The Cornelius Chronicle

January 8, 2016

New Staff Member

Please join me in welcoming our newest staff member to Cornelius: Diego Aillon!!!  He’s been a part of our school since the first day of school as our volunteer coordinator, but now he has an official position! He will be taking over Ana’s position, helping with ELD, kinder math, 1st grade literacy, and 4th grade interventions.

Equity Dialogue - 1/27 at 8:30 am

We will be having our equity dialog a week from Wednesday at 8:30 am in the TRC.  Classified staff - please modify your schedule if you don’t normally start at 8:30 am to attend by coming in late on another late start day.  Also, please join us for our monthly Equity Staff Happy Hours at Primetime - the first Friday of each month, starting Feb. 5th at 4 pm!  It’s a great opportunity to get to know each other better as people, not just coworkers!

Gomez & Gomez Expectations/Walk Throughs

As you know, we will be having our G&G training on 1/28 & 1/29 for teachers.  By the end of the day on Friday 1/29, you will have had the full G&G training!  I’m excited for you to all be G&G trained!  We have been focusing on a print-rich environment this fall, and after I came back from my G&G training, we changed our master schedule for K-1 to have 90 minutes of literacy (instead of 120 min) and 60 minutes of social studies/science, and changed math instruction from Spanish to English in K-1.  We really want to be focused on enrichment not remediation, which is a big mind shift.

I wanted to let you know that the dual language admin team (Perla, Chandra, Brandon, Leonard, John, and me) will be coming through classrooms to do walk-throughs in February.  This is what we will be looking for:

• Student-generated alphabets in both languages (you should be on SGA #2 by now)
• Word walls in both languages
• Classroom labels in both languages
• Student journals - we will be pulling student journals to see when the last entry was written - are they being used on a regular basis?
• Bilingual pairs lists posted and being practiced in the classroom

January Assessments

Be sure to have the following assessments completed by the end of January to facilitate an effective 100% meeting on Feb. 4th.  Caution - Easy CBM will be unaccessible after 1/28, so be sure to be done by then!

• Easy CBM testing for English reading (K-4),
• IDEL testing for K-3 Spanish reading,
• EDL testing for 4th grade Spanish reading (just progress monitoring)
• IAP Math testing for 3-4 math!  
• Please use IA support to complete these assessments.  Let me know if you need any support from me!

100% Meeting - Feb. 4!

We will have our 100% meeting on Thursday, Feb. 4.  We will have 2 roving subs to cover each grade level team’s classrooms Classroom teachers just need to write sub plans for the 1 ½ hours the sub is covering their class--please get your sub plans to Irene by Wednesday.  We are canceling ELD for grades 1st - 4th and intervention groups on this day to avoid having to have subs for specialists.  Manuel will still run his 1st grade reading group and Maroha will still run her kinder reading group.

100% Meeting Schedule: Feb. 4th

8:00 - 9:30	4th Grade Team (Start with English, so Linda can leave at 9 am to teach)
9:30-11:00	Kinder Team
11:00-12:30	1st Grade Team (working lunch - lunch provided)
12:30-1:00	Lunch for subs
1:00 - 2:30	3rd Grade Team
2:30-4:00	2nd Grade Team

Pennies for Patients to Support Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Cheryl Rice will be giving each classroom collection boxes to support Pennies for Patients campaign from Monday, Jan 25th through Feb. 12th.

ELPA Testing-February & March

We will begin ELPA testing Feb. 8th and continue until spring break.  We will start with kinders and work our way through the grade levels.  We will be getting a sub for Melissa for her morning groups and we will only be testing in the mornings.  Janelly will also be pulled from her morning groups to support ELPA testing.  All ELLs will be taking the ELPA test.  Melissa will give you more information at our meeting this Thursday morning.  Please practice the ELPA test with your kids during ALD time.  Again, Melissa will give you more info at Thursday’s meeting.

SBAC Testing

We will start SBAC testing a week after spring break.  We will begin with 3rd grade and then do 4th grade (as our state report card is weighted 75% on growth and we can only show growth from 3rd to 4th grade).  We will have a security training for all 3rd & 4th grade teachers and IAs prior to testing.  All students need to have practiced on SBAC practice tests before taking SBAC.  

Schedule for SBAC

March 28-April 1 Review/Practice Tests for 3rd Grade

April 4-8 3rd Grade Reading CAT

April 11-15 3rd Grade Reading PT

April 18-22 3rd Grade Math CAT

April 25-28 3rd Grade Math PT

May 2-6 4th Grade Reading CAT

May 9-13 4th Grade Reading PT

May 16-20 4th Grade Math CAT

May 23-27 4th Grade Math PT

Vision Screening Schedule

for all K-2 students & 3rd & 4th grade teacher referrals

1-19-16 T

12:30-3:15pm: finish Medina, continue to Rincon

1-22-16 F

12:30-3:15pm: Heredia, Godinez

1-25-16 M

12:30-3:15pm: Any kids missed and 3rd and 4th grades identified as needing screening

Reminders:

• Don’t forget to check out the new math materials in the library TRC and give me any feedback (teacher feedback cards in TRC)!  Thanks!  

Bus Duty 1/11-1/15: 1st & 3rd grade teachers, and the “regulars”!

Calendar:

1/18 MLK Holiday (No School)

11/19 8 am Referral Team

1/19 12:30-3:15 Vision Screening for K-2 (Medina & Rincon)

1/20 8 - 9 am CIT: Data Teams - Pre-Assessment Data

1/20 12-4 pm Elementary Principals Meeting (Angella)

1/21 9:30 am January Fire Drill

1/22 8-8:45 am 3rd Grade Cougar Team - Lawson’s classroom

1/22 12:30-3:15 Vision Screening for K-2 (Heredia & Godinez)

Looking ahead:

1/25 12:30-3:15 Vision Screening for teacher referrals for grades 3-4

1/27 8 am CIT: TAG screening & referrals

1/27 8:30 am Whole Staff Meeting - Equity Dialog

1/27 9:15 am Classified Staff Meeting

1/27 2:30 - 3:00 Ballet Performance - whole school assembly

1/28-1/29 Gomez & Gomez training

1/28 5:30 - 8 pm G & G Parent Night (at Echo Shaw)

2/2 Shannon McCaw at Cornelius

2/4 Winter 100% Meeting

2/8 K-2 Anita Archer Training

2/9 3-4 Anita Archer Training

2/15 President’s Day Holiday