From the blog of Superintendent Brian Salzer:
Today is a teacher workday and the following activities were conducted with the faculty and staff:
NHS: teachers worked on their individual evaluation plans, assessed progress on their goals, and gathered artifacts for mid-year meetings with the principal. In the afternoon, they completed first semester student grading and then worked on second semester curriculum and lesson plans.
JFK: faculty engaged in cross-content literacy workshop in the morning, then worked within departments on student assessments. In the afternoon, faculty met in teams to review student work and plan curriculum. ESP’s were included in the morning sessions, then worked on an assignment from Director of Student Services Laurie Farkas that focused on meeting the education needs of students with special needs.
Jackson: teachers worked on their individual evaluation plans, assessed progress on their goals, and gathered artifacts for mid-year meetings with the principal. ESP’s met to work on school-wide rules. In the afternoon, faculty met to review student work and plan curriculum.
Leeds: teachers participated in training on “Words Their Way” with Pearson in the morning. This training included two teachers from the other three elementary schools as well. ESP’s engaged in training on a program called Study Island. During the afternoon ESP’s and teacher worked together on curriculum and lesson planning.
RKFRR: ESP’s met with the school nurse in Environmental Lab from 8:30-9:30 for the required yearly training; then they met in the Library for the next Responsive Classroom training. Teachers worked on their individual evaluation plans, assessed progress on their goals, and gathered artifacts for mid-year meetings with the principal.
Preschool: Kimm Quinlan provided an early childhood curriculum presentation for ESPs.
Bridge: the full faculty conducted a “safety review” walk-through in the morning. The rest of the morning was dedicated to the teacher evaluation process. ESP’s were included in the morning sessions, then worked on an assignment from Director of Student Services Laurie Farkas that focused on meeting the education needs of students with special needs.
Nurses: participated in their school building work in the morning and then gathered together in the afternoon with recent student health data to review TEAM goals, progress.
Bus drivers and monitors were trained in CPR.
Tech Team: worked on implementing the district technology plan with a focus on classroom instruction and technology.
As a district we are continuing our work around school safety. Our principals are developing a school safety inventory. We will build a prioritized list of suggestions for our district, review the list with members of the police department and then present this information to the School Committee in March.
I was honored to attend a special faculty meeting at Leeds Elementary School on Tuesday when School Committee member and Investigations Math expert Mike Flynn offered a two hour presentation on implementation of the curriculum and successful teaching strategies to engage students in mathematical thinking and problem-solving.
On Thursday, our ALT and teacher leader evaluation team completed their second full day of training on the new educator evaluation tool. MTA trainers presented information on Modules 3 and 4 as required by the DESE. Our final day of training for Modules 5 and 6 will be held on February 7th.
Finally, our Budget and Property Subcommittee met Thursday evening to review the current state of our FY 13 budget, and discussed the development of FY 14 with regarding to the beginning of our collective bargaining.
Sincerely,
Brian L. Salzer, Ed.S.
Photo courtesy of nick.amoscato via Flickr. Used under creative commons license.