What’s New?

THE MARCH PRINCIPAL/COORDINATOR’S MEETING
HAS BEEN CANCELLED

2013-2014 Title I Budget: During my January visits to each of your schools, I shared a brief update on next year’s budget. This update included an anticipated 10% reduction in Title funding to school districts, in addition to some required “set aside” funds to support our Title schools in improvement (Priority/Focus). As a result, individual schools should expect reduced funding as well. Feel free to calculate a 10% reduction of your current budget for a rough estimate of what to expect next year. If the reduction is closer to 5%, this will be good news. Please know that final allocations will likely fluctuate from this 10% figure based on changes in your enrollment and F/R percentages (December 1 figures are used to determine Title I eligibility/allocations).

Title I allocations will be distributed in conjunction with HR staffing allocations, in April. The delayed distribution of allocations will result in a fairly swift turn around for determining Title budgets and staffing plans. To support you in this process, I will be setting up budget meetings with principals to review, and ultimately, approve school budgets.

Family Engineering and Parent Involvement Training with Mia Jackson: Thank you to those of you who completed the short survey inquiring about your interest in a training (there were 13 respondents). Eighty-five percent of respondents expressed an interest in having a training (11 out of 13). If you indicated a “no thanks”, and feel comfortable letting me know, please drop me a line.

Please mark your calendars for 5/13, from 1:00-5:00 for the training (this date/time received the most interest); this will take the place of our regularly scheduled Coordinator/Principal meeting on this same date. Extended contract will be offered, at a rate of $34.50 per hour, for time spent beyond your regular contract hours. PRINCIPALS are invited to attend and a book will be provided for each school!

Demo Event ~ four coordinators expressed an interest in hosting a demo event and seven coordinators would like to participate in the demo event to serve as further training. I will likely draw names to fairly select a school to host the event.

IMPORTANT: Parent/Family Involvement Input from Site Council: With spring just around the corner, it’s time to begin gathering input from parents regarding Title services at your school. Attached, please find a set of questions for Site Council and the Eugene 4j Parent Involvement Policy. Coordinators and/or principals, please share the district policy AND bring these questions to an upcoming Site Council meeting and record feedback on the form.  Please return completed forms to Bee no later than Friday, May 10.
District Title I Parent Involvement Policy (English)
District Title I Parent Involvement Policy (Spanish)
Title I Site Council Parent Involvement Q’s Spring 2013

IMPORTANT: Parent/Family Involvement Survey: On April 1, an electronic Parent Involvement survey will be opened to your families. In TAS, surveys should be given to those families whose child is receiving Title services. In SWP, all families should be surveyed. The survey window closes May 10. Please do your very best to ensure as many families as possible take the survey; we truly value their input as we continually strive to improve. Attached are the questions that will be included in the survey; you will notice some changes. Annual Title I Parent Survey (spring 2013)

PRINCIPALS ~ please mark the date to join your Extended Learning w/Technology Team, on May 7th, to view presentations on the learning/work teachers have been doing regarding the use of technology to support student learning in math and reading. We have focused primarily on ipod touch applications, google doc forms, and the use of Edmodo in the classroom. Presentations will run from 8:30 until approximately 10:00 and will be held in the auditorium.  Coordinators ~ attached, please find the expectations for developing your presentation Ext Learning Presentation Expect. 12-13

School Visitations Schedule for March/early April: If a conflict in your scheduled time arises, please contact Bee and she can work to find an alternative time for us to meet. PRINCIPALS ~ please join our meeting, if you can!! March_April Visitations 2013

Teaching Children in the Crisis of Poverty: You may recall Mary Walston (our presenter) mentioning a self-evaluation to help determine your teaching style ~ is your style more “oral” based or “print” based? As a reminder, we learned that students in poverty tend to be more “oral” learners. Attached is the short self-evalution from Mary; check it out!
Oral/Print Communication Self-Evaluation

Summer School: I am please to share that Wes Flinn will be serving as the Summer School Administrator again this year! Summer school allotments will be shared later this month, as an FYI. You can expect registration forms in mid-April with a return due date the first part of May (specific dates will determined as the time draws near). Stay tuned for more information in the weeks ahead!

Electronic Student Profiles: Matt and I had a chance to review the summary reports. I will bring these reports with me during my March/early April visits and share the findings with you! Overall, you are doing a very nice job of ensuring data is entered and current ~ keep up the great work!!

Collaborative Practice Lesson Study Teams: I trust all is going well and you are out of the starting blocks and moving forward with your lesson study. Please let me know if I can be of any support, any time!

Program Review Document: While work on this document may be a month away, I thought you would appreciate receiving the document sooner rather than later. This document can also be found on the 4j website. Completion of this document has been broken down into two parts in an attempt to make the work a bit more manageable. Be sure and include your Site Council in this process; you will want to speak to your administrator about getting on the SC agenda in the months ahead. Due to the enormity of the document, you may want to consider dividing the work over two SC meetings. Please find the documents below:
Annual Title I Schoolwide Program Review 2013
Annual Title I Targeted Program Review 2013

INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES!
Apps, Apps, and More Apps: Here are the apps Monica purchased for the Title 1 elementary iPod Touches:

• Freefall Money
• Freefall Spelling
• Freefall Time
• Mathmateer (Rocket Math)
• Starfall ABCs

I also received a list of apps (see link below) from an elementary principal (thanks, Joel) who stumbled upon it, by chance. The apps are not free and range from .99 cents to $7.99. Still, I think the list is worth a review, especially since reading comprehension has been a major focus of our work this year AND we are always looking for resources in this area.

Link to the apps from Joel:
15 Of The Best Educational Apps For Improved Reading Comprehension:
http://www.teachthought.com/apps-2/15-of-the-best-educational-apps-for-improved-reading-comprehension/

What is Reciprocal Teaching? Reciprocal teaching is a researched-based, comprehension strategy that is recommended for use with the English Language Arts CCSS.  Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity in which students become the teacher in small group reading sessions. This process can be used in whole group, teacher-led small groups, and student-led small groups. Teachers model, then help students learn to guide group discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and predicting. Once students have learned the strategies, they take turns assuming the role of teacher in leading a dialogue about what has been read.

• It encourages students to think about their own thought process during reading.
• It helps students learn to be actively involved and monitor their comprehension as they read.
• It teaches students to ask questions during reading and helps make the text more comprehensible.For more information on Reciprocal Teaching, go to:  http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Reciprocal_Teaching

Get the Gist Reading Strategy: Here are the templates Kathy shared at our last Coordinator’s PD; thanks, Kathy!
Get the Gist Template
Get the Gist Strategy

Somebody Wanted, But So Reading Strategy: Again, here is another strategy Kathy shared last month! Sombody Wanted But So

Close Reading Strategy: Here is a video link that illustrates a 5th grade teacher using a Close Reading protocol in his classroom; it’s great!:

Literature Books That Help Teach the Modes of Writing: I realize Title does not address writing, still…I thought this site would be worth sharing as there are reading resources available as well. Kathy has located a great website from the Ohio Resource Center which has a K-2 bookshelf.  When you go to the bookshelf press the strand button.  Each of the strands for the English Language Arts CCSS will appear. If you press writing tab, a group of books will appear on the bookshelf.  Choose a book, press on it, and a description, writing activities and related common core standards will appear.  Check it out!   There is also a collection on reading resources (information text)!

http://ohiorc.org/Literacy_K5/K2Bookshelf/default.aspx?filter=strand&strandID=4#browse

Deadlines on the Horizon for Compliance Documents:
NOTE ~ deadlines are aligned with Principal/Coordinator meetings
4/15:    Budget allocation for the 2013-2014 school year (I’ve moved this deadline out a month. Still, this may change, depending on when budget allocations are distributed)
4/15:    Program Review, sections A, B, C and D
4/15:    Budget allocations for the 2012-2013 school year
5/13:    Professional Development Questions for the 2012-2013 school year
5/13:    Professional Development School and Title I Plan for the 2012-2013 school year
5/13:    Summer school registrations
5/13:    Summer school data forms
6/13:    Program Review, sections E-P Inventory Sheets

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
3/11:   Principal/Coordinator CANCELLED
4/15: Principal/Coordinators meeting; 2:00-3:30
5/7:  Extended Learning w/Technology PD; 8:00-11:15 for everyone; 8:00-1:00 for Coordinators. PLEASE INVITE YOUR ADMINISTRATOR TO JOIN US!
5/13: District CIP; 12:00-1:00 in auditorium; INVITE YOUR PARENTS TO JOIN US!!!
5/13: Principal/Coordinators meeting; 1:00-2:30