Week of 12/16 - 12/20

Hey Panda Family,

Week 17 is complete! I hope everyone had a wonderful break with friends and family! 😊 

Staff Updates: We are excited to announce that Danielle Wiebking will be joining us in a part-time instructional assistant role in the coming weeks. She will be serving in a substitute role initially, but we plan to officially hire her after HR frees up some funds for us in the new year. Mrs. Wiebking's children were Pandas here at Piney Grove and she is very familiar with a lot of our staff. She has been recently serving as a consistent substitute for KMS, but we are so happy to have her here at Piney Grove in an instructional role. Welcome Mrs. Wiebking! 

On a sad note, we wanted to let everyone know that Angela Gray will be resigning from her 3rd grade teaching position. Angela served our students so well in both her role as a Reading Interventionist and as a 3rd grade teacher. This was a very difficult decision for her, but she felt it was best to allow herself time to fully recover from her leg injury. We want to thank Angela for her service to our school, and she will always be a part of the Panda family! 

Conferences: As discussed at our last staff meeting, please begin scheduling mid-year parent conferences for each of your students. These conferences should be a mid-year check-in to discuss each student's progress (academic, behavior, etc.). I encourage you to schedule them in 15-20 minute increments, unless you feel you need more time with the parents. If a parent can not come in for the conference please attempt to schedule a phone conference with them. Once you have your schedule set please share with Ms. Landreth so she can expect the parent visitors. We will be following up with everyone on how the conferences are going in PLTs. Feel free to use all or some of the teacher workday on January 24 for your conferences. The deadline for K-2 conferences is Friday, January 31. The deadline for 3-5 conferences is Friday, February 14 (we should have all 2nd quarter testing results in at this point for 3-5 to be able to share with parents). 

PBIS Expectations: Take time to review PBIS expectations as well as your classroom expectations over the next 2 weeks.  Doing this now will save you headaches later :) We will also be reviewing PBIS expectations over announcements. 

Fire Marshall: Thank you again for making sure exit doors are clear.  We have a few other things to to address this month after receiving the Fire Marshall's report.  Please look for an email from Ms. Gardner if this affects you. 

Mid-Year PDPs: Please update your mid-year PDP plan by Monday, February 3.  Please look for an email from Elkins or Gardner with instructions. 

Healthy Panda: I plan to announce the Healthy Pandas for December this upcoming week on the announcements. Please add your Healthy Panda to the Google doc if you haven't already: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hKr75hVMT24hNsZi4V3cModMHYzi9_VuaNRZN3cKPM8/edit?usp=sharing 

Good Citizens: I also plan to announce the Good Citizens for December too. Please add your Good Citizen to the Google doc if you haven't already: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DmA16a0lO9MBrA_wduNN9XlSvxbtHZBUwSan4X8nqlE/edit?usp=sharing 

Purchase Pre-approval: Reminder that per district policy we must have a pre-approval form completed for all purchases. The pre-approval form is a yellow form located in the front office. Even if I approve your purchase over email, you must complete a pre-approval form and have me sign off before you make the purchase. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.  

Spelling Bee (4th & 5th grade only): The school Spelling Bee will be this Wednesday, January 8 at 8:30 in the media center. Please see Ms. Sweeney with any questions. 

United Way: Our final total for United Way was $1584! Great job! Ms. Ballou and Ms. Mathis will have the final staff participation percentage this week. We will share it with everyone once we have that figure. We really appreciate everyone who contributed. Thank you to Ms. Ballou and Ms. Mathis for overseeing this fundraising effort. 

Staff Spotlight: Thank you, Mr. Jose for helping hang our new banner outside the main entrance. It celebrates our wonderful state academic growth over the years! 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Mason. Check it out! 

Lesson Plans: Friendly reminder that Lesson Plans should be posted to the PowerSchool Wiki the first day of each week by 8:00am.

IF Updates

i-Ready: Diagnostic MOY window has CHANGED AGAIN! The Mid-Year is set to begin on January 20th and runs through February 14^th. However, we have scheduled our next training for 2/6/2020, which means that we need to have all assessments completed by 2/5/2020.  We will discuss more details about the assessments in PLT. Also, we will start an incentive program that will track hitting usage goals AND to highlight overall percentages of passing scores for each class.  The bulletin board for this program will revealed very soon!

Istation: It’s Istation MOY time!  This should be administered in a testing-friendly environment (quiet in the room, take a bathroom break before you start, etc).  We anticipate having enough adults in the room for your whole class to test at once instead of in small groups.  For some grades, testing will occur over several days.  You should have access to the testing schedule in your google drive (search for MOY Istation if you want to reference it). 

Upcoming Dates:

January 6 - School resumes
January 7 - PBIS & Wellness Committees meet @ 3:30
January 8 - Spelling Bee @ 8:30
January 9 - FCAE Meeting @ 3:30
January 13 - PTA Meeting @ 6:30
January 14 - ELA Check-In & EOQ Test (3rd - 5th grades)
January 14 - SIT @ 3:30
January 15 - Math Check-In & EOQ Test (3rd - 5th grades)
January 20 - MLK day (no school)

January 21 - Staff Meeting @ 3:30

January 22 - End of 2nd Quarter

January 23 - Workday (reserved for central office)

January 24 - Workday (conference day - reserved for schools)

January 27 - Jerry Yale @ PGE

January 28 - Elkins @ Principal's Meeting 8:00 - 3:00

January 28 - SCC & Media Committees @ 3:30
January 29 - Class Pictures
January 30 - Gardner @ AP Meeting 8:00 - 11:00, Elkins @ Principal's Meeting 12:00 - 3:00

January 31 - Reports cards due to Ms. True

January 31 - K-2 Parent Conferences completed by this date
February 3 - Midyear PDPs due
February 4 - Science EOQ Check-In

February 4 - Jerry Yale @ PGE

February 4 - PBIS & Wellness @ 3:30

February 6 - Iready Training @ 3:30 (3-5 grades only)

February 7 - Report cards go home

February 10 - PTA Meeting @ 6:30

February 11 - Boosterthon Assemblies (3-5 @ 1:30, K-2 @ 2:10)

February 11 - Staff Meeting @ 3:30

February 12 - 19 - Boosterthon Pep Rallies during Specials

February 12 - Jerry Yale @ PGE

February 13 - Mary Starling @ 10:00 (5th grade only)

February 13 - FCAE Meeting @ 3:30

February 14 - 3-5 Parent Conferences completed by this date

February 18 - Elkins @ Principal's Meeting 8:00 - 3:00
February 18 - SIT @ 3:30

February 19 - Early Release Day

February 20 - Boosterthon Fun Run (times TBD)

As you prepare to return tomorrow, just remember this...