Week 23

Feb. 14 - Club Day @ 8:00

Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Parties @ 1:30
Feb. 16 - Murder Mystery Night @ 5:30 - Elk's Lodge
Feb. 16 - Board Meeting @ 7:00
Feb. 17 - Collaboration Day

Feb. 20 - No School - President's Day
Feb. 21 - 5th grade "A Thousand Paper Cranes" @ 8:30 (Load busses at 8:00)
Feb. 21 - 4th grade MAP practice
Feb. 22 - 4th grade MAP practice
Feb. 23 - 6th grade MAP practice
Feb. 24 - 6th grade MAP practice

Feb. 27 - 5th grade MAP practice
Feb. 28 - 5th grade MAP practice
March 3 - 4th grade switcheroo

March 7 - CKH here
March 8 - NAEP testing - 4th grade
March 10 - Intruder drill
March 12 - Daylight Savings Time

March 15 - Storm Drill
March 16 - End of 3rd quarter
March 16 - Club Day
March 16 - Board Meeting @ 7:00
March 17 - Collaboration Day

March 24 - Grade Cards
March 24 - Earthquake Drill
March 24 - Water Patrol presentation (5th&6th)



Last week at the faculty meeting, I mentioned that we need to be sure we are utilizing Saturday School for students who are missing assignments. I even made the comment that between Saturday School for missing assignments and Intervention Time for missing concepts, should really not have any F's. The truth of the matter is that you are going to have some kids who will get F's. There are students who have missed concepts along the way who can't catch up, and I am fully aware that these students exist. However, we have teachers in this building who have 15-20% of their classes getting an F. 

Like a lot of things, this doesn't apply to everyone. Most of you don't have an outstanding amount of F's, and so I have made the mistake of making a general comment to the whole group when really it is just a few who need to hear it. That's something that I am working on. However, the conversation began with a talk about Saturday school and that is something a lot of you are not taking advantage of. It does take some front loading with parents, but it can take care of a lot of missing assignments that are hurting grades. If the parents are resistant, feel free to throw my name around. For example, "I really hate to make little Johnny go to school on a Saturday, but Dr. Owings is a real stickler about students not doing their work. Man, that guy is such an A-hole with his high expectations and stuff!" You don't have to use my exact words, but you get the idea.


Know Thy Impact... I'm sure you have all heard of John Hattie and his book Visible Learning for Teachers. In the book, he does a meta-analysis (which is a fancy term that means he did research on research) on over 1200 different studies. He came up with a whole list of things (195 to be exact) that influence student achievement and eight "mindframes" for teachers.

The list of effect sizes can be found here. They range from student mobility to teacher efficacy. It's interesting to look through the list and see the things that we spend a lot of time on and just what kind of impact it has on student learning. Most things do have a positive effect on learning whether directly or indirectly while a few things have a negative impact. 

The 8 mindframes can be observed in the video below:

Shout out...

I am super excited about this Thursday night's murder mystery. I want to say thank you to those brave souls who signed up for a "role" in the event. It should prove to be an exciting end entertaining evening. It will definitely give us something to talk about at our collaboration day on Friday:)