From "It's only Winfield" to #onthemap!
Well done.
"The soft bigotry of lower expectations!"
Keep pushing and raising the bar.
October 13, 2016
Our deepest focus? Reading & Poverty?
Here is something I found on reading and something else on poverty… We may try and focus on Reading and poverty and how those two separate but connected issues relate to each other. Please read for our PD on Nov 16th.
Here is our Schedule for next week!
BUS SAFETY WEEK
Monday
- Basketball practices for boys and girls all week
- Night 1 - Parent Teacher Conferences - Please, order your dinner from this link here! We will order sandwiches with a few sides for everyone who orders off the menu.
- Math in Room 300
- 6th Grade in Cosby
- Social Studies in Davis
- SPED
- Science in Utlaut
- PE in East end of cafeteria
- ELA in Library ?
Tuesday
- Activities Committee mtg in Higgin’s room.
Wednesday
- Brunswick for 6th & 7th graders
- Night 2 Parent Teacher Conferences
Thursday
- Do you remember your earthquake drill procedures?
- Binder Teams
- Terri to attend to submit data cycles
Friday
- Fall Break - No School
Monday
- Fall Break - No School
Tuesday
- No Students - Tech PD Day
Ongoing/Upcoming
- Nov 2 - Early Release PD
- Jay Reese
- Scott Taylor
- First Aid for Coaches
- Poverty / Reading Connection
- SMART Goal
- Brunswick -Nov 9th for 8th & 9th
- November 16 Early Release theme
- Poverty
- Reading
Great work on so many things around the building. Focused rooms, data walls, student reported grades.
Watching the students eyes light up when they see their names called for the WOW’s makes it all worthwhile.
Your opinions matter. Your perspectives are important. Your talents are unique. You are here for such a time as this. Let's keep pushing these students with the highest expectations they can master.
We have come a long way from "It's only Winfield!" in our quest to be #onthemap
Superintendent’s Roundtable Discussion
The superintendent's roundtable meeting offered quite a few positives as well as constructive thoughts and comments about how we are doing.
Nutshell:
They love information.
They love the frequent reporting of student grades on SIS so they can access on their phones.
Parents would like to see a dept blog, or grade level blog, formal club enrolment processes, (maybe at those back to school nights???)
Here is what I am sending to the board for the monthly report.
Would you like me to add anything else?
Middle School Goal #1: 1 Student Achievement
What we have all been waiting for…
ELA Scores
Science Index Score
Building Summary
Middle School Goal #2: Student Behavior
Boat Floating
“When the water level rises, all boats float up together!”
In the same way: “As things get better for some, they get better for all!”
Agreed!
Winfield Middle School had a guest in the building all day on Wednesday touring classes. When she commented that we had “some of the best middle students” she had seen in a long time, I knew she wasn’t kidding. We cherish the support, trust, and positive outlook we see so regularly from folks at home. In fact, so far this year we have had only 36 visits to the office for behavioral issues, which is less than 1 per day. Thank you. This increased time in the classroom can only help students learn more, get more out of their time at school, and contribute to the improvement for all of us, just like the boat that floats. The water lifts all boats the same!
PBiS: 8 Effective Classroom Practices
- Classroom Expectations
- Classroom Procedures
- Encouraging Expected Behaviors
- Discouraging Inappropriate Behaviors
- Active Supervision
- Opportunities to Respond
- Sequencing and Choices
- Task Appropriateness
This chart demonstrates our current focus on the minors and addressing things through The Warrior Way, Reteaching, Buddy Rooms and Reflection sheets. By concentrating on the minors, we strive to minimize the number of majors. Early data tends to verify this relationship.
Middle School Goal #3: Student Attendance
Great start to this year! Students must be so excited to be here at school. I hear, “I’m glad to be back!” on Monday morning and “I wish we could come to school on Saturday!” on Friday afternoon.
In fact, the numbers look solid. Here are last year’s attendance percentages as compared to this year!
Brunswick is right around the corner!
We have over two hundred students that have earned the privilege to be invited to the MAP Celebration at Brunswick XL ZONE in O’Fallon. We are going to split them into two groups.
- The 6th and 7th graders will go on October 19th.
- The 8th and 9th graders will take their trip on November 9th.
These cheerleaders are encouraging!
Action Steps
We enlist to reach goals:
We enlist to reach goals:
- MAP Incentive Brunswick - Oct 19th for 6th & 7th
- Nov 9th for 8th & 9th
- Parent / Teacher Conferences 10/17 & 10/19 for the Middle School
- Fundraising
- Chromebooks for All*
- MobyMax for all*
- eValuate
- Newspapers in Education*
- Data Walls*
- NEE Teacher Evaluations
- Units of Instruction
- Lesson Plans
- Word Walls*
- Student Self Reported Grades*
- Teacher Support
- Collaborative Work Grant
- Math Consultants*
- ELA Trainers*
- Teacher Collaboration
- Block Scheduling in ELA
- Binder Content Meetings
- Parent Positive Postcards Home*
- PBiS
- Collaboration Days
- Pepsi (& Pizza*) with the Principal
- * New this year
Soft skills are also necessary for success...
One of our participants in the 6th grade CRIDER presentation wrote this afterwords as a reflection about her experience with these tough topics. We are so honored and impressed to serve these children and this community here at Winfield Middle School. Here’s one reason why!
Student Reflection on Crider Presentation
My week with Crider
9.26.2016
Today we had the privilege of having Crider come in and talk to us. Our speaker’s name was Mrs. Brown she was really nice, but she was straight to the point. We learned about conflicts and how to resolve them. In the lesson we talked about how to gain respect, trust, and privileges from our parents. We also talked about hot messages, cold messages, and cool messages which are three different ways that people solve conflicts. They told us that the correct way to solve a conflict is the cool message. In the cool message you use something called I message which is a polite yet effective way to resolve a conflict. These are skills that if practiced could be useful later in life in many situations. Such as, at school there can be lots of petty little disagreements that can escalate quickly so if you use I message then you can be ready to not let these things escalate. Another place you can use I messages later in life is at your job. Maybe you get into a disagreement with a co-worker. If you use I message you can handle the situation professionally and hopefully it won’t escalate, because if it does the consequences could be awful. We are very lucky to have Crider be able to come in and talk to us about these important topics.
9.27.2016
Today in Crider we got to learn about stereotyping and how to not stereotype. There are four steps, the first step is to examine your feelings. The second step is to empathize with others, the next step is to understand the source of your feelings. The last step is to reach out to others. The steps for how not to stereotype are very useful for now and later in life. If we work and practice these steps it will be easier for us to remember these steps and use them. Ways we can use these steps now is, for example if there is a new kid maybe instead of being uncomfortable and awkward you can make a new friend by using these steps. I am really excited that I get to go back and learn more tomorrow.
9.28.2016
In Crider today we learned about addiction. We focused mainly on alcohol and drug addiction. The thing Mrs. Brown really emphasized about if your parents, family member, friend, etc. is an alcoholic or is addicted to drugs it is never ever your fault. She said that when people are drunk they say things they don’t mean and most the time don’t remember. If this information is ever needed it can be incredibly useful because you can see signs of if a friend is addicted. Mrs. Brown also said that when someone is addicted you can’t do anything to help except tell them your opinion, they have to change themselves, they have to want to not be addicted, they have to want help.
9.29.2016
Today we covered the five stages of denial, depression, and if depression gets too far. We learned that when you are sad it is important to let it out because if you don’t it can lead to depression which sadly can lead to suicidal thoughts. It is okay to let out your feelings because when you are in the five stages of denial it’s the best thing you can do for yourself. If someone says something about how they hate life and they wish they were dead it is NOT okay, if that does happen it needs to be handled seriously don’t just shrug it off or tell them they’re being dramatic. What needs to happen is you need to ask them why they feel this way, persuade them to talk to someone, ( if they don’t you will ) and tell them you will be with them the whole time. This is a very serious thing that needs to be handled correctly and cautiously.
9.30.2016
In Crider today we talked about abuse, physical, verbal, and sexual. Physical abuse is when you are under the age of eighteen and someone such as a parent hits you hard enough to leave a bruise. It doesn’t matter if they hit you for punishment or anger if it left a bruise it’s physical abuse. Verbal abuse to some may be even worse than physical abuse. Verbal abuse is when people say really mean things, but they usually don’t mean what they’re saying or sometimes they don’t even remember it. Sexual abuse is when someone that should not be touching your privates does. A doctor has medical reasons to touch you in that area, parents sometimes have reason to, but not often. People that sexualy abuse people are called molesters. If you have been abused in any way you need to tell someone.
Recap
This week in Crider we covered these five topics, conflicts, excepting people, addiction, five stages of denial, and abuse. From this week I learned about ways to earn respect from my parents, to put myself in other people's shoes, (to not stereotype/judge people) that if someone is an alcoholic only they can change there ways, to let my feelings out when I’m sad, and that if I am being abused I need to tell someone. I appreciate this information so I can be better prepared for events that can arise in life.
-Student
Student Reported Grades, Data Walls and Word Walls
Not just for English Class, most rooms of the middle school now have Word Walls and Data Walls.
Looking west and looking east at the same time!
Similarly, the middle school carries so many mixed emotions, behaviors, attitudes and responses! Regardless, we find our joy serving these students through this tenuous season. We know, expect and plan for the dynamic days of growth and change.
Serving students, community and staff of Winfield,
Tom McCracken
Student of the Month Candidates
Lexi
Lexe Moore
I would like to nominate Lexe Moore from my pre -algebra class! I have had the pleasure of having her in math since 6th grade and she has made tremendous improvements! She comes to class with a smile on her face, prepared, and ready to learn! She is helpful to her peers and sets a wonderful example of how an 8th grader should act at school! She excels in softball and is a good friend to many. So proud of the young lady she’s become!
Carrie Gracey
JImmy Smoot
This student should be awarded the student of the month because his effort level in art class has been through the roof! His projects exceed expectations and he is an excellent example of perfect focus in class.
Courtney Flamm
Kadence Berry
We learn to write, then write to learn! Our students Kadence described her interpretation of a tough talk at Winfield Middle School. TOpics such as peer conflict, stereotypes, addictions, the 5 stages of grief, and abuse were all addressed by an outside counselor to our 6th grade students. Katie shared some of her thoughts here and we wanted you all to see those.
Tom McCracken
NOT FOR THE BOE BELOW
Serving students and staff
Tom McCracken
Links
Maybe I should leave this section here so we can refer to it as a bookmark page???
The Manifesto
- Binder Team Notes - If you want editing rights, please request
- Committee Progress - (Report back during Next PD)
- Culture/Climate - PD Early Release Archives
- HOT Sheets - maybe a work in progress
For instance, at the beginning of the year, I wrote out a huge document, almost a manifesto, on what I thought the building should be. The document even needed an introduction page, called Page One, and a Table of Contents. I discussed
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