Bulletin-02-27-2017 - Columbia Heights Educational Campus
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COLLABORATING FOR SUCCESS ON PARCC AND AP
As we continue our focus on aligning instruction to PARCC and AP, the deconstructing the prompt activity can be applied to other contexts and situations. For example, this approach can work with multiple choice questions as well as with writing prompts. It can also work when you first pass out your GRASPS. Students need to understand the prompt on the GRASPS, and how to organize their work in order to complete it.
We should be continuing to increase the rigor of our instruction, such that every day, every period, students are doing the heavy lifting, instead of the teacher. Students should be reading, responding in writing, writing longer and more comprehensive responses, and always using evidence to support their answers. In math classes, students should be working on tasks, instead of procedures, and writing about how they are tackling the problem.
Now that students know how to use the rubrics, they should be using them to assess their own and each other’s work, instead of the teacher doing all of the assessing.
Next week we will be administering our last interim before the PARCC. In next week’s department meeting, we will be reviewing our short cycle data, to predict how our students will do on the last interim. With the results of the interim, we will be then working on differentiating strategically in order to help each student improve in their weak areas.
HIT PAUSE ON FIELD TRIPS
In order to maximize our instructional time between now and the PARCC and AP, no new field trips will be authorized. If you have an already approved field trip, it can take place, but no new requests will be approved until after the PARCC and AP are over.
| February 27 - March 3, 2017 |
IN THIS ISSUE Focus on Instruction Leadership Team and Other Updates Shout Outs Opportunities and Updates Ambiente, creating a climate for learning Sports - Griffins Update! Thought for the Week Weekly Calendar Upcoming Events and Activities |
| SPORTS UPDATE - LAST WEEK'S RESULT |
Bell Varsity Girls Basketball 17 – 8 Bowling 2-2 |
| THIS WEEK'S SPORTS SCHEDULE |
Monday No Games Tuesday VGB vs. Washington Latin at CHEC @ 6:00 Wednesday Bowling vs. Coolidge at Bolling AFB @ 4:00 State tournament continued at Sidwell Friends at 6:00 Thursday No Games Friday State semifinals at Georgetown at 7:00 Saturday No Games |
| WEEKLY CALENDAR |
Monday SLC Morning Meeting Tuesday SLC Morning Meeting Wednesday SAT Day No Department Meeting Thursday Department Meeting Faculty Meeting Friday No Meetings |
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES |
CHEC STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN DATING AWARENESS SURVEY
SATURDAY SCHOLARS PROGRAM – TEACHERS NEEDED
We are seven instructional weeks away from PARCC, and eight instructional weeks away from AP. Our goal is for every student to make progress, and to reach our school goals of increasing the number of students who score a 4 or 5, by 10%, and to decrease the number who are scoring a 1 by 10%. For AP, our goal is to increase the number of students scoring a 3,4, or 5 to 27%.
In order to reach these goals, we are offering a series of seven more Saturday Tutoring sessions, and we need teachers of ELA, Math, and AP. You can sign up for just one session or for multiple sessions. The compensation is $35.00 per hour. If you can work even one Saturday, please see Ms. Sandra Baker.
We are offering multiple incentives to students and teachers, including an all-expense paid trip to King’s Dominion!!!
SHOUT OUTS
- Shout out to the girls basketball coaches and teams for making it to the finals!!!!
- Shout out to our counselors for a great sat day!!
- Shout out to our saturday scholars teachers!! the teachers with top saturday attendance are: Ms. Emilius, Ms. Abbondanza, Mr. Galvan, Ms. Alvarado, and Ms. Hartwill!!!!
- Shout out to ms. wei and ms. hua for our chinese new years’ celebration!!!
MARCH FACULTY MEETING
The Monthly Faculty Meeting will take place this Thursday, March 2 at 3:30 pm in the Cafeteria. We will have a continuation of professional development for our Restorative Justice Circles work.
LIBRARY NEWS
Submitted by Angela Martinez and Angela Falkenberg
Looking to inspire students to enjoy reading in a format other than print? Schedule a visit from your MS (angela.falkenberg@dc.gov) or HS (angela.martinez@dc.gov) librarian to show students how to access e-books and audio books through DCPS and DCPL. Diverse reading formats and a variety of texts has shown to increase student reading motivation.
Bell HS Library recently added non-fiction books while Lincoln MS Library has a new display of culturally relevant topics. Whether you are looking for resources to complement your units or want something for your own independent reading, you’ll be sure to find a wide variety of books from which to choose.
Getting Started with Canvas
Thinking about getting started with Canvas but you’re just not sure how to start? Good news! Your classes and students are already set up for you, so you don’t have to spend any time working out those logistics. To get started, try using Canvas for a do now or exit ticket. You can set up discussions or short quizzes for students to complete in place of doing a similar activity on paper. The benefit of Canvas being that you can review and grade submissions more efficiently or, in the case of quizzes, they will grade automatically. Once you’re comfortable with that you can try branching out to having students submit assignments via Canvas. If you have any questions about how to set up quizzes or discussions please let me know (angela.martinez@dc.gov).
OPPORTUNITIES AND UPDATES
The Leadership Team will continue to meet every other Wednesday this year, and the Academic Leadership Team (ALT) will meet every other Wednesday. The ALT met last Wednesday, February 14, and our next ALT/Leadership Team meeting will be Wednesday, March 1, 2017. At this meeting, we will continue and complete mapping out LEAP seminars and department meeting agendas for the next advisory. The notes and minutes from all meetings are available on the CHEC Portal. The Academic Leadership Team is a group of teachers, counselors, and administrators who meet every other week to discuss school needs, and plan for improvements. The Leadership Team designs the school’s comprehensive school plan, and helps in its implementation. Please consider joining the Leadership Team this year. It is open to all faculty and staff. We need the involvement and voices of all. Remember, Leadership team meetings are open to all who are interested in schoolwide decision-making and leadership. You can come once, or as many times as you like, but please make your voice heard!
BUDGET SEASON HAS BEGUN
All schools have received their initial budget allocations for School Year 2017-2018. We will be having a series of meetings of stakeholders, including the LSAT, teachers, students and parents, to gain their input on budget priorities for next year. The LSAT met on Tuesday, February 28 to provide input into the budget. If you would like to fill out the Budget survey with your input, it is attached here. You can fill it out and email it to M. Tukeva.
THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION
Submitted by Suzannah Weiss
This week, I am sharing with you a letter from Tarek Maassaran from Restorative DC. He is a leader in the DC area RJ training and program implementation. Even though African American History Month is in February, as Dr. Barnett put it in the introduction of the Mama Assembly, "At CHEC, we celebrate all cultures all year round."
"Dear Beloved Community"
(to humbly quote Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.)
In the spirit of African American History Month, the message of this month's RJ Newsletter is the importance of continually examining and reshaping our institutions from a critical equity lens.
In December, OSSE released its annual State of Discipline Report providing data that shows how suspension rates and other forms of exclusionary discipline are on the decline across DC schools.
A Washington Post article reports that "suspensions and expulsions in D.C. schools decrease, but racial disparities persist". In SY2015-16, 12,665 suspensions were issued; 7,324 students were suspended; and 99 students were expelled (96 from charter schools). Compare this to SY2011-12 when there were 18,720 suspensions, 10,000 students suspended, and 229 expulsions. Last school year, however, there were also 1,952 vaguely-defined cases of involuntary withdrawal touching 1,948 students. Consider, as well, that there are some reporting discrepancies that make objective comparison across years difficult.
OSSE data also shows the persistent problem of disproportionate impact: young black men and women are suspended at a rate 5.8 and 9.1 times greater than their non-black counterparts, respectively. Given as reasons for disciplinary action, "disrespect, insubordination, or disruption" came up for 2,460 of last year's suspensions.
From what we know about the way implicit, and internalized, bias works around racial and cultural differences, this may be one of the underlying ways that the school discipline systems fails to treat our students equitably (for a compelling personal exploration of implicit bias, try out Harvard University's Implicit Association Test). We can also see that academic performance is closely correlated to a student's zip code and family income, both subject to enormous and ongoing racial divides from this country's past to the present.
As an approach that can generate compassion and awareness around racial and cultural biases, Restorative Justice practices can clearly reduce racial disparities in discipline. However, I believe these are unlikely to disappear without addressing the structural linkages to the racialized imbalance of economic and political power. Of course, in the current climate, these kind of assertions are under intense debate.
It is in these shaky, yet fertile times, where I also hope for Restorative Justice - in the form of constructive, enlightening conversations of the heart - to move the country towards a society that works for everyone.
Tarek Maassarani and the Restorative DC Team
Perhaps RJ has touched you or your classroom. If it has, please speak about it and if it has not, please try it out. People around the building can share best practices and or come and run an open-hearted Circle conversation with you.
CLIMATE
We are now well into the advisory, and this means that routines have been set, relationships built. Please continue to build relationships with your students, and to use your knowledge of their interests to enhance your class. Please draw upon the strategies our PGT shared at our last faculty meeting, as well as the Restorative Circles we have learned about. Remember our goal of consistency so that students experience consistent expectations and support. Please also remember our shift to Restorative Justice. Use CHAMPS and PBIS to support your classroom climate! INVITE MS. CAMPBELL TO YOUR CLASS DOJO SO THAT SHE CAN HIGHLIGHT YOUR GREAT PBIS WORK.
The Deans will be chairing the School Climate and Culture Team. Please join to make your voice heard on the School Climate and Culture.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Please do not cover up the windows to your classroom or office doors. This should only be done in the event of an active shooter drill or event. Other than that, it is a safety hazard to cover the windows. Administrators will be checking on this periodically and asking maintenance to remove any windows that are covered.
NOMINATE A STUDENT OF THE WEEK!!!
This IS A REMINDER ABOUT THE Student of the Week Program. Any staff member can nominate a student, for academic or mission related accomplishments. Please send your nominations by email to M. Tukeva.
