Student Panel (K-5)

 Today we had a student panel with students at KSS. The panel discussed proficiency.  The following was shared:

What ways do you show proficiency in your learning?

Practice at home and meet with your teacher

I study at home because you want to get good grades

You can sign up for conferences and and meet and talk about proficiency with her and show it on a table

We can sign up for a conference and show work and then go back and do more work and can do more questions and then 

I work with my teacher on writing and work on details

How do you use a proficiency tables in your learning process?

You can use a table to check progress 

Sometimes I go into a teacher’s room and look at the table to see if I have things right 

It can help you by reading it and see what I have wrong and then go back and check my work 

I can use it to check my work 

We can check our work with a teacher on the table and talk with a partner as well and see how our work has been with the table

Sometimes the teacher tells me I am closer to getting it than I think I am 

3 means proficient, 1- means I might not have it yet

Curriculum Chats K-1 (K-5)

 Curriculum Chats took place today with K-1 staff.  Thank you to all that were able to attend.  The following was discussed.  

-Update on the BOE proposal for tonight on early entrance to Kindergarten procedures.  We will also be discussing in a future BOE meeting a proposed fee for the process as well. 

-Reminder for KIDS assessment for Kindergarten data entry to be complete in the next two weeks, make all attempts prior to parent/teacher conferences. 

-Report cards will be available on Monday for entry and are due by midnight on 11-13

-We are collecting parent feedback at conferences on the new book fair vendor and on exploratory programming, please help encourage families to take those surveys for us 

-EAC topics coming up and open seats for K-1.  We will be discussing supply lists at this meeting.

-Math pilot meeting will take place on October 28th at 8:05 at KMAC Room 203.  Please make all attempts to attend. 

Next week we will have a 2-3 focused chat.  Here is the recurring link.  

Report Cards Are Opening Monday (EC-5)

 K-5 Report cards on Infinite Campus will be open to enter grades starting Monday.  Please log in and make sure you can see your rosters and see the students you need to assess.  In order to best support you in the report card process, please use the report card guidelines to assist your process.  All report card information should be completed and entered for every student by Wednesday November 13th at midnight.  If you need any assistance please reach out to Sarah Mumm or an Instructional Coach.    

Exploratory Review Update (K-5)

 This week the Exploratory Team met for a half day of review committee time to continue to our review work.  The team took time to briefly discuss the PACE framework from the State of Illinois, review the feedback submitted from staff on our current programming, and begin to discuss possible non-negotiables for learning structures.  The team began to draft a timeline and ideas to collect feedback from students and parents over the next month to review at our January meeting.  Please be looking out for the feedback surveys we will be sharing for parents at parent/teacher conferences and help our teams encourage families to complete and shared feedback.  Thank you to all committee members for the open sharing and dialogue at our sessions.    

Special Education Eligibility Update (EC-5)

 Over the course of last year we have spent time reviewing the process of looking at Special Education Eligibility through MTSS and local assessment processes.  This first trimester we have continued this similar process.  As we enter into the second trimester, we would like to begin to review our process and the documents (flowcharts) based on experiences and make revisions as needed for next year.  We will be asking SPED and MTSS staff to pull student case studies that have taken place this Fall that we can use as an example to walk through how the process went for the revision updates.  If you have a student case study that you would like to submit for this process, please contact Sarah or Fran.  

MTSS Philosophy Updates (EC-5)

 Over the past two weeks there have been multiple meetings that have discussed MTSS philosophy and updates.  This year we are make many attempts to improve transparency on the philosophy and practice of MTSS.  Please remember the following keys to our success:

-Packaged intervention materials should not be used in full since MTSS uses co-teaching that connects to the core classroom.  The materials used for intervention should mirror and be flexible to the classroom instruction.  Past intervention tools, such as LLI kits, may not be used in full but the texts from the kits might be used in guided reading as an additional intervention through station or parallel co teaching.  

-Although we do not formally use tier 2 and 3 language, we do focus on providing through co-teaching additional intervention time at a targeted level (fromally tier 2) and intensive level (tier 3) for students.  This time in co-teaching should be above and beyond time from core instruction provided by the classroom teacher.

-MTSS Co-Teachers should not solely instruct tier 1 classroom instruction only.  They may assist and co-teaching during core instruction but they should also provide additional time of intervention in co-teaching for students. 

-Guided Reading should be taking place in every classroom for all students at least 2-3 times per week for 10-15 mins. 

-We should not be giving a student a consistent accommodations for assessment for a long period of time beyond a unit of study without considering 504 actions or further formal documentation of the accomdation need. 

Please see any MTSS Co-Teacher, MTSS Coordinator or Sarah Mumm with any questions on any of these key philosophies shared. 

LAST DAY to register for IgKnight Conference TODAY (EC-12)

 IgKnight Registration is closing TODAY! All staff must register prior to October 16th at 4:00pm (this was extended to today for us to publicize one last time in the blog).  Please use this link to select your sessions prior to the closing of the system.  LINK