December 8, 2017

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Happy Friday! Just a few reminders, next week we have district in-service on Wednesday. Students are dismissed at 1:30. Your CIA members should be sending out an agenda soon if they have not already. I have a social studies standards for administrators workshop on Thursday and also have a Lakes Conference Principal's meeting on Friday. If there is something you are wondering about how our other conference schools do something, please let me know before then and I will see what I can find out. 

 Erin Ohrlund and the Thespians will be performing "The Semi-Amazing, Sort-of-Sensational, Almost Unbelievable Christmas Spectacular!" on December 22. Mr. Utesch will get dismissal information out soon. Students will need to pay a $1 to attend the play like in the past.

During advisory on Monday, we will watch episode 20 of The Harbor. This is the last video in Season 1 and we will start Season 2 the following week.

 Last month, I discussed teaching students who are living in poverty and our mindsets. I want to talk about another form of mindset, this one is the relational mindset. When you think about students in poverty, many of these students come from single parent homes or families that are dysfunctional. I know these are two blanket statements and they don't apply to all of our students living in poverty. 

 Research has shown that when students lose interest in school, they will most likely find someplace else to invest their energy. Some of the choices they make may not be good. To quote Eric Jensen, "When your students succeed, you succeed. When they graduate, you succeed. When they get a job or go to college, you succeed. There is no us (teacher) and them (students)."

 Every student doesn't need to have the same amount of relationship time. Students that come from stable families will need less relationship time. As you can see from our student population, we don't have as many that fall into this category as we did 10 years ago. According to research, when students feel more connected, they stay in school, achieve more, and more likely graduate. According to Marzano, the effect size of good relationships is .87. If you remember your stats, the closer to 1.0 an effect is, the larger the effect. When teachers offer strong instructional and emotional support, students from low-income families perform equal to their higher-income peers. 

 When I ran the grade report (Thursday morning), we had 101 students who had one or more failing grades. When I look at this list, I wonder how many of these students have at least one meaningful relationship with one of the adults in school. I would say a majority do not. I challenge us as a staff, to work on building positive relationships with our students. Our advisory time is a good time to start this. In order to form these relationships, the students need to see the person in you and not just the teacher. Feel free to share a little bit about yourself, your struggles you may have had to overcome, or a goal you have. By connecting with the students, it will lead to better engagement. Now it will take time, but look at what we could gain.

Have a great weekend!

Mark 

Staff News

Staff as Learners

Cliff Collins and Mary Westhoff attended a Math Iowa Core workshop in Ankeny on Thursday.

Students as Leaders

Congrats to the dance team as they earned Division 1 ratings and 3rd place in Pom at the State Dance contest.

 Good Luck to Tyson Weiler and Abe Cerda as they compete at the DMACC Hands On Competition for Auto. Kaden Ostermyer is an alternate. 

Assistant Principal's Happenings

Student council is in the middle of their fundraiser: Give Cancer the Boot. The campaign will benefit families in our district who have family members battling cancer (we will include the Sauer and Brent family). Currently, the number of families we are hoping to help out is 7. If you are aware of someone in our district who may be battling cancer, please let Mrs. Isebrand know. We will not announce recipients. Another part of the campaign is Hat day: December 19. Students and staff that donate an additional $2 can wear a hat for the school day. The office will keep track of all who have paid. On the 19th, those that are wearing hats must have a stamp on the back of their hand so you will know who has paid. Please consider a donation to the campaign. 

 Articles to check out related to Positive Classroom Environments:

 Using Positive Student Engagement to Increase Student Achievement  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED497205.pdf

 Tips from Dr. Marzano   https://www.marzanoresearch.com/resources/tips/hec_tips_archive

Librarian's News

Want some fun ideas to get kids' attention? Try creating your own animated gif: Makin' It Merry.  On a more serious note, fake news continues to be a focus in the world and in education. Although I try to educate all 6th graders in media literacy, media literacy remains a topic that needs to be emphasized at all grade levels. Here is a quick video that you could show to spark discussion or just remind students they need to be able to discern fact from fiction. The Problem with Fake News

Success Center Update


Instructional Coaches Corner

With an ever increasing number of teachers and students using Google Docs I thought I would share some unique add-ons this week.
  • Styles provides you with 20 pre-made document styles that have pre-set color and typeface settings similar to offerings in Microsoft Word.
  • Yob Graph Editor allows you to graph data and equations in a Google Doc.
  • Flat Music Notation lets you build sheet music and add it to your Google Doc. It also lets you hear your creation and tweak it on the fly as a simple music composition tool.
  • Scrifter lets you format your document for a screenplay.
Botcheck.me is a Google Chrome extension developed by 2 computer science students at the University of California at Berkley. The add-on places a button onto every Twitter profile and tweet. By clicking the button a user can tell whether the account is likely run by a person or an automated program.

If you use the smartphone virtual keyboard Ai.type you will definitely want to read this. The personal info of 31 million people was recently leaked by users of this app.

We will soon be able to embed HTML and JavaScript in the new Google Sites. One use of this will be to embed a Twitter feed on your websites.

Do you use memes in your classroom? If so, this brief article describes 3 tools you can use to make them. 


If there is anything I can work with you on in your classroom don't hesitate to contact me.
Friday, December 8
- Varsity Wrestling @ Mid America Center, Council Bluffs
- 1:00 pm Varsity/JV Bowling @ Council Bluffs
- 4:45 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball vs. Cherokee
- 6:15 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. Cherokee
- 7:45 pm Varsity Boy Basketball vs. Cherokee

Saturday, December 9
- ACT Testing
- Varsity Wrestling @ Mid America Center, Council Bluffs
- 10:00 am Freshmen Girls Basketball vs. Sioux City West
- 11:30 am Freshmen Boys Basketball vs. Sioux City West
- 12:30 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball @ SBL
- 2:00 pm Varsity Girls Basketball @ SBL
- 3:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball @ SBL

Monday, December 11
- 3:30 pm Varsity/JV Bowling vs. MMCRU
- 5:30 pm Spanish Club Christmas Party
- 6:00 pm Freshmen Girls Basketball @ Unity Christian
- 7:00 pm Freshmen Boys Basketball @ Unity Christian

Tuesday, December 12
- 4:45 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball @ ELC
- 6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball @ ELC
- 7:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball @ ELC

Thursday, December 14
- 6:00 pm Freshmen Girls Basketball vs. Western Christian
- 6:00 pm Varsity/JV Wrestling @ Spirit Lake
- 7:00 pm Freshmen Boys Basketball vs. Western Christian

Friday, December 15
- 4:45 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball vs. Storm Lake
- 6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball vs. Storm Lake
- 7:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Storm Lake
- 9:00 pm Snoball Dance

Saturday, December 16
- Robitics
- Varsity/JV Wrestling @ Spencer
- 10:15 am Freshmen Boys Basketball vs. Heelan

Monday, December 18
- 7:00 pm HS Holiday Concert
- 3:30 pm Varsity/JV Bowling vs. Sioux Central

Tuesday, December 19
- 4:45 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball vs. Spirit Lake
- 6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball vs. Spirit Lake
- 7:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Spirit Lake

Thursday, December 21
- 4:45 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball vs. Heelan
- 5:00 pm Varsity/JV Wrestling @ Akron Westfield
- 6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball vs. Heelan
- 7:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Heelan



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