Fondren Family Weekly Newsletter
End of Cycle 3
IMPORTANT REMINDERS
✨🌟Instructional Focus:
Thank you teachers for your hard work and dedication. Your classrooms and lessons are looking GREAT and we are PROUD to host district personnel walks to visit our campus and observe all of the great things you all are doing that will continue to make an even greater impact on all of our students. I am excited for them to visit as I know they will be impressed by everyone's instructional expertise- this is your time to SHINE.✨🎉
As a reminder, we will begin MOY NWEA MAP Assessment next week. Please know, that we will have district visitors on campus monitoring the testing environment and ensuring that all test administrators are following testing protocols and starting the test sessions on time. *Testing must begin by 8:00 a.m. In addition, it is campus, district, and state expectations that all Test Administrators should be actively monitoring students as they complete the assessment. Test Administrators cannot have any electronic devices on them while in the testing environment.
As a reminder, district IRT walk #2 will begin on January 21st. The window for these walks will be January. We will share the information and feedback from our Mock IRT visit that was completed earlier today (January 10th).
As we mentioned in the January 6th PD, please make sure that you are focusing on all areas of the spot observation rubric (linked with descriptions below) when practicing your lessons with a special emphasis on:
I am attaching our January 6th PD presentations here for your reference: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XZvg_8k__byEq-2rJ_pKHIr6ZePnBh8c?usp=sharing
Other important information:
- SHOUT OUTS:
- Mr. Lumibao for his flexibility in moving classrooms to open up a new PreK classroom and attending our 2nd-4th ELAR PLC's
- Mrs. Singleton for allowing me to share her best practices and exemplars of how she is teaching writing with a purpose- during the South Division principal meeting (see below for pictures of her masterpieces 🤩).
- Mrs. Deshpande for organizing afterschool tutorials and using student data to discuss decisions with adding in more grade levels.
- Mrs. Sandoval for assisting with tutorials and ensuring that communication is sent in regards to updates on tutorials (cancellations, etc.)
- Mrs. Adams for thinking outside the box and providing math/science teachers with writing supports for students to utilize as they complete their SCRs. Aside from this, she has been spending time ensuring that we have an effective testing schedule and plan for our upcoming MOY NWEA Assessments.
- Mrs. Lopez for presenting and showing teachers and staff the PLA strategy to utilize as students practice with TELPAS prompts and utilizing the platform to prepare students for our upcoming TELPAS assessment (February).
- Mrs. Lopez & Mrs. Davila for working with students during Saturday Summit K12 tutorials to support our students in growing their English language proficiency through targeted practice with reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
- Mrs. Jimenez for creating our testing and Glow Party fliers and ensuring that all of our technology is up to date and in good condition for testing.
- Mrs. Montoya for her generosity with supplying our teachers and staff with fruit and coffee and making sure staff members who have extra duty pay are compensated correctly.
- Internalized Lesson Plans due every Thursday by 7:30 a.m. *Please have a copy of your internalized lesson plans readily available and bring a copy of each day's lesson plans to Thursday PLC's each week (standing item). *Please note- we will be looking for evidence of tiered student activity pages and independent work.
- Weekly PLC Planning Meetings (PLC Folder) -We will continue with our vertical PLC schedule to give you all enough time to make any adjustments to your upcoming week's lessons along with reviewing your current student data daily and weekly. Please come to every PLC meeting with the following items:
- Internalized Lesson Plans for the upcoming week of instruction
- Teacher Data Binder (Student DOL data)
- Student SCRs
- 3rd-5th ELAR: please bring a class set for leadership team to assist with rating
- PreK-5th (all content): please bring the following:
- 2 SCRS On/Above Grade Level
- 2 SCRS (Tier 2)- slightly below grade level
- 3 SCRS (Tier 3)- well below grade level
- Laptops
- Academic Tutorials will be cancelled for next week (Monday-Thursday) due to testing. *This will resume on the week of January 13th-17th.
- Learning Environment Non-Negotiables: Please review our updated classroom checklist to ensure your classroom environment is conducive to student learning (Domain 3). In addition, you will need to cover your anchor charts for testing days only.
- Cafeteria Behavior Incentives- Next week (January 13th-17th), we will be starting our Cafeteria Behavior incentives be awarding classes who have earned their 15 points. Please remind students of behavior expectations prior to entering the cafeteria. This is to enhance student safety and behavior during the lunch time. Please communicate this incentive to your students. Classes with the 15 points will receive a cafeteria trophy and picture on our Fondren Newsletter. In addition, we will post their picture on our marque.
- Fondren Elementary Writing Plan: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dX7uhZDBIlx3FD9IY1L-yq4ulz4D-Vwl/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117695779797459927036&rtpof=true&sd=true
- Absences: As previously mentioned at the beginning of the school year, it is imperative that we have all teachers and staff present on campus for district assessments. Please review the information on absences in the HISD policies.
**Teacher & Staff Interest Survey- please complete if you haven't done so already: https://forms.gle/Yfnavwsq1gqvtoUS7
Learning Environment- Mr. Almonte
Mr. Almonte's classroom is set up in a manner that supports student learning through the use of visual aids/anchor charts, sentence stems, and desk arrangement with materials readily available.
Maximizing Instructional Time- Ms. Ta
Ms. Ta carried out small group instruction while simultaneously meeting with individual students to discuss their current progress towards their MOY goals for NWEA.
Supporting High Impact Engagement Strategies- Ms. Perez
Mrs. Perez labeled desks with 'A' and 'B' stickers to support her students in engaging in Think/Ink, Pair Shares through a structured routine.
Supporting students through visual aids & sentence starters- Ms. Omer
Ms. Omer embeds sentence starters, content rich vocabulary, and visual aids/anchor charts to support her student learning and engagement throughout their Tier 1 instruction.
Students taking initiative in their academic progress- Ms. Solis
Ms. Solis ensures that she has meaningful conferences with students to discuss their current performance and progress towards their MOY goals. Students in her class can clearly state their goal and what skills they are focused on in order to meet their MOY goals.
Meet our NEW PreK Teacher: Mrs. Shankar 🎉
My name is Rashmi Shankar and I am an Indian-born, Miami native who has been in Houston since 2017. I am a Teach for America alumna who spent 4 years at my placement school before working closely on the development and implementation of math curriculum district wide. I am excited to expand my repertoire of teaching skills with the extra little ones and welcome any tips! When I am not doing all things education related, I love to cook, tend to my plants (18 so far), visit the beach, read, throw impromptu dance parties, and force my pets to participate. I am "mommy" to a dog and two cats, each with their own unique personality, similar in the joy they bring to my life. I am very grateful to start this new journey at Fondren and want to thank you all for being so welcoming. I can't wait to see what we accomplish together!
Mrs. Singleton 🎉🎉🎉
🎉Our Instructional Driver of the week is Mrs. Singleton. Mrs. Singleton goes above and beyond for her fourth grade students to ensure that they have acquired the skillset to grow in their reading and writing expertise. Mrs. Singleton adjusts her lessons and implements a variety of techniques and strategies to meet the needs of ALL of her learners. Beyond her expertise in planning and delivering lessons, Mrs. Singleton actively collaborates with upper-grade ELAR teachers, parents, and the leadership team to implement innovative ideas that enhance learning across our campus.
Thank you Mrs. Singleton for your dedication to not only your students, but all of our students at Fondren Elementary. We appreciate you. 💖