March 4, 2016
Happy Friday! I would like to thank the grading committee for getting a proposal done for our building. They will be sending it out for input on Monday. But before they do that, I wanted everyone to know the expectations set before the committee. First I asked them to decide what the purpose of our grades are. Throughout history, schools were used to sort students from the haves and the have nots. To do this, they needed a way. So lo and behold the 100 percent scale was created. Their was no research or anything used to create this. It was something that was just done. Today, there still is no research to support the 100 point scale, but it is something that all our parents, us, and basically everyone not in school now grew up on. It is something people can accept because it has always been done that way.
Now the grading committee was told that we were not going to transition to standards based grading. To do this is going to require more than just a committee of 4 people. This will take an extraordinary amount of time and teaching, not only for the staff, but for the community. This is something they and many of us don't understand, because it is different.
But we need to look at our grading practice and question what our grades mean. Right now, an A in one class means something totally different in another class. Each department has a different grading scale and teachers have different ways of calculating grades. When we see how important grades are in college admittance and scholarships opportunities, we can't leave a students grade to chance based on who the student has as a teacher. This also goes for our curriculum, but this is something we are working towards during district in-service this year and our building/district in-services next year.
So this gets us to what do we want our grades to look like. The committee had much discussion. I stayed out of their meetings unless I was asked to come in to answer questions. They have a really difficult task, because grading is seen as being so personal. Trust me, the committee understood what each person was trying to do and what they came up with is something that takes the purpose of our grades and transforms it to become more aligned with the education system today. During NCLB, schools were told we had to be accountable for every student. But with the old grading philosophies, that did not match what we were being asked to do. A child could be left behind based on choosing not to do any work and receiving a F. Now with the Every Student Succeeds act, this becomes more important.
The question comes down to this. When does learning stop? Do we expect the kids to stop learning a concept once a test is given? Or do we want to continue to encourage students they can learn the material better if they keep practicing. It comes down to the mindset we want our students to have. Based on this, the committee came up with a draft plan. The next steps for the committee is to send it to the staff and gain further input. Once they have input, they will consider it. It may not change the proposal. The next step then is to have the SIT team look at it one final time. Then it will come to me for the final stamp of approval.
After you read the proposal and you have questions/concerns/or something you just don't understand, please talk to one of the committee members, Sherri, Mark, Mary, or Doug or you can ask me also.
Staff News
Wednesday we do have a building inservice. This will be in your department PLC's. Please follow the protocol from previous meetings.
Congrats to Mr. Johnson and his 1966 State Championship team being honored on Saturday. Check out more here (KLEM) article, or here (IA PBS video).
Staff as Learners
Kellie Bork, Tracy Wingert, and Mary Westhoff will be presenting how they have used technology in their classroom to DLIIT on Tuesday night.
Students as Leaders
The following students and Doug Martin are currently at the NASA Space Settlement Competition in Houston, Jon Hovden, Jacob Beyer, Juliana Benitez, and Sydney Rand.
Good luck to Team 9967 as they go to the state robotics competition in Iowa City. Representing LCHS will be Caitlyn Hughes, Gabe Jensen, Ross Curry, Colton Webner, Jeff Ahlers, Chloe Evans, Justin Tyler, Luke Sudtelgte, and Robby Hodson. Tracy Wingert and Lori Carter will be going along as coaches.
Congrats to the IE Speech Students! We had 31 entries or 39 students earn I ratings and 13 earn II ratings. State IE Speech is on March 12 in Moville.
Good luck to Maddie Martin as she dances with the All-Iowa squad Saturday during the girls basketball finals.
Assistant Principal's Corner
One of my focuses at the NASSP Conference in Orlando, FL is that I wanted to look at ways to empower students with their own education as well as staff. A suggestion that came out of one of my sessions centered on student-led conferences and empowering students and staff to help transform the learning culture in your school. This is a concept that I had some working knowledge around (student-led conferences), but wanted to explore it a little further to see if this was something that could benefit the students, staff, and parents at LCHS. The presenter from Joplin High School in Joplin, Missouri shared her ideas around the change of culture that occurred by empowering students and teachers. In her building, they have 4,285 students grades 9-12. Each teacher was assigned an Eagle Time group (advisory) and this group would stay with them for the next four years. Their focus for empowering students and staff was centered on 4 Pillars of Transition.
1. Social/Emotional Learning (Focused mainly at the freshman and sophomore level) - time was spent on social aspects of high school such as proper ways to communicate, speak, advocate for themselves, ask for help, ways to build friendships, extra-curricular involvement and the advantages to these activities, and team building exercises that would help all students become comfortable and familiar with each other within their small groups.
2. Academic Advisement (All grade levels) - During their Eagle Time (advisory), time in advisory was centered on the students getting to know the in's and out's of high school. Many of the students within their district had no concept of credits or grades, why you earn them, or what a significance they would play on their success at the high school level. They would talk about the importance of attendance and how this can affect them negatively as well as positively and they would help the students monitor their own progress on a weekly basis and keep record of this monitoring in a student developed portfolio.
3. Post Secondary Planning (Senior/Junior Emphasis) - the students would work on their portfolios each year and add to what they had done in previous semesters. This would become a representation of their accomplishments, goals, plan for success, etc... This portfolio system is set up as a learning plan for students to drive their own future and to plan accordingly to what they hope to accomplish. They would include reflections, work that they were proud of, activities that they had participated in, as well as goals for their present as well as future. The portfolios became the center of their student-led conferencing.
4. Creating Community - (All grade levels) - focusing on cultural expectations within the school system. Treat others how you wish to be treated. They would discuss social situation such as bullying and how they can help to turn things to a more positive environment. They would discuss choices within social settings and how their decisions can affect their future negatively or positively. They would have discussions within their groups on changes that they wish to see in the school and develop plans to help implement these changes. They were given a chance to have a voice in how they wish their school to look. These ideas could be brought to a "Transition Team" for consideration.
The Transition Team is a group of individuals that helps to involve all aspects in decisions surrounding academic and emotional changes for the school. In their school environment it involved the following: a number of kids per grade level (set by the building), Administrators, Counselors, and a number of staff members (set by the building).
The set up of these pillars and development of the student portfolios would help support the concept of student-led conference. I have included some web sites on student-led conferences for your review that I think are worth exploring. I know that we do not always have the best public turnout for our conferences and hope that by looking at a new way to present information that we may increase our participation. I think that if students take more ownership over their learning/conferences they may begin to insist that their parents attend.
Instructional Coaches' Corner
There have been times that students and teachers alike have expressed a desire to put non-YouTube videos in their Google Slides to me. Here is a link that shows you how to do just that. In actuality this is sort of a work around. What it really is doing is creating a hyperlink to the video that you have stored in your Google Drive.
Technology applications are due in Dr. Wendt's office by March 25. If you would like some assistance or just want to bounce an idea off of me send me an email and we'll get together ASAP!
Tracy
Articles Worth Reading
Upcoming Events
Friday March 4 Dance Team All IowaNASA Trip
Saturday, March 5 State Competition Robotics Club - Iowa City
Crimson and Black @ Emmetsburg Show Choir Invite
NASA Trip
Dance Team All Iowa
Sunday, March 6 NASA Trip
Monday, March 7 NASA Trip
Spanish Supper
Saturday, March 12 State IE Speech @ Woodbury Central
Be Extraordinary,
Mark
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