This week the Curriculum Chats focused on Social Work! The running agenda captured some of the notes of the discussion.
Running Curriculum Chat Agenda
This week's discussion with the Social Work staff that were able to attend, the sessions are voluntary and was captured here in this video .
The next Curriculum Chat will be held on January 15th with School Psychologist staff. Please remember these are optional events for staff. Here is the recurring link.
It may be cold outside, but summer school is right around the corner! We are hiring now for summer school teachers and looking for staff to teach core instruction and engagement camps. If you are interested in interviewing this week, please contact Sarah Mumm or Stacey Gacek and if you have an idea for an Engagement Camp please complete the linked form for a great camp idea! Summer school will be held in July this year! We look forward to a great summer!
This January Kaneland is excited to highlight and celebrate our student learning and kick off our excitement for students to show what they know our assessments this Spring. We want students to show the pride in learning with the Show What You Know campaign. We have created a show what you know email address that students can submit a short video of what they have learned for a chance to win a winter raffle. Please share with your families the following blurb in your parent communication. Feel free to also work with students in class to create and submit videos.
Submit your Show What You Know story sharing your learning so far this year for a chance to be part of the winter raffle! Video a short description of something that you have learned and are excited to show what you know and send your celebration to this email ShowWhatYouKnow@kaneland.org. Entries will be highlighted in Knightly News, KCN and on Social Media so please be sure to only use your first name and your school in your video. Please submit your first and last name, grade level and school in the email for your raffle entry! Let's celebrate our learning Kaneland and Show What We Know!
The Lions for Literacy program has been working to purge some of the donation books collected this past year over break, and has some gently used books that are great for reading but cannot be used for gifts for students. The Lions for Literacy program focuses on supporting literacy within Kane County and providing books for students to take home to start their home libraries and supporting the Little Libraries across Kaneland area. The program will be running a new book drive this coming February and would like to give some of the books they are not able to use as gift books to our classrooms for students to read and teachers to use. The books are older titles and have been gently used but in good condition. If you would like a set of books to use in your classroom or to give to students to take home, please email Sarah Mumm your name and grade level and you will be sent out a set of donated books from our community.
We are excited to kick off our IAR and Spring Assessment prep process this coming week. In order to model the best practices in problem solving and working through sample problems, we have created a weekly calendar for all staff to model a past IAR test problem in a selected content area with staff. The intent is to not teach to the test, but rather to model and discuss how to apply learning strategies that we have learned the first semester to problems. These discussions should take place any time during the week and emphasize the vocabulary of the content area. The problems were selected through a deep dive of our past IAR test results and analyzing the reported standard progress students would need further support and discussion. We will also be hosting two virtual parent IAR informational nights that are noted on the attached calendars. Please share those dates with your students and families to attend as well.
Welcome back and Happy New Year! We are excited to have staff return to a fresh new 2025! I wanted to take a moment to update all staff on the progress of the Math Review Committee so we are all on the same page. We have been having staff pilot throughout the Fall the Envisions program at grades K, 1, 3, 4 and are concluding that pilot to move and to a second round of pilots with two to three more programs. This January to March we will have staff pilot I-Ready, Reveal and possibly Bridges at grades K-5 as well. The team also is working to set up visits to Sycamore to observe Bridges in action and is working on a visit to observe I-ready in action. The team will also be having a virtual sharing session with Burlington Schools to hear about their pilot feedback this February. All of the feedback from other schools, piloting and the team product review will conclude in late March with a materials proposal to the Board of Education in April. If your team would like to come and review sample materials, even if you are not on the committee and provide feedback, please contact Sarah Mumm to set up a date to come out to KMAC and preview. Please let any Math Committee member know any questions at all you might have.
