As we get closer to inviting students into our classrooms, I think it is important to remember that the number one super power we all have is the power of RELATIONSHIPS. Strong relationships help our students feel safe, which allows them to want to engage in the learning process. John Hatti, education researcher, found that relational elements have the strongest influences on student achievement!
We are so fortunate that everyone in our Commodore Family believes in building relationships and our students notice! As we gear up for a new school year, I wanted to share this quick article from Edutopia on 6 quick practices that help you build relationships in your classrooms. We will be digging deeper into teacher credibility and teacher collective efficacy (relational elements) at our Back to School Retreat! Looking forward to learning/growing with you!
6 Strategies for Building Student Relationships
Mark Your Calendar!
Special Education Team Meeting - July 28th 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. - High School Library Jennifer Mitchel will lead us in remembering the purpose of special education and how we can set and monitor goals for our students, along with tips for training our assistants to help us monitor progress! We will also revisit goal writing.
Readable English Review Training - Teachers who will be teaching Readable English will meet from 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. on July 28th for a refresher training.
New Teacher Grading Practice Overview - July 29th 8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. New teachers to Perry Central will learn about Perry Central Grading Practices! We will meet in the high school library.
English Teacher Team Meeting - August 2nd, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. We are excited to be working with Carrie Rosebrock from CIESC and improving our craft when aligning to ILEARN and the SAT exams - and more importantly, student learning!
Back 2 School Retreat (Teacher Agenda): August 3rd and 4th is our annual Back to School Retreat! You can find a rough agenda of the event HERE. Our Back To School Retreat is a day and a half of rich professional development and is a great way for us to reconnect and get ready for another great school year! Each teacher that attends will receive compensation for their time. Looking forward to learning with all of you! (Daycare will be available - please contact Kim if you need it!)
* Back 2 School Retreat (Assistant Agenda): We would LOVE for you to join us at the Back to School Retreat on Wednesday, August 4th from 8:15 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Your agenda will be as follows: 8:15 - 9:00 - Review of Brain Aligned Strategies/ 9:15 - 10:30 - Special Education Training with Kim Waninger/ 10:30 - 11:10 - Science of Reading Breakout Session/ 11:10 - 1:30 - Work with your special education teacher to prepare for next school year! (Day Care will be available if you contact Kim.)
Class Rosters - Teachers, you can log into Skyward and see your class rosters. If you have a points based gradebook, you will have to set the grade book up first. 7th and 8th grade schedules are fairly set. We need to maybe move a few more students around, but mostly they are okay. If you have concerns about any of the students who are together, we can look at the situation together. High School students have schedules, but like always, there will be many changes as we get through Back To School Night and the first couple of days of school. Dana has been making schedule changes all summer long! Let us know if you have questions/concerns! Please know that scheduling is a very tedious process and we are doing the best we can!
Master Schedule - Just wanted to share the Master Schedule again, HERE. We are out of space and some of you will need to share your classroom during your prep period. We know it is an inconvenience, but necessary as we provide opportunities for our students. The following teachers do not have permanent classrooms and will need to use your classrooms. Here is our plan for now:
Ruth Ory (Driver's Education): 5th Period - Debbie Dauby, 6th Period - Carol Schwoeppe, 7th Period - Ashley Hubert
Jill Little (Intro to Health Science): 4th Period - Sean Schaefer
Kelly Cash (Human Services): 6th Period - Jill Taylor
Bill Dickerson (Seth Gehlhausen): 2nd Period - David Walters, 3rd Period - HS Library, 4th Period- Ty Guillaume
Other Changes:
* We are eliminating mini-fridges in classrooms. We have refrigerators in the following locations that can be utilized for your lunches, etc.: Carol Schwoeppe's Room, Melissa Toothman's Room, High School Office, Yearbook Room
* We do not have a teacher's lounge due to lack of space this year. The Health Lab is not utilized except for 6th and 7th periods, so it is a quiet place to work or eat - along with the library during certain times of the day. We moved the copy machine and refrigerator that was in the teacher's lounge last year to the yearbook room.
* We will have two nurse's offices this year - one for COVID/Sick students and the other for healthy students who need help.
Back to School Night - Our Annual Back 2 School Night will be Wednesday, August 4th from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. in the bus parking lot. This is an evening where many families make a trip out to school to meet their teachers, change schedules, see friends, etc. We will have many booths and activities going on during that evening. If it works in your schedule to be at school during this event, it is a great opportunity for community outreach!!!
7th Grade Orientation - Dana will be hosting 7th Grade Orientation on Monday, August 2nd at 6:30 p.m. This is an exciting time for our incoming 7th graders as they transition to the junior-senior high school! We would love for 7th grade teachers to join us and start building relationships with our students and their families! Thanks to Dana for leading this important meeting.
Teacher Day - August 9
First Student Day- August 10
