Week 1 Education - Quarantine

This week, I ran across a blog by Patrick M. Larkin (I posted his entire blog post below for your reading pleasure.)  His blog was a great reminder about on-line learning and things we need to keep in mind from the teacher, parent and student perspective.  In his blog, he shared this parent's perspective from Israel:

Even though this video makes us laugh a little, it is a good reminder of the need to be mindful of the work we give our students.  The pandemic brings about a time of uncertainty and stress for many of our families and adding a large load of work to students (especially for junior high students) can add even more stress.

Many of you have wonderful ideas and plans of learning to share with your students this week.  You have been working extremely hard.  Not only have you been carefully planning but many of you have reached out to students you are worried about to offer extra support during these times.  Our students are blessed to have you in their lives.  This week, continue to be thoughtful, move slowly, and work to maintain and grow relationships with your students.  Sail On!

Patrick Larkin Blog


Important Information: 

Office Closure - The High School Office will continue to remain closed to follow the Governor's Orders.  Everyone's health and safety is our top priority.  If you need any support, please feel free to contact Jody at anytime.  812-719-1937

Team Meetings:  Phil and I would like to follow up with everyone towards the end of the week for a quick check-in.  To help facility better conversations, we will meet by teams.  We will meet this Thursday, April 2nd during the following times via Google Hangout (if the time doesn't work for you, please let me know):

8:30 a.m. - English Team
9:30 a.m. - Math Team
10:30 a.m. - Science Team
11:30 a.m. - Special Education Team
12:30 p.m. - Social Studies Team
1:30 p.m. - Island Team

Zoom - If any of you are considering hosting a zoom meeting for students, you may want to watch the guidance below.  Bo Gibson created a screencast to show you how to prevent requiring an extension for students.  Thanks for your work, Bo!    You can find the screencast HERE.

Food Delivery - Perry Central is continuing to offer food delivery on Monday and Wednesday each week.  Food is only allowed to be delivered to students.  If you know of a family that needs help with this, please let us know.

Book Study -  Individuals participating in the "Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind" book study will continue their discussion via Google Classroom.  We hope to have Chapters 4-6 ready to discuss by April 1st.  We will start our discussion through classroom.  Looking forward to your comments!

"Off the Grid"

Over Spring Break, my son Justin, had a couple of his friends over to go hiking in the Hoosier National Forest.  It was fun to see them get together for the first time after a week break from each other, running through the woods!  Gavin Guillaume mentioned several times how they were "off the grid" as they picked up sticks, threw rocks and giggled for two miles.

In some ways, we will all be navigating what it means to be "off the grid" this week.  All of you will be finding new ways to teach the students at Perry Central.  There will be some tough spots that we will work through together, but just like Justin and his friends, I know we will be findings ways to incorporate laughter, celebrate success and share our friendship with each other.

This week, I have been experimenting with a couple of on-line options for collaboration including Zoom and Google Hangout.  Both options seem very simple and easy to use. Google Hangout was nice because not only could I share my screen with the other side, but they could share theirs with me!  Could be a good learning tool.  Also, to help you navigate a few other options, Abbie, Brennan, and Jill have created "how-to" videos for technology they are currently using in their classrooms including Google Classroom, Personal Videos, and Screencastify.   I have included links to some of these tools below and others will be shared via email later.

We will host our first set of team meetings this Tuesday (you can see the schedule below).  Our goal will be to answer questions, share ideas and just find a way to support each other in our learning.

Please know that you are welcome to contact us at anytime.  Phil and I plan to work from home, mostly, due to the Governor's announcement today, but we do have access to the building.  If you need to get any supplies, you are still allowed to do that - we just ask that you please limit visiting the school as much as possible while we are in "shelter in place".  We want to set a good example for our families and help keep our community healthy.


Jody's Cell  812-719-1937
Phil's Cell   812-719-0559


Important Information:

Resources: 

• Zoom

• Google Hang Out - you can find the extension in your google "waffle iron" (seriously, I learned that is what they call that - real technical term)  Here is a short VIDEO to help you navigate it.  
• Screencastify HOW TO VIDEO

Grading -  General guidelines for grading and feedback will come from you, as the professional educator.  During this time, we do not want to hurt anyone's current grade - probably mostly from the 3rd 9 weeks.  I think there may be kids you want to help bring their grades up, but if students do not complete work or do not do well - our goal is learning not hurting GPAs at this time.  It is hard to give specifics about grading because this is so new.  I do think this vision will become more clear to us in the coming days.  Please know if you have questions or concerns we want you to reach out.  I think that providing students with grades and feedback will be necessary so students can see that the work they are doing is important.  

What to Teach - Obviously we are not going to be able to cover all of the materials that are left in your scope and sequence. Our advice is to think about skills that are necessary for students to move on to the next grade level/course next year and focus on that work.  This is a really good time to build skills through review as well.  It may be helpful to outline your curriculum and have a vision of what you would like to cover all of the way up to the end of the school year.   We can discuss this with our teams during Zoom calls tomorrow.

Students Without Internet - We are working on developing a list of students who do not have access to the Internet.  We think the list is going to be rather small - Yeah!  I will send a list of students shortly who do not have access.  Here is the protocol that we will use:
     * Look at the list and identify students who need paper-packets
     * Send an email to Jody with necessary attachments and work directions for each student in your class (by Thursday evening or Friday morning)
    * Jody will print and make copies as necessary and create each student a packet
    * Packets will be distributed on the Monday bus routes that go out for food.  We will ask families to meet us there if possible.  (Buses will go out each week with food or you can send enough work to cover the next four weeks at one time.)
    * You can call students and check in with them and their work.  If they have the ability to send your pictures of their work via their phones, etc. that would be super.  We do not have a solid plan to get work back to us, but we can do our best to work this out for families as needed.  We will stay in contact to streamline this process.  

Special Education Students - Phil and  I met with Diane, Heidi and Melissa today via Google Hangout.  For high school students that Diane and Melissa work with, they just ask you to communicate your needs to them.  They can help make adaptations to classroom work or even make a plan to help support students individually if you have students that you are concerned with.  Please communicate with them.

     For junior-high students, we are asking math, English, science and social studies teachers to please fill out a google document so Heidi knows what you are working on in your classes each week.  We think this will help with communication.   We are also concerned that some of the junior high students will struggle to keep up with the work, especially on-line.  Heidi would like to make some accommodations for these students and she will work with you on these individual students.

Platforms - We are asking that teachers please utilize Google Classroom as much as possible to help eliminate confusion with parents and students.  Also, there are many free resources such as IReady for 7th & 8th grade ELA/Math, I-XL, Zoom, Google Hangout, etc.  We do believe that video lessons are NECESSARY as we move forward, especially for new content.  Remember, you can still utilize formative assessment opportunities, practice problems, etc.  Not everything you do needs to be graded and I would recommend staying away from "busy work" as much as possible.    Scheduling zoom calls or google hangout opportunities would be very nice to offer.  I think it is important to remember that not all students may be available during the times that you schedule them - so you cannot require them, but I think the conversations among students would be great.  If you schedule your class meetings during your regular scheduled class times we can eliminate students being invited to more than one session at a time.

Meetings: 

We would like to schedule meetings by department tomorrow in hopes to answer any questions you may have, share ideas about how you are going to deliver curriculum, etc.  Please find the schedule below.  I will be using Google Hangout for our meeting and you will receive an email link just a few minutes before the session.  (Please be patient because I am learning too!)  If you have any good jokes or stories to share with the team - have them ready!  

       * Faculty Meeting via Zoom:
                      English Meeting - Tuesday, March 24   8:30 a.m.

                      Math Meeting -  Tuesday, March 24     9:30 a.m.

                      Science Meeting - Tuesday, March 24   10:30 a.m.

                      Social Studies Meeting - Tuesday, March 24   12:30 noon

                      Island Team Meeting - Tuesday, March 24  1:30 p.m. 

                      School Counselor Meeting - Tuesday, March 24  2:30 p.m.
                                        

       *  AP Teacher Meeting -  Wednesday  9:00 a.m. 

      * Assistants - Wednesday 10:30 a.m. - This will be optional, but we want to be able to answer any questions you may have. 

     

Innovation

This week, I had the honor of helping three Innovate WithIN teams participate in the regional competition at the University of Evansville. Innovate WithIN is a state-wide, high school pitch competition aimed at promoting entrepreneurship opportunities and mindsets.  Innovation and entrepreneurship creates pathways to economic success for our students and our communities and it provides authentic, engaging learning opportunities for our students!

The competition was a great experience for our students as they stood on stage and shared their "pitch" with four other entrepreneurs who were judges. Perry Central had 3 of the 10 entries and we were the only school that had students who had engineered their own product and presented working prototypes.  We didn't come away with first place, even though I thought we should have, but our students grew in confidence.

It was refreshing to see students who were passionate about a product they created to help better the lives of others. Students had the opportunity to develop problem-solving and communication skills, empathy and purpose as they found real solutions for real problems.   Even though they didn't win, they will be back!  Our students will continue to shine.

By providing students with opportunities like internships, community service, career pathways, dual credits, and other authentic/innovative learning strategies, we are helping redefine education.  The traditional public schools teach students how to sit, comply and take a test. . . but by investing our time and energy into innovative educational approaches, we are not only making learning engaging but we are changing our students' lives and making our community stronger.  I can't wait to see what the future holds! 

Important Information: 

Grades:  Reminder that the grade book closes on Wednesday, March 11th at 11:59 p.m.  Report Cards will be ready to hand out on Friday.

Junior High Community Service Day - This Friday (the 13th, full moon, day before Spring Break. . .) all of our students in grades 7 & 8 will be participating in a community service activity.  In their houses, students have teamed together to make a decision about who they want to help and how it will be accomplished.  We have projects anywhere from creating a welcoming committee at our school, building bird house boxes for the parks,  helping the Derby Community Center and more!   Community Service is one of the best ways to instill happiness, create social connections, reduce stress and develop leadership skills, according to Forbes.  Thank you to Shelly Kunkel and all of our teachers for making this day happen! 

CELL Rural Early College Grant Update - This week, our CELL Leadership team traveled to Indianapolis for a state meeting.  We had a great time networking and gaining ideas from across the state to help us strengthen our Early College High School Program.  It is a great reminder of the lives we are changing by providing this service to our rural students.  One of the project ideas we had was to gather testimonials from our students about how dual credits have impacted their lives.  Maddie Labhart was the first to respond and you can see her video above!

Interested in being a dual credit teacher?  To teach dual credit, teachers must have a master's degree and then 18 hours of master level classes in the subject area they want to teach for dual credits.  Perry Central will pay teachers (for pre-approved classes) $500 for completed course and will pay for the course if it is towards the specific 18 hours needed to teach the class.  This opportunity will only for sure be available during the years of the grant.  So get started now!!!!  See Jody for specifics!

Aspire - On Wednesday, March 11th, all 10th grade students will be participating in the Perry County Career program called Aspire.  Over 60 local community members will be on hand to speak directly to students about their careers and opportunities in Perry County.  Perry Central will be hosting the Perry Central, Tell City and Cannelton boys, while Tell City will be hosting all of the females.  It is always a great event!

Next Level Grant - We are excited that we have received a Next Level Planning Grant from the Department of Workforce Development to expand our Construction Pathway with Ivy Tech.  On the Monday of Spring Break, Dana, Josh and Jody get to travel to Indianapolis to learn more.  Even though we have to give up a day of break, we know that it will be beneficial to our students and our school community.  This grant is an effort to help schools be better prepared for students to earn credentials while in high school that are beyond a high school diploma.  Perry Central continues to be a leader in these opportunities. 


Spring Break is Next Week!!  Hope you have a wonderful break - you deserve it!! To celebrate, we will make this jean week!  (Please remember to make your jeans look professional!)  

Safe and Secure

This week's article by the ASCD talked a lot about school safety.  School safety can be ensuring that the buildings and grounds are safe and secure, but more importantly it also includes the importance of emotional safety, developmental well-being, and sense of belonging and self worth.  School Safety is really about working to develop the whole-child.

We know that students must feel safe (emotionally and physically) to be available for learning.  Here are some ways that some teachers across America help their students to feel safe:

* I try to make sure my students feel safe, both physically & emotionally, by establishing and enforcing policies to ensure students' respect others.  I also try to be observant of student's emotional states and make myself available to them and provide information to counselors when needed.   - Kelly Buechler, Carrollton, TX

* I work with students that struggle academically.  I know if I am going to help them learn, I have to remove all of the responsibility from them for their lack of success.  I teach them how their brain works and tell them that I am going to help them "retrain their brains".  Students who don't feel blamed or ashamed feel safer and believe in themselves.  - Barbara Danis, South Paris, Maine

* As a teacher, I make it a priority to know every student's name in my classes and in the building.  When you greet them each day it lets them know how I care about them.   When I have a good relationship with them, I open the lines of communication and students feel safe and secure.  - Jake Klipsch, Dravenport, Iowa

The steps we are taking to provide counseling services, Social/Emotional Learning Curriculum, Junior-High House Systems, building relationships,  etc. are all important steps for developing student safety.  What are some ways you help your students feel safe in your classroom?

Important Information: 

Our Sympathy - This weekend, Carol Schwoeppe lost her sister, Sharon Lange,  to a battle with cancer.  Visitation will be Tuesday, 1:00 - 7:00 p.m. CST at Becher Funeral Home in Ferdinand with a Church Mass on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. at St. Ferdinand Church.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Carol during this tough time. 

ISTEP Testing - All 10th grade students will be taking the math ISTEP test on Monday and Tuesday periods 2-4  (Monday they may finish and return to 4th period).   Please double check the testing schedule HERE.    (You will have to go to the math tab.)

Pep Session - Tuesday afternoon we will have a Pep Session to cheer on the Might Commodores as they take on the Marksmen Tuesday night in the opening game of the boys basketball sectional.  Students will be released at 2:30 to attend.  A few logistic notes (teachers please help make sure we direct students appropriately):
    * 9th grade students should sit down in the bottom section of the bleachers
    * Students in grades 7 & 8 will sit up by the band.  They can be immediately released down the stairs opposite of the band at the end of the pep session

Domain 1 & 3 Help Session - Just a reminder we will have two help sessions this week for Domains 1 & 3:   Tuesday, March 3    7:30 a.m.   and  Thursday, March 5   3:10 p.m. - Both sessions are in the high school library  Domain 1 & 3 are due Sunday, March 15th.

Career Fair - On Thursday, March 5th, juniors and seniors will be participating in the Perry County Career Fair at the Schergen's Center.  Students will report to 1st period and leave school around 8:30 and return back to school before lunch.  This is a great opportunity for students to learn about summer job opportunities along with career opportunities in Perry County.  Dana will provide you with a few more details closer to time.

RTI Meeting - We will reschedule our RTI meeting for Thursday, March 5th at 7:20 a.m.

Innovate WithIN - Congratulations to Josh Young, Shae Berkhouse, Josh Stilwell, Vivian Galey, and Josh Rogier for making it to Round 2 for the Innovate WithIN Contest.  They will be giving a presentation at University of Evansville on Friday, March 6th!  Wish them luck! Thanks to Mr. Niehaus and Mr. Gehlhausen for all of their help.

Important Dates: 

Wednesday, March 11th - All 10th grade students will participate in a county-wide career day.  We will provide you with specific times soon.  Students typically will be in first and 7th periods, but will be participating in the event otherwise.

Friday, March 13th - Commodore Day of Caring for all junior high students.  All of students in grades 7-8 will be participating in community service activities this day!  Thank you to the teachers who are supporting them!