Hey Panda Family,
Morning Arrival: Beginning Monday, May 3, staff and students are no longer required to be screened before entering the building. Everyone is still required to wear a mask. It is no longer necessary for you to enter the building through the main entrance. Please don't forget to still fob in. Baby steps towards returning to normalcy :)
Progress Reports: 4th Quarter Progress Reports need to go out by the end of this week. Please make sure all grades are updated in PowerSchool.
After school PD on Thursday, May 6: On Thursday, May 6, we are excited to share some information with you about curriculum compacting before you break out into your grade level vertical conversations. Don’t forget that we will not have tutoring that day, so please make sure your families are aware of this change. We will use the staff meeting link on the PGE Canvas page, and this training is for all instructional staff and assistants.
Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week: We can't wait to celebrate our wonderful staff this week! We have plenty of surprises for you, but to kick off the week the Office Staff would like to treat everyone to a Chick-fil-A lunch tomorrow, May 3. There will also be a raffle and other goodies tomorrow!
EVAAS: I wanted some clarity on some EVAAS questions and how it impacts our scores, your teacher value-added report, and our school report card. These are the answers I received from Andy Kraft, our district lead for testing and compliance: EVAAS Q & A
End of Year Staff Celebration: The end-of-the year staff celebration will be Tuesday, June 1 at 6:00 at Earl's Restaurant in W-S. This event is hosted and organized by our School Culture Committee. Located at 121 W 9th St. in Winston-Salem. Due to Covid this is a Staff Only event. If you plan to attend please fill in the link below and give your grade level SCC Representative $5.00 to help cover the cost of tax and gratuity.
Student Attendance: Managing student attendance this year has been such a rollercoaster. The guidance from the district is constantly changing. Luckily, we only have a few more weeks of remote learning and managing concurrent attendance. See below for the latest guidance from district. To be clear, I do not expect you to prepare materials for in-person students that are out on a moment's notice and participate virtually. See below:
Please share this clarification regarding taking attendance of the students, especially now that more students have returned to school. Our goal is to indicate “Present or 1R” for all students who engage in daily instruction.
PowerSchool indicators:
- Leave blank, if “Present”- All students who engage in face-to-face learning.
- Indicate 1R- For all Remote learners who participate in instruction, both those who are full-time remote students and those you may be home for quarantine or learning from home on specific dates.
- Mark Absent- Any student who is not present for either in-person or online learning.
We want all students learning and not excluded. Please do not exclude students from joining their classes, if they are supposed to be in school, but are logging in from home on a given day. We want all students learning and not excluded. In-person learners should email or call their teacher if they will be learning from home on a particular day and indicate the reason why. If they join remotely, they are present (1R).
Kidney Tables: If you have room in your class, and you would like your kidney table back for small targeted instruction, please email Jose and he will help return it to you.
PBIS News & Updates (from PBIS Committee):
- 12:00-12:30- 4th grade kickball game
- 1:00-1:30- 3rd grade- Vaden, McCracken, Laws
- K-2 @ 8:45-11:00
- 3-5 @ 12:15-2:30
- PGE support staff members will run the stations
- Alternate activities will be provided to remote students
- Paw bucks will be spent on extra activities and snacks
- More details coming later in the week
Vocabulary.com: This free or paid resource has apparently been around awhile but was introduced in our ITF meeting on Friday. I think it has great potential as it has a lot to offer. In my opinion, I like it because it has a built-in dictionary that it pulls words from, as well as the option to bring in digital text and paste it so that you as a teacher can have students learn and review text based on a passage or book in which you are currently reading. This is something that 3-5 teachers may want to use to prepare for the upcoming EOGs. If you would like, I am willing to help get you set up and run an activity with your students, especially the vocabulary jam. To learn more about Vocabulary.com, click on the following link: New to Vocabulary.com?
Newsela Training: Just so I can get a feel for how to deliver training on Newsela, please respond to the following form: Preference for Newsela Training. A date for live training is coming prior to the end of the school year. So, stay tuned!!!
DLC Credits: If you need DLC (Technology Credits) or just want to add them to your CEUs to have them on record, you can register for the workshop in the PD system: Location: Piney Grove Elementary Title: DLC Integration 2020-21 (Piney Grove Elementary), Date: 02/24/2021. Remember, you must be on the school network to register for workshops in the PD system. Should you have any questions, please let me know. Just in case you need the document again, here is a link to the form you need to submit to me so that I can enter your credits into the PD system for you: DLC Credit Record Sheet. Please submit your DLC Credit Record Sheet to me via the following Google Form by May 14th, 2021, so that I have ample time to enter them in the PD system. Submit Your DLC Credit Record Sheet Here.
Upcoming Dates:
Monday, May 3rd & Tuesday, May 4th - Timothy is out to care for a family member. Email if you need assistance with anything!
Monday, May 17th & Tuesday, May 18th - at Sedge Garden for Field Days
Thursday, May 20th & Friday, May 21st - at Piney Grove to balance out the week and Field Day on Friday
Remote Students Returning to In-Person: We have decided not to wait until 4th quarter to communicate to all remote parents that their child can return to in-person learning. Please send the following message to your fully-remote students via Dojo (you can let them know it is from Mr. Elkins):
Hey Pandas! Effective immediately, your child may return to full in-person learning if you so choose. Any remote students that want to immediately return to in-person learning will need to be a car rider, use a morning/afternoon daycare van, or go to Imprints. If your child needs bus transportation, please contact the front office to get it arranged before your child plans to return to in-person learning (bus transportation is only available for residential students). If your child will be a car rider, please ask your teacher for a pink car rider sign. Students returning to in-person learning are committing to all 4 days of in-person learning each week. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact the front office at 336-703-4122.
- Mr. Elkins
If parents decide to send their child back for in-person learning please let Ms. True know who the student is and when they will begin in-person learning.
**VERY IMPORTANT**: It is VERY VERY important that all K-3 teachers ensure that students take the iReady diagnostic properly. It is a very big deal to reset the diagnostic, and involves submitting paperwork to the state.
Hiding Diagnostic: Reminder to turn OFF all iReady diagnostics so students do not work in them early. Here is a video showing how.
EOG Training: We have our EOG training planned for May 12. (K-1 is 8:30; 2, Specialist, other certified staff is 12:00; 3-5 & EC is 2:00)
Going to be absent during the EOG testing window (May 25-June 11)? Just fill this out so I know when to not include you in our testing plan. Fill it out once for each day you will be absent. Thank you!
iReady info: All iReady info is linked to this document.
Pop to the Top: The schedule has been created. Sign up for a time slot here. There are also details related to the event on May 17 for you to check out. Let me know if you have questions!
Testing Dates:
April 26-May 14: iReady 4-5 Reading and K-5 Math testing window
May 3-14: iReady K-3 Reading testing window
May 6th: no after school tutoring (please notify families) so we can have PD from 3:30-4:30
May 12 EOG Training (K-1 is 8:30, 2, Specialist, other certified staff is 12, 3-5, EC is 2:00)
May 17: iReady “Pop to the Top” incentive
May 21: all computers that are needed for testing will be borrowed from K-2 classrooms for testing and will not be returned until testing is close to completion (I’m hoping you will have them back on June 2)
May 24 to June 8: K-2 Math EOY assessment window
No comments:
Post a Comment