Focusing on the Positive

This week, I came across the quote above from Trevor Muir.  It was a reminder to me about the importance of "catching people being good".   I don't know about you, but when someone comes up to me and just says, "thanks" or "I really appreciate . . . ", etc. it makes me want to work harder and grows my own self-confidence - even as an almost 44 year old!  

In our busy roles and lives, it is very hard to remember to take time to focus on the positive and make sure we share those positive thoughts with others, especially our students.  But, taking the time to catch and share the positive vibes can make a huge difference in all of our lives.  

I found this great article from Edutopia on the power of positive phone calls home.  I hope it is helpful to you.  I am going to set a goal to reach out 5 times a week to someone in a positive way!  I challenge you to do the same!

Why a Positive Phone Call Home is Worth the Effort   (Edutopia Article)

Important Information: 

Special Visitor:  On Wednesday, August 31st, Secretary of Education, Katie Jenner, will be visiting Perry Central around 1:00 p.m.  She will be visiting the new STEM lab and Science of Reading strategies in the elementary and getting a peek at the new CTE building and talking to students about their opportunities in the Early College program in the high school.   Please be sure to dress professionally on this day!  We appreciate Dr. Jenner stopping by to see us!

News 14 Sunrise Pep Session:  We had a great first meeting to plan for the Sunrise Pep Session!  The main thing is bringing in the FOOD - please highly encourage your students to participate as we need to beat our goal of over 9,000 food items!  Also, please see the rough agenda for the Pep Session HERE.  Obviously, this is not mandatory, but the more people that are here the more fun we have!!  The Pep Session is set for September 9th.   If you want to learn the school song and cheer with the cheerleaders (surprise the kids) we will be practicing on the 6th in the afternoon!

MIT Project:   Eli Underhill, Aaron Pruett, Matthew McKeehan, and Max Donovan are competing in a competitive grant program through MIT.  The students were challenged to come up with a new product that will help solve a problem in the world.  They decided to focus on trying to solve access to clean water for people that are enduring natural disasters, homeless and for those in high poverty locations.  This week, they are finishing their application by hosting a community presentation.  Best wishes to this team.  If they win, they will get a free trip to MIT and some funding to support the development of their product!

U of E/Toyota Project:  University of Evansville and Toyota are working on a project to convert a mini-van into a traveling STEM lab.  We are grateful they asked our engineering department and manufacturing to design and fabricate the inside of their van!  Students will gain such great experiences with this project!  The van will be here Monday - we can't wait to see the changes they make!

Professional Development Day:  Tuesday, September 6th will be our first professional development day.  Students will not have school, but faculty and staff will attend for Professional Development.  Please find the rough draft of the day HERE.  Teachers should expect to work from 8:00 - 3:00 and assistants from 8:00 - 12:00.  

Teaching Tip of the Week:  Setting Learning Goals for each day is a powerful tool to help students know what they are expected to learn and be able to do by the end of your lesson.  It helps students know what/why they are doing the work AND it helps teachers know what to focus on in formative assessments.  Below is a quick review from Robert Marzano on how to set a learning goal for your classroom!  I look forward to seeing Learning Goals Posted this week!

Clearly Articulating Learning Goals

The teacher clarifies learning goals that state what students will know or be able to do at the end of a lesson, unit, or semester. As part of this strategy, the teacher must be careful not to confuse learning goals with activities and assignments. Activities and assignments are the tasks that the teacher asks students to do in order to achieve the learning goals. For example, the following statement is an activity: students will preview the chapter on the adverse effects of smoking before reading it. A related learning goal would be: students will understand the adverse effects of smoking. To create a learning goal, the teacher translates general statements from standards documents into the following learning goal formats:

• Declarative knowledge: Students will understand _______.
• Procedural knowledge: Students will be able to _______.

High School Redesign

Last week, I had the opportunity to be a part of the education committee for the Governor's Workforce Cabinet.  It was a very interesting meeting as prominent state leaders from the DOE,  State Board of Education, Commission for Higher Education and other school leaders were all at the table talking about how we can redesign high schools in the state of Indiana.  The goal is to start "blurring the lines" (Katie Jenner quote) between high school, post-secondary education and employment for all graduating Indiana Hoosiers by increasing the focus on Work-Base Learning, Career Advising and Academic Rigor.  The timeline is short as this team only has two more years to get work accomplished under our current Governor and with it being a budget year, some of this important change for our high schools will come fast!

 

It is exciting to hear our friends at the state level be so student-centered and teacher friendly in these meetings.  The new accountability system, Graduation Prepared to Succeed (GPS), is the driving force behind this change.  The GPS accountability system no longer focuses on one test on one day to measure student success, instead it is built on the following 5 pillars: Academic Mastery, Career & Post-Secondary Readiness, Communication/Collaboration, Work Ethic and civic, financial & digital literacy.  Basically, they are working to help us measure the timeless view of education: Relationships, Relevance and Rigor (I believe they must be in this order to work the best!)  

Perry Central continues to position itself to be a leader in this redesign work that allows students to lean into their interests and strengths and shows them that life long learning can be fun and rewarding! 

More great things to come at PC and in the state of Indiana!  #good2bgreen  

Important Information: 

Question-Prompt-Cue-Reteach Strategy -   Click HERE to see this visible learning strategy and other re-teaching ideas from John Hatti (presented by Carrie Rosebrock).  This article will provide your PLC with some tools for the "What do we do if students didn't learn" question.

Evening Classes Beginning:  This Wednesday night, we will have two evening courses beginning:  Speech with Matt Childress and Welding 100 with Ronnie Drew.   Welding students will start staying after from 3-7 each Wednesday evening in the new CTE building and speech students will meet from 5:30 p.m. - 8:30p.m. Both opportunities are dual credit opportunities.  We are excited to offer this expansion of courses to our students!

CIA Enterprises:  Adam Stowe is recruiting junior high students for an after school student-led business.  Students will start by manufacturing yard signs and hope to expand their business as they move forward.  Just like Commodore Manufacturing, students will get paid through profits from the program.  Thanks to Adam for starting this!

#Good2BGreen:  A strong start to our athletics this week!  Congrats to Volleyball for their first conference win, boys Cross Country won their meet at Boonville and the football team beat the Marksmen in a nail biter!  Great job students and coaches!

Important Dates: 

PLC Meetings:  Keep up the great work this week!  (Special Education Meeting Thursday, Sept.1)

College Go! Night for grades 10-12:  August 30, 6:00 p.m.

Professional Development Day: September 6th  8-3

Homecoming: September 2nd

News 14 Sunrise Pep Session:  September 9th 6:00 a.m.

#Good2BGreen

 What a great start to the 22-23 school year!  I stopped by many classes the first week and saw so many reasons why it is #Good2BGreen: 

* Jason Barnett had students working in teams to stack cups without using their hands!  What a great
way to build a collaborative culture!

* Brennan Malone had students brainstorming in teams what they could do in their class to create the best opportunity to learn.  They were sharing what a good teacher and student looked like - with the ultimate goal of creating non-negotiables.  Students were determining what they wanted their successful classroom to look and feel like!

* Sean Schaefer had student teams building towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows.  They were discussing the importance of failure and how that leads to learning.  They also discussed the 1% rule of improvement!  

*Emma Bettag spoke to students about her classroom jobs and how students can earn Commodore Cash.  (They were really excited about Commodore Cash and House Competitions!)

I also loved seeing Heidi Zellers playing board games, Stephanie Walsh - Human BINGO, Ty Guillaume's funny video of the day and favorite things list and Debbie Dauby starting her lesson with a very engaging interest approach for mid-point that really got the kids thinking and reviewing content.  These were just a few of the many things going on in classrooms this past week.

Thanks for working so hard to develop relationships and start diving into the rich content that you have to share with students.  The first days of school are when students are the most excited about diving into new routines, new relationships and new content.  

So far. . . We have having the best first few days ever!  

Important Information: 

PLC Team Meetings:  PLC Team meetings will occur this week.  Team meeting dates are the following:  Math - Monday, Science - Tuesday, ELA - Thursday, Social Studies - Friday.  PLC facilitators will have agenda's prepared!  Looking forward to great meetings!

Project Aware Site Visit:  This Tuesday there will be guests in the building for a Project Aware Site Visit.  We want to thank Tara and our counselors for leading this grant opportunity!  The grant is helping us develop a sustainable school-based mental health infrastructure that will serve our students for many years to come. 

Evaluations:  Phil and I have been able to finish all of our evaluations in the SFS system.  You should have received an email from SFS inviting you to review and sign-off on the form.  If you have any questions/concerns about your evaluation or the process, please let us know.  Our doors are always open!

    2022-2023 Evaluation Plan - Here is a link to our evaluation plan for the 22-23 school year.  You can see who your official evaluator will be in this document.  Please let us know if you have questions.  Like anything else, we want to work together and just continue to focus on being 1% better!  

   * We will set SLO goals again this year.  Details about this process will be outlined at our PD Day on September 6th.  

Purdue Bound - I will be out of the office on Friday for a personal day to take Jace to God's Country!  :-)  I will be available by phone or email all day long.  I will try not to cry in your ear!  

Have a great week!  Good luck to volleyball, cross country, football and band this week!  

The Best First Week EVER!

 Trevor Muir - The Epic Classroom

One of the best people I follow on Facebook is Trevor Muir.  I like him because he is full of energy, really encourages us all to create innovative/collaborative classrooms that prepare students for the 21st century AND, most importantly highly supportive of teachers! 

I wanted to share his video about the first days of school.  He encourages us to be innovative, teach students how to work together, and even throw in a surprise and delight!  Setting the culture of your classroom is so important in the beginning.  Developing relationships, setting clear and kind guidelines and procedures, along with engaging lessons to really start the year out right are most important.  When students start school, they are never more ready to learn and and be engaged!  Taking advantage of precious time is important!  

In the video, Mr. Muir mentions that he has a resource called, "Best First Week of School Ever!"  I was a sucker and purchased the ideas.  Some are a little more focused on the elementary, but I think you may be able to gain an idea or two!  HERE is the document!

I hope all of you have THE BEST FIRST WEEK EVER!

**Trevor has a book called the Collaborative Classroom that is a practical way to teach 21st Century Collaboration skills in the classroom.  It is a very helpful resource.  Please see me if you are interested in the book!  I can get you a copy!

Important Information: 

First Teacher Day - Wednesday, August 10th will be our first teacher day!  Tara sent out an email with the corporation agenda.  I copied her agenda and added some details for our day.  You can find the updated High School Agenda HERE.  Please bring your computer to the building level meeting.

Assistants - Assistants will work from 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (right after lunch) on Wednesday.  We will have chrome books for everyone, along with your schedules, updates for the school year, etc.  Please meet us in the cafeteria for the corporation meeting at 8:00 a.m.!   

Important Dates: 

        * Junior High House Choosing Ceremony - Friday, August 12th during 7th period

        * PBIS Celebration for grades 9-12/ Along with Club Sign-Up - Friday, August 19th 

        * MTSS Tier 3 Behavior Meeting (counselors) - August 18th,  9:30 - 10:30 

       * PD Day (no school for students) - September 6th 

       * News 14 Sunrise Pep Session - September 9th   (The fun is back!)  

       * First Faculty Meeting - September 20th