End of June Update

My last day at school has finally come! The last couple of days have been VERY quiet with very little activity on campus. Mr. Feucht is running a STEAM summer learning program that has pretty great daily attendance. Of course we have our summer lunch program as well. There seems to be a daily turnout between 40-70 kids. We also have the parks and recreation summer program happening on campus. Ms. Binkley is also here with the cheer team preparing for next year's cheer season. Mike and Tim have been busy doing a deep clean of the building now that we are not hosting summer school. So, there is some activity happening but it gets pretty quiet in the afternoons. 

I hope you all are enjoying the summer and the much needed break. This is a great time for us to rest and recharge. I found the last week to be an excellent opportunity to reflect on the past year and plan for the coming year. 

If any of you are traveling, I hope you are enjoying your adventures. I also wish you safe travels if you are planning to go somewhere for the upcoming 4th of July Holiday. 

This update will focus on some of the work that has taken place in the past 3 weeks with some staffing news and a focus on the preparations for next year, which includes the work that our Guiding Coalition completed during Data Days on June 10th and 11th and our ELA curriculum adoption committee. And of course I will share some of the celebrations from the end of the year as well. 

End of Year Staff Party 

• Thank you to Ms. Wolf and Ms. McLeod for planning the end of year party. Thank you Ms. Wolf for hosting the party at your home. You have a beautiful place! It makes for a great spot to celebrate:) Hopefully our retiring teachers did not party too hard and you will consider hosting another staff celebration there in the future. It was a great way to end the school year. Thank you Brandee for your support in sourcing all the supplies for the celebration. 

Facilities Update

• As Brandon transitions to his new classroom in grade 8, his old classroom will be used for the SPED DEPT. Additional information about this classroom will be shared after I meet with the SPED DEPT to determine adjustments needed. 

• The work room off of the library with the servers will stay the same. This is a place for small group teacher meetings, supervised meetings with small groups of students, or quiet location for teachers to work while their classes are being used by the SPED DEPT or Health. 

Technology Update

• VIVI is a projection system that allows for mobile projection. This piece of tech will allow you to use your Chromebook and project to your class from any location in your classroom. Mr. Hoyt piloted this tech this year along with some other teachers in our district and it was met with favorable responses. 

If you want to add this to your class for the start of the year, please complete this form ASAP so I can submit an order. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkLJ_74yk-A7Ro_siBe4hqL8_5Z52JFH1Z-8YXZ4bOafv7SA/viewform?usp=sf_link

You can learn more about this technology here: https://www.vivi.io/what-we-do/wireless-screen-mirroring/#learn-more 

Resource Update

• A significant resource purchase is IXL. In this update I have attached a summary of learning for IXL from JMS. Have a look at the "Building Mastery" section of the summary as it indicates how students are developing proficiency and mastery of the skills our teachers are using IXL to support. We will use IXL again for all subjects. 

• Another resource that is currently under review is Read 180. For those of you familiar, this resource is used by our SPED Dept, Ms. Brotnov, and Ms. Gregg. Next year the SPED Dept will not use Read 180 but is currently reviewing other resource possibilities. 

• Vocabulary.com is another resource that is currently under review as well. Ms. Beckman has shared how the grade 8 ELA team has used this resource in the past and the benefits to our students. I have asked our curriculum team at the district office to review how StudySync, which is the ELA curriculum that will be piloted this year, could work to support or replace vocabulary.com along with the use of IXL. 

• GoGuardian will be with us when we start the school year. We have done very well with our use of GoGuardian and the data that has been shared previously demonstrates that many in our building find value in this resource. 

Staffing Update

Staffing 

• Julian Washburn has accepted an offer for our grade 7 Social Studies position. As you can imagine, Julian is really excited to start his teaching journey here at Jenifer. Julian's appointment (pending board approval) leaves computer technologist TBD.

• Katy Helt and Cheyenne Hudson have been appointed department heads for Sped and Social Studies. 

• Heidi Wolf has been appointed team lead for grade 6. 

• Kevin Maurer is transferring from McSorely to Jenifer to fill the position left vacant from Ms. Davenport. 

• Angie O'Brien will come back to Jenifer to fill the grade 6 choir position. 

• Kayla Hinton will not return next year. We wish her well and look forward to hearing about the new additions to her family in October! As such, we need to hire for a noon duty. 

• Jill Opdahl has been hard to replace. We are still looking to fill a Drama-Musical coach. SAC is also looking to fill this position as well. If you know anyone who has theater expertise, please let them know about these positions. 

DatA Day Update

Huge thanks to the Guiding Coalition on the work that they did during the two Data Days!

Coming back on Monday to dig into our data after the rollercoaster end to the school year is greatly appreciated! We were very productive and focused on reviewing the data from a wide range of sources to establish a focus for the 24-25 school year keeping achievement, engagement, and behavior a focus for our work for next year. Additionally, we were able to find common threads/patterns from the data to give us a focus that will improve our work with achievement, engagement, and behavior.

Guiding coalition used the 5 Whys protocol to find root causes to some of the issues or areas of improvements needed with achievement, engagement, and behavior. 

The protocol helped us develop our IF/Then/So/Therefore statements. These statements will still need to be refined and potentially narrowed for a more succinct focus. We were then able to create our SMART GOALS. 

Attached below are some of the resources that Justin created to support our work during these days and to summarize conversations. Feel free to review any of this work in your free time this summer :) 

There is still work to be done in creating a PD plan for the year and to clearly communicate our focus for next year. This will be shared when we return to school in August. You will see that we will have a staff meeting on Monday, August 19th to review some of this work and share the focus for the year. 

School Calendar for 2024-25

Brandee has updated our school calendar on Outlook. All major events have been added. Additionally, all committee meetings have been scheduled as well. 

Attached are some of the calendar resources that you might find useful for next year. These will also be added to a Google Classroom that we will have for the 24-25 school year. 

June 3 - 7 Last Week of School

We made it to the last week of school! Let's have a great last week of school filled with learning and celebration!

• ISAT results are complete!

• Science is 50% - We're at 40%

• Math is 52% - We're at 49%

• ELA is 55% - We're at 60%

Chromebook collection process

Data Day - guiding coalition + Dept Heads

Data Day will be Monday, June 10 and Tuesday, June 11, at LHS, from 8:00 - 3:30. Lunch will be provided.

We will need our Guiding Coalition + Dept Heads to work on developing our SMART GOALS + IF/THEN/SO statements for the 2024-25 school year. This will support our development of our Adult Learning or Professional Development plans.

We will conduct the 5 Whys on the following school improvement areas:

• Students Engagement 

• Student Achievement

• Classroom Engagement 

• Student Behavior

Yearbook Signing Event

We will keep the Yearbook signing day on Tuesday, June 4th. We will run the assembly schedule and have designated locations on campus for grades to use. 

WE WILL GATHER BY GRADE LEVEL OUTSIDE. 

- Grade 8: Bengal Field

- Grade 7: Practice Field 

- Grade 6: Recess Field next to the main building. 

We can have students leave locations 10min early from dismissal and they can mingle with other grades as they prepare to depart the school.

summer learning

Thank you for adding additional names for summer learning. Grade 8 we still need names. We will mail additional invitations today. 

Please use the spreadsheet below to nominate additional summer learning students and we will make contact home.