STEAMing with JSA

Michaels' Memo 10/29/17 Good evening, reviewing the data of our STAR Reports, we are moving in the right direction with our students. Administration is pleased with the consistency of instruction being shown throughout the campus. I want to really thank our support staff (coaches, testing coordinator, paras, and assistant principals) for providing data support, behavioral support, and coaching. We would like for all of the staff members to provide the names of students that they feel need the most support in the areas of behavior, emotional support, and conflict resolution skills. We are focusing on mentoring these students to assist in growing our student body. Curriculum Focus ELA: Sticky Standards K reviews literature standard RL.1.2 and introduces an informational standard RI.3.8 with weekly text . Building a foundation now with prompting and support for RI.3.8 is critical. Tasks and questions should help students identify the most important points the author is ...

Michael's Memo 10/23/17 Hello staff, as we storm into the week I would like for us as a staff to focus on complimenting one another as well as the students. Make the attempt to provide a positive compliment towards one of your colleagues and provide one to your students in their agendas. A positive compliment goes a long way, and you never really know what your colleagues are going through. Thank you to the Theater Department and other contributors for the well run Fall Ball. The students looked very nice and I was so proud of their behavior. Curriculum Focus STAR Training on Thursday afternoon in the JSA Cafe in place of PLC's for training. 3:30 - 4:30, PLC's are cancelled on Thursday due to after school training. Please plan on attending.  ELA: • Attached is the most recent district summary of STAR Reading projections for FSA. To view individual school reports comparable to the attachment log into STAR>Reports>More Reports>Consolidated Reports STICKY ...

Michael's Memo 10/16/17 Good afternoon JSA Staff, thank you for your wonderful participation today with the PD at Joker Stadium. Thank you for us having 100% attendance excluding our (medical absences). We will continue to come through and conduct walk throughs on campus. Please make sure that we are keeping our 3 points of emphasis going on within the lessons, regardless of the time or block. 1) standards based instruction 2) collaborative structures 3) summarizing activities Literacy Focus Workshop k -5, 6-8 can utilize some of these structures as well. Independent reading time needs to be text that is independent for the students...if you see all students reading the same book in a classroom, ask why everyone is reading the same book and when students get opportunities to read their own book.  Reading at the independent level provides opportunity to practice advance comprehension skills rather than focusing on decoding and word-level clarification. Independen...

MM 10/9/17 Good evening staff, I am so proud of the consistency of standards based instruction occurring on campus. We will continue to support the staff here at JSA. We want to continue to push our students with love, support, and high expectations. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. We will continue to push positive change and high expectations for our students at JSA. Our video focuses on embracing change. Academic Focus ELA: STICKY Standards: October 9-13 2-5 U2W1 2 nd is introducing RL.2.5 the structure of narrative text, not limited to identification of beginning-middle-end events. Instruction should include questioning and tasks about how authors introduce narratives, develop the plot, and conclude the action. 3 rd and 4 th are both introducing RL1.2. 3 rd has three targets : Recounting the text which requires retelling events in order and making inferences; determining a central message which is t...

MM 10/2/17 As we embark upon our week let’s remember to continue to place high goals for our students. Although the end goal may be unattainable at the present tine, it is imperative that we lay out a road map as to how we will achieve the end goal. For example, writing in response to text is one that a student may not be able to complete utilizing an extended story, but start off with a small 1-2 paragraph article and build up to end goal of lengthy text. Refrain from limiting students experience and exposure to standards based instruction due to their current level of understanding. Shout outs Mrs. Smith in second grade had her students focused on writing descriptive text to exhibit possessive nouns by conducting a gallery walk that requires written responses based upon characters composed by students within the classroom. Standards based instruction that hit on multiple standards while also including personal student input and buy in. Mrs. Barnes had her students revie...