October 27, 2023

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Happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a great week. This week seemed to be very crazy for Adam and I. I told Dr. Webner a couple of times we needed a snow day. 

The Iowa Performance Profile has been released by the state. You can find our results here: https://www.iaschoolperformance.gov/ECP/StateDistrictSchool/SchoolSummary?k=15805&y=2023 I am very proud of our results and the work that you have all done with our students to get us to this point. We are identified as a high performing school. If you click on the little bar graph by overall performance you can see the history of our scores. I am blessed to have a great staff that is willing to go the extra mile for our students. 

Thank you for the continued work on DOK's. We want to get to the point were our tier 1 instruction is meeting the DOK levels that the Iowa Core calls for. If you are seeing a trend in our tier 1 instruction not meeting the DOK levels, the resources being used will need to be evaluated and potentially replaced with new resources that do. 

Dates to keep in mind: Midterm for quarter 2 is 11/16. All PASS Plans need to be done by this time. For those really planning ahead, day 1 of semester test will be on December 18. This will be the odd periods. Day 2 is on December 19 and will be the even periods. December 20 is the make up day. Trimester 1 ends on November 15. Those grades will need to be finalized by 11/17 and we will send midterms and trimester report cards home at the same time. 

Please continue to make calls home to parents when their student is struggling. If you are seeing classroom behaviors, please let the parents know this as well. The easiest calls to make is to let a parent know how much their child has improved or how well they are doing. These calls make the first type of call home easier when the parents have heard good things about their child. 

Have a great weekend!
Mark

Assistant Principal's Happenings

Whew!  It's been a week!

I have many thoughts rolling around this chrome dome of mine, but top of the list this week is "resilience".  In my free time I am slowly working through Elena Aguilar's book, Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators.




From the back cover, emphasis mine:
"Resilience in teachers is key for creating quality classrooms and schools.  The opportunity for becoming resilient originates in how an educator makes sense of irritants, interruptions, and unexpected events, because interpretation dictates actions."

Have you dealt with irritations, interruptions, or unexpected events lately?  Of course!  In fact, this kind of sums up my week -- dealing with irritations, interruptions and unexpected events.  How have I interpreted these things? 

How I interpret them will dictate my response.  My response will dictate my attitude.  My attitude on a daily basis eventually dictates my disposition toward my students and my job.  My daily disposition will dictate my overall outlook and satisfaction.

The back cover continues, emphasis mine:
"By cultivating resilience, teachers can fulfill the intentions that brought them into the teaching profession."

When is the last time I've reflected on the intentions that brought me into the teaching profession?  Why did I choose education as a career?  How about you?  Why do you continue in education today?  What is your "why"?  

I still need to reflect more on this, but a big part of my "why" is my own children and our amazing staff at LCHS.  In other words, the people I'm surrounded by daily.  Someone joked with me during a trying moment this week -- "Don't you just love your job"? The proper response came to me much later in the day: "I don't always love my job, but I do love the people in this building."  I need to continue to remind myself of this.

So how do we "cultivate resilience"?  How can I grow in this?

The first chapter is entitled, "Know Yourself".  The place to start is self-knowledge -- understanding my own motivations, strengths, aptitudes, pet-peeves, personality, and values.  This is actually harder to self-diagnose than we might assume.   As I progress through the book I will give you some updates, starting with Chapter 1.  In the meantime, let's keep encouraging one another.

Yours in resiliency, 

Adam


Upcoming Activities

Friday, October 27
Picture Retakes
7:00 pm Varsity Football @ Lewis Central

Saturday, November 4
NWI HS Honor Band Auditions - Sioux Center

Friday, November 10
7:00 pm Fall Play - Little Theater

Saturday November 11
7:00 pm Fall Play - Little Theater

November 15
End of Trimester 1
Opus Honor Choir - Ames

Thursday November 16
All State Music Festival - Ames
Midterm Q2

Friday, November 17
All State Music Festival - Ames
5:30 pm JV Girl Basketball vs. Unity
7:00 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. Unity

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