New Nine Weeks

I hope all had a relaxing and enjoyable Fall Break.  It sure was fun ending our nine weeks with our fundraiser tailgate party on Friday the 12th.  I want to thank all teachers for their flexibility during the fundraiser and during the tailgate party.  We sure had a lot of students outside and it was awesome to see the teachers outside playing with the students and helping supervise the students.  The fundraiser was another huge success.  The Lincoln PTO made over $23,000from the fundraiser.  I encourage teachers to share ideas with me or the PTO on uses for the money.  The proceeds will be split between the PTO and student resources ECA account.

As we look towards the second quarter, the beginning of the quarter is a good time to review your classroom procedures as well as school wide procedures.  This is part of our continued efforts to teach students tier 1 behavior expectations.

Celebrating our Teachers-  

We recognize our monthly traveling awards for teacher leadership, instruction, student advocacy, and creativity.

Teacher Leadership recipient-  Rachel Anders
Instruction and curriculum- Mark Schwing
Student Advocacy- Ryan Ahlrich
Teacher Creativity- Lauren Brown

Awesome job of being awesome everyday at Lincoln.  It is fantastic that your colleagues recognize the great work you are doing for us to Become the Best WE can Be!

Upcoming This Week- 

Grades are due Monday at 8:35 am. 

Monday PD-  Tomorrow is a Behavior RTI meeting-  Teams should meet and discuss students that are struggling with tier one behavior expectations and have accumulated tier 2 points.  Teams will continue the discussion to provide more support and different strategies for these identified students.  Although it might be difficult to bring student to the meetings tomorrow plan your next steps for these students and prepare for the next steps.  Share strategies and what you have learned about the students.  Who might be a champion for the students?  Are the students being success in any classes and why? Remember that together we are better. 

Parent Teacher Conferences- Tuesday we will hold our 1st round of student led conferences from 3:30-5:00 and 5:45-8:00.  Locations are:

7th Grade Traditional: Cafeteria
7th Grade PBL: Red Room
8th Grade Traditional: Room 101

8th Grade PBL: Green Room

Teams should be ready to meet with parents as they enter. In order to avoid too much parent waiting it is recommended that teachers meet individually with parents. If there is a student that would benefit from more than one teacher meeting with them and their parents then that is okay. Parents may also request to meet with certain teachers and if available that too is okay. Please try to limit the length of your meetings to 15 minutes. Report cards will be distributed during conferences along with NWEA results. If any teachers need help with parents admin will be available to help. Dinner will be available both before conferences and from 5:00-5:45.   

School Improvement Council- Wednesday at 5:30 the School Improvement Steering team will hold our first School Improvement Council of the year.  All teachers are invited to attend the meeting.  These meetings are important for teachers to attend.  Your presence helps us improve and it also allows you voice to be heard.  Although these are optional the steering team would love to have your help in improving Lincoln.  

Haunted Maze- The Innovation Academy will be creating a Haunted Maze this week to raise money for a Blueberry Sculpture that will serve as a commemorative gift from the last three classes to go through the current Lincoln Junior High.  The purchased Blueberry Sculpture will be placed outside of the new school.  The times of the Haunted Maze are Thursday Oct. 25th 6:00-8:00, Saturday Oct. 27th 6:00-8:00.  On Friday from 1:00- 3:00 students will be able to go through the maze for $2.00.  Details will be shared during the week.  

Lesson Studies- During our October PD Monday lesson studies were introduced.  I am asking that teachers observe another teacher during the month between now and November 12th.  Observing teachers are looking for evidence of student thinking and the depths of knowledge level of the learning tasks observed.  On November 12th teachers will meet to share feedback and evidence of student thinking.  At least one time during the month teachers should record themselves teaching and then watch their teaching for one of the following: equitable questioning practices, student engagement.  wait time, preventing students from opting out, randomly calling on students, checking for understanding, feedback strategies, communication of objectives to students.  Why do lesson studies?  The answer lies in a growth mindset.  We all continue to grow and learn.  
Feedback, collaboration, and being reflective help us continue to do this.   We also know that student engagement in our classes are essential for student achievement.  How do we know if students are engaged?  What are we doing to keep them engaged?  Are we designing learning tasks that require thinking?  I appreciate the growth mindset that everyone on our staff has to continue to learn and grow to improve student achievement.  

Welcome Back and have a great week!