LCHS Friday Focus

          Happy Homecoming Friday!   Just a reminder, classes will be dismissed after 4th period today. Coronation starts at 1:00 pm in the competition gym and the parade will start shortly after coronation finishes. Festivities continue as the freshmen football team takes on Webster City at 4:15, followed by the varsity at 7:00. The day concludes with the homecoming dance in Carry Gym starting at 9:00.  Starting Monday, we will need to get the dress code going again. Please help us be consistent when enforcing. If a student refuses to follow what you ask, let Mr. Formanek or myself know and we will escalate it, please don't escalate the situation in front of other students. The LCS Foundation is taking nominations for Employee of the Month again.  Please take the time to nominate one of your peers. Nomination forms can be found here: http://www.lemarscsd.org/?page_id=692, just scroll down to Misc Forms.  Looking ahead, we have an e...

        Happy Friday!   Everyone survived picture day yesterday. Thank you for your cooperation and patience with all the interruptions during the morning.  We have now passed the 1st quarter mid term. If you have students struggling, please start making contact with the parents. I quick phone call can save time later on. The communication with parents tells us a lot of what we need to know about the student. I know when I talk to parents, I find out right away what kind of support we can expect. If you have a student that would benefit from the success center, let one of the counselor or Kyle and I know so we can make the schedule change. Of the 695 students currently enrolled at the high school, 163 have at least one "F" at midterm.  I do have a few seniors I am keeping my eyes on because of credits and their midterm grades. I will be talking with the ones that could be at risk of not graduating.  Just a quick update on the alternative scho...

      Happy Friday!   I hope everyone had a great week.  Now is a good time to remind you about open records request and emails. Remember as public school employees, your emails do fall under open records request. An email constitutes an official public record when the document is made or received in connections to your job. This includes emails sent from home computers, personal cell phones, or made off a personal email account. So if you are typing an email, and you don't want it in the paper, watch what you say. Emailing other staff members to vent about a student could be seen by others you didn't intend to see it. For more about open record laws and email visit https://educateiowa.gov/resources/legal-resources/legal-lessons/open-records-law-and-emails. School pictures are on Thursday. I do want everyone to get their picture taken so please plan to do this before classes start so Kyle or I don't have to come and get you.  The school has moved ...

    Happy Friday!   I hope everyone had a great week.  We made it through our first evac drill of the year. Just a reminder you only need to report students that are missing who were present when you took attendance in your classroom and then are not present when you take attendance outside. If you had marked them absent at the beginning of the class you won't need to report them missing again. Circling back to last week's Friday Focus, I want to discuss common formative assessments more. When we give an assessment, it could be called a quiz or an accountability check, what we do with the data determines if it is formative. If you just give the assessment and move on, then it is not a formative assessment. For it to be a formative assessment, you need to use the data to guide your instruction. This could result in reteaching something the next day if it is a whole class issue or designing an intervention to use when the timing is appropriate. The first time you ...

  Happy Friday!   I hope everyone had a great week. Enjoy the three day weekend.  I had a couple questions asked this week, that I think would be good to cover with everyone. The first had to do with the Tier 2 plans. Reminder that all teachers must do a Tier 2 plan regardless if you are being evaluated this year. Your department can use the same Tier 2 plan, but each person needs to submit one. Tier 2 plans are due on 9/16.  The second question I was asked had to do with grading and assessments. We have been working on common formative assessments the last couple of school years. It is expected that all common classes give the same common formative assessment.  Does this mean we have to teach the same way and have the same daily work? No, you don't have to teach the same way and have the same daily work. I would actually prefer that you don't teach the same way. This will lead to better discussion of student assessment data.  Does this mean we need to...