Learning Together

Message from Troy D. Olin, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction

A Message of Gratitude

As we move into this season of Thanksgiving, we want to pause and recognize the heart of our work: you. Each day, you show up with care, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to every student who walks through our doors. We see you: adjusting lessons to meet individual needs, offering encouragement when a student needs it most, and creating spaces where every learner feels valued and supported.

Your dedication does not go unnoticed. In countless small and meaningful ways, you help shape the lives of our students, and it is your steady presence that makes our school community feel like a place where everyone belongs. This month, and always, we are reminded how grateful we are for the passion, resilience, and kindness you bring to your work.

Thank you for the extraordinary care you provide each day. Your impact reaches far beyond the classroom, and we appreciate you more than words can express.

As we continue our shared work around high-quality Tier 1 instruction, this month we are highlighting the power of Learning Targets and Success Criteria. These tools help students understand what they are learning, why it matters, and how they will know when they’ve learned it.

Across classrooms, we are already seeing how clarity around learning goals empowers students to take ownership, reflect on their progress, and engage more deeply with instruction. Over the summer, our teacher leaders helped identify what clarity can look, sound, and feel like in practice, and their thinking is reflected below.

Our goal is to build a common understanding of Learning Targets and Success Criteria—not as posters on a wall, but as intentional, student-centered practices woven throughout the lesson to guide learning, feedback, and instructional decision-making.

• Clear, concise, student-friendly language

• Teachers reinforcing the purpose of learning:
  “Today we are working on…” “Our goal for today is…” “Tomorrow we will…”

• Students using kid-friendly terms to explain what they are learning and why

• Students restating targets in their own words during conversations

• Ongoing checks for understanding, conferencing, and reflection

• Timely, specific feedback tied directly to success criteria

• Learning targets and success criteria posted, referenced, and visible (anchor charts, focus walls, visuals)

• Students engaged in self-reflection, using models of quality work, and connecting their progress to the criteria

• Consistent checks for understanding—rubrics, oral check-ins, exit tickets, assessments

• Evidence of student learning displayed (learning zones, student work samples, 95 Phonics artifacts)

• Small-group support and routines that reinforce clarity

• Teachers using data to guide instruction and conferencing with students to identify next steps

• Safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments

• Students feeling confident and purposeful, with a clear path toward success

• Trusting relationships and clarity of expectations

• A culture where risk-taking is encouraged and mistakes are treated as learning opportunities

• Systematic, explicit, academically focused instruction that reduces uncertainty and builds ownership

As we deepen our shared understanding of high-quality instruction, we will continue to find ways to align our professional learning to support clarity around learning targets and success criteria. During upcoming classroom visits, we will be looking for the intentional ways students use targets and criteria to make sense of their learning.

Our instructional leaders are always available to collaborate, plan, or help refine this work as it evolves. Thank you for the thoughtful, consistent ways you are helping students understand their learning and take pride in their progress every day.

We are thrilled to share that elementary field trips will now be district-funded and aligned with the updates to our curriculum to provide meaningful, consistent experiences for all students! Each grade level can plan up to two trips per year.

A huge thank you to our grade-level leaders, teams, building leaders, and district staff who collaborated to create a list of experiences that truly connect to our instructional goals and make these experiences possible. You can find all the details, including the approved trip list and request steps, on the Staff Intranet.

The field trip list will be reviewed annually. We will reach out to teams each year to provide feedback to keep experiences fresh, relevant, and exciting for students. These trips are a great way to extend classroom learning beyond the walls of our schools

The Grading for Equity Task Force held its first meetings of the school year on Nov. 4 and Nov. 6. Our work continues to center on piloting and refining equitable grading practices that promote consistency, accuracy, and student success across classrooms.

Teachers and leaders engaged in collaborative rounds of feedback, using their early action research (implementation notes, student responses, and impact reflections) to strengthen next steps. The meeting included activities such as a silent gallery walk, partner feedback rounds, and small-group synthesis discussions designed to surface shared challenges, promising practices, and questions for further exploration.

Across both sessions, several shared themes appeared in teachers’ reflections and conversations:

• The continued need for clarity and consistency around late work practices, including differentiating zeros for missing vs. absent work.

• Strong positive feedback about using two grading categories (formative and summative) and the impact this is having on grade accuracy and transparency.

• Recognition that many students still need explicit support in study skills, organization, time management, and understanding the purpose of reassessment.

• Questions about extended absences, new students, and how best to align missed work to meaningful demonstrations of mastery.

Participants highlighted several strategies that are supporting more equitable and student-centered grading:

• Widespread acceptance of the two-category system, with both students and families responding positively.

• Using the “M” for Missing attribute in SchoolTool to clearly distinguish work that is incomplete from work that is excused.

• Corrections and reassessment practices that include accountability structures, making learning—not point-gathering—the driver for student progress.

We also identified needs for continued support and alignment:

• Time and structures to develop reassessments and build routines for relearning.

• Teacher clarity and training on SchoolTool attributes, including mass-entering “M” and understanding category weights.

• A desire to explore readiness for standards-based grading pilots in future years.

• Consistent routines across classrooms to support student organization and ownership of learning.

The Task Force will reconvene in February, where we will continue examining implementation data, strengthening reassessment systems, and refining the practices being piloted this school year. These ongoing cycles of action research will help us build a more coherent, equitable, and student-centered grading framework across the district.

Questions or considerations? We want to hear from you. Middle and high school teachers are encouraged to share questions, concerns, or ideas as we continue this work. Please submit your feedback by clicking the button below.

The District Professional Learning Plan Team works collaboratively to streamline, improve, and provide clarity for Professional Learning; ensures our handbook is updated; and reviews new Professional Learning offerings. Our team includes representatives from each building. Building representatives sent out emails earlier this week sharing a little more about who they are and what we do. Also included was a survey. If you have not already, please take a moment to complete this short survey to provide feedback. Thank you in advance!

Teaching the Holocaust and Other Genocides

This course is designed for teachers of Holocaust history, literature, and/or art. Teachers will use thorough investigation to examine the resource Consider the Source NY Teaching about The Holocaust and Other Genocides and collaborate to develop ways to integrate sources in their instructional practice. Participants will study six modules: Overview of Human Behavior, Holocaust Resources by Time Period, Responses to the Holocaust, Literature and Art, U.S. and the Holocaust, and Other Genocides. Case studies for other genocides will include Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur, Holodomor, Rohingya, Rwanda, Uyghurs.

Impactful Instruction: Teacher Self-reflection

Have you ever wondered what students are actually doing while you are teaching a lesson? This hybrid course will guide you through the use of video to reflect on student learning. Video? Yes, video, but the camera can be pointed at you or the students. Research shows that video self-reflection is one of the most impactful actions a teacher can take! This course will consist of asynchronous work and 1:1 meetings with an Instructional Leader. Join us as we use video to enhance instructional practices and improve student learning. Participants will earn 4 hours of credit, but the course does require 2, 30-minute meetings with the instructors during the contractual day.

Impactful Instruction: Teacher Talk vs Student Talk

As teachers, we have all experienced the lessons where students are silently staring back at us. Join us as we use video as a tool for analyzing the balance of teacher talk vs student talk. By the end of the course, teachers will have actionable insights and strategies to foster deeper student engagement through purposeful talk. Grounded in Jim Knight's Impact Cycle, participants will engage in a process of video analysis, strategy selection, and reflection to enhance student-centered dialogue. Participants will earn six hours of credit, but the course does require 2, 30-minute meetings with the instructors during the contractual day.

Impactful Instruction: Video Coaching Cycle

Did you ever wonder if one SMALL "tweak" of an instructional practice could have a BIG impact on student achievement? Come partner with us as we answer this question together. Through video-based coaching, teachers will analyze a recorded lesson, reflect on their practice, and set a personalized goal for instructional improvement. Let's work together as we deepen our understanding of effective teaching and help our students soar! Participants will earn six hours of credit, but the course does require 2, 30-minute meetings with the instructors during the contractual day.

Our Local History Series: LGBTQ Joy, Discrimination and Resistance

Do you know Bayard Rustin's powerful history? "Our Local History" is current curriculum in GC which allows our students to engage with the history of discrimination, resistance and Civil Rights in the Rochester and NYS areas. This knowledge is not only valuable to our students, but also our staff. We repackaged the student course for staff to uncover stories of LGBTQ discrimination, celebrate moments of joy, and highlight acts of resistance.

Check out the District Catalog for all the Interrupting Harmful Language Part 1 and Part 2 that are coming up in the next few months!

Congratulations to Kristen Joseph, Kelly Lamb, and Katie Szwejbka who were the first three to respond to last month's riddle correctly.

If you know the answer to this month's riddle, click HERE to submit your answer. The first three (3) people who answer the riddle correctly will receive a special prize in their mailbox next week!

Good luck!

November Riddle:

I tell you where you’re going

and how you’ll know you’ve arrived.

I make learning feel visible

and help every student thrive.

What am I?