Education Matters

The Indiana Legislative Session for 2018 adjourned on Wednesday, March 14th late into the night.   There were several bills focused around education, including a replacement test for the ISTEP 10+ , new Indiana diploma (including an option for the state board to find alternatives for Algebra II (yeah!)), and more!  The legislative process is very important to understand as we move forward.  Below is a link to all of the bills that passed pertaining to education.  The School Safety bill was one bill that did not pass due to the legislative body running out of time.  Link to Legislation: HERE

 I also thought the information below about the timeline for the new ECA test and accountability was interesting.  Starting with the current 7th grade class, students will wait and take their federal accountability test when they are juniors instead of sophomores.  

House Bill 1426: Education Matters.  This bill establishes one “Indiana Diploma” with 4 designations (General, Core 40, AHD, THD) with the State Board to consider math courses that could be used in place of Alg II in the Core 40 curriculum.  Establishes the waiver process for students under our new pathways designation.  The SBOE is to create an alternative diploma for students with significant cognitive disabilities.

This bill also takes us away from the ECA test for accountability and we will implement a nationally recognized college entrance exam.  The discussion yesterday was to use this timeline:

18-19    ISTEP 10 (current 9^th grade class)           GQE and A-F

19-20    ISTEP 10 (current 8^th grade class)           GQE and A-F

20-21    No Test (current 7^th grade class in 10^th grade)

21-22    ACT/SAT (current 7^th grade class in 11^th grade)    A-F.  This cohort of 2023 will be under the Graduation Pathways established by the SBOE.

This would clearly impact our High School A-F grades and this rule making is still in progress.  This timeline does, however, not double test a grade level or force 2 tests in one school year. 

Enjoy your Spring Break!!!  


School Notes: 

* Commissioner's Meeting - Students in regular Econ & US Government classes (not on-line) along with juniors will be participating in the Commissioner's Meeting on Monday, March 19th.  We will hold the meeting in the high school library from 9:00 - 10:00 a.m.  

*  Faculty Meeting - We will have a faculty meeting on Tuesday, March 20th.  We will move the start time back to 7:30 a.m.   Come and join us for breakfast and important information!  

* Safety Meeting - Please remember to attend our safety meeting on Thursday, March 22 at 9:00 a.m.  in the cafeteria.  Many representatives from many law enforcement departments will be here to teach us ALICE training (Active Shooter Training).  The meeting will last from 9:00 - 12:00 with lunch included.  

* No Virtual Day - Thanks to earning a waiver from the DOE, we will not have to conduct a Virtual Day for students on March 22nd!  

* Grading Period - Reminder the grading period actually ended on March 16th, but grade books will remain open until Wednesday, April 4th at midnight.  Report cards will be handed out on Friday, April 6th.  

* ISTEP Celebration - Students in grades 7,8 and 10 will have a small celebration on Wednesday, March 21st during the last part of the day.  Details will be coming soon!


Important Dates: 

Spring Break:   Friday, March 23 - Sunday, April 1

Wednesday, March 21 - Grandparent's Day

Friday, March 30- Varsity Softball @ Orleans  5:00 p.m./ Varsity Baseball @ home vs. South Spencer 5:00 p.m.

Monday, April 2 - School Board Meeting 6:30 p.m. 

Wednesday, April 4 - Grades need to be finalized 

Friday, April 6th - Career Day for grades 7,8,9 during 3rd and 4th periods/ Report Cards handed out

April 23 - May 4th - ISTEP Window  

Trauma Informed Care

Trauma informed care and brain research are certainly hitting the national press.  We understand the impact in our own classrooms and schools.  Research is showing us that discipline is not the answer as our students need healing and support.  Perry Central is working to be a Trauma Informed School and we are working on Professional Development for all of you!  We have a team of dedicated reading a book called "The Trauma-Informed School" by Jim Sporleder.  I haven't gotten very far in the book, but I am already empowered by some of the key cornerstones such as:

  - "Trauma-Informed model works for ALL students.  Everyone benefits from being treated with kindness and connecting to a caring staff.  This model is an everyday process for every student."  
  - "Trauma Informed schools are a shift from fear-based culture to relationship and love-based."
  - "Brain drives behavior."
  - "The best way to describe someone that resists the new model is: fear."

Oprah Winfrey brought this pandemic to the national spotlight in her recent article in USA today, that is posted below.  She feels her life will forever be impacted by this information as she looks at individuals differently.   

I know you probably get tired of me writing about this area, but it is such an important piece to understanding our students and helping them meet their needs.  I am thankful that all of you are willing to learn with us.  I would encourage you to read Oprah's article.  It is inspiring! 

Oprah Article can be found HERE. 


School Notes:

* National School Walk-Out:  I will remind you of this information on Wednesday, but Wednesday, March 14th has been designated as National School Walk-Out Day.  At 10:00 a.m. across all time zones, this group is encouraging students to walk out of their classrooms for a total of 17 minutes to raise awareness and push for legislation that would be centered around gun violence and safety in schools, homes and places of worship.

Our administration team met with the Junior/Senior High Student Council members last week to talk about this event and other safety topics.  The student council did not believe that many students planned to participate in the event and even recommended that we did not promote it.  (They are such good kids - they said that students would get out of class just because and it wouldn't help anything.)

There is a potential that a small group of students may participate.  If at 10:00 a.m. you have students walk-out of the classroom, please allow them to do so.  Students wanting to walk-out should report to the football field.  We will allow them to be on the football field for 17 minutes and then make sure they are back to class.  If all of your students participate, please escort them to the field.  We want to help students that are interested make an appropriate stance, but we hope this does not bring a lot of disruption to the school day. 

Standards 201 Training:  This week on Wednesday and Thursday we will divide the staff up into two groups for some training during lunch/WIN for our PLC teams.  This was the training that we were going to try to have but instead had snow days!  We will be providing lunch for this training. More details will be forthcoming!

Wednesday (March 14): English Team, Social Studies Team, Carrie Guillaume, Nancy Poehlein, Mary Hagedorn

Thursday: (March 15) Science Team, Math Team, Carol Schwoeppe, Josh Craney, Keith Pierrard, Andrea Clark

Tech Changes:  I want to apologize for not getting this communication out earlier.  Dr. Clark reset this system a few weeks ago and I forgot to send the information.  To help ensure that students are getting replacements for broken computers, we have tried to develop a different system.  Students who have broken computers are encouraged to fill out a Tech Support Ticket.  Dr. Clark moved the link to the Tech Support Ticket to the front page of the school website for easy access.  If a student cannot get access to someone that can help them with a ticket, students are asked to please take their broken computers to the ISS room.  Mrs. Taylor is set up to help students write out the ticket and take their computer.  This will ensure there is a record of this event.  Students who do not have chargers should also report to the ISS room.  She has replacement chargers for students to use.  Students will be charged a fee for lost chargers.  Bottom Line - if students have computer issues, send them to the ISS room, NOT the tech room for the best results! 

The more you can help us make sure students are completing the Tech Support Tickets, the better this system will work.  We know our loaner bank of computers is low.  Next school year, we will be requiring that all classrooms have at least two desktop computers in them for students with computer issues.  We know that the computers are typically a very important part of your lesson plans and we want to make sure we are doing the best we can to accommodate these issues.  Please see Jody if you have questions about this process.

* Virtual Day - Just a reminder that Thursday, March 22nd will be a virtual day for students.  We are encouraging you to get that information out to students by Monday, March 19th.  This will allow students time to finish the work while they have help and hopefully help make sure work gets completed before they return in April.  I have had requests from several families to be gone during different days of our spring break.  Students are supposed to be contacting teachers for this work.

* Disability Awareness Month:  Faculty and staff are invited to wear jeans this week (March 12 - 19) in honor of National Disability Month for a donation to our program.  Donations can be made in the high school office.  Thanks to Kris Walsh for leading this charge!

* ASPIRE:  On Tuesday, March 13th, Perry Central will host all 10th grade boys from the county for our annual ASPIRE event.  This event is sponsored by the College Success Coalition and is a very large career awareness program.  Over 40 community representatives will be on hand to speak to our students.  We are excited to host this event!  Girls from across the county will be driving to Tell City High School for the other half of the event.  Girls will be leaving around 8:45 a.m. and boys will be released by intercom around 9:15 a.m.  The event will be over around 1:30 p.m.

* Safety Audit:  On Friday, Perry Central hosted over 30 individuals from several community agencies to talk about safety at Perry Central.  It was a great meeting and walk-through.  We learned several ways we can continue to work together to make Perry Central a safer campus; many of which we have already shared with you in the past couple of weeks.  We are very thankful to live in a community where so many people care so much about our safety.  Just a reminder we will have safety training on Thursday, March 22nd as our professional development opportunity.

ISTEP:  Thanks to everyone for a successful ISTEP testing week.  I tested several students and all of the students worked so hard.  Our next window will open the last week of April - Week of April 23rd - May 4th is the official window.  There are several more tests in the second window.

Important Dates: 

Monday, March 12 - School Board meeting 6:30 p.m. in high school library

Tuesday, March 13 - ASPIRE for all 10th grade students

Friday, March 16th - FFA Leadership Contests @ North East Dubois.  Bus leaves right after school.

Thursday, March 22 - Virtual Day for students/Professional Development Day

Friday, March 23 - First day of Spring BREAK!!

Friday, April 6th - Career Day during 3rd and 4th periods for students in grades 7,8,9

Supporting our Students

During times and events like we have had this week, I find myself reverting back to Lori Desautels' brain research.  I like to stalk her Facebook page for interesting articles and information that will help me better understand our students and find ways we can help during stressful times. During times like these, even though we are frustrated, the words of  Ross Greene echo in my head, "Kids do well if they can."

Ironically, this week, Lori has a great article about discipline vs. punishment.  (I have added a link to the entire article for your viewing below.)  In this article, Lori reminds us that when students have Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) that pathways of fear are laid down within their brains, creating a flight or fight response.  This research fully explains the background of this quote, "A hurtful child is a hurt-filled child."

As educators, this new generation of student is challenging us to rethink how we approach and work with children.  We know at Perry Central that it is no longer appropriate to demand compliance from our students but we must find ways to teach and model the behaviors we want to see; laying the groundwork for prevention systems and strategies.  This research has led us to systems that teach and support such as Commodore Pride (Positive Behaviors Interventions & Supports), After-School Programs, teaching Restorative Practices to all 8th grade students, and our academic supports of Learning Lunch/8th Period/After School tutoring.  These systems allow us to teach students skills they may be lacking while at the same time bring hope to all of our students. 

I would encourage you to read this article as it is just a reminder of the importance of all of the system of supports we are working to put in place to help our students.  I want to personally thank all of you for being positive, caring and supporting individuals to all of our students.  The Indiana State Police even commented that they could not believe the calmness our faculty and staff bring to such stressful situations.  You are making Perry Central a very special place to be.

Link for article is here!

I do want to note that in this article, she talks about ways to approach students specifically who have an incomplete assignment.  Here is what she suggests: Teachers should have one on one discussions with students that convey what the behavior communicates to you, the teacher.  Teachers should ask if somethings has changed at school or home or if the student doesn't understand and then make a plan with the students and possibly parent for missing assignment (basically use Perry Central's system of support through learning lunch/8th period and engage counselor if you feel necessary.)  


School Notes:

* ISTEP Testing continues this week.  Most students will be taking English and Social Studies 7.  Thank you for being flexible during this time and helping students find the locations they should be testing in.  Please take a look at the ISTEP schedule for this week.  All tests must be complete by Friday, March 9th.

* Welcome!  We would like to welcome Dawn Huss-Howe as a new assistant to Perry Central Jr./Sr. High School.  She will start on Monday!  We welcome her to our PC family!

* Law-Enforcement Visits - On Friday, March 9th you may notice some extra law enforcement in our building.  Local law enforcement representing the Indiana State Police, Perry County Sheriff's Office, Branchville Correctional Facility, Conservation Law Officers, and Tell City Police Department will be here to help us update our safety plan, walk through the building, etc.  This is an annual event as we work to make sure we have strong safety plans in place.

* Aspire - On March 13, all 10th grade students will be participating in the Perry County College Success Coalition's Aspire Event.  This is a large career event for all of our students.  Perry Central will be hosting the boys and Tell City the girls! 

* Commissioner's Meeting - Perry Central will be hosing the Perry County Commissioner's Meeting on Monday, March 19th in the High School Library.  Seniors will be asked to attend this event from 9:00 - 10:00 a.m.

*Book Study - Do not forget to make your first post by March 9th!  Post should be made in Google Classroom. 


Important Dates:

Friday, March 9 - Book Reviews Due in Google Classrooms - Please make sure you are connected to your Google Classroom!! / Local Law Enforcement Visits.