The EduGATOR!

Monday, December 16-Regular School Day

Aspiring Admin PLC @ 3:30 in Career Center

PD Committee Meeting @ 4:30 on google meet

Tuesday, December 17-*DESE on site for Tiered Focus Monitoring Assessment

Wednesday, December 18-Regular School Day

Thursday, December 19-Regular School Day

Friday, December 20-Wear jeans and your Gator Gear! (or your spirit week stuff)

(if you have great pics, please send them to me after checking if students have photo releases! I would love to share them in the EduGATOR or on social media!)

All staff in all roles are invited to attend Gateway's mid-year celebration sponsored by the Barr Foundation.

This event includes free admission and food as long as you RSVP. This is a full brewery reservation, so we have full access to the facility from 3-7pm. Partners/children are welcome. If you would like to stay later than 7pm, you are welcome to do so, it will just be open to the public at that time.

Food will include flatbread pizzas, charcuterie boards, chips, veggies, fruit, and sliders. There will be a cash bar. The facility will have a wide range of beers including fruited sours, plus non-alcoholic beer, seltzer, water and soda, plus juice for kids.

RSVP HERE! Please RSVP By January 3.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLNi8no6_2zZi4pYXS67gCqw-VCEw_5zKlBwO1T_IaYao1fw/viewform?usp=dialog

As part of the work of the Evaluation Evaluation Task Force from over the summer, the question arose regarding how teachers would earn an exemplary rating on their evaluation since the DESE standard is proficient. This document is meant to provide insight as to what separates exemplary from proficient. It is a tool/resource for your reflection that was developed by admin to provide clarity and tuned by the teachers on the eval task force.

If you have questions about the tool, please reach out to your evaluator or me! :)

Speaking of evaluation, this is a friendly reminder that educators who are in a one year evaluation cycle are requested to submit evidence on family outreach (standard 3), professional growth (standard 4) and progress on goals by January 5 for evaluators to consider for the formative evaluation.

The full document providing guidance for the educator evaluation process can be found here.

Here are some big takeaways from the PD last Tuesday. Thank you for your attention!

Special Education:

• Student IEPs are focused on student strengths and areas of growth AND student voice plays a large role in the process

• The IEP Team includes the student, parent, general ed teachers, a special ed teacher and (when applicable) related service providers who collaborate to design and deliver instruction.

• General Education teachers have the legal responsibility to provide modifications to the curriculum. More specifically, because we need to be sure that the IEP is working, all team members implement the recommended accommodations, modifications and instructional approaches and collect data that shows how the student’s skill development is changing. This is how we know that what we’re doing is working so that the student is making effective progress in school which is the discussion at the team meeting.

• Students should be included as much as possible in the general education setting to comply with the law and offer them access to grade level content and peers.

• We all have a legal responsibility to provide the necessary support and services to educate students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment (LRE) possible. For most students, this means in the mainstream with their neurotypical peers

Here are some documents/links that were shared by Laurel as resources:

The General Overview send by Laurel with links

DESE Family Guides on Grade Level Standards

Safety:

• Individuals should have the mindset of strength and survival.

• Avoid, Deny, Defend are all active actions to be taken in an attack situation.

• Make a plan ahead of time to consider how best to implement these strategies. **Please grab a partner and take five minutes to try to barricade the door with the door blockers. They had limited success at the last lockdown.

• The big lesson was that individuals should be empowered to think on their feet to be able to defend themselves to the best of their ability given the circumstances.

After a successful start in November, we will continue into December with inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.

This month's focus are the second two bullets in the instructional vision are:

• Gateway students will recognize their strengths and areas of growth to reach their potential.
• Gateway staff will believe in every student's potential.

Staff are invited to fill out a brief (2-3 sentences!) summary of how you are implementing this part of our vision. It can be specific or general, and it should clearly describe how your actions are moving this part of our instructional vision forward.

Here is the link to share!

https://padlet.com/ksmidy1/december-instructional-vision-gateway-students-will-recogniz-n6hyqndlkvrpdw73

To add to the board, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner and write in your submission. Finally, hit Publish and voila! You're done!

Staff who share how they are implementing or supporting implementation of December's focus area of the instructional vision by December 31 will be entered to win a $50 gift card to one of the following locations: Carms, Common Table, Moltenbreys, Amazon, Big Y, Dunkin or at a place of your choice that I can get a gift card with relative ease 😂

I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.

The financial State of the District was shared at our School Committee meeting on December 12. This is the full presentation for your information. I'm going to share bits of this data out over the next few EduGATORs so don't feel like you need to go through it, but you are absolutely welcomed to!

Some general data to share to kick us off:

Our full operating budget is: $17,971,760

Our student demographics 2023-24 DESE Data

English Language Learner

Students with Disabilities

High Needs

Next time: enrollment swings between towns (which affects how much each town pays towards our budget)

Approved District Strategy Plan

Safety Memo 8/8/23

MTSS DESE Blue Print

Approved District Bullying Prevention Plan

December 9

• PD information
• Free Sped Course for PDPs from DESE
• Ethics Commissioner Gifts for Public Employees Memo
• Maintenance/Tech Reminder for Help Desk Ticket

December 2

• November Instructional Vision Challenge Winners!
  
• Lockdown Reminders
• Wellness Center Access Paperwork
• Rural School Data

November 25

• Aspiring Admin PLC invitation
• Instructional Vision Challenge
• Rural Aid Data
• GEF Fundraiser
• Chester Food Drive
• Coat Drive Info