12/5/16 Daily Bulletin

Shout Out

Shout out to John, Chris, Victor, Ryan and Otis, the amazing Curley Custodial Team for all their hard work! A retired BPS educator toured our building on Friday and stated, "I have been in and out of this building for 30 years and this is the cleanest I have ever seen this building look." Thank you for Keeping It Clean day in and day out!

Health and Wellness

Please join us for our December meeting on Tuesday, December 6th from 7:30am-8:15am in room 203 Upper School. We will be finalizing our new policy on celebrations at school that will take effect in January 2017.

School Climate Team Meeting

Please join us for the School Climate Team Meeting on Wednesday, December 7th from 3pm-4:15pm in room 003.

PD Information from Steven Chen

• Training Evaluation: Please have your staff complete the evaluation at the following link: http://research.hrc.org/s3/wseval. The module was "Creating Gender Expansive Schools." 
• Culture and Climate Assessment: Please also have each member of your staff complete the Culture and Climate Assessment (http://research.hrc.org/s3/climate). Once this is completed, you and your staff will get a report with the results, and we be able to focus on specific areas for training and reassess at the end of the program to determine whether there has been growth. 
• Gender Resources and Lesson Plans 
• Books and Resources: Here is the link for books and resources discussing gender expansive students: http://www.welcomingschools.org/resources/books/transgender-youth/. I am also attaching a PDF with many of these resources in a printable format. 
• Lesson Plan Ideas: Here is a link for lesson plans and other ideas on the topic of today's training: http://www.welcomingschools.org/resources/lesson-plans/transgender-youth/
• Information about gender development: This is for the teachers who have questions about how gender develops by age from Gender Spectrum: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ohb5dhyqqznjmgk/Gender%20Across%20the%20Grades_112514.pdf?dl=0

Math PD Opportunity

Collective Action to Develop Awareness:
Equity & Social Justice in Mathematics Education
Which equity-based strategies can be incorporated in your math education work now? Which ones are most difficult? Why? Register now to gain insights into the various readings identified in A Call for Collective Action to Develop Awareness: Equity & Social Justice in Mathematics Education. Join us for the 60-minute webinar on Monday, December 5, at 7:00 p.m. ET. Speakers and discussants will include John Staley, Christine Thomas, Dorothy White, Diane Kinch, Julia Aguirre, and Marilyn Strutchens. The webinar will conclude with the following closing question: What is one thing the organizations could do to further support your work in making mathematics education a more just, humane, and positive experience for children? This webinar is offered as part of NCTM's continuing work and collaboration on equity and social justice in mathematics education.

Insight Survey

Last week you were emailed an Insight Survey. BPS is asking all teachers to complete this survey. This year’s fall survey will be sent to all teachers via a link in an email. The Insight survey only takes about 15 minutes to complete. The fall administration will close December 14th, and the spring administration is currently scheduled for between May 22nd and June 5th.

Artifacts

All artifacts must be uploaded to EDFS by December 15th. Administrators need time to review artifacts prior to writing Formatives. Please remember that 2-3 items should be uploaded for each goal (Student Learning & Professional Practice) AND each standard (I, II, III, IV). This means around 12-18 artifacts, we know you are doing many amazing things but uploading more than that makes it challenging to review each item thoroughly. Be sure that there is evidence tagged to each goal and standard. Also note that it is just as important to include a thorough description of what you uploaded. Do no assume that the evaluator will know why you choose to upload a particular document. Please let your evaluator know if you have any questions.

STAR Math Assessment Window(Gr. 3-8 Only)

The winter screening window for the STAR Math Assessment is December 5 – 9. This assessment will give us growth data for our students. Please make sure that you have looked at the data from the first assessment to identify students in the urgent intervention and intervention category. Use Stars data analysis to begin thinking of ways to support these students growth so that they can start to move out of urgent intervention to intervention and intervention to on watch. If as a grade level you need support doing this please email Sean Guthrie to schedule a grade level meeting. The STAR website can be accessed by all students using the STAR bookmark on Chromebooks. Student user names and passwords are the same as STAR Reading. Students can use blank scratch paper and a pencil while testing, but no calculators or reference materials are allowed. Just a reminder, students must sign into Chromebooks using their email address and password – not as “guest”. Grade level teams should arrange to share access to Chromecarts so that all students are tested during the screening window. Please contact Sean Guthrie if you have any questions.

Tenacity

Come celebrate with Tenacity on Thursday, December 15th, when we’ll hold our annual ‘Mid-year Ceremony: There’s No Place Like Tenacity’ to showcase program highlights and recognize student accomplishments from the first part of the school year. The event will be from 5:30pm-7:30pm in the Lower School Gym, with dinner being served around 5:45pm. All Curley staff is welcome to stop by! We hope to see you there! If you have any questions please feel free to contact Ms. AuGuste at cathyauguste@tenacity.org

Math PD

They are looking for BPS classrooms to pilot these tasks and collect (identifier-free) student work samples before going public with these offerings. This is totally optional! If interested and excited, continue to read :) If not, feel free to delete or pass along to someone you recommend. All participating schools will get FREE access to pilot the Measured Progress STEM Gauge modules this spring.

• What: ELA and Math Performance Task Pilot (check out attachment overview) 
• Who: 10 math classrooms (Gr2-HS) and 13 ELA classrooms (K-12). If interested in giving both math and ELA to your students please let me know in your response. 
• When: Each task (one per classroom) takes between 60-90 minutes and can be administered starting 12/12 through 1/6. Participating teachers will need to join a 30 minute webinar prior to assessment. 2 hour commitment in total. 
• How: Measured Progress will ship printed materials directly to you for administration. When students are done, simply put all materials back in box and use return labels to send to Measured Progress for scoring. 
• Why: What's better than watching students engage with super rigorous and relevant performance tasks? Measured Progress will send you synthesized data and feedback from your student samples. Not all student work will be graded. They are ultimately looking for how students perform on these tasks to inform their item creation process. 

Next Steps: Email Mike to learn more or to sign up for a specific subject. We only need one classroom per task. Deadline to sign up is this Friday 12/2.As you all know, we now have a new formative assessment system with items created by Measured Progress, all accessed through the platform illuminateed. This formative assessment system will soon include standards-aligned cognitively demanding performance tasks. I want to let all of you know about an opportunity to pilot some of these cognitively demanding performance tasks at the Gr2-high school grade levels that would be included in our formative assessment system. Attached is information about the particulars, including the fact that these would need to be piloted between 12/12 and 1/6 and there would be a webinar to participate in before beginning the pilot. Please email Mike Rubino at mrubino@bostonpublicschools.org to sign up by this Friday, December 2nd.

ABA PD

Attached are two flyers for district wide professional development opportunities presented by the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) department.

Highlights include:

A 3 Part Behavior Management Series (separate flyer)

What Am I Doing Now? (coming up quickly in December!)

Who Needs ABA?

Motivating Reluctant Learners

Mindfulness And ABA, No Way!

RSVP links are in the flyers themselves - hope to see many of you there!

Fall Term Report Card Grading Window for Grades K2 - 5

The fall grading window for students in grades 1-5 is will open from November 21st to December 9th. Please refer to the materials below for instructions on entering grades. Reminder: After entering or editing grades in the scores tab, teachers must click Post Grades to write the grades to the report cards. Grades will be saved as you enter them but they will not appear on the report cards until you click Post Grades.

Entering Grades Handout

Elementary Comment Codes Handout

How to verify that your grades are posted

SAVE THE DATE

2nd Annual Smile and Say Cheers New Year's Party
Formal invitations with RSVP details will be coming soon! 

Staff mark your calendars!!
January 13, 2017 at 4:30pm Bella Luna

School Previews

We are looking for family volunteers to support our upcoming School Previews. These are building tours for perspective families and Curley families help to lead and share information from a parent’s point of view. All families are welcome to participate and no prior experience is necessary (we will partner you up with others). The preview dates will take place on Friday, December 9th from 9am-10am, Friday, January 13th from 9am-1pm and Monday, December 23rd from 3pm-4pm. Please email Arusha Hollister (arusha_h@yahoo.com) if you Doodle Poll: Doodle: Curley Preview Tours

$1500 Early Retirement Incentive Out; Deadline January 13, 2017

In order to assist hiring for the 2017 - 2018 school year, the Boston Public Schools is offering a one-time incentive for early notification of termination to members of the BTU Teachers’ Unit.
1. An individual must be a permanent BTU Teacher, have a minimum of ten (10) years of continuous service in the Boston Public Schools, and must meet the minimum age requirement of fifty-five (55) years. 

2. Eligible employees presently on paid or unpaid leave of absence can apply.
3. The application, once accepted by the Office of Human Capital by execution of the Separation Agreement, is binding on both parties and irrevocable.
4. Applicants understand that the termination must be effective between June 30, 2017 and August 31, 2017.
http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20161107/dd/1a/e8/c9/8eeabebfe1475e91be2b1c93/HRS-PP08_Incentive_for_Early_Notification_of_Termination_for_BTU_vF-3.pdf

SPED PD Options

Below are some PD options being offered at the Curley during our contractual PD dates. Staff may want to include one or more of these into their team PD plan. Here is the link to sign up   https://goo.gl/forms/BwtGbumLgXBfLUMF2

• Jan 19th --- Paperwork/IEP Progress Reports 
• Feb 16th --- Tier 1 and Tier 2 Interventions/curriculum modification 
• March 16th --- Behavior Supports 
• April 27th --- Understanding Disabilities and Services available 
• May 18th --- Middle School Transition/Life Skills 
• June 1st --- Inclusion