Gabilan Elementary School

The past two weeks, Gabilan has been incredibly fortunate to work with our local health department on a project together that assists our students with walking and biking to school in a safer manner.

Our second graders went on a walking field trip around the block to show them how to take safe routes to school. Our fifth graders learned bike safety with a fun bike course set up on campus. Third and fourth grade teachers also met to discuss their next steps in developing their grade levels safe route to school plan with the agency.

This week, we began advertising of the events to come to continue to develop safe routes to school by creating a walking school bus. Our launch of the walking school bus is set to begin on October 6th (National Walk to School Day). Over the next few weeks, we will be working with our families and the agency to develop a walking school bus.

Our wonderful local Rotarians Pauline Tomasini and Ivan Ibarra Mora stopped by this week along with Mr. Bangs to present all of our 3rd grade students with a dictionary to assist them in their learnings. We enjoyed finding the longest word in the world, discovering pages with the planets and locating a few words together! Students were thrilled to receive the dictionaries! Thank you so much for gifting the gift of not only a helpful book but knowledge to our Gabilan students! Thank you, Rotary!

This week we held our first SSC meeting of the school year! We had a great turnout and were able to elect new officers for the next two school years. We discussed the role of SSC, the duties of the officers, the bylaws and our parent involvement policy.

This week we also held our first ELAC meeting of the school year! Our parent turn out was impactful in this meeting as well. We discussed attendance, ELPAC initial assessments, Eagle Store, Anti-Bullying month and Red Ribbon week. We had a presentation regarding the bike/walk to school activities that are starting here at Gabilan. Parents were very interactive and brought forward great conversation!

In our staff meeting this week we discussed a segment from the book Leading the Rebound by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith and John Hattie. The next section that we will be diving into is on ensuring instructional excellence. We will go through part of the article in this bulletin and dive further in both our next staff meeting and bulletin.

“Classroom instruction shouldn’t look the same as it did in 2019. The digital competencies gained by students and teachers should remain sharp, and the best of these practices should become a part of the instructional flow of learning in the regular classroom. The danger, however, is that the return to school will devolve to a business-as-usual mindset. The relief from the resumption of face-to-face teaching can lull educators into a false sense of security. The temptation to fall back to old patterns is strong. In truth, things weren’t always instructionally satisfactory pre-pandemic….

Observations of classroom instruction are more complex when students are working across platforms. It should be expected that during any given observation, you might see some students working virtually with others or independently, while others are in direct contact with the teacher, and others are working off-line without the teacher. The dynamic and fluid nature of instruction means that a lesson is likely to encompass a number of instructional moves. ….

TEACHER DEMONSTRATION:

Demonstrations provide students with explicit instruction of what they will do or learn. There are a number of ways teachers can demonstrate skills or concepts for students, including direct or explicit instruction, think-aloud and think-alongs, and short lectures. These should be clear and concise so as not to erode into a passive experience for students.

LOOK FOR AND LISTEN FORS IN DEMONSTRATION:

• Pacing:

• The time allowed for demonstration is developmentally appropriate.
• The demonstration is concise and makes efficient use of time.
• The pace of the lesson is steady and consistent.

• Rigor and Alignment:

• The demonstration is grade appropriate and aligned with standards or expectations for learning.

• Statement of Goals:

• The demonstration includes a statement of the goal for the lesson.
• The teacher names the skill, concept or strategy being demonstrated.

• Examples are clear and developmentally appropriate.
• Examples and non-examples illuminate the skill or concept being taught

• Modeling:

• The demonstration included modeling of the skill or concept and the decisions made to use it.”

MORE TO COME IN OUR STAFF MEETING AND NEXT BULLETIN…

Website: https://gab.soledadusd.org/
Location: 330 Walker Drive, Soledad, CA, USA
Phone: (831) 678-6440
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GabilanSoledadUSD/