E-News 03.02.2015



Weekly Schedule

Monday - TX Public School Week
  • Zooniversity In the Gym
    • PreK/HS/Kinder & 1st Grade - 1:00pm-1:45pm
    • 2nd/3rd/4th Grade - 2:00pm-2:45pm
Tuesday 
  • Last Day to Collect TELPAS Writing Samples
  • Kristen Weichel on Campus
  • 9:00am-3:00pm GT Training for Administrators (Jacobs & Bright)
  • 6:00pm-8:00pm - Art Fair
  • 6:00pm-7:00pm - Open House/Math Family Night
  • 7:00pm-8:00pm - 3rd Grade Music Program
Wednesday
  • PLC Meetings Today
  • Kristen Weichel on Campus
  • 1:00pm - Finch - Technology Integration Coach Mtg
  • 1:45pm - ARD (Bright, Dietz)
Thursday
  • 5:00pm-7:30pm - Chickfila Spirit Night
  • 7:00pm-8:00pm - All City Choir Concert @ Royse City High School
Friday
  • Last Day before SPRING BREAK (You've Earned It!)

Important Reminders

Reading Instruction
Guided Reading books have been organized in the 4th Grade pod by reading level. Teachers will develop groups based on student's instructional reading level. Reading groups will meet daily. Lower level readers will meet every day while higher level readers will meet at least 2x per week.

Figure 19 Training
Region 10 has placed in the "Online Learning Center" to help teachers with supporting the skills found in Figure 19. They have created a 75 to 90 minute online course about the skills in Figure 19.
Click this link & you'll find illustrated directions on how to sign up for the online course through Region 10. When you finished, you would take the brief quiz and receive your certificate. This workshop does count for PD credit. Just list the course in your portfolio, along with the certificate.

Accelerated Reader (AR) Update - Students should be at 17% of their goal by next Friday. If you notice someone who really needs help, please let me know. We will continue to monitor and encourage students to make weekly targets and a comprehension score of at least 80%. Nita Green is meeting with our targeted 3rd and 4th grade student to ensure they have a book on their reading level each day. Students should be asked to take home a book every night and read for 20 minutes. Be sure to communicate with parents `about their child's AR point goal and their progress toward reaching that goal.

Mathematics
1st & 2nd Grade - Lone Star Daily Rigor is being used with students each week.
3rd & 4th Grade - Math GPS is being used to help students weekly. Teachers should be on week 71-75 this week. We must maintain this pace in order to finished by testing time.

Think Through Math (TTM) for Grade 3-4 - Teachers please ensure that all students have been assessed for TTM. Letters have been sent home during the first report card to parents. Remember that there's an app for TTM and it can be used on the iPad.
ESL Certification
Royse City ISD is pushing to have 100% of the teaching staff to be ESL Certification. The district will pay for teachers to take the test AND have the ESL Certification place on your teaching certificate. Below are a list of links that are helpful to those interesting in this process:
They can afford to reimburse you now - who know when they will no longer continue to this offer. Be sure to take up the district with this offer to reimburse you for this certification.


NEW Information

Campus Dismissal Last Friday - I want to echo my appreciation to each of you again for your efforts last week. All our student were able to get some quickly and safely. Thanks for being flexible with us during the afternoon and helping us communicate how each child was getting home. Excellent work Scott Elementary Staff!

Tutoring - Also one of the Team Leaders wanted me say thank you to our teachers who are stepping up to help with tutoring 3rd and 4th Grade students. Especially to Christin Propst, Bethany Bunnell, Heather Todish, Jamie Garcia, Kristen Ortega, Lisa Pogue, Nita Green, and Vicki Taylor. Thanks for your support.

Zooniversity (@zooniversity) - This is the first time we've had this group visit Scott Elementary. Our PTO has provided this program for our students that will have lot of LIVE animals for them to view. This seems like an exciting experiences for the kids. Here's a link to their website - http://www.zooniversity.org/

Art Fair @ 6:00pm-8:00pm - this is the first time we've hosted an Art Fair like this at Scott so I'm very excited to see our student create art in frames! These will be displayed in the cafeteria so encourage our parents to stop by and purchase some artwork.

Math Family Night @ 6:00pm-7:00pm -  will have BINGO card students will keep with them throughout the event. Teachers will mark each BINGO card for the activity they responsible for facilitating. Be sure to encourage students to visit other pods in the building to score higher points. At the end of the night, students will turn in their BINGO cards to their homeroom teachers for classroom prizes (homework passes, treasure box items, etc).

3rd Grade Music Program @ 7:00pm-8:00pm - Will be in the Gym while the Art Fair is going on in the Cafeteria. This will be a busy night for Scott Elementary!

Staff Meeting Next Monday, March 16th @ 3:30pm - This will be the official state testing meeting. Be sure to make arrangements for this meeting.

Valerie James Dates Revised
 - Due to our weather days, we're revising our meeting dates for Valerie James for March only. We will NOT meeting on March 5th OR March 26th. Be sure to save the date for Thursday, March 19th and reschedule parent conferences, grade-level meetings, and other around this date.

Teacher of the Month - Click here to cast your vote for March's Teacher of the Month.

Teacher of the Year - I will be sending out a Ballot for our Teacher of the Year sometime on Wednesday. Keep on the look out for that posting.

EdCampAwesome - Thank you for everyone who could make it to the event. I'm pleased to announce that Christiana Finch (@christianafinch) and Heather Todish (@KinderIsAHoot) lead a conversation during EdCamp. It was a great turn out with about 400 participates. We had some visitors from the Waco, Texas area too.

Here's a recap video that was shot and edited by Albert Thomas (@albertthomas79), an instructional technologist from the Dallas area. He did a great job capturing the essence of the EdCamp experience:

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