March 5, 2012

Good Morning!  As I look at the week ahead it looks a little on the calm side, that almost scares me!  This evening will be the 1^st and 2^nd grade music program.  (It might not look like calm week to those teachers and Jane until 8:30 this evening!)  I will be gone most of the afternoon attending a meeting at PCC.

Wednesday we have a staff meeting, we will be developing the goals for our school improvement plan at that time.  If you have a preference whether you want to work on the math, reading or school operations goals please let me know; otherwise I will assign you to a team.  (Just FYI, the school operations goal will be focused on implementing MTSS.)  We will use our staff meeting time to divide into teams to write the goals and explore strategies that we will employ to meet those goals.  The goals we write must be SMART GOALS.  SMART GOAL is a buzzword in the world of school improvement.  SMART is an acronym that stands for:

S=Specific

M=Measurable

A=Actionable and Attainable

R=Focused on the learning results, rather than the teaching.

T=Measured and monitored over time.

I’ll have some handouts that will provide you with examples of SMART goals and a template for creating them. 

I am very happy that we have a team of teachers going to the Cognitively Guided Instruction workshop at ESSDACK this summer.  I also have several of you who have indicated you want to attend Common Core workshops.  The CGI team is full, but there is plenty of room for others who want to learn more about Common Core. 

Speaking of learning….. I would encourage all of you to find a blog or RSS feed to follow that will give you little shots of information on topics you are interested in.  If you are new to this type of thing, ESSDACK would be a great place to start, to check out their RSS feeds and blogs go to http://essdack.org/?q=RSSFeeds

This is a neat article that was pulled off of an ESSDACK RSS feed by a staff member --

http://jeffhurtblog.com/2012/01/31/10-brainbased-learning-laws-that-trump-traditional-education/?utm_source=Coming+Attractions+February+9%2C+2012&utm_campaign=ESSDACK%3A+Newsletter+Feb+9th&utm_medium=email

By all means, as you come across neat stuff, feel free to share it with us.

Have a great week and THANKS for all you do for our students!!

The Skyline Elementary/Junior High Middle School will provide a safe and caring community to develop engaged, passionate learners and successful 21^st Century citizens.