BASH Weekly #7
November 15, 2010

BASH Advocate Role

On 11/16 & 11/17 (Tuesday and Wednesday), all staff will meet in the Atrium to have lunch with their Advocacy students.

Things to talk about with students as their advocate (supporter, backer, urger, champion, agent)
  • Finding and expressing their voice (academics, community, self-advocacy)  
  • Goals (academic, subject area/career/social)- articulation and steps to achieve
  • Go over their student profile in Pupil Path
  • Learning Goals
  • Attendance
  • Credit Accumulation
  • Regents’ readiness, prep, and status
  • Scheduling Courses and Credits
  • What to do when????
  • School Events and Activities
  • School Rules & Expectations
  • Practicing positive assertion skills
  • How to prepare for presentations/interviews
  • How to argue effectively

Access our Advocate Google Doc to input information from your meetings with students.

Teacher Websites

Please check your mailboxes for User Name and temporary passwords.

C6 Learning Communities

There is a new page to dialogue about what we learn from each other during our 7th period meetings.

Please register so we may interact and learn together. You can easily do so through MyOpenID.

The Elements of Teacher Teamwork

“One of the more pointless debates going on in many school districts is who will decide how teams will use their collaborative time,” say consultant/authors Richard and Rebecca DuFour in this Solution Tree advertisement in Education Week. “Both sides should be able to agree that if teachers do not use the collaboration time for the purpose intended (that is, if they don’t co-labor on the right work), there will be no gains in student achievement.” What is “the right work”?

The big idea here is that when educators work collaboratively rather than in isolation, students learn more.

Key elements of collaboration are:
  • Committing to implementing a guaranteed and viable curriculum;
  • Using interim assessments that provide ongoing evidence of each student’s learning;
  • Collectively analyzing that evidence and using it to inform and improve practice;
  • Putting in place a systematic intervention process that provides struggling students with additional time and support.

It’s also important, say the DuFours, for teacher teams to be as self-directed as possible, so that if the principal leaves, the work will continue. Team leaders and administrators should agree on the work to be done, a timeline, and what the team will present as evidence of completion. As long as things are running smoothly, administrators should meet with teams only once a quarter to review progress, analyze evidence of student learning on interim assessments, and offer specific support. But if there are signs of dysfunction on a team, administrators should attend meetings to get things back on track. The key principle here is reciprocal accountability – the team is accountable for doing its work and administrators are accountable for providing what’s needed to support success.

from http://www.allthingsplc.info/pdf/tool/CriticalIssuesForTeamConsideration.pdf

“Who Decides Who Decides” by Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour in Education Week, Nov. 3, 2010 (Vol. 29, #10, p. 14), no e-link available.

Grants, Workshops, and Other Opportunities

 To make it easier for staff to learn about grants, professional development, and opportunities for students, [the DOE ] created new Web sites sorted by category that list these opportunities. Please see below
 
A Grants page on the Principals’ Portal includes everything from Competitive Grants to a Grant Writing Tutorial. All staff members with a DOE user name and password have access to this page. You can visit the grants Web site on any computer at https://portal.nycenet.edu/DOEPortal/Principals/SchoolSupport/AcademicServices/Grants.

A new Professional Development and Student Opportunities section on the Teacher Page is organized by school level--all schools, elementary schools only, middle schools only, or high schools only.

Suspensions

Students, Denia Soto and Danyelle Cagle have been put on suspension. Soto from 11/12 to 11/15  and Cagle from 11/12 to 11/16. Teachers, if you have the above student(s), please provide the work they will miss and give to any of the deans or administration. Thank you.

Lesson Plans from Tuesday 11/2/10

Please remember to send Mr. Link your lesson plans so we can compile exemplars to share with each other. You can upload your file to Mr. Link by using the link below.

Differentiated Lessons in Action

Please remember to invite admin into your classroom to view a differentiated lesson before the end of the 2nd marking period, December 2nd.

Policy for Late or Absent Students

Please email your policy to Mr. Link by the end of this week. Thanks.

Substitute Lesson Plans

Please make copies of any worksheets to be included in your emergency lesson plans. Example: If you have 30 students, have 30 copies at the ready.

Genie Wing is is diligently working on the emergency lesson plan file cabinet to make sure it is fully stocked.