Hey Panda Family,
Rise in Covid Cases: Like everywhere else, we are seeing a rise in Covid cases coming back from the holidays. Don't be surprised if you have students out this week due to illness, exposure, or a positive test result. With that being said, I would recommend easing back into things on this short week. Take time to review procedures, spend extra time in Morning Meetings letting students share, review content from before break, progress monitor students if you need to, let them practice iReady, etc. I would encourage you to not start any new material until the week of January 10. Hopefully by then we will be past the Covid surge from the holidays.
January 4 Workday: All virtual training that is scheduled for tomorrow can be done from home. If anyone is scheduled for in person training, that will still be in person but will begin at 10:00am (if it was scheduled for the morning). Changes to PD sessions will be entered in Kick Up by central office personnel. There are no changes to the start times for virtual PD sessions (ie. LETRS and mathematics). The building will be open tomorrow for anyone that would like to work from their classroom.
- Students will report to the gym until 8:05. (Fox and Adams monitor)
- Students eating breakfast will stay in the cafeteria. (Younts, Secrest, Bolchalk, and J. Moore will monitor, sweep, and clean tables).
- All 3-5 teachers, support staff, and instructional assistants should check their testing credentials before 1/13/2022. See Gardner if you have questions.
- https://center.ncsu.edu/
- Teachers and coaches in the state cohort should be working on their online course on Unit Two. The content in Unit Two is a game changer!
- January 4th - 6th live virtual sessions will be held for Part One of Unit Two. If you have not done so already, please register in Kickup for a session. Remember, to maintain your credit and stipend documentation you must register in Kickup.
- We are advocating to provide an increase in your LETRS stipend based on some additional state funds.
- If your MOY benchmark window is showing incorrect on your device, please encourage your educators to sync their devices when logging in to mCLASS Assessment. MOY windows have been updated in the mCLASS system but these will not show as updated on teacher devices until a sync has occurred.
- It is important to ensure teachers select MOY as the time of year.
- Invalidations for MOY- please see attached document outlining these changes. DPI and Amplify have changed the process for MOY so that once the district approves the teacher can do the invalidation herself. This will definitely be a more effective process than BOY.
- MOY window opens January 10th running thru February 1st.
- Please review the following slides before administering MOY https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QHyNcEI2KGvaO2BNQOroorKOnn_I4QY9uJhKSCjBZmI/edit?usp=sharing
Core Awards (from Ms. Epperley - SIT Chair): It is time to nominate some of our amazing Pandas for the district Core Awards! Please complete the forms below to nominate a staff member or volunteer. After we collect nominations, we will select winners at the school level who will then go on to represent PGE at the district Core Awards! You may nominate anyone between now and January 7. We look forward to celebrating our amazing staff members and volunteers!
Lesson Plan & iReady Updates: Please refer to the following updates for this week.
- We do expect you to post plans for the short week when we return (January 5-7)
- We will not track your iReady usage the week we return (Jan. 5-7), but we highly encourage you to have your students practice & complete lessons
Morning Announcements: Morning Announcements will be old school over the intercom for this short week, January 5-7.
Staff Shoutout: Shoutout to everyone for making it back after winter break. We know the struggle is real to get back in routine! 😉
IF Updates
Need assistance while I am out? Contact one of these wonderful folks:
ELA- Kathy Wilheit kwilheit@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
Math- Adrienne Egerton abegerton@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
Early Learning- Anna Crisp amcrisp@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
MTSS- Robyn Varga rmvarga@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
PLT- Mollie Jenkins mbjenkins@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
AIG/CogAt/ITBS school-based questions- Teresa Sweeney tsweeney@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
Items from Previous Weeks
Morning Arrival Adjustments: Starting January 5th, students will stay in the gym until the 8:05 bell, and students will eat breakfast in the cafeteria. We are returning to how we handled arrival before Covid. The first few days will take some time to retrain our students, but we hope this will help alleviate the excess trash in the halls during morning arrival while also giving you back some planning time at the beginning of the day. Please see Master schedule (linked) for adjustments to AM duties.
Testing Windows & Dates for PGE: Below are the testing windows for MOY and Q2 Check-Ins. Here are some specifics though for PGE.
- We will begin iReady Reading MOY testing the week of January 17, not when the window opens. We will turn off the diagnostic until this date. This will allow all students to have a full week of iReady practice before taking their MOY assessment.
- You may begin mClass testing when the window opens on January 10 if you so choose.
- January 13th - ELA Check-In (4th, 5th)
- January 14th - Math Check-In (3rd, 4th, 5th)
- January 18th - 20th - Makeup testing
- February 1st - 5th grade Life Science
Elementary MOY/EOQ2 Assessments
