Happening This Week Feb 7-11

 

Welcome Back,

I hope you enjoyed the Wellness day on Thursday; at the very least we had a half day, no classes, and reduced HW load which means reduced grading. Also, thank you for updating the TEAMS. The new organization will help eliminate a whole lot a problems we were having that we never realized we would have. We appreciate your flexibility.

We are now halfway Q3. Please remember to keep the final week of the Quarter free of assessments and instead use that time to allow students to make up any work and communicate with families. We do not want any families to be surprised by any grades.

Below you will find:

A video greeting 

Important upcoming dates

An update on new NEO settings 

An update on Students at Risk

An Update on Class Visits

A link to the ‘Weekly Family Update’ that families receive each week

A link to the Sunday Morning Announcements that are emailed to students each Sunday morning

Important Dates:

• Tuesday Meeting. Staff meeting 
• March 10 Quarter 3 Start and Finish
• Feb 25-28 no School. National Day/Liberation Day
• March 10 Quarter 3 Start and Finish
• March 18 Parent-Teacher Conferences

A note on dates. We have about 20 school days left in this quarter. Since classes generally meet 3 time a week and there are some days of, there are about 9-11 class meetings left. Time does fly! It will be helpful to plan to have assessments done the week before March 10 to leave time to follow up on missing work or failing students and to finish grading.

We Strongly Suggest You arrange your assessment so you do not have any the final week of the Quarter. Use That time to follow up on students instead.

TEAMS set up

Here is the link to the teams set up from Tuesday's PD. Thank you for following up on this. You can use this Power Point as a reference if you need to update anything with your TEAMS.

So far it appears to be working well. Thank you Again!

Class Visits:

Dr. Lori and I are continuing with Class visits. For more information please click on the tab at the top of this landing page “Class Visits”. One of the goals of the class visit is to let teachers know they do not have to go it alone.  Please see the link at the top for an idea of what to expect with the classroom visits. The HOD's and HOY's are joining in on class visits. They are not visiting for supervision or evaluation, they are there to provide peer support and let teachers know that we are not going it alone this year.

Since HOY are not members of you class, it a HOY would like to visit they will contact you and ask that you add them to the class they want to visit.

Students at Risk:

We have the failure list for Semester 1. All Students in grade 9-12 will have to take online courses at the University of Nebraska to make up work. We are still working on a plan for 6-8.

Reminder, please to be in contact with students and parents who are failing or missing work. If you are having trouble contacting parents or are not hearing back, contact myself, Mr. Patrick for 9-12 and Dr. Lori for 6-8. CC Ms Abeer. We can set up a meeting.

At the end of Q1 there was a lot of confusion over grades and we were very flexible as it was a very unusual circumstance. At the end of Semester 2 we are standing confidently behind our grades. This is because of the work teachers did following up with students and families. Please continue doing this, and we will continue encouraging families to follow their children's grades on NEO and we can stand by grades that the students earned.

Weekly Family Update: 

We are also trying to keep families and students involved with the 'Weekly Family Update'. We are stressing the importance of students communicating with teachers and using office hours, and of parents seeing NEO and grades on NEO on a regular basis.

A reminder for communication.  Mr. Patrick is the contact for grade 9-12. Dr. Lori is the contact for 6-8.

Here is the Weekly Family Update That is sent to Parents at the start of each week. It is a nice little blog, check it out so you know the messaging we are giving parents.

 

Link to Sunday Morning Student Announcements:

 The Sunday Morning Student Announcements are being sent out each Sunday Morning. There is a focus on Students making use of office hours, and keeping their cameras on in class. Here is this Sunday's Announcement, Sunday Jan 31.

Have a great week!

Weekly Family Update 

https://acakw.neolms.com/blog/show/8133378