October 29, 2021

 Hear Ye, Hear Ye

• A 4K para was helping two students resolve a conflict between them by giving them the words to tell his peer how he feels.  At the end, both boys were ready to learn!

• A staff member came to tell me that she felt that I had not finished a serious conversation with her this week in a way that felt resolved.  I certainly did not want her to feel like I was not listening or not taking her question seriously.  I appreciate so much that she came back to respectfully share with me how she felt.  I hope to do better in the future and it allows us to continue to strengthen our working relationship.

• Our Rise students just finished the first round of reading intervention.  Their teachers celebrated their progress and their smiles show that they were proud of how they are progressing.  Students that are feeling good about themselves tend to work even harder at future lessons.

• A Junior Coach shared with me that he is covering for an absent classmate.  He was very responsible about making sure that he was on "duty" on time.  I love the leadership skills that these students are building through this program!

What's Happening at Dodgeland?

• Monday, November 1
• New Month:  Breakfast duty - Fobes & Bolman, AM parking lot - Vredeveld & Riege, PM Parking lot - Helmer and O'Toole
• Bus duty for the week - Huso, CaineB, Huelsman
• GG Topic this week: Calming Down Strategies

• Tuesday, November 2
• Social Media posts due to Josh - Jenkins, Chambers, Stanton, O'Toole
• Pyramid Model Leadership Meeting: 1-2pm (4K team)
• Student of the month nominations due

• Wednesday, November 3
• Workout Wednesday
• Jenny in a meeting from 9-10:45am
• 5th grade Academic Data Meeting 12:35-1:25pm

• Thursday, November 4
• Math Coach visit, See below for more info.
• 2nd grade SEL Data meetings - 12:05-12:55pm
• October Citizenship skills grades due in grade book

• Friday, November 5

Nitty-Gritty

• Fundraiser Update
• Our fundraiser representative has notified me that there are delays in getting materials to the warehouses for the delivery to us.  This means that we have to change our originally scheduled delivery date.  The new date will be Wednesday, December 1.  We will be staging this in the elementary gym this year.  Also, we had one of our biggest sales yet.  This will be especially helpful for all of us!

• SEL Plans for the Week
• I have noticed that many of our students are struggling with self management skills and social skills lately.  (Or maybe that is just what is coming across my plate lately.). To assist with this, I will share weekly the topics that Mindy is teaching in classrooms so that all of us can reinforce this skill with students across each week.  This week, students will be discussing Calming down strategies. Which students in your class need reteaching in this skill?  Do they need a visual to help them?  Deep breathing, take a walk, Oasis breaks, drawing, counting in their head, etc.  Sometimes students need reminding of a strategy as they get to this stage.  The key is to remind them before they are so stressed and emotional that logic/critical thinking is impossible.

• Math Coach Visit
• Kris will return on Thursday to meet with teachers and talk through your questions, reflections, concerns, etc.  Brent Kriewald will be here to cover classrooms while you meet with Kris in Susan's room.  Please Sign up here for a time period or to ask questions.  If there are multiple people that want to meet with her, please let me know and I can help cover classrooms as well.

• Student of the Month
• Please fill out a nominee for this month's Student of the Month.  Your student should be someone that is consistently following the code of conduct/citizenship skills, they are kind and respectful to others (including unstructured times), and haven't been a student of the month already.  If you scroll down, you will see the September students of the month.  Click HERE for the document.

• WIN groups
• I know that many of you have been asking about WIN and when it will start.  We are going to start SEL WIN groups the week of November 8th.  For full implementation of WIN groups, I want to wait a few more weeks.  However, many of our interventionists are ready to work with groups of students during that time period.  Please see Brenda, Mitch and/or Sue for more information.  In addition, our Reading Corps tutor will begin taking kids the week of November 15 as well.

• Coat Drive
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PD Spotlight

A few weeks ago, I talked about stress and what your method was for dealing with stress.  I am sharing it here in the PD Spotlight again, because I recently came across an article describing the 2021-22 school year.  In it, the author stated that this school year may be even more stressful for teachers and students than the previous year.  The hypothesis was that there was COVID fatigue happening in communities, but also due to the weight of students that are academically behind typical year's achievement pre-COVID.  In addition, many schools are trying to implement some sense of normalcy but have more ground to cover in the same amount of time.  I don't know about you, but this definitely resonated with me. 

It would have been easy to just say, "Yep, this is going to be awful" and then spend the rest of the night commiserating with others about how I never get caught up on my work, students keep making unsafe and unkind choices regardless of how many times I speak to them or you all instruct them.  But.  I choose not to.  I know the realities of our work and the realities of our students' current emotional and academic states.  But, because we all care so much about the people behind that data, we carry this stress with us every day.  This sometimes means that we take it out on the people closest to us.  As you read in the "Hear Ye, Hear Ye" section, I was guilty of this very thing this week.  I feel terrible for causing even more stress for this colleague. 

I envision our Dodgeland team as a group of exceptional educators that care deeply and work together toward the same purpose and vision:  Happy, kind strong students.  When challenging situations come up, let's remember that we are here to support one another.  Be respectful and kind in your interactions.  We all work hard.  We all have to-do lists that seem to never end.  We all have moments in our day where we are not quite sure what to do next or how to solve a problem.  Using your own SEL skills, communicate your needs to others, accept help when it is offered and be reflective about feedback you receive.  Together, our students (and each other) will grow and succeed.

Friday Funny

This is me.  All the time.  Every day.  I've learned to embrace my awkward tendencies.  :-). Anyone else relate?