ELL PDPs?
In the last, Susan Addis has graciously and expertly delivered the PLC around the book From Borscht to Burgers study group again which would allow people to get 15 PDPs in one year. This would be offered during non-contractual time as an option for staff to engage in with Susan.
Susan is also willing to run a shorter workshop on ACCESS testing for 3 PDPs.
There are also some free 1 to 4 hour courses at WIDA that you can do on your own time - this would require staff to obtain and submit the certificate from WIDA and turn it in to get PDPs from the district.
Please click on this link to provide feedback regarding how you'd like the district to proceed with offering ELL PDPs. We need at least 10 people to respond to one of the choices to proceed.
Anti-bullying District Working Group Posting *Last Call!
Regulations require the review of our anti-bullying policies and procedures every two years. A task force did a great job with this work two years ago. The time has come to review the policies and procedures again. Since the last task force met, there have been no updates to the laws, so the bulk of the work will be to review our current policies and procedures to evaluate if they are working for us.
If you are interested in this work, I expect it will be done over 3-4 meetings that will last 1-2 hours long. The rate is $50/hour for this work and it is grant funded. Ideally, there would be up to eight members on this working group representing all schools.
Please let me know if you are interested in serving on this working group by April 1. We will schedule meeting dates and times once participants have been identified. Thank you!
March Instructional Vision Challenge! (THREE Prizes this month!). LAST CHANCE!
We will continue into March with inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the fifth two bullets in the instructional vision are:
Students will push through challenge tasks with a positive attitude.
Staff will trust students to succeed after productive struggle.
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/march-instructional-vision-challenge-7xmxexo3ycau0pe5
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 March 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 😂
District Data for your review
I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.
The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) made available the 2025 accountability targets for each district and school. Files include 2024 baseline data and 2025 targets for all accountability indicators (achievement, EL progress, chronic absenteeism, advanced coursework completion, graduation rate, annual dropout rate, and extended engagement rate). A detailed methodology document that describes our process for setting targets is available in the dropbox and posted on the DESE website.
The accountability targets for Gateway are attached below. You will see the file first lists the district targets, then the information is broken down by school and demographic information.
