1-27-2023

 Angela has done a great job with advertising the yearbooks.  Personalizing the posters with actual pictures of different students is a great personal touch!

Thanks to team leaders for scheduling the 5 Essentials survey for our students.  Also thanks in advance for taking the survey.  Your feedback is important for our improvement as a whole.  

It's fun time down in the old Benjamin Roller Rink.  Thanks to Jen and Joe for creating this awesome opportunity for our students and for teaching the kids precautions to keep them safe.  

Best of Luck to Coach Mejia and our Bengal Chess team as they play in a tournament in Barrington on Saturday!

Thanks to Betty for facilitating the Access Test for our EL students. Also thanks to Greg and Vanessa for getting the tech aspect ready.  

Hats off to Solly for doing a ton of work for the compliance visit also thanks to the staff members who helped me on some of the compliance items. 

Great article on student writing in the age of AI.  

https://www.edutopia.org/article/ai-writing-tools-middle-high-school

Thanks to Kerri for sending out the PO directions to everyone.  These are the same steps that Ellen had sent last year, the google form will now go to Kerri who can then submit it to Skyward for approval.

The basketball girls celebrating a victory (and 2 birthdays)!

I appreciate Todd making a lot of trips back and forth from Evergreen to Benjamin to help support our students and staff this week.  

I appreciate the lunch supervisors for assisting me in giving the sports interest survey to all of our students.

Please remember to send Dr. Salamone & myself the list of your summer school candidates today.

5 researched based ways to give meaningful feedback to your students:

I appreciate our 7th grade team setting up the reward trip today for our students who worked hard to earn it!  

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." ~ Albert Einstein

"The mind is like a trunk: if well-packed, it holds almost every thing; if ill-packed, next to nothing." -- Augustus William Hare

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977) 

1-20-2023

 Jessica and Jen H did a wonderful job of preparing and presenting at the NJHS Induction ceremony.  Their hard work provided a beautiful ceremony for the inductees and their parents while emphasizing the important work they do throughout the year.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the new in-house PD form sent out this week.  Please fill this form out if you are working at school on March 3rd.  Also, if you are going out please submit your district conference request form soon,  This allows the district office to consolidate payment for multiple attendees of the same conference and ensure it gets there before the deadline.

Using nature writing to improve student analytical skills.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/nature-writing-develop-analytical-skills

Thanks to all of  the teachers working on curriculum maps this  past Wednesday and the small group working with me on our mandated units of study.  It is important that our maps reflect what we teach and that we implement the MUOS in meaningful ways.  

Thanks to Jen V and Joe for all of their hard work in getting their healthy cooking units organized and implemented with students.  The emphasis is definitely on student safety and cleanliness but the results are still tasty!

Pretty cool article on the importance of building relationships...not fluff ...the better your relationships are, the longer and happier your life will be.

https://blog.ed.ted.com/2022/02/28/6-relationship-resolutions-to-make-this-year/

This is your weekly reminder to schedule your 2nd formal observation with me if you have not done so already!

I am excited for the upcoming girls basketball season.  Please sign up to supervise/work the home games on the sign-up genius link that Dan sent out.

I appreciate the job that Megan D, Kerry and Kendra do with the Bengal Cafe.  Having student volunteers help Kerry's class is also a great component to this life skills unit.

Big thanks to everyone that does lunch duty everyday.  Supervising our kiddos during recess and lunch during these winter months definitely keeps you on your toes.  

How do you engage passive learners.

https://teacherhead.com/2023/01/17/tps6-how-do-i-engage-passive-learners/

Shout Out to Jen Matthews! Being our permanent sub is not an easy task as she fills in for a different teacher each day and she has definitely shown this year that she can be flexible and give additional support whenever she has a spare moment!  

Thanks to Chris for keeping the BB300 coming three days a week.  I think this years crew all do an outstanding job of being engaging for the listeners.  Also thanks to the teaching staff for ensuring that the students are listening and not talking or doing other things during this homeroom time.  

Very happy to have Michael Miles with us again this week.  Watching him play and interact with our students is always a great experience. Thanks to Melissa for creating this opportunity and to Angela for capturing some pics.  

I have a parent letter ready to go for the 5essentials Survey, Greg informed me that the link for students and staff is already pushed out to devices from last year, and Kim is preparing the student class lists with their state id necessary to take the survey.  For all of these components we are waiting on the current link.  The survey runs from January 24th-March 31st.  

Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.

Max Frisch

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945)

Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone.

Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946) 

1-13-2023

 Kerri Snyder has jumped right into our office and has done a great job of helping out.  I have received many compliments from staff  about the fine job she is doing in her first week!

The Boys Varsity Basketball season ended with a loss on Thursday night.   Dan and Matt have done a great job of keeping the student athletes focused on doing the best job they can on and off the court. 

Thanks to the 8th grade team for facilitating the WCHS counselors this week with our students.  This is an important time for our 8th grade students and their transition to the high school.   

7 Attention getters to use in class.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-attention-getters-use-instead-raising-your-voice

Nicollett has done a great job helping fill needed gaps in our support this week and will work her way into supporting our check-in/check-out students starting next week.  Thanks to the grade level teams for giving us students to start this intervention with.

As we start the second half of the school year please remember to keep the structure and rigor our students need in the classroom and the hallways and other common areas.  Teaching & re-teaching expectations is how our students will learn and grow.  

I'd like to welcome Kim Anderson to Benjamin 25.  She will be making her way around our building to become more familiar with our school and has already been a great help at the ad center in many ways.  I am sure you will here more from her in the near future. 

Thanks to Jessica who gave a wonderful presentation on Wednesday at our staff learning meeting. All three pedagogies (chat stations, movement, and in-class flip) seem like they would benefit our students.  I am excited for you to try them out in your classroom.  

Now from Cult of Pedagogy here are 6 tech tools to try in 2023:

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/6-ed-tech-tools-to-try-in-2023/

Thank you to Kerry K, Jen Vidic and Joe H. for attending the PTA meeting Thursday night.  Jen and Joe were also honored for their work with the PTA on the Fun-Run earlier in the year where the district raised $6,000 and the PTA decided to match those funds!  Great job guys!

Please don't forget staff on cycle: ...it is up to you to schedule your second formal observation with me and/or check in with me on your alternate evaluation progress.  Also, please keep checking in on your student growth progress.  Let me know how Melissa and I can help.

Thanks to everyone for the work that you continue to do in teams to help students.  Whenever I pop in I am always amazed at the dialogue and problem solving that is taking place to do what we can to support struggling students.  

Thanks for the work that was done on curriculum this past Wednesday.  One question that came up Wednesday that I want to share as I believe it would benefit other people.  On the standards section, don't just list the numbers actually list what the standards are with the numbers.  this makes it much easier for everyone when they reading the curriculum map to understand what is being taught in relation to the standards.  It is a little more time consuming when you first type it out, but then can easily be copied and pasted for other curriculum units.  Please let me know if I can help answer any question on curriculum mapping.

Resources for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

A collection of lesson plans, curricula, and multimedia resources for teaching the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 https://www.edutopia.org/article/resources-martin-luther-king-jr-day-matt-davis

I know that some of the March 4th County-Wide PD opportunities are opening up.  You do have permission to attend an out of district conference.  I know many of these are free or minimal cost.  Please see me before you register as we need to do two things:

1.  have an accurate account of where people will be on this day

2.  Figure out the best method of payment for those that charge.  Many conferences have different procedures for registration and if we have multiple people going to the same conference we want to consolidate payment as much as possible.  

All people going out of district need to fill out the conference request form regardless if the conference costs money or not

Staff that is staying in-house I will send you a form that you will need to fill out with your agenda for the day.  This will allow me to request PD hours for the day with the ROE. Evergreen will be doing the same. Please see me if you have any questions.  

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." -- Voltaire

"By walking, I found out where I was going." -- Irving Layton

"Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be a part of the solution, not the problem." -- Stephen Covey