Wonderful Staff--

We're nearing the finish line! Some urgent reminders: 

This is the time of year when kids get spicier. Diligent recess monitoring, cafeteria monitoring, and hallway monitoring is absolutely expected. If any classroom slacks on this protocol the entire school is affected. We have seen a considerable increase in orange dots over the last two weeks. When on recess duty, spread out across areas instead of clustering in one spot. This helps prevent issues from developing. Expect quiet hallway transitions to cafeteria and specials to help keep the noise and movement to a manageable level once you arrive. We must work together on this so that our students stay safe, kind, and learning until our last day of classes.

Additionally, you must continue teaching students with diligence. Any classroom whose instruction becomes lazy will experience behavior issues, missed progress opportunities, and affect the whole rest of the grade level. Do not give free time, non-purposeful Chromebook time, or non-instructional videos. Morning meeting is expected all year long. 

Do not begin dismantling your classroom until the last two days of school.  You are welcome to clean out cabinets, drawers etc, but do not take down decorations until very last. This sends the signal to students that learning is over and learning is not over. 

Make sure no students leave the building before 3:00. This time of year it is easy to become lax on this, but we cannot dismiss before school is officially concluded. Stick to our transition schedule, and do not begin clean-up/pack up so early that you are stuck managing behavior for long periods of time in the hallway. We have seen a MAJOR improvement in our dismissal behavior. Keep up the good work.

See the section below regarding playground clean-up. This is an easy but essential task for the upkeep of our campus.

What Is Expected of Me This Week

• PLTs: 4th, 2nd and K will have PLC on Tuesday.  Make sure your agendas are updated! Note: Due to intervention groups happening in the PLC room, we will meet with teams in one of the team leads' rooms.

• Quality Instruction:  Wonderful teachers, we still have FOUR weeks of school left. Students have report card assessments and EOY assessments that they must show proficiency on. Make sure that your time with your students counts by being prepared each day, using each minute wisely, and continuing small groups. Many of you still need to post evidence of your TTESS goals on your posters. This is a great time to take care of this task as you finish strong! 

• EOY testing windows: Please see the graphic below for dates and reading testing info from Agnew.

• April 29th/30th:  Math STAAR. Be especially diligent in the hallways. 

• The Table is this Thursday after school. The table is our yearly systems audit. The systems audit “Table” groups (with the presentation linked at the top) is located HERE.  Please remember that this work is solution oriented. Every proposed problem needs a solution attached.  Bring your thinking cap and Chromebook to the library.

• Virtual Summative Conferences: Everyone must complete a TTESS Summative Conference, but you may choose a virtual option. Click here for the virtual form link. You may also reach out to your appraiser for an in-person meeting. This task must be complete by May 9th. 

• Volunteer Appreciation -- Each homeroom parent has a gift waiting for them in Hawkins office. Teachers--please come pick up the gift and make sure that your person gets it. In previous years we have done an event (luncheon, candy bar etc. but barely any volunteers attended.) This year we are making sure our volunteers are thanked in a way that does not require them to attend anything. Please ensure they get their gift ASAP by handing it off directly when they are on campus, or sending it home with their child. 

Upcoming Events:

May 5th -- Master schedule committee meets

May 7th -- School Talent Show

May 8th -- Staff Meeting EOY task review

May 13th -- Vertical Zone math Celebration

May 14th -- Guiding Coalition planning day (will likely move to the 13th due to 3rd grade field trip--more info coming.)

May 15th -- Campus Lead Team Meeting (GC presents CNA and proposed CIP goals for 25-26)

May 16th -- Gator Games (Field Day)

Week of May 12th-16th -- Class building during planning this week (We will provide details on how we plan to improve our process this year)

May 21-23 -- Student Half Days

May 20th -- PreK Graduation

May 21st -- Kinder Graduation

May 22nd -- 5th Grade Graduation at Braswell 6:30 PM WOOHOO!!!

May 23rd -- Last Day of School

May 27th-29th -- Summer Seminar

STAAR Dates

April 29th -- 4th, 5th, PABS & AFS Math

April 30th -- 3rd Math

April 30th-May 2nd --Math Make-Ups

A note from Agnew on Literacy Packets and F&P:

Just a quick reminder that our End-of-Year (EOY) literacy assessment window will open on Monday, April 28th and close on Friday, May 16th. Please note that this does not include the i-Ready Reading EOY assessment.

All students must be assessed. You will continue assessing each student until you determine their independent reading level, using the fiction books for this assessment.

If students are receiving SPED support during testing, please ensure the fiction assessments are being used in those sessions as well.

Once you’ve identified a student’s independent reading level, please be sure to:

• Enter the level on the tracker

• Include it on the report card

• Upload it into Edugence

Make sure to refer to the yellow comprehension scoring rubric when grading the assessments to ensure consistency and accuracy.

After determining their level, have the student complete the writing portion, which will serve as their EOY writing sample for their cumulative folder.

I know many of you are still in the middle of testing, but I wanted to make sure this stays on everyone’s radar. If you have any questions or need support, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for everything you do

We will cover recess duty for PreK and lunch/recess for 2nd grade.

Can you believe we only have FOUR weeks left?! Wow! I wanted to reach out with some information about end of year Library procedures and circulation so that we are all on the same page.

April 28-May 2 (Next Week): This is the last active circulation week for our Library. All classes visiting the Library will have checkout and open checkout times will still be available through Friday, May 2nd. But May 2nd will be the LAST day to checkout books from our Library.

May 5-9: All students will return ALL items for the final time during Library this week. No new circulation. During Library we will check accounts and all students with clear accounts (books returned and any accrued fines paid) will get a small reward and a raffle ticket for a few other possible prizes. Meeting this deadline is what will earn students their reward! (Books turned in by Library day the week of May 5th.)

May 9th: Because 5th grade will not have Library the week of 5/5-9, I will send buckets down on the 9th for students to turn in all books. At the end of the day I will run a report. Students in 5th grade who had clear accounts by the 9th will get their reward the following week during Library.

After school on the 9th I will put the first composite list of books missing from teacher's classes in boxes. I will update these regularly as we attempt to get all books returned.

May 16th: This is the district deadline for ALL Library materials to be returned (including from teachers). If you have checked out any books, please have them turned in by this date. I am attempting to collect student items earlier to give more time to track down missing items.

It is definitely not the classroom teacher's responsibility to track down missing Library books. However, I greatly appreciate any help in communicating with families and encouraging students to remember due dates. Also, if students in your class are missing books, please encourage them to look thoroughly in the classroom - desks, book boxes, classroom libraries. Library books are found in classrooms ALL the time - often that had been missing for months and sometimes even years. A great classroom job is to have a student go through and look for Library books!

I will be putting frequent notices in your boxes the last weeks of school to help. These can be cut into strips and sent home as frequent reminders. Just constantly asking and reminding students is very helpful. All of these efforts help keep our collection whole and mean more books for all students.

SAVANNAH SUMMER BOOK SWAP

We are hosting our 4th Book Swap in the Library! I have attached the flyer and will be talking to classes about the details next week. You can also read more about it on the Library website. LINK

Students may start bringing in donations on Monday. Please have them label them with their name and teacher name so I can keep track. The week of May 12th is when students will spend their "credits" to choose new-to-them books from the swap. If you have any questions let me know!

I know that was a LOT of info. Thank you for reading it if you made it this far. If there is anything I can do to support you in these last few weeks, I am here! 🙂

The DPSF Grant to Teachers process has an update we hope will help you create an even better, focused grant application this year!  Think of this as a rough draft for your grant idea. There is a Laserfiche form that will be the pre-step for your 2025-26 DPSF grant application and it can be found here - https://forms.dentonisd.org/Forms/DPSF-GrantPreApplicationApproval. It is open NOW!

You will be asked to describe your grant idea, state what purpose or goal you hope to accomplish and then list the items you wish to purchase. It is ok if you are unsure of the cost – the important part for this stage is the “what” and from “where”.

This form will then be routed to the appropriate departments (Curriculum, Early Childhood, EXPO, Technology, Fine Arts, Library Services, Digital Learning, Bilingual, SPED, Counseling) to ensure that requests for items and projects are in compliance with DISD’s initiatives and guidelines. 

If you receive an approval or an approval with conditions, then you will attach a copy of the Laserfiche form to the full DPSF Grant Application that will open April 1 and closes Thursday, June 12 at 5 p.m.  If you receive a denial you will receive an explanation so that you will have the information needed to tweak your idea and resubmit.  If you submit your request early, you’ll still have time to re-assess and resubmit, if needed! Please give yourself at least 10 days to receive the DPSF Grant Pre-Application Approval back  as it must be attached to the DPSF Application before it closes June 12 at 5 p.m. 

You will receive an email from DPSF notifying you that the application process is opening up.  We’re looking forward to lots of great ideas and innovations!