has just passed. Kids are not eating nutritious breakfasts and lunches. This is impacting their participation in school especially when their sugar high runs out and they become irritable and lack the focus. Please support their education by making sure they are getting the proper vitamins and eating real food rather than Snickers, Swedish Fish (This is a frequent one since they only cost 25 cents), lollipops, etc… Even as the year continues, we need to make sure our children are feeding their bodies nourishment.
As we continue this year, please ask our children what they are reading in school and continue to ask for them to explain and write as often as possible. These are daily small tasks that can ensure every child succeeds on the state exam. Two tests! One Dream! To be the best, we must be a team! DESTINATION: EXCELLENCE!
See you all at Parent-Teacher Conferences!
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Monday, October 3, 2011
Principal's Message - September Edition 2011-2012
Dear JHS 13 Community,
With the many challenges we have faced in setting up for our school year, we have done a tremendous job staying focused on providing the best learning environment for our students. The hard work is visible throughout the building. The commitment to making sure we are doing what we can to provide for our students is consistent across the board.
With the month of September come and gone, we have much to celebrate. For instance, we hosted to spectacular events at our school. Justin Tuck from the New York Giants was able to host a successful launch of his literacy campaign for the second year in a row at our school. In addition, GenoYouth Foundation launched their health and wellness program with a filming of a webinar at our school with Mark Sanchez, the quarterback from the New York Jets. Mark Sanchez was tremendous in sharing the importance of eating healthy and staying active. We were even showcased on both the GenYouth website (www.genyouthfoundation.org)and Sports Illustrated for Kids website (http://www.sikids.com/blogs/2011/09/29/new-york-jets-qb-mark-sanchez-urges-kids-to-eat-right-and-exercise).
We were able to gather enough donations to continue with our Behind the Books program where the students get to meet the author of the books they read together. The program has been with us for almost five years and has proven to be a huge motivation to our students in appreciating literacy. We were able to expand our partnership with Los Planeros where our ESL population will be exploring Hispanic cultures through dance and music. Finally, we have formed a partnership with Momentum Education to not only provide professional development for staff but to host a teen group of self-exploration and reflection to promote better decision making. These initiatives have either started or will begin in the near future.
In the next few weeks, we will be working with teachers to provide low inference feedback to other teachers. We will also be exploring the Charlotte Danielson Rubric to get a clearer picture of what we can be doing inside our own classrooms to improve instruction. The more we review these expectations together and begin exploring how we can reach those expectations, the more successful people will be in increasing student engagement, differentiating instruction, and improving the learning environment. I highly suggest reviewing the rubric thoroughly and begin discussing ways in which Highly Effective can be achieved. The goal in using the rubric is to increase communication among all staff to improve the craft of teaching, comprehensively explore our classrooms to produce the best results, and use data to measure our success.
Our school goals of 35% increase in proficiency for both math and ELA are challenging to say the least but, as we realized looking at the data our first formal day together, very achievable. Intervisitations and the use of the rubric will be key elements in improving our instruction. The shared reading sessions during the 37.5 minutes will prove to be essential in raising our students’ reading levels and reinforcing the power strands to raise their achievement levels on the state exams. We have great ideas moving forward while simultaneous creating and adjusting systemic change. It is going to be a wonderful school year because of how passionate and dedicated we are to making a difference. TWO TESTS! ONE DREAM! TO BE THE BEST, WE MUST BE A TEAM!
Continue to be the difference.
With Endless Love,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
With the many challenges we have faced in setting up for our school year, we have done a tremendous job staying focused on providing the best learning environment for our students. The hard work is visible throughout the building. The commitment to making sure we are doing what we can to provide for our students is consistent across the board.
With the month of September come and gone, we have much to celebrate. For instance, we hosted to spectacular events at our school. Justin Tuck from the New York Giants was able to host a successful launch of his literacy campaign for the second year in a row at our school. In addition, GenoYouth Foundation launched their health and wellness program with a filming of a webinar at our school with Mark Sanchez, the quarterback from the New York Jets. Mark Sanchez was tremendous in sharing the importance of eating healthy and staying active. We were even showcased on both the GenYouth website (www.genyouthfoundation.org)and Sports Illustrated for Kids website (http://www.sikids.com/blogs/2011/09/29/new-york-jets-qb-mark-sanchez-urges-kids-to-eat-right-and-exercise).
We were able to gather enough donations to continue with our Behind the Books program where the students get to meet the author of the books they read together. The program has been with us for almost five years and has proven to be a huge motivation to our students in appreciating literacy. We were able to expand our partnership with Los Planeros where our ESL population will be exploring Hispanic cultures through dance and music. Finally, we have formed a partnership with Momentum Education to not only provide professional development for staff but to host a teen group of self-exploration and reflection to promote better decision making. These initiatives have either started or will begin in the near future.
In the next few weeks, we will be working with teachers to provide low inference feedback to other teachers. We will also be exploring the Charlotte Danielson Rubric to get a clearer picture of what we can be doing inside our own classrooms to improve instruction. The more we review these expectations together and begin exploring how we can reach those expectations, the more successful people will be in increasing student engagement, differentiating instruction, and improving the learning environment. I highly suggest reviewing the rubric thoroughly and begin discussing ways in which Highly Effective can be achieved. The goal in using the rubric is to increase communication among all staff to improve the craft of teaching, comprehensively explore our classrooms to produce the best results, and use data to measure our success.
Our school goals of 35% increase in proficiency for both math and ELA are challenging to say the least but, as we realized looking at the data our first formal day together, very achievable. Intervisitations and the use of the rubric will be key elements in improving our instruction. The shared reading sessions during the 37.5 minutes will prove to be essential in raising our students’ reading levels and reinforcing the power strands to raise their achievement levels on the state exams. We have great ideas moving forward while simultaneous creating and adjusting systemic change. It is going to be a wonderful school year because of how passionate and dedicated we are to making a difference. TWO TESTS! ONE DREAM! TO BE THE BEST, WE MUST BE A TEAM!
Continue to be the difference.
With Endless Love,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
Friday, April 29, 2011
Principal's Message April Edition 2011
Dear JHS 13 Community,
We are now 1 day away from the ELA exam and 9 days away from the Math exam. In school days, we are 7 days away from the Math. I have spent the last month meeting with teachers and visiting their classrooms. I have been investigating our knowledge of students as far as a low, medium, and high level students. My research into this area is to confirm we are taking the time to get to know our students. I am also making sure we are aligned on our vision of what each level of student looks like.
Some of the conclusions I have been able to make are the following: our school is not aligned on what we believe to be the different levels of students, many of us are basing the leveling on the amount of effort a student puts toward their subject area, using effort is not an accurate assessment of the levels of our students, and the amount of work we are giving our students does not necessarily give us many opportunities to see various levels of thinking.
Our data for the past few years has indicated that our medium level students improve the most compared to the low and high (our lowest level students come in a close second to our medium level students). Our highest-level students either stay the same or drop. Where does the breakdown occur that our highest-level students do not excel under our roof? I believe it is how we assess our students and determine if we have challenged this population. If we solely use work ethic as a measurement for achievement, then our highest-level students will continue to get straight A’s and do poorly on their state assessments. For instance, in math, if we give students 15 problems of similar skill work, and the high level student completes them…does that necessarily mean he or she is a high level student? If a student does not complete them, does that mean he or she is a low level student?
Let me be clear about one thing. I do believe the students who are committed to completing in class and homework assignments should be rewarded. I do not believe it should be with a grade or test/quiz score that does not represent how much they have actually comprehended. In addition, I do not believe students who do not complete homework or in-class assignments should necessarily fail because the work was not complete. I believe we need to adjust what we think teaching is. We can clearly state that teaching is not the delivery of information, the offering of the opportunity to apply the information we give them, and the completion of the work that involves the application of the information shared. Teaching is imparting skills or giving your students the tools to determine the relevancy of information, identify patterns, expand on concepts, explore their world, investigate their conjectures, and make educated predictions. Most important part is we give them the opportunity to think not memorize steps.
The key to great teaching is assessing. I do not mean giving whole school tests once a month. Its about measuring progress with tools that give us the clearest idea of what our children are comprehending and what kind of support they need to improve their learning. It is taking a close look at all of our students on an individual basis as many times as possible. You need to look at the whole class to see if the lesson was successful and then you need to look at the individual students to see if the students have learned the skill(s) you hosted in the lesson.
Conferencing and small formative assessments are the most efficient way to find out what our students know and how we can develop their thinking. These assessments will quickly decipher the different levels of students. You will see that their ability is most likely not congruent to their effort. In fact, many students who do not exert much effort are going to have a wide range of levels. It is imperative these assessments have questions of all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy favoring the top of the pyramid with questions pushing analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.
It is important for us to have a clear understanding of our students. By only collecting assignments and marking questions right or wrong, we will barely know anything about our students. We will not have thorough knowledge of what our students are capable of. We need to look closer at the answers we are getting. If we are not getting a written response then we need to get a verbal one. We need to work with our students and generate the clearest picture we can get. The workshop model, student portfolios, data-driven instruction, and ongoing student feedback are essential for success with this transition. The administrative team will continue to support in these areas while helping staff take a closer look at their students.
Our goal is to raise the achievement level for every student. Looking closely at our students and their work is the key to teaching and, most important, student learning which directly affects their achievement level. Let's work together to drive this work forward.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
20% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on ELA State Exam and 15% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on the Math State Exam
The Cabinet has been working diligently to generate ideas to improve student achievement. Our latest initiative was to convert the 37.5 Minutes from Homework Help to Skillbuilders. We dedicated three weeks to ELA with grammar and mechanics along with recording information from a read-aloud. Administrators walked around and so higher student engagement and more teacher participation. We will be infusing math for the next few weeks. In addition, we put together our 6th Saturday Academy. We used Acuity and various test prep materials to expose the students to what they will see on the state exams. The final Saturday is next week where we will be assessing the students to see how helpful the Academy was.
Other initiatives that were put together to help better prepare our students were the stations in the ELA classroom addressing the weakest areas of our students. Mr. Rej used Acuity in his technology classes where students are reinforcing the work they are doing in their regular ELA classrooms. The Acuity work identifies the questions the students did not get right on the periodic assessment in January and provides additional questions and guidance tto similar answer correctly. Finally, the Academic Intervention Services that City Year and our Regis Interns have been providing for our students has been giving our level 1 students additional support to improve in both ELA and mathematics. Regis students have been tutoring students in mathematics while City Year has been doing Read 180 and Rewards.
We have done a tremendous job preparing our students for the state exams. We will use our data to determine the strongest initiatives and eliminate the ones that had little to no impact. This will drive the work we do next year in preparing for the state exams.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our daily average continues to fluctuate between 88% and 93%. The highest number of students absent in the month of April was 32. Unfortunately, that number of students absent gives us an 88% attendance for the day. Our latest data shows over 61.8% of our school falls in the 90 to 91% attendance group. Our second highest, with a total of 19.4%, are our students with 80 to 89% attendance. This population continues to directly affect our efforts to reach our goals. We have focused our initiatives on the 80 to 89% by giving as many of the students as possible a contract to make it clear how many absences they have left and the repercussions if they are to use all of those absences. We have seen a positive impact from the contracts but our students with the worst attendance have not shown any improvement.
We have recently signed up for "Wake Up New York City." This initiative has a phone service where famous people such as PDiddy and Carmello Anthony have recorded messages for our students to hear when the call is answered. These services will be directed to our students who have high absences and/or lateness. Also, we will be setting up our list of students in Attendance Court during our next two Attendance Meetings. We plan to have 15 students signed up and starting the program over the summer. We hope by the time school starts for next year, the students and families would have met with the judges as least once.
As for the entire staff, please continue to encourage students to attend school. Always, always, always make our students feel welcomed by meeting students at the door, noticing something different about them everyday, praising students when they make good decisions, encouraging students to make smarter decisions rather than ridiculing them when they make bad ones, etc... You are the key to students wanting to come to school. Please use that power and help our students get to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team finalized the three year strategy plan. As mentioned in the previous Principal’s Message, we have started the assessment process to identify gaps in our communication. We are nearing the end but we are still working on fixing our communication with parents and students. Our parent communication committee has identified the School Messenger system as a productive method. They have also identified our mailings as one too. It is clear that our “backpack” method is not the best choice but they understand it has to be used once in a while. If we set up School Messenger to let parents know that a letter or notice is being sent home when we “backpack” letters, we could potentially strengthen that method.
On May 2nd, the School Improvement Team shared the overview of our three year plan with staff. This coming Monday they will finish presenting and, once again, offer staff an opportunity to provide feedback. We will have to give one more survey by June 17th to assess our progress in addressing the areas identified in the city-wide survey.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
We are almost finished with completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. We will be meeting with teachers to review the plans to make sure they are implemented as soon as possible.
In addition, we will be connecting the guidance at-risk identifiers with the Child Study Team referrals so that we can expand on the number of students receiving at-risk counseling. By setting up student goals for at-risk counseling, we will be able to focus our support with individuals so the core issues interfering with their learning are addressed. We expect to have this plan complete by Memorial Day Weekend and sharing it out with staff during one of our staff development half days or full days.
Finally, we will be sharing an improved version of our discipline code with staff on May 5th after school. We have provided more suggestions for interventions with the classrooms. We have also added more direction for level 1 patterns in the classrooms. The ladder has been clarified even more on the new plan and accountability has been strengthened. All of these adjustments will result support our school goal because there will be a clear level of when a child should be referred to Child Study, one of the biggest pieces that has been missing in our discipline code. This way, additional support can be provided to even more than our initial goal of 15% of the student body.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
We are now 1 day away from the ELA exam and 9 days away from the Math exam. In school days, we are 7 days away from the Math. I have spent the last month meeting with teachers and visiting their classrooms. I have been investigating our knowledge of students as far as a low, medium, and high level students. My research into this area is to confirm we are taking the time to get to know our students. I am also making sure we are aligned on our vision of what each level of student looks like.
Some of the conclusions I have been able to make are the following: our school is not aligned on what we believe to be the different levels of students, many of us are basing the leveling on the amount of effort a student puts toward their subject area, using effort is not an accurate assessment of the levels of our students, and the amount of work we are giving our students does not necessarily give us many opportunities to see various levels of thinking.
Our data for the past few years has indicated that our medium level students improve the most compared to the low and high (our lowest level students come in a close second to our medium level students). Our highest-level students either stay the same or drop. Where does the breakdown occur that our highest-level students do not excel under our roof? I believe it is how we assess our students and determine if we have challenged this population. If we solely use work ethic as a measurement for achievement, then our highest-level students will continue to get straight A’s and do poorly on their state assessments. For instance, in math, if we give students 15 problems of similar skill work, and the high level student completes them…does that necessarily mean he or she is a high level student? If a student does not complete them, does that mean he or she is a low level student?
Let me be clear about one thing. I do believe the students who are committed to completing in class and homework assignments should be rewarded. I do not believe it should be with a grade or test/quiz score that does not represent how much they have actually comprehended. In addition, I do not believe students who do not complete homework or in-class assignments should necessarily fail because the work was not complete. I believe we need to adjust what we think teaching is. We can clearly state that teaching is not the delivery of information, the offering of the opportunity to apply the information we give them, and the completion of the work that involves the application of the information shared. Teaching is imparting skills or giving your students the tools to determine the relevancy of information, identify patterns, expand on concepts, explore their world, investigate their conjectures, and make educated predictions. Most important part is we give them the opportunity to think not memorize steps.
The key to great teaching is assessing. I do not mean giving whole school tests once a month. Its about measuring progress with tools that give us the clearest idea of what our children are comprehending and what kind of support they need to improve their learning. It is taking a close look at all of our students on an individual basis as many times as possible. You need to look at the whole class to see if the lesson was successful and then you need to look at the individual students to see if the students have learned the skill(s) you hosted in the lesson.
Conferencing and small formative assessments are the most efficient way to find out what our students know and how we can develop their thinking. These assessments will quickly decipher the different levels of students. You will see that their ability is most likely not congruent to their effort. In fact, many students who do not exert much effort are going to have a wide range of levels. It is imperative these assessments have questions of all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy favoring the top of the pyramid with questions pushing analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.
It is important for us to have a clear understanding of our students. By only collecting assignments and marking questions right or wrong, we will barely know anything about our students. We will not have thorough knowledge of what our students are capable of. We need to look closer at the answers we are getting. If we are not getting a written response then we need to get a verbal one. We need to work with our students and generate the clearest picture we can get. The workshop model, student portfolios, data-driven instruction, and ongoing student feedback are essential for success with this transition. The administrative team will continue to support in these areas while helping staff take a closer look at their students.
Our goal is to raise the achievement level for every student. Looking closely at our students and their work is the key to teaching and, most important, student learning which directly affects their achievement level. Let's work together to drive this work forward.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
20% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on ELA State Exam and 15% Increase of Students Achieving Level 3 or 4 on the Math State Exam
The Cabinet has been working diligently to generate ideas to improve student achievement. Our latest initiative was to convert the 37.5 Minutes from Homework Help to Skillbuilders. We dedicated three weeks to ELA with grammar and mechanics along with recording information from a read-aloud. Administrators walked around and so higher student engagement and more teacher participation. We will be infusing math for the next few weeks. In addition, we put together our 6th Saturday Academy. We used Acuity and various test prep materials to expose the students to what they will see on the state exams. The final Saturday is next week where we will be assessing the students to see how helpful the Academy was.
Other initiatives that were put together to help better prepare our students were the stations in the ELA classroom addressing the weakest areas of our students. Mr. Rej used Acuity in his technology classes where students are reinforcing the work they are doing in their regular ELA classrooms. The Acuity work identifies the questions the students did not get right on the periodic assessment in January and provides additional questions and guidance tto similar answer correctly. Finally, the Academic Intervention Services that City Year and our Regis Interns have been providing for our students has been giving our level 1 students additional support to improve in both ELA and mathematics. Regis students have been tutoring students in mathematics while City Year has been doing Read 180 and Rewards.
We have done a tremendous job preparing our students for the state exams. We will use our data to determine the strongest initiatives and eliminate the ones that had little to no impact. This will drive the work we do next year in preparing for the state exams.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our daily average continues to fluctuate between 88% and 93%. The highest number of students absent in the month of April was 32. Unfortunately, that number of students absent gives us an 88% attendance for the day. Our latest data shows over 61.8% of our school falls in the 90 to 91% attendance group. Our second highest, with a total of 19.4%, are our students with 80 to 89% attendance. This population continues to directly affect our efforts to reach our goals. We have focused our initiatives on the 80 to 89% by giving as many of the students as possible a contract to make it clear how many absences they have left and the repercussions if they are to use all of those absences. We have seen a positive impact from the contracts but our students with the worst attendance have not shown any improvement.
We have recently signed up for "Wake Up New York City." This initiative has a phone service where famous people such as PDiddy and Carmello Anthony have recorded messages for our students to hear when the call is answered. These services will be directed to our students who have high absences and/or lateness. Also, we will be setting up our list of students in Attendance Court during our next two Attendance Meetings. We plan to have 15 students signed up and starting the program over the summer. We hope by the time school starts for next year, the students and families would have met with the judges as least once.
As for the entire staff, please continue to encourage students to attend school. Always, always, always make our students feel welcomed by meeting students at the door, noticing something different about them everyday, praising students when they make good decisions, encouraging students to make smarter decisions rather than ridiculing them when they make bad ones, etc... You are the key to students wanting to come to school. Please use that power and help our students get to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team finalized the three year strategy plan. As mentioned in the previous Principal’s Message, we have started the assessment process to identify gaps in our communication. We are nearing the end but we are still working on fixing our communication with parents and students. Our parent communication committee has identified the School Messenger system as a productive method. They have also identified our mailings as one too. It is clear that our “backpack” method is not the best choice but they understand it has to be used once in a while. If we set up School Messenger to let parents know that a letter or notice is being sent home when we “backpack” letters, we could potentially strengthen that method.
On May 2nd, the School Improvement Team shared the overview of our three year plan with staff. This coming Monday they will finish presenting and, once again, offer staff an opportunity to provide feedback. We will have to give one more survey by June 17th to assess our progress in addressing the areas identified in the city-wide survey.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
We are almost finished with completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. We will be meeting with teachers to review the plans to make sure they are implemented as soon as possible.
In addition, we will be connecting the guidance at-risk identifiers with the Child Study Team referrals so that we can expand on the number of students receiving at-risk counseling. By setting up student goals for at-risk counseling, we will be able to focus our support with individuals so the core issues interfering with their learning are addressed. We expect to have this plan complete by Memorial Day Weekend and sharing it out with staff during one of our staff development half days or full days.
Finally, we will be sharing an improved version of our discipline code with staff on May 5th after school. We have provided more suggestions for interventions with the classrooms. We have also added more direction for level 1 patterns in the classrooms. The ladder has been clarified even more on the new plan and accountability has been strengthened. All of these adjustments will result support our school goal because there will be a clear level of when a child should be referred to Child Study, one of the biggest pieces that has been missing in our discipline code. This way, additional support can be provided to even more than our initial goal of 15% of the student body.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Principal's Message - March Edition 2010-2011
Dear JHS 13 Community,
There are 25 School Days until the ELA exam and 30 School Days until the Math exam. The urgency to prepare our students for these exams is higher than it has ever been. Both mid-year assessments showed growth in a few classes but not all of them. To ensure our students are ready for the exam, we need to be taking advantage of every second, minute, period, and program in our school.
We set up the Saturday Academy to support preparation for the exams. We have only been pulling in about 50 students. Our goal is 100 students. We will continue to invest efforts into the recruitment so our goal is met. In fact, students with low attendance will be offered Saturday Academy days to reduce the number of absences he or she currently has. This could be the difference maker in catching these students up on the instruction they have been missing but also increase their chances of passing the state exams.
Everyone can contribute to improving our student results by investing efforts into several initiatives. The first is the data driven instruction. By regularly identifying the areas where our students need the most work, we can better prepare them for their state exams. This information can dictate how much time we work on specific content and can also let us know if we need to thread the topics back into the curriculum or input daily procedures to reinforce particular skills. If teachers are using their own intuition to decide how much time should be devoted to a specific topic in the curriculum, rather than clear evidence, this person or these individuals are taking a huge thoughtless risk in sabotaging student achievement. The support on how to do this is readily available so if you are struggling to investigate the status of your students either ask a colleague or an administrator.
The second is to develop as many opportunities during the school day or week to have students read and write. It could range between short response questions using the RAFT method or essays. Regardless, students need to improve their ability to convert their thoughts into written words. This comes from repeated opportunities in classes throughout the day and constant feedback on how to improve. This will help students perform better on both the math and ELA state exams.
The third is student feedback. If you are not giving back at least two to three assignments per week or posting assignments on your bulletin board with teacher feedback, then you are leaving the students to figure out how to improve on their own. Obviously, leaving it to a 11 to 14 year old child to find out on their own what is the correct way to critically think, analyze, predict, etc…then we are setting them up for failure. Students need to be receiving clear and thorough feedback as much as possible. This should not be only left to “x’s” and checks letting them know if an answer is correct or wrong. There should be written feedback or the use of a rubric to communicate areas of success and how the student can improve.
Again, the urgency to prepare our students for the state exams is now. If you are not investing your time into better supporting our children, then you need to begin as soon as possible. This is not a task only for ELA and Math teachers. It begins with parents making sure their children are reading and writing at home. It continues with any teacher of any subject using data to drive instruction, providing opportunities to read and write during class, and giving students as much feedback as possible.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
20% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The latest exam results from the ELA and Math mock exams will be our last clear picture of what our students know. It is our responsibility to take this information and address the areas our students need to improve. We need to prioritize according to the expectations of the state exams. There are certain skills and content which will be stressed more than others. It does not make sense to reiterate skills and content that will barely be covered on the state exams. We have to use our time wisely. Since we are unable to go over every single standard in a short amount of time, we need to identify our prioritize according to areas of weakness and the expectations of the state exam.
The exam this Thursday will be the last chance for our students to get a practice testing environment before the actual test. It is important for us to identify students who still struggle to complete the test in the allocated time. We can explore ways to create more time for the student or get the student support in using his or her time more efficiently.
92% ATTENDANCE
On February 18th, we had our highest percentage of students in school the day before a break. We reached an all time high of 92%. This was a huge achievement for the attendance committee. On February 28th, the first day after our break, we reached 91%. Again, it was a huge achievement for our school since we have invested many meetings and efforts into increasing attendance on days before and after break. Unfortunately, last week, our attendance dropped ranging between 87 and 91 percent.
We have been setting up contracts, meeting with students, and referring families to Attendance Court to combat excessive absences. We will continue with these efforts when students have over 13 absences. We will need the community to further promote attendance by urging students to get to school on time and to make students feel welcomed when they return from an absence. We will not be able to improve our daily percentage if we do not work as a community to improve our attendance. We are currently at 89.2%. This is 2.8% below our goal for the year. Please take the time to speak to a student who struggles to come to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team has been working hard to assess our current status with communication. It has been a very interesting process. We have identified every constituent and who they speak to in our community. To further the process, we have isolated the methods of communication and are currently assessing whether or not they work. It has been incredibly informative, as we have been relying on methods that have proven time and time again to not work. For instance, e-mail is the most efficient way to communicate but not everybody checks their e-mail each week. After exploring all options, it was clear that memos are still the best way to communicate with staff. After coming to this realization, we will be implementing a weekly memo for staff to sign for to make sure all logistics and important information is shared with staff. By the time the process is over, we will have a list of methods of communication for all constituents in our community. All other methods can still be used but will not be recognized as a set way to share information.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.
We have been completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. This work will improve the relationship of specific students with staff. By identifying and applying best practices with particular students, we will help improve the academic progression of these individuals.
There are 25 School Days until the ELA exam and 30 School Days until the Math exam. The urgency to prepare our students for these exams is higher than it has ever been. Both mid-year assessments showed growth in a few classes but not all of them. To ensure our students are ready for the exam, we need to be taking advantage of every second, minute, period, and program in our school.
We set up the Saturday Academy to support preparation for the exams. We have only been pulling in about 50 students. Our goal is 100 students. We will continue to invest efforts into the recruitment so our goal is met. In fact, students with low attendance will be offered Saturday Academy days to reduce the number of absences he or she currently has. This could be the difference maker in catching these students up on the instruction they have been missing but also increase their chances of passing the state exams.
Everyone can contribute to improving our student results by investing efforts into several initiatives. The first is the data driven instruction. By regularly identifying the areas where our students need the most work, we can better prepare them for their state exams. This information can dictate how much time we work on specific content and can also let us know if we need to thread the topics back into the curriculum or input daily procedures to reinforce particular skills. If teachers are using their own intuition to decide how much time should be devoted to a specific topic in the curriculum, rather than clear evidence, this person or these individuals are taking a huge thoughtless risk in sabotaging student achievement. The support on how to do this is readily available so if you are struggling to investigate the status of your students either ask a colleague or an administrator.
The second is to develop as many opportunities during the school day or week to have students read and write. It could range between short response questions using the RAFT method or essays. Regardless, students need to improve their ability to convert their thoughts into written words. This comes from repeated opportunities in classes throughout the day and constant feedback on how to improve. This will help students perform better on both the math and ELA state exams.
The third is student feedback. If you are not giving back at least two to three assignments per week or posting assignments on your bulletin board with teacher feedback, then you are leaving the students to figure out how to improve on their own. Obviously, leaving it to a 11 to 14 year old child to find out on their own what is the correct way to critically think, analyze, predict, etc…then we are setting them up for failure. Students need to be receiving clear and thorough feedback as much as possible. This should not be only left to “x’s” and checks letting them know if an answer is correct or wrong. There should be written feedback or the use of a rubric to communicate areas of success and how the student can improve.
Again, the urgency to prepare our students for the state exams is now. If you are not investing your time into better supporting our children, then you need to begin as soon as possible. This is not a task only for ELA and Math teachers. It begins with parents making sure their children are reading and writing at home. It continues with any teacher of any subject using data to drive instruction, providing opportunities to read and write during class, and giving students as much feedback as possible.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
20% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The latest exam results from the ELA and Math mock exams will be our last clear picture of what our students know. It is our responsibility to take this information and address the areas our students need to improve. We need to prioritize according to the expectations of the state exams. There are certain skills and content which will be stressed more than others. It does not make sense to reiterate skills and content that will barely be covered on the state exams. We have to use our time wisely. Since we are unable to go over every single standard in a short amount of time, we need to identify our prioritize according to areas of weakness and the expectations of the state exam.
The exam this Thursday will be the last chance for our students to get a practice testing environment before the actual test. It is important for us to identify students who still struggle to complete the test in the allocated time. We can explore ways to create more time for the student or get the student support in using his or her time more efficiently.
92% ATTENDANCE
On February 18th, we had our highest percentage of students in school the day before a break. We reached an all time high of 92%. This was a huge achievement for the attendance committee. On February 28th, the first day after our break, we reached 91%. Again, it was a huge achievement for our school since we have invested many meetings and efforts into increasing attendance on days before and after break. Unfortunately, last week, our attendance dropped ranging between 87 and 91 percent.
We have been setting up contracts, meeting with students, and referring families to Attendance Court to combat excessive absences. We will continue with these efforts when students have over 13 absences. We will need the community to further promote attendance by urging students to get to school on time and to make students feel welcomed when they return from an absence. We will not be able to improve our daily percentage if we do not work as a community to improve our attendance. We are currently at 89.2%. This is 2.8% below our goal for the year. Please take the time to speak to a student who struggles to come to school.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team has been working hard to assess our current status with communication. It has been a very interesting process. We have identified every constituent and who they speak to in our community. To further the process, we have isolated the methods of communication and are currently assessing whether or not they work. It has been incredibly informative, as we have been relying on methods that have proven time and time again to not work. For instance, e-mail is the most efficient way to communicate but not everybody checks their e-mail each week. After exploring all options, it was clear that memos are still the best way to communicate with staff. After coming to this realization, we will be implementing a weekly memo for staff to sign for to make sure all logistics and important information is shared with staff. By the time the process is over, we will have a list of methods of communication for all constituents in our community. All other methods can still be used but will not be recognized as a set way to share information.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.
We have been completing the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team received professional development on Behavior Intervention Plans. This work will improve the relationship of specific students with staff. By identifying and applying best practices with particular students, we will help improve the academic progression of these individuals.
Principal's Message - February Edition 2010-2011
Dear JHS 13 Community,
We have done a tremendous job preparing for the Quality Review. In summary, we have done about two months worth of work in three short weeks. We expedited the process of setting up key structures earlier than we had originally planned. Everything we have put our energy into these last few weeks will be with us for at least the next three years. The next steps are figuring out how we sustain everything we put in place and how do we support the people who are struggling to adjust to the new expectations. We have a wide range of people talent in our school and a large gap of rating via the Teacher Expectation Rubric between different members of the staff. We need to use our stronger teachers to show our struggling teachers how they can improve their classrooms. This connection of different level teachers will have a great impact on everyone involved.
We need to look closely at the needs of our students and use research, inquiry work, and data to figure out a way to challenge as many students as possible. What you will see in our Quality Review results is that we are still struggling to push the higher level students. We are letting our lowest level students drive the pace of the class. Instead, we need to bring a grade level curriculum to our students, support our lower levels to reach those expectations, and extend on this work for our higher level students. The student portfolios will be your assessment tool to see if enough opportunities are being given to our students to answer higher level questions.
Another assessment tool will be the data we collect to measure progression. This measurement process will tell us if what we are currently doing is helping our students. In order to be successful at this, we need to set time aside to reflect on what we collect. This system will be completely dependent on teachers giving pre and post unit assessments and sharing the information. It will also be resting on the ownership of staff with the inquiry process. This will shift our mindset, after a poor lesson, from that of blaming others to a solution seeking frame of mind to revise and strengthen teaching practice, preparation, and developing culture in the classroom.
Here are the results of the Quality Review:
What the school does well
1. The school is pro-active in identifying additional funding sources and, along with teacher input, results in effective decision making around teaching and learning.
2. Authentic professional collaborations across grades and content areas has increased teacher ownership of decision-making, encourages teacher leadership, and is positively impacting teacher practice.
3. Teams of teachers are consistently setting goals for students and are clear in providing the steps needed to make progress.
4. Teams of teachers analyze formative and summative data to create a picture of students’ areas of need.
5. School leaders and faculty have been developing tools to organize data for making instructional decisions.
Areas for improvement
1. Refine the curriculum emphasizing rigorous habits and higher order thinking skills for a variety of learners with different needs.
2. Establish consistency of communication and ensure decision making processes across the school are transparent as a way to strengthen school culture for all constituents.
3. Monitor closely the learning progress of English language learners and special education students by reviewing interim checkpoints and making adjustments to ensure sufficient growth.
4. Develop school-wide reflection processes for the staff so that the effectiveness of assessment practices are measured regularly and adjustments made accordingly.
5. Use the observation tool to ensure individual and groups of students identified with particular needs are able to benefit from targeted support that will improve their emotional and academic growth.
We were rated “Developing.” I strongly agree with the rating. It was painful to hear after 6 years of being principal of J13, that the school has only made it to this level but it was also an eye-opening experience that there is so much more work that needs to be done. We have a very challenging population with a high number of needs, this cannot stop us from bringing great instruction and teaching practices to them. We need to focus on what is working in our school and eliminate what is not. We have had a significant drop in discipline issues, suspensions, and write-ups. Students are traveling into one classroom and causing havoc and going into another and producing good work. It’s clear the relationship is stronger with the teacher in the successful room and the teaching practices are meeting the needs of those students far better than the struggling teacher. If we do not look at this with an open mind to improve the work we are doing, we will continue to be a developing school.
We have an incredible amount of talent and commitment. This was reiterated by Ms. Cortazzo, our Quality Reviewer. We have what we need to reach a Well Developed School in the Fall of 2011. The administrative team is confident we will make this happen. We continue to work like we did these last two months (minus the late nights and weekends at the school), then it is inevitable we will be a Well Developed School again.
Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
Our Acuity results yielded low increases in ELA and dismissal progression in Math. This is a mid-year alarm. At this point, we have invested a half of a year of instruction and have barely moved our students. According to the state tests in May of 2010, 60% of our students are 25 points or less from achieving a level 3 on the ELA exam. 35% of our student body is 25 points or less from a level 3 in math. At the rate we are going, these students could potentially slip through our fingers.
Several initiatives that we launched in preparation for our Quality Review could be instrumental.
One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 89 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students’ records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team has finalized the strategy plan. We have also identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. We have sent several staff to the first professional development and we are preparing for second in the first week of April. The idea is to set up a committee to meet consistency to push the work of PBIS. These meetings are essential for the growth of the program. I will be checking in with the group to make sure it continues to move forward. If you have any questions about the program please see me. In the meantime, please continue to recognize students who are making great decisions. We have had a low number of red feathers being given out. It is imperative we promote positive student behavior by using the red feather system. If you do not have red feathers, then you need to speak to a City Year member as soon as possible. Be a part of the positive movement to make smart decisions on a daily basis.
In addition to PBIS, we were awarded $10,000 from our Network to support teachers with classroom management and instituting interventions in the classroom. We will be using this funding to bring in consultants to work with specific teachers who struggle with developing relationships with their students. If you feel you need additional support, please do not hesitate to reach out to an administrator to receive more support.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
We have expanded the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and has been working with the counseling team to complete these documents. It will be the responsibility of the teachers and Student Management Office to follow the plans developed to make sure we are approaching and working with our students in the most thought out way possible. By investigating which methods produce the best results, we are generating a plan that works for the child and increases the chance for success tremendously.
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.
We have done a tremendous job preparing for the Quality Review. In summary, we have done about two months worth of work in three short weeks. We expedited the process of setting up key structures earlier than we had originally planned. Everything we have put our energy into these last few weeks will be with us for at least the next three years. The next steps are figuring out how we sustain everything we put in place and how do we support the people who are struggling to adjust to the new expectations. We have a wide range of people talent in our school and a large gap of rating via the Teacher Expectation Rubric between different members of the staff. We need to use our stronger teachers to show our struggling teachers how they can improve their classrooms. This connection of different level teachers will have a great impact on everyone involved.
We need to look closely at the needs of our students and use research, inquiry work, and data to figure out a way to challenge as many students as possible. What you will see in our Quality Review results is that we are still struggling to push the higher level students. We are letting our lowest level students drive the pace of the class. Instead, we need to bring a grade level curriculum to our students, support our lower levels to reach those expectations, and extend on this work for our higher level students. The student portfolios will be your assessment tool to see if enough opportunities are being given to our students to answer higher level questions.
Another assessment tool will be the data we collect to measure progression. This measurement process will tell us if what we are currently doing is helping our students. In order to be successful at this, we need to set time aside to reflect on what we collect. This system will be completely dependent on teachers giving pre and post unit assessments and sharing the information. It will also be resting on the ownership of staff with the inquiry process. This will shift our mindset, after a poor lesson, from that of blaming others to a solution seeking frame of mind to revise and strengthen teaching practice, preparation, and developing culture in the classroom.
Here are the results of the Quality Review:
What the school does well
1. The school is pro-active in identifying additional funding sources and, along with teacher input, results in effective decision making around teaching and learning.
2. Authentic professional collaborations across grades and content areas has increased teacher ownership of decision-making, encourages teacher leadership, and is positively impacting teacher practice.
3. Teams of teachers are consistently setting goals for students and are clear in providing the steps needed to make progress.
4. Teams of teachers analyze formative and summative data to create a picture of students’ areas of need.
5. School leaders and faculty have been developing tools to organize data for making instructional decisions.
Areas for improvement
1. Refine the curriculum emphasizing rigorous habits and higher order thinking skills for a variety of learners with different needs.
2. Establish consistency of communication and ensure decision making processes across the school are transparent as a way to strengthen school culture for all constituents.
3. Monitor closely the learning progress of English language learners and special education students by reviewing interim checkpoints and making adjustments to ensure sufficient growth.
4. Develop school-wide reflection processes for the staff so that the effectiveness of assessment practices are measured regularly and adjustments made accordingly.
5. Use the observation tool to ensure individual and groups of students identified with particular needs are able to benefit from targeted support that will improve their emotional and academic growth.
We were rated “Developing.” I strongly agree with the rating. It was painful to hear after 6 years of being principal of J13, that the school has only made it to this level but it was also an eye-opening experience that there is so much more work that needs to be done. We have a very challenging population with a high number of needs, this cannot stop us from bringing great instruction and teaching practices to them. We need to focus on what is working in our school and eliminate what is not. We have had a significant drop in discipline issues, suspensions, and write-ups. Students are traveling into one classroom and causing havoc and going into another and producing good work. It’s clear the relationship is stronger with the teacher in the successful room and the teaching practices are meeting the needs of those students far better than the struggling teacher. If we do not look at this with an open mind to improve the work we are doing, we will continue to be a developing school.
We have an incredible amount of talent and commitment. This was reiterated by Ms. Cortazzo, our Quality Reviewer. We have what we need to reach a Well Developed School in the Fall of 2011. The administrative team is confident we will make this happen. We continue to work like we did these last two months (minus the late nights and weekends at the school), then it is inevitable we will be a Well Developed School again.
Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
Our Acuity results yielded low increases in ELA and dismissal progression in Math. This is a mid-year alarm. At this point, we have invested a half of a year of instruction and have barely moved our students. According to the state tests in May of 2010, 60% of our students are 25 points or less from achieving a level 3 on the ELA exam. 35% of our student body is 25 points or less from a level 3 in math. At the rate we are going, these students could potentially slip through our fingers.
Several initiatives that we launched in preparation for our Quality Review could be instrumental.
One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 89 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students’ records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The School Improvement Team has finalized the strategy plan. We have also identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. We have sent several staff to the first professional development and we are preparing for second in the first week of April. The idea is to set up a committee to meet consistency to push the work of PBIS. These meetings are essential for the growth of the program. I will be checking in with the group to make sure it continues to move forward. If you have any questions about the program please see me. In the meantime, please continue to recognize students who are making great decisions. We have had a low number of red feathers being given out. It is imperative we promote positive student behavior by using the red feather system. If you do not have red feathers, then you need to speak to a City Year member as soon as possible. Be a part of the positive movement to make smart decisions on a daily basis.
In addition to PBIS, we were awarded $10,000 from our Network to support teachers with classroom management and instituting interventions in the classroom. We will be using this funding to bring in consultants to work with specific teachers who struggle with developing relationships with their students. If you feel you need additional support, please do not hesitate to reach out to an administrator to receive more support.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
We have expanded the Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans to the 20 students with the most reported discipline issues. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and has been working with the counseling team to complete these documents. It will be the responsibility of the teachers and Student Management Office to follow the plans developed to make sure we are approaching and working with our students in the most thought out way possible. By investigating which methods produce the best results, we are generating a plan that works for the child and increases the chance for success tremendously.
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We will begin using Teacherease to identify teachers who remove the same child repeatedly and flag these individuals for administrative meetings and mandate Child Study Referrals. We are hoping for a thorough exploration into interventions to increase class time for the student rather than a complete dependency on a discipline system resulting in dismal instructional time for the child.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Principal's Message - January Edition 2010-2011
Dear JHS 13 Community,
Happy New Year to everyone! I want to welcome you back to school. Our first week back has provided clear evidence the preparation before break has paid off. Many of our classrooms have picked up where they have left off. The Student Management Team continues to show growth almost daily. We are working together to close the gap of communication that exists with the school and the student management team. Many times, these individuals are the last to hear about specific events or circumstances set up in the morning. We have managed to develop a system to share daily announcements and absences. As for assemblies, field trips, or specific teacher arrangements, we are still exploring ways to make sure everyone is attuned to what is happening in the school. All students breaking school rules, and are officially reported on Teacherease, are receiving consequences. By the end of the month, they will be receiving them on a timely basis. Our suspension list had reached a three week waiting list. Working with Mr. Ciano, Edgar, and the suspension system, we have been able to clean this area up. We hope by the end of January, we will be able to assign suspensions within a four day wait (this gap is to make sure the letters are mailed out and the family has time to contest the repercussions during a conference or further investigating can take place upon the request of the family.)
There is still much more work that needs to be done to support teachers who continue to struggle with classroom management. We also need to address our students within our academies and as a whole school culturally. We need to communicate regularly what is acceptable behavior and teach our students when they
are not making good decisions. Great opportunities are teacher-student conferences, hosting advisory in place of homework help, one-on-one conversations during class, having students fill out a reflection sheet during class and giving feedback at a later time, or even hosting the student after school for a detention to go over why the repercussion was assigned and how it can be avoided in the future.
Before break we were able to host our winter Spirit Week, our third Winter Olympics, and our first ever Pep Rally. A huge thank you to all of the teachers and staff who were able to plan and assist especially Ms. Willis, City Year, and the Golden Falcon Academy. The collaboration between Jackie Robinson Scholar Academy and Golden Falcon was wonderful to see. I hope in our next event we can generate collaboration among all three academies. The School Improvement Team will be putting together a calendar of events where each academy will have the opportunity to host or work with another academy to support the culture building in our school. When students feel that they are a part of something bigger, they begin to believe in the cause that it represents. They also trust in the direction and the people behind it especially if the payoff is worthwhile. The S.I.T. recognizes this and wants to expand on it. Although the attendance team did not reach our goal of 85% attendance on the 23rd of December, we believe the effort we made produced a higher attendance for the day before holiday break than we have ever had before. We will be surveying the students to find the root fo some of the causes of absenteeism for pre-holiday school day.
Our next three weeks will be dedicated to preparing for the Quality Review. The shift we have to make is to expedite the unfolding of several initiatives to meet the expectations of the Department of Education sooner rather than later. Everything that will be worked on in the next three weeks are initiatives that we were going to be put in place at one time or another before the end of the school year. I feel as though since we were going to have them all in place before the end of the year, it only makes sense we go forth with them now to get the recognition of supporting students and teachers in a measurable and efficient manner because we will not be assessed on this again until next year. The challenge we have is to take on many projects in a short amount of time. The benefit of moving forward is, by the time the Quality Review is over, we will be primarily sustaining and refining our efforts, not building (which is the most difficult part.)
As a community, the need to work together is higher than it has ever been. Consistency in coming to work, participating in any area where you feel you can assist whether during the school day or after, taking part in one of our per session opportunities, or even giving your input or feedback on the planning of projects. These are simple steps that can be done. If you are getting involved with our preparations for the Quality Review then you are committing to making the school better. If you are struggling to meet the needs of our students, which is no easy task, then this may be the way to find out how to do so. If you have not discovered a way to get involved, then do so today. It is never too late. We cannot achieve what we so rightly deserve (a great school and rewarding atmosphere) if we are not all putting our efforts toward the same cause, educating our children. If you need help, then do not hesitate to ask. There are more people ready for supporting than the number of people who are struggling. Let's align what our perspective of support looks like and move forward with it. The task of reaching the top is much easier when we are all helping each other to get there.
Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.
We will also be launching a writing rubric in the next two weeks to align our expectations of what good writing should look like. Eventually, next year, we will use this rubric or a similar one to set goals for students in writing. For now, we will finalize the rubric, share it with staff, and begin rating our students responses to extended response questions or writing pieces. We hope we can encourage teachers to use their bulletin boards to showcase the rubric with student feedback. By producing stronger writers, our students will improve their achievement on both state exams.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 90 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIEST
he School Improvement Team will finalize the strategy plan this coming Friday. Until then, we have identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. It will address the high need for improving the staff and student relationship. In addition, we will be building culture with events and aligning our classrooms and management as much as possible to forge the necessary consistency in setting clear expectations. While we strategically tackle the biggest issues identified from student and staff surveys, we will also be working to create a culture of better decision making for both students and staff and supportive environment to help everyone reach their goals. Once the strategy plan is in place, we will revisit the issues and concerns shared before and during our November 2nd meeting. We will be assembling a PBIS committee while also moving forward with the teacher teams who spoke about concerns raised earlier in the year. In the meantime, please continue to disperse red feathers for students who are exemplifying our core values.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
As more people use Teacherease to enter their incident reports, we are able to gather data on our students. Using the data we were able to identify ten of our students who have been written up the most. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and have been working with the counseling team to put together Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans for these individuals. By developing consistent methods that have proven to work with these children, we may be able to decrease the amount of times these students interrupt the learning process. We hope to begin exploring the different ways we can support these children to improve their engagement in class and help get them on the course for success.
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We are letting our students down if we are solely relying on discipline to change the unwanted behaviors of our students. We have to come to the realization that additional support or a thorough plan can make the biggest difference. Please make sure you have made at least one referral to the Child Study if you continue to struggle with a particular student.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
Happy New Year to everyone! I want to welcome you back to school. Our first week back has provided clear evidence the preparation before break has paid off. Many of our classrooms have picked up where they have left off. The Student Management Team continues to show growth almost daily. We are working together to close the gap of communication that exists with the school and the student management team. Many times, these individuals are the last to hear about specific events or circumstances set up in the morning. We have managed to develop a system to share daily announcements and absences. As for assemblies, field trips, or specific teacher arrangements, we are still exploring ways to make sure everyone is attuned to what is happening in the school. All students breaking school rules, and are officially reported on Teacherease, are receiving consequences. By the end of the month, they will be receiving them on a timely basis. Our suspension list had reached a three week waiting list. Working with Mr. Ciano, Edgar, and the suspension system, we have been able to clean this area up. We hope by the end of January, we will be able to assign suspensions within a four day wait (this gap is to make sure the letters are mailed out and the family has time to contest the repercussions during a conference or further investigating can take place upon the request of the family.)
There is still much more work that needs to be done to support teachers who continue to struggle with classroom management. We also need to address our students within our academies and as a whole school culturally. We need to communicate regularly what is acceptable behavior and teach our students when they
are not making good decisions. Great opportunities are teacher-student conferences, hosting advisory in place of homework help, one-on-one conversations during class, having students fill out a reflection sheet during class and giving feedback at a later time, or even hosting the student after school for a detention to go over why the repercussion was assigned and how it can be avoided in the future.
Before break we were able to host our winter Spirit Week, our third Winter Olympics, and our first ever Pep Rally. A huge thank you to all of the teachers and staff who were able to plan and assist especially Ms. Willis, City Year, and the Golden Falcon Academy. The collaboration between Jackie Robinson Scholar Academy and Golden Falcon was wonderful to see. I hope in our next event we can generate collaboration among all three academies. The School Improvement Team will be putting together a calendar of events where each academy will have the opportunity to host or work with another academy to support the culture building in our school. When students feel that they are a part of something bigger, they begin to believe in the cause that it represents. They also trust in the direction and the people behind it especially if the payoff is worthwhile. The S.I.T. recognizes this and wants to expand on it. Although the attendance team did not reach our goal of 85% attendance on the 23rd of December, we believe the effort we made produced a higher attendance for the day before holiday break than we have ever had before. We will be surveying the students to find the root fo some of the causes of absenteeism for pre-holiday school day.
Our next three weeks will be dedicated to preparing for the Quality Review. The shift we have to make is to expedite the unfolding of several initiatives to meet the expectations of the Department of Education sooner rather than later. Everything that will be worked on in the next three weeks are initiatives that we were going to be put in place at one time or another before the end of the school year. I feel as though since we were going to have them all in place before the end of the year, it only makes sense we go forth with them now to get the recognition of supporting students and teachers in a measurable and efficient manner because we will not be assessed on this again until next year. The challenge we have is to take on many projects in a short amount of time. The benefit of moving forward is, by the time the Quality Review is over, we will be primarily sustaining and refining our efforts, not building (which is the most difficult part.)
As a community, the need to work together is higher than it has ever been. Consistency in coming to work, participating in any area where you feel you can assist whether during the school day or after, taking part in one of our per session opportunities, or even giving your input or feedback on the planning of projects. These are simple steps that can be done. If you are getting involved with our preparations for the Quality Review then you are committing to making the school better. If you are struggling to meet the needs of our students, which is no easy task, then this may be the way to find out how to do so. If you have not discovered a way to get involved, then do so today. It is never too late. We cannot achieve what we so rightly deserve (a great school and rewarding atmosphere) if we are not all putting our efforts toward the same cause, educating our children. If you need help, then do not hesitate to ask. There are more people ready for supporting than the number of people who are struggling. Let's align what our perspective of support looks like and move forward with it. The task of reaching the top is much easier when we are all helping each other to get there.
Continue with the great work you are doing. Incredible achievements are just ahead. Be a part of those celebrations by getting involved today. One school, one future.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
One of the initiatives being launched by the Cabinet are the student goals. Our attempt at this last year landed in a system unable to be maintained for several reasons. Our vision was to simplify the process and align our efforts across all subject areas. By using the two areas of focus this year, writing and critical thinking, we were able to generate a rubric for the purpose of identifying goals in critical thinking for our students. We were able to develop four areas for teachers to work with students. Each department will be responsible for identifying a level or rating for each child in two of the four areas of the rubric along with targets we want the students to reach by June of 2011. The initiative will be the vehicle for driving instruction to offer more opportunities for students to do higher level thinking. It will assist in encouraging collaboration among teachers where the student goals will have a large amount of overlap among departments. In addition, teacher ratings next year will be based on a similar goal setting process for our students. Finally, it will be essential in looking at how the students are learning and what we can do to improve student learning. By improving the critical thinking skills of our students, it is inevitable they will perform better on both their state exams. By using the student goals to unite our efforts, we are solidifying substantial progression for a large population of our students.
We will also be launching a writing rubric in the next two weeks to align our expectations of what good writing should look like. Eventually, next year, we will use this rubric or a similar one to set goals for students in writing. For now, we will finalize the rubric, share it with staff, and begin rating our students responses to extended response questions or writing pieces. We hope we can encourage teachers to use their bulletin boards to showcase the rubric with student feedback. By producing stronger writers, our students will improve their achievement on both state exams.
92% ATTENDANCE
Our average attendance continues to fluctuate between 90 and 91 percent. We are still struggling with days before breaks along with Mondays and Fridays. We put several initiatives together for the 23rd of December. We managed to just break 80% but have a need for more research to produce higher numbers. Sometime in the next two weeks, we will be distributing a survey to students to find out what we can do in the future to promote higher attendance. In the meantime, we encourage staff to take accurate attendance so students records can be kept accurately. We also need staff to set up a welcoming environment in their classrooms. Our numbers indicate a large portion of our students are taking a day here or there and most frequently on a Monday or Friday. We need to stress the importance of coming to school and how missing one day will affect their growth and learning but simultaneously give them assistance to catch up when they do miss. Finally, maintain a welcoming environment. Make them feel that they are important by posting their work and celebrating their achievements in your room.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIEST
he School Improvement Team will finalize the strategy plan this coming Friday. Until then, we have identified Positive Behavior Intervention Services (PBIS) as a first step in improving the school environment. It will address the high need for improving the staff and student relationship. In addition, we will be building culture with events and aligning our classrooms and management as much as possible to forge the necessary consistency in setting clear expectations. While we strategically tackle the biggest issues identified from student and staff surveys, we will also be working to create a culture of better decision making for both students and staff and supportive environment to help everyone reach their goals. Once the strategy plan is in place, we will revisit the issues and concerns shared before and during our November 2nd meeting. We will be assembling a PBIS committee while also moving forward with the teacher teams who spoke about concerns raised earlier in the year. In the meantime, please continue to disperse red feathers for students who are exemplifying our core values.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
As more people use Teacherease to enter their incident reports, we are able to gather data on our students. Using the data we were able to identify ten of our students who have been written up the most. The Child Study Team has gathered the names and have been working with the counseling team to put together Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Improvement Plans for these individuals. By developing consistent methods that have proven to work with these children, we may be able to decrease the amount of times these students interrupt the learning process. We hope to begin exploring the different ways we can support these children to improve their engagement in class and help get them on the course for success.
The school continues to struggle to get teachers to refer students to the Child Study Team. There are a number of teachers who have removed or disciplined the same child repeatedly and have not sought support from the Child Study Team to either get these individuals more services or to gather strategies for the teacher to progress with the student. We are letting our students down if we are solely relying on discipline to change the unwanted behaviors of our students. We have to come to the realization that additional support or a thorough plan can make the biggest difference. Please make sure you have made at least one referral to the Child Study if you continue to struggle with a particular student.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Principal's Message - December Edition 2010-2011
LETTER FROM THE PRINCIPAL…
Dear JHS 13 Community,
The holiday vacation is quickly approaching us. We are doing a tremendous job identifying and addressing concerns from as many members of our community as possible. Administration truly appreciates the patience many of you have been showing as we adjust to the new structures set up in September and we continue moving toward accomplishing our five school goals.
One of the key procedures to making sure we reach our goals for the year is the process of reflecting. We have put plans together to drive our departments and various areas of the school. The next step is to assess if we are on our way to meeting our goals for June. For instance, the attendance team is able to easily assess our progress toward meeting our goal of 92% attendance. Each week we measure how we are doing by looking at our average daily attendance. We noticed our average dropped from 90.8 to 90.4. The day before Thanksgiving really hurt our average (our attendance for that day was 81%). The pattern over the past few years tells us the day before holidays has consistently yielded low attendance. We are now in the process of figuring out how we can increase student attendance on December 23rd. We have the great challenge of creating enough incentives and getting enough communication to our parents to motivate as many students as possible to come to school.
By looking at what is commonly called Benchmarks, we can make adjustments to make sure we have a better chance of meeting our goals. Benchmarks are various assessments during the year to see if you are in route to meeting your goal. My growth for this year is make sure every entity of the school has set up a goal, a plan to reach the goal, and a way to benchmark the goal to determine if the people involved are on course to meeting the goal. In so many words, people must be able to figure out if their current efforts are making a difference or not. We all have so many responsibilities that devoting energies to initiatives that have no effect on what we are trying to accomplish does not make sense.
Key ingredients to this process is making sure we are not using benchmarks to blame people for lack of productivity but to provide support for people who are struggling, reassigning or redistributing responsibilities for people who are legitimately overwhelmed, or revamping a plan with efforts such as expanding the number of team members to ensure the goal is met.
Reflection is essential. It is one of my core values that I think is the difference between winners and losers. Winners take a moment to see what they did wrong, they do not look for a scapegoat to blame, and they are gathering as much feedback as possible from valid resources. Losers believe what they are doing is enough and it is the circumstances around them that hinder their growth or potential. We must all strive to be winners. By structuring time to reflect with thought provoking questions, reflection can drive your work to great levels and winning becomes inevitable.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The Cabinet continues to work on setting up student goals. We will be setting up two goals for each student, one for critical thinking and the other for writing. The goals will be decided using a rubric to identify the current status of each student and then a target of where we want each student to be by June of 2011. We understand we will only have one semester to move our students forward to meeting the goals. The system of student goals is intended for aligning efforts to supporting our students in progressing in both writing and critical thinking. Both of these areas have been our weakest areas for the last few years. By concentrating our work to helping our students improve in these areas, we can achieve our goal of a 10% increase of proficient students both in ELA and Math. We will be using the January 3rd staff meeting to unroll the student goal initiative. We are confident it will be essential in preparing our students for their state assessments, preparing our school for the Quality Review, and a big step in developing Professional Learning Communities.
In addition, the administrative team has been making it around the classrooms and meeting with teachers to work on improving the instruction to meet the needs of our students. For most staff, they have seen significant growth since first moving into the informal visits. The conversations around instruction have proven to be worthwhile from both the teacher’s perspective and the administrator’s as well. By selecting a focus each week, it gives the teacher time to prepare and it drives the discussion in a clear direction. This prevents various aspects of the classroom from being included in the conversation resulting in a checklist of areas to improve. The goal is for more of an exploration of the work we do with children. As mentioned in the “Letter from the Principal”, reflection is essential. The work administrators and teachers are doing together is driving the process of reflecting on the instruction we provide to our students.
92% ATTENDANCE
For almost an entire month, we have been 1.2% away from meeting our goal of 92%. We had great days of attendance such as November 11th, when we had almost 94% attendance on a day sandwiched between a vacation day and the weekend. A feat we have barely been able to achieve in the past. We realize the impact the short week had on our overall attendance. We are in the process of setting up programs for December 23rd to make sure more students come to school. Right now, we know we would like to set up spirit week during the shortened week with Winter Olympics to end it with. We are also considering including the Pep Rally that was planned for November being hosted on the 23rd. When our plan is solidified, we will let you know. For now, please continue to encourage students to come to school. Let them know you missed him or her when he or she is absent. Make sure you have procedures in your classroom for catching these students up. The more they fall behind, the less inclined they are to come to school.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
With the help of Teacherease, we are able to summarize the disciplinary reports of all our students. Mr. Ciano has been able to run reports communicating how many times each child has been written up (only for the students who have actually been written up). About 20 students have been written up a significant number of times. This is definitely a concern to administration and especially to me. My bigger concern is the lack of referrals we have for the child study team. There are a number of staff members who have removed or written up the same child over 10 times but yet, no referral was made to the child study.
As the Student Management Team and I continue to improve the implementing of Chancellor’s Regulation A-443, teachers should be taking the time to explore the interventions they conduct to assist in improving student behavior. Simply moving a seat, having a conversation during class, and redirecting are in class maneuvers. If the same problem with the same child continues to happen despite the in class interventions, then outside support should be sought. The outside support should not only be reprimands from administration or the SMT. It should be the child study team as well. These professionals can take a deeper look at the child, generate more involvement from the family, gather outside support from other organizations, and/or simply develop a plan with the child, parent, and teacher to promote better decision making. Find out how helpful they can be by completing a referral today. Access this help, I guarantee the fifteen minutes you take to fill out the form using Teacherease, a report card, and/or ARIS, the happier you will be. It will be one of the best investments you can do with a pen, paper, and a computer in 15 minutes.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The Crisis Management Team continues to be a great source of communication for issue arising through the school day. I, for one, have felt better connected to staff on the situations that we have faced since putting the team together. Although some of the procedures of this team need to be further developed, it has fulfilled its role of providing a source of information to all staff members. We are currently exploring following up with people when steps are assigned during the meeting and making sure we stay within the driving questions rather than going off on connected issues (which does not happen often but it has occurred.)
The School Improvement Team put together our Staff Development Plan for November 2nd which, judging from staff feedback, was a very productive meeting. We have been concentrating our efforts toward improving the communication in our school. We have put together a Strategy Plan to advance productivity of meetings. We are considering changing the structure and establishing norms and protocols to eradicate a culture of unfocused and undisciplined efforts. Simple steps are being developed to do this such as mandating an agenda for all meetings, beginning meetings on time instead of waiting for people, and ending a meeting with each participant taking something away.
Upon completion of the Strategy Plan next week, we will be forming committees within the team and outside the team with the areas of focus established in the plan. The plan for our December Staff Meeting is to continue the work we started on November 2nd.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
Dear JHS 13 Community,
The holiday vacation is quickly approaching us. We are doing a tremendous job identifying and addressing concerns from as many members of our community as possible. Administration truly appreciates the patience many of you have been showing as we adjust to the new structures set up in September and we continue moving toward accomplishing our five school goals.
One of the key procedures to making sure we reach our goals for the year is the process of reflecting. We have put plans together to drive our departments and various areas of the school. The next step is to assess if we are on our way to meeting our goals for June. For instance, the attendance team is able to easily assess our progress toward meeting our goal of 92% attendance. Each week we measure how we are doing by looking at our average daily attendance. We noticed our average dropped from 90.8 to 90.4. The day before Thanksgiving really hurt our average (our attendance for that day was 81%). The pattern over the past few years tells us the day before holidays has consistently yielded low attendance. We are now in the process of figuring out how we can increase student attendance on December 23rd. We have the great challenge of creating enough incentives and getting enough communication to our parents to motivate as many students as possible to come to school.
By looking at what is commonly called Benchmarks, we can make adjustments to make sure we have a better chance of meeting our goals. Benchmarks are various assessments during the year to see if you are in route to meeting your goal. My growth for this year is make sure every entity of the school has set up a goal, a plan to reach the goal, and a way to benchmark the goal to determine if the people involved are on course to meeting the goal. In so many words, people must be able to figure out if their current efforts are making a difference or not. We all have so many responsibilities that devoting energies to initiatives that have no effect on what we are trying to accomplish does not make sense.
Key ingredients to this process is making sure we are not using benchmarks to blame people for lack of productivity but to provide support for people who are struggling, reassigning or redistributing responsibilities for people who are legitimately overwhelmed, or revamping a plan with efforts such as expanding the number of team members to ensure the goal is met.
Reflection is essential. It is one of my core values that I think is the difference between winners and losers. Winners take a moment to see what they did wrong, they do not look for a scapegoat to blame, and they are gathering as much feedback as possible from valid resources. Losers believe what they are doing is enough and it is the circumstances around them that hinder their growth or potential. We must all strive to be winners. By structuring time to reflect with thought provoking questions, reflection can drive your work to great levels and winning becomes inevitable.
Sincerely,
Jacob T. Michelman
Principal
CHECKING IN WITH THE SCHOOL GOALS
10% INCREASE OF STUDENTS MEETING PROFICIENCY IN ELA AND MATH
The Cabinet continues to work on setting up student goals. We will be setting up two goals for each student, one for critical thinking and the other for writing. The goals will be decided using a rubric to identify the current status of each student and then a target of where we want each student to be by June of 2011. We understand we will only have one semester to move our students forward to meeting the goals. The system of student goals is intended for aligning efforts to supporting our students in progressing in both writing and critical thinking. Both of these areas have been our weakest areas for the last few years. By concentrating our work to helping our students improve in these areas, we can achieve our goal of a 10% increase of proficient students both in ELA and Math. We will be using the January 3rd staff meeting to unroll the student goal initiative. We are confident it will be essential in preparing our students for their state assessments, preparing our school for the Quality Review, and a big step in developing Professional Learning Communities.
In addition, the administrative team has been making it around the classrooms and meeting with teachers to work on improving the instruction to meet the needs of our students. For most staff, they have seen significant growth since first moving into the informal visits. The conversations around instruction have proven to be worthwhile from both the teacher’s perspective and the administrator’s as well. By selecting a focus each week, it gives the teacher time to prepare and it drives the discussion in a clear direction. This prevents various aspects of the classroom from being included in the conversation resulting in a checklist of areas to improve. The goal is for more of an exploration of the work we do with children. As mentioned in the “Letter from the Principal”, reflection is essential. The work administrators and teachers are doing together is driving the process of reflecting on the instruction we provide to our students.
92% ATTENDANCE
For almost an entire month, we have been 1.2% away from meeting our goal of 92%. We had great days of attendance such as November 11th, when we had almost 94% attendance on a day sandwiched between a vacation day and the weekend. A feat we have barely been able to achieve in the past. We realize the impact the short week had on our overall attendance. We are in the process of setting up programs for December 23rd to make sure more students come to school. Right now, we know we would like to set up spirit week during the shortened week with Winter Olympics to end it with. We are also considering including the Pep Rally that was planned for November being hosted on the 23rd. When our plan is solidified, we will let you know. For now, please continue to encourage students to come to school. Let them know you missed him or her when he or she is absent. Make sure you have procedures in your classroom for catching these students up. The more they fall behind, the less inclined they are to come to school.
EXPANDING INTERVENTIONS TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR 15% OF OUR POPULATION
With the help of Teacherease, we are able to summarize the disciplinary reports of all our students. Mr. Ciano has been able to run reports communicating how many times each child has been written up (only for the students who have actually been written up). About 20 students have been written up a significant number of times. This is definitely a concern to administration and especially to me. My bigger concern is the lack of referrals we have for the child study team. There are a number of staff members who have removed or written up the same child over 10 times but yet, no referral was made to the child study.
As the Student Management Team and I continue to improve the implementing of Chancellor’s Regulation A-443, teachers should be taking the time to explore the interventions they conduct to assist in improving student behavior. Simply moving a seat, having a conversation during class, and redirecting are in class maneuvers. If the same problem with the same child continues to happen despite the in class interventions, then outside support should be sought. The outside support should not only be reprimands from administration or the SMT. It should be the child study team as well. These professionals can take a deeper look at the child, generate more involvement from the family, gather outside support from other organizations, and/or simply develop a plan with the child, parent, and teacher to promote better decision making. Find out how helpful they can be by completing a referral today. Access this help, I guarantee the fifteen minutes you take to fill out the form using Teacherease, a report card, and/or ARIS, the happier you will be. It will be one of the best investments you can do with a pen, paper, and a computer in 15 minutes.
CITY-WIDE SURVEY ACHIEVING “ABOVE AVERAGE OR HIGHER” ON ALL 12 CATEGORIES
The Crisis Management Team continues to be a great source of communication for issue arising through the school day. I, for one, have felt better connected to staff on the situations that we have faced since putting the team together. Although some of the procedures of this team need to be further developed, it has fulfilled its role of providing a source of information to all staff members. We are currently exploring following up with people when steps are assigned during the meeting and making sure we stay within the driving questions rather than going off on connected issues (which does not happen often but it has occurred.)
The School Improvement Team put together our Staff Development Plan for November 2nd which, judging from staff feedback, was a very productive meeting. We have been concentrating our efforts toward improving the communication in our school. We have put together a Strategy Plan to advance productivity of meetings. We are considering changing the structure and establishing norms and protocols to eradicate a culture of unfocused and undisciplined efforts. Simple steps are being developed to do this such as mandating an agenda for all meetings, beginning meetings on time instead of waiting for people, and ending a meeting with each participant taking something away.
Upon completion of the Strategy Plan next week, we will be forming committees within the team and outside the team with the areas of focus established in the plan. The plan for our December Staff Meeting is to continue the work we started on November 2nd.
Please continue to work hard toward our Destination of Excellence!
One School, One Future!
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