September 6, 2026

Over the past few weeks, I have received several questions from families about certain acronyms or educational "lingo", curriculum, instructional expectations, campus autonomy, DOLs, 2nd Teach, and what teachers can or cannot do within their classrooms.

Since we have a long weekend, I decided to give you a long post with some info to take in over the extra day 😁😆😅. I want our families to understand not only the language we use at Parker, but also what these terms should actually look like in your child’s classroom. Just as importantly, I want to equip you with the right questions to ask your child’s teacher about how instruction is being implemented for your child.

There are campus expectations that apply to every classroom, but teachers are responsible for bringing those expectations to life each day through their planning, delivery, differentiation, engagement, and response to student needs.

Within HISD, campuses operate within an autonomy structure. As an Earned Autonomy System (EAS) campus, Parker has flexibility in certain implementation decisions within district expectations.

One important clarification: campus autonomy belongs to the campus and Principal; it is not individual teacher autonomy.

As Principal, I make campus-level implementation decisions within the autonomy provided to Parker. Teachers are then expected to implement instruction in alignment with those campus decisions and expectations.

In other words, EAS does not mean that every teacher independently decides which district or campus expectations to follow. It means Parker has greater flexibility in how we implement certain expectations as a campus.

At Parker, we follow the HISD-designed curriculum, which incorporates resources from several instructional programs, including Bluebonnet Learning, HMH, Amplify, Eureka, and others depending on the content area and grade level.

We use the HISD curriculum because it is rigorous, aligned to grade-level standards, includes many of the scaffolds and supports needed for instruction, and aligns with district instructional and appraisal expectations.

However, this is where Parker’s autonomy matters:

The curriculum is a resource. The curriculum does not teach children. Teachers do.

Our teachers have received consistent guidance from me: I want to see the curriculum come alive in the classroom. The more interactive, engaging, exploratory, collaborative, and hands-on we can make grade-level learning, the better.

Teacher creativity is absolutely encouraged. At the same time, creativity should enhance the intended learning; not replace or lower it. If a teacher wants to substantially alter an intended activity or instructional structure, the grade-level Assistant Principal or I reviews the change to ensure the rigor and alignment of the lesson remain intact. We too, as leaders can be very critical of any curriculum resource including the district created materials, as no resources is perfect. The goal is to ensure high quality materials are presented to students every day.

Questions you should ask your teacher:

• What hands-on or interactive experiences have you incorporated into lessons recently?
• What strategies are you teaching that I can reinforce at home?
• For G/T students: What extension opportunities does my child receive during daily instruction? What does my child do when they demonstrate early mastery or finish early?
• For SPED/EB students: What scaffolds are being used to help my child access grade-level content?

You may hear teachers or administrators use the word “scaffold.” A scaffold is a temporary support that helps a student access and successfully work with grade-level content. We don't lower the bar or water down the learning from intended grade level rigor during Tier I instruction / Direct Instruction.

Think about the scaffolding used around a building during construction. The scaffolding supports the work while the structure is being built, but it is not meant to remain there forever. Nor is it intended to change the intended design of the structure, Instructional scaffolds work the same way.

A scaffold does not mean making the work easier, lowering the standard, or automatically giving a student below-grade-level work.

Instead, we ask:

What support does this student need to successfully access the grade-level learning?

For example, a student may understand a science concept but need a visual to help organize the information. An Emergent Bilingual (EB) student may benefit from cognates or language supports. A student struggling with a multi-step math problem may need the steps chunked or a graphic organizer to organize their thinking.

Common scaffolds you may see at Parker include:

• Graphic organizers to organize thinking
• Visuals and anchor charts that show thinking steps, models, or examples
• Sentence stems to support students in communicating their thinking
• Cognates and translations to support language development
• Manipulatives that allow students to physically model a concept
• Chunking a complex task into manageable steps
• Teacher exemplars that show students what successful work looks like
• Thinking maps to help students organize and connect ideas
• Additional modeling when students need to see a skill demonstrated again

The key word is support. The scaffold helps the student get to the learning; it should not do the thinking for the student.

As students become more successful and independent, teachers should begin removing unnecessary scaffolds. Our goal is always to build students who can independently access, think about, and demonstrate mastery of grade-level content.

Questions you should ask your teacher:

• What scaffolds does my child currently need during instruction?
• Which scaffolds seem to be most effective for my child?
• Is my child becoming more independent with the skill?
• Are there scaffolds my child no longer needs?
• What strategy or scaffold can I reinforce at home?
• If my child receives SPED or EB services, how are their required accommodations and language supports being incorporated into daily instruction, especially with DOLs?

Our campus instructional model uses Gradual Release.

I Do (Direct Instruction): The teacher explicitly models the content, skill, and strategies while actively engaging students in the thinking.

We Do (Guided Practice): The teacher and students work with the content collaboratively. Students begin applying what was modeled with teacher support, discussion, practice, and feedback.

You Do (Independent Practice): Students independently apply the learning. This is important because teachers need to see what students can actually do without someone doing the thinking for them. Teachers monitor, provide feedback, address misconceptions, and provide additional modeling when necessary.

Engagement should exist throughout all three phases. Gradual Release should not mean students sit passively until they reach independent practice. Students should be thinking, talking, writing, annotating, practicing strategies, and working with both their teacher and peers throughout the lesson.

You may hear your child refer to the materials they use during a lesson as a “activity packet” or even a “worksheet.” However, the Student Activity Packet is designed to be an active learning tool that follows the lesson alongside the teacher’s instruction.

Think of it more like a workbook that is directly aligned to the lesson being taught. As the teacher moves through the Gradual Release lesson cycle, students are working in the corresponding materials.

During the I Do, students may annotate, follow the teacher’s model, record thinking, or respond to a prompt.

During the We Do, students may solve a problem with the teacher, discuss and write with a partner, practice a strategy, annotate a text, use a graphic organizer, or respond to a Quick Write.

During the You Do, students use the packet to independently apply the skill or strategy that has already been modeled and practiced.

The Student Activity Packet should be a living, breathing record of your child’s learning during the lesson; not a stack of worksheets completed passively throughout the day.

In fact, I encourage families to periodically look through your child’s Student Activity Packets. You should be able to see evidence of learning: annotations, strategies, problem-solving, student thinking, corrections, graphic organizers, and authentic writing. The lesson cycles are labeled in the packets.

The curriculum is designed to provide students with multiple opportunities to write throughout a lesson. At Parker, our expectation is a minimum of three purposeful Quick Write opportunities during the lesson cycle so students are not only answering questions orally, but also regularly putting their own thinking into writing. We should see authentic student writing in every content area multiple times a day.

The use of slide decks in educational is now a growing trend. This is not unique to Parker or HISD. You see slide deck implementation across other districts and regional offices. The instructional slide deck should be used as a resource and anchor for the lesson; it is not the lesson itself.

Teachers should not simply click through slides while students sit and watch. The slides help organize the content, visuals, questions, modeling, and sequence of the lesson, while the teacher brings the instruction to life. A truly internalized lesson is not depended on a slide deck.

How that looks may vary based on the teacher’s instructional style. Some teachers use the slide deck more explicitly throughout the lesson. Others may move between the slides and a document camera to model directly on the same materials students are using. Teachers should also be incorporating manipulatives, anchor charts, demonstrations, partner work, hands-on experiences, movement, or other instructional strategies.

There is room for teachers to make those instructional choices.

What should remain consistent is that students are actively doing the learning.

The question should not simply be, “Did my child complete the packet?” A completed packet does not necessarily tell us whether meaningful learning occurred.

Instead, consider asking:

• Can my child explain the strategies they practiced in this packet?
• Do I see evidence of annotations and student thinking, or mostly blank spaces and copied answers?
• What opportunities did students have to talk, write, practice, and work collaboratively during this lesson?
• What kinds of authentic writing are students doing throughout the lesson?
• How do you use the Student Activity Packet during the I Do, We Do, and You Do?
• What hands-on or interactive experiences accompanied this lesson?
• When my child struggled, what feedback or additional modeling did they receive?

Ultimately, the packet, the slides, and the curriculum are tools. None of them replace the teacher.

The quality of the learning experience comes from how the teacher uses those resources to model, question, engage, scaffold, monitor, provide feedback, correct misconceptions, and challenge students to think.

That is what we expect to see happening in every Parker classroom.

A DOL, or Demonstration of Learning, is a mastery check at the end of the lesson. You may also hear it called an exit ticket.

Simply put: Did the student learn what was taught today?

A DOL may be district-created or teacher-created. Teacher-created DOLs are vetted by grade level assistant principals or principal for rigor and alignment. In grades 3–5, DOL results are entered into OnTrack so that we can monitor student performance and respond to trends in the data.

DOLs are generally 2–5 questions, depending on the grade level and content area, and are completed within approximately a 10-minute window. Not all subject areas have a DOL.

The goal is for students to independently recall and apply what they learned. DOLs are intentionally rigorous because we want students thinking at the level of the standard; not simply repeating what the teacher modeled.

We certainly recognize that some students are still developing the stamina to complete every question within the allotted time. That is part of what we monitor as well. We want to see the student growth in this area. But it completely okay if they do not make it through all questions. Again, it is just a mastery check not a test. Unlike a unit assessment (CADFAs) which do have to be completed fully.

In Kindergarten–2nd grade, we do not use OnTrack DOL data in the same way. We use additional measures such as DIBELS/mCLASS, monthly CADFAs (Campus-Administered District Formative Assessments), classroom performance, and other progress-monitoring measures.

Questions you should ask your teacher:

• Which standards (TEKS) is my child currently struggling with based on DOL performance?
• Did my child demonstrate stronger understanding during independent practice than on the DOL?
• What strategies were taught to help my child access the grade-level content?
• Was my child able to use those strategies independently?
• Did my child have independent practice and receive feedback before completing the DOL or was it all collaborative with a peer?

That last question is especially important. A DOL should not be the first time a student is expected to demonstrate the learning independently.

2nd Teach is differentiated instruction that happens after the initial Gradual Release lesson cycle.

This is where the teacher responds to what students actually demonstrated during the lesson.

Students who did not master the concept are pulled into a teacher-led small group for targeted reteach.

Students who showed understanding move into acceleration activities that deepen or strengthen their learning or foundational skills.

Students who demonstrated mastery should receive extension opportunities that push their thinking further. Depending on the content, this might include a project, advanced task, thinking map, problem-solving experience, literature circle, novel study, or another meaningful extension.

Some classrooms are still building toward the full extension component of our 2nd Teach model. Our expectation is full implementation by Cycle II.

2nd Teach is also when our pull-out services occur, including SPED, Speech, Language Development, and G/T services. We intentionally protect the initial lesson cycle because we want students to receive their full grade-level instruction before being pulled for specialized services.

This is also why lesson pacing matters. If the initial lesson runs too long, we lose valuable time for reteach, acceleration, extension, and specialized services. This is the time we actually "close the gaps".

Questions you should ask your teacher:

• How frequently is my child participating in reteach versus acceleration or extension?
• If my child is regularly in reteach, which specific skills or standards are causing difficulty?
• Is my child demonstrating mastery after receiving reteach?
• If my child consistently demonstrates mastery, what extension opportunities are they receiving?
• What does my child typically work on during 2nd Teach?

Campus systems matter. Curriculum matters. Expectations matter. Implementation matters just as much.

Two students in the same grade level may have very different needs and experiences. That is why, when you have questions about instruction, I encourage you to move beyond simply asking, “Is this a district requirement?” or “Is this an administration requirement?”

Instead, ask:

What is my child experiencing in the classroom, and what evidence do we have of how they are responding to it?

Your child’s teacher is the person implementing the lesson each day. They should be able to speak specifically about the strategies they are using, how they are differentiating, what your child is demonstrating during independent practice, what the DOL data shows, and what happens next based on that information.

Our admin team establishes expectations, monitors implementation, provides feedback, coaches teachers, and makes campus-level instructional decisions. Our teachers are responsible for the daily implementation of those expectations in their classrooms.

When families, teachers, and administrators understand those roles and ask the right questions, we can move the conversation away from assumptions and toward what matters most:

Is my child learning, growing, being appropriately challenged, and receiving what they need to be successful?

That is the conversation we always want to have at Parker.

-Principal Carter

https://parkerpto.membershiptoolkit.com/grandparentsday

Due to a shift in the campus master schedule we have shifted some grade level days for their lunch schedules, please see below.

G/T testing registration is open now through September 25. Testing will take place in October.

Already registered and want to confirm?

In ParentSquare, go to Forms and locate the G/T Testing Request form. If it shows completed and does not allow you to submit again, your request was successfully received.

Here is a quick guide to help you locate your form.

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Greg Kabay, Teacher Specialist

(G/T Coordinator & Campus Testing Coordinator)

Shirts are going on sale tomorrow and will only be sold for two weeks.

Enrichment Clubs start on Tuesday, September 8th. Please remind your child if you registered them for a club. Those who signed up for before-care should go to the Art Room. Aftercare students will check in with ASC as usual. If you have any questions, please email parkerenrichmentprogram@gmail.com.

Visit the website for the schedule: https://parkerpto.membershiptoolkit.com/afterschoolprograms

Volunteers are still needed for Grandparent's Day Lunch! Please make sure you are VIPS approved. Please visit https://parkerpto.membershiptoolkit.com/volunteer to sign up for opportunities to volunteer!

PTO Meeting is scheduled for September 17th at 6 pm. Please RSVP before Sept. 15th.

Remember, everyone is always invited to join the meeting. RSVP is just to ensure dinner. We look forward to seeing you and updating the community on our activities and upcoming free events. We're also happy to welcome Parker Friends, who will share more about themselves.

A PTO Newsletter will be sent out this week, filled with more information about our upcoming events. Be sure you are registered, https://parkerpto.membershiptoolkit.c

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Crystal Laurie

President, Parker Elementary PTO

www.parkerpto.org

832-978-2052 (PTO)