October 6, 2014

High Point News

Week of: October 6th, 2014

********NEWS*************************

Report Cards
Due to limited access to TAC and class lists not complete, High Point's report card distribution date has been extended by one week. We will be notifying parents through an email blast and putting it in the High Point's Newsletter. Teachers, please also help us to communicate this distribution date change to parents. The new date is October 23rd. Thank you!!! 

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Reminders

Teachers, please be reminded that students are not allowed to come to the office and fill up your water bottles. There are a lot of accidental spills happening so we need to keep that area for "Adults Only."  Also, remember that it is your responsibility to check your mailboxes each day. You can check them before school, at lunch, on your planning time or after school. Items will not be given to students if they come down. Sensitive/confidential information might be placed in your mailboxes and students should not be privy to that. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. 

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ITBS Training

A mandatory training is scheduled for administering the ITBS. This will include 3^rd, 5th, ESOL, EIP, Special Ed, Speech, Admin, and Support Staff. Kindergarten teachers will be trained as emergency testing examiners. You can select the day and time of the session you wish to attend. The ITBS is scheduled for October 20^th- 24^th.

Tuesday, October 14^th (Teacher Work Day) @ 2:00 p.m.

Wednesday, October 15^th-During Common Planning

·         3^rd Grade (10:05-10:50)

·         5^th Grade (12:45-1:30)

·         Kindergarten (1:35-2:20)

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International Baccalaureate Moment

Follow two teachers as they explore inquiry-based learning! They have created a great website of information, tools and samples of their lessons.  Or if you are the type to jump right in, follow this link straight to their integrated inquiry lessons to get some ideas of your own! 

http://www.inquiry-based.com/integrated-lessons.html  

Teachers are learners, too, share in their learning journey! 

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It's GA Pre-K Week

Georgia Pre-K Week is a week-long celebration of Georgia’s Pre-K and the value of early education.  During this week, leaders from across the state visit Pre-K classrooms where they meet staff members, read to students, and witness the quality learning that Georgia Pre-K programs, like yours, provide.

·        Why do we celebrate Georgia Pre-K Week?  Georgia Pre-K Week is an opportunity to showcase the Pre-K program to key decision-makers. Legislators and community leaders from every corner of Georgia are signing up to visit Pre-K centers. The Governor and over two-thirds of Georgia legislators and leaders have participated in Georgia Pre-K Week.  Additionally, over 450 centers in 117 of Georgia’s counties have celebrated Georgia Pre-K Week in years past.

      We are excited to welcome a state visitor to our school on the 10th!!

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Hosting CST Meeting Today

The Central Learning Community CSTs will be meeting at High Point today .

During the morning, they will be doing instructional rounds in some of your classrooms. These observations are not evaluative and will be used as a growth experience for our school. Sheri will gather the “Glows and Grows” from the CSTs and share with those teachers who were observed. 

Thank you for welcoming them into your classrooms!

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What I've Been Thinking About…

The following article is about how to make a parent love a teacher.


One of our main focus areas in our strategic plan is Building Community. We have been served with forming relationships with parents, getting to know the "whole" child in every classroom, and creating a partnership with parents to help their child succeed. The following article discusses how "knowing" each child and creating systems for remembering information about them is vital. 

http://corkboardconnections.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-makes-parent-love-teacher.html

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PBIS This Week

• Reminder!!! We are focusing on hallway behavior. Classes with impressive hallway behavior will receive "classroom" tickets. This is just a blue ticket made out to the whole class. At the end of the week, we will find out which class on each grade level earned the most "classroom" tickets for hallway behavior. Ms. Alexander will announce the winners on the morning news on Mondays. 
• All staff members: Please be on the lookout for classes with great hallway behavior. When you see this, please give a blue ticket to the teacher or a student representative made out to the whole class. If you do not have a ticket, please tell the teacher to add one when they get into the classroom. 
• Homeroom teachers: Please email your PBIS representative with the number of classroom tickets you have earned each week. If you already have a system for hallway compliments, please combine the classroom tickets into your established system. 

Congratulations to the following classrooms for displaying amazing hallway behavior:

Pre-K - Ms. Rogers

1st - Ms. Cornibe

4th - Ms. Taylor

5th - Ms. Nobles

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Learning Tuesday Tomorrow After School

Please click on the link, if you have not already done so, to choose which TWO sessions you want to attend for our Learning Tuesday tomorrow. This will take you less than 2 minutes to complete so please do so before TODAY at noon.     

http://goo.gl/forms/wAI3sZx4RS

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Have Questions??

Just a friendly reminder that if you have questions during your PLC that pertain to staff members other than the Admin Team (Pitchford, Alexander, Hess, and Salmons) to include them on the email with your minutes: 

• RTI Tier III - Jacque Radford
• RTI Tier II - Kristen Trenbeath
• STAR - Kerstin Long
• Math - Kerstin Long
• Class Changes - Rhodope Fears
• Media - Gray Griffith

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Attention all 3^rd, 4^th,and 5^th grade Teachers:

Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 16^th  2:50-3:15 p.m in the Media Center. There will be an introduction to the Ga. Milestones assessment. You will get information on content weights, learn about the scoring, and see some sample questions/tasks. This will be the 1^st of many sessions that we will have for you on the new  Ga Milestones.

****Our Math Corner******************

Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.

Onstage at TED2013, Sugata Mitra makes his bold TED Prize wish: Help me design the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud. Hear his inspiring vision for Self Organized Learning Environments by clicking on the link below. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud

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CANCELLED TRAINING

As a reminder, the Writer’s Workshop meeting during your planning time today has been postponed.  Date TBD.

****VISUALS OF BEST PRACTICES****

In Ms. Nesmith’s 2^nd grade ESOL class, during their Writer’s Workshop, they talked about each of the writing goals and the importance of each one. The students chose which goal that they wanted to work on initially. As Ms. Nesmith conferenced with each of the students, she discussed if that was a good goal, if they will continue to work on that goal OR if he/she will try a different one.

It is important to involve students in their goal setting. Do not set goals for them, rather communicate to them why it is important to set goals, and guide them through the process. Doing this makes students feel more involved in their learning and development. They will take responsibility and feel accountable for their results.

*****WRITERS' GALLERY**********

The writers' gallery/pledge is hosted by Ms. Taylor's class this week.

The writers' gallery/pledge will be hosted by Ms. Calhoun's class next week.

******CALENDAR OF EVENTS*******

Monday, October 6th
9:00 - Everybody Wins Orientation
9:30 - Parent Tours

Tuesday, October 7th 

2:50 Learning Tuesday 
Pitchford to Focus Meeting
Alexander to CLC AP Meeting

Wednesday, October 8th
Fall Pictures
2:30 - Staff Picture in Cafeteria 

Thursday, October 9th 

Qdoba for Lunch - Order by Wednesday
2:50 - PLCs
Pitchford to New Principals Meeting

Friday, October 10th 
State Visitor to Pre-K
Send your tickets down and change your Student of the Week!

******BIRTHDAYS! ****************

Happy birthday to Rebecca Negrin on the 7th, Jill McCord on the 9th, and Jennifer Silverman on the 10th, We wish you all a very happy birthday!!!