Lincoln Staff Blog

This week we get ready to begin our Laps for Lincoln fundraising! Our PTO parents did a great job kickstarting the launch. Please remember that the Laps for Lincoln date was set before our school calendar was set so it was impossible to know that would be a half day. I know our PTO feels bad that it falls on a half day. Let's remember they are our biggest supporters so let's return that love to them!

Laps for Lincoln donations will take place M, W, and F mornings on the stage.

This Week

10/3 WIDA Testing (pm)

10/4 Let Me Run Program Begins! (Grades 3 -5)

10/5 WIDA Testing (pm) & Count Day

10/5 Late Start (Grade Level Team)--Leaders will be in touch

10/6 New Teacher Training

Coming Up...

10/10 Kindergarten to Dinges Farms

10/11 PTO 12:30 - 1:30 (1st-grade Team)

10/12 Late Start

10/12 Lory's Place (11:40)

10/13 Half Day (Conferences)

10/14 Half Day (Conferences)

Future dates to know...

10/18 Staff Meeting 4 -5 pm

10/27 Flu Clinic

11/17 Thanksgiving Lunch

Many of you already know Ashley Ampersee, as she has been a familiar face in our building. We are now fortunate enough to have Ashley as a new staff member! Ashley will join our BEAR Team beginning Monday morning. We are thankful to have you on the team, Ashley!

Conference season is almost here! While you have two 1/2 days in October and November, it is up to you to schedule them as you see fit. Our expectation is 100% participation. For students who are identified as needing iRIPs, please plan a conference time when I am available to join you. This will need to be a slightly longer conference, so plan for 25- 30 min. Please share your conference schedule with the office when you have one. This allows the office to help direct parents and informs our custodial team when looking to get into classrooms after the school day.

*The first step is to identify students who need an IRIP. Last week you were asked to fill out this form so I could identify these students. Very few teachers have filled this out which slows the process and disrupts scheduling conferences for those families. Please complete the form and email me when your class is complete I will communicate any students needing an IRIP once you have emailed me.

This year we have taken a close look into the variety of online programs that our students have historically had access to through the lens of greatest impact, most use, and alignment to best practice and curricular resources. We also considered manageability for our educators to monitor student progress to make instructional decisions. After doing this, it became evident that we need to begin thinking deeply about streamlining our resources.

MOBY MAX

MobyMax is up for renewal at an unfortunate time (fall). It is expensive and used in pockets district-wide. Therefore we have decided to move forward with supporting our math curriculum with IXL only. We understand that for some of you, this is going to be disappointing news. Please know that we will happily provide additional support and resources around how best to utilize IXL moving forward, should that be needed.

RAZ

Additionally, RAZ Kids is a program we have discussed several times and found that it is used sparingly. When considering the relevance of books in their libraries and active student engagement, we feel other options may better serve the needs of our students. This year we will keep RAZ for our K-2 classrooms.

BENCHMARK TROUBLE?

Please see the following message from IT:

• Trouble with Benchmark Online may be due to an issue with cache/cookies. (Perhaps it has some really old information stored about the account and hasn't flushed the data to get the new info).
• Clear your cache/cookies: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050 (Here are instructions on how to do so).
• chrome://settings/clearBrowserData (Here is where they can clear old data).
• It is recommended to clear ONLY cache/cookies for all time and then reopen your browser.

Thank you for monitoring the playground and watching for students that are playing aggressively (even if pretend), hanging out by fence lines, and/or participating in sports games. All of these activities have been hot spots for us this year. Please stay in different zones when on duty. When staff is watching and monitoring, our students feel safe, secure, and connected to our school.

Also, thank you to Renee for supervising our safety patrol and training them to shut the gates in the morning! Such a huge help!

If you see a gate that is open, please take a moment to shut it. Mike King will ensure that our gates are able to shut with the latches.

I will be revising our supervision schedule and likely increasing the number of duties. This is necessary for both our playground supervision and before/after school supervision. Families are incredibly worried about the safety of our school. We owe it to them to ensure safety at all times, as we are responsible for their most precious gifts.

Additionally, there should not be families on the playground between 8:10 and 4:00 pm. This will be a change for our families, and that message is being delivered in today's blog. A simple statement of "For the safety of all of our students, we will need you to wait until the end of the school day to visit our playground" can be used if you are in this situation. You can always notify the office if you have concerns or difficulties. If you have an after-school duty, let's be sure to clear the playground at 4:00 and identify any students not picked up so our families can return to the playground if they would like.

As you are explicitly teaching your Daily 5 routines, be sure to include Lexia. Teach students about where to sit, how to use headphones, what to do if they get a red apple, and how to monitor minutes and units. Remember that the unit goal is important and can change at the beginning of each month. Please ensure that students are meeting their unit goal each week. If students have a larger goal (12 units), teach them how many units to complete each day. Meeting this unit goal will help ensure that the end of the year grade-level goal is met.

Mike King, Kristen, Officer Gean (SJPS liaison officer), and the St Joseph Police department have all visited Lincoln to monitor our morning and end-of-day routines. There will be significant changes to these routines to ensure the safety of our students. Several plans will be presented to the team, and a final plan will be prepared. Once this plan is in place, this is where our extra morning and after-school supervision will be required.

In the meantime, please stroll around the playground and monitor students in the morning. Many of our students gather outside the fenced area (by the south door) before school. When you see this, please ask students to move onto the playground so that they can be in sight of supervision.

Thank you to Mandy and Megan for getting all of our performances set for the year. The dates are as follows:

• 3rd: Dec. 14th
  Brown: 5 pm
  Clarke: 5:45 pm
  Lincoln: 6:30 pm

• 4th: Feb. 1st
  Brown: 5 pm
  Clarke: 5:45 pm
  Lincoln: 6:30 pm

• 1st: March 15th
  Brown: 5 pm
  Clarke: 5:45 pm
  Lincoln: 6:30 pm

• 2nd: April 19th
  Brown: 5 pm
  Clarke: 5:45 pm
  Lincoln: 6:30 pm

• 5th: May 31st
  Brown: 5 pm
  Clarke: 5:45 pm
  Lincoln: 6:30 pm

Melaina and Sarah are set to lead our Kindness club this year! Thank you to Sarah for jumping in and embracing our Lincoln students alongside Melaina. We appreciate you both supporting this very important initiative!

Thank you to Andria and Kelsey for taking the lead on student council this year. More to come as the year progresses!

Friday was a difficult day in terms of locating subs. Mallory spent much of her day diligently making phone calls. Undoubtedly, a lack of subs can cause frustration. Please keep in mind that this is nobody's fault.

On these days, we will need an "all hands on deck" attitude. Positivity is contagious so let's remember to lift each other up in tough times. It's important to remember that together we can do hard things. We will discuss alternate solutions when this occurs, but the end result is that many people could be affected when a colleague needs to be gone.

The substitute situation was equally bad in all 3 elementary buildings last year and could potentially be worse this year as we cannot secure permanent building subs. Again, lift your colleagues up when they are down, and know that if you are ever in need, your colleagues will be there to support you as well. Please know that when I ask for your help, I have worked through many scenarios, and in that moment, your assistance is the best to offer our students. Together we can do this!

I have had two ideas presented--construction workers or animals. Be thinking about this and let me know your thoughts!

✔️Complete the Lincoln IRIP Lists/Tier III Support Spreadsheet

✔️ Invite Lisa to your IRIP conferences

✔️Read our Lincoln Family Blog to stay current on what families are seeing from our school

✔️Please work on developing a strong sub folder. Use this checklist to help you.

✔️Be thinking about your professional goal if you are on an evaluation cycle- Due in iObservation Oct. 31. Here is the Marzano Framework for reference. More info in next week's blog

✔️Schedule a monthly meeting with me

Email: lknuth@sjschools.org
Website: www.sjschools.org
Location: 1102 Orchard Avenue, St. Joseph, MI, USA
Phone: 269.926.3700