Madison Middle School

By barsotti_p 　https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/madisonstaff/2023/01/07/january-6th-2022/

Dear Madison Staff,

We hope you were able to have a restful and productive (whatever that looks like for you) winter break and a good first week with the students.  Here are this week’s updates:

MADISON INFORMATION     

• Staffing Update: I am super excited to announce that Shawn O’Connell has accept the 5.5 hour EA job working with Amy Brooks.  Shawn comes to us with a lot of differences and we think he will be a good fit with the Madison Community. I hope he will be starting on January 13th, but I have not confirmed that with HR or Shawn.  When you see him, please give him the Madison welcome and introduce yourself.
               
• Peter Out This Week, January 9-13: I will be helping to take care of my mom.  She is doing a lot better and this is currently my last scheduled week to help.  My siblings are taking the weeks now until early February.  I will keep you all in the loop if anything changes.  Mike Riplinger is going to be subbing for me.  He was a long time Awbrey Park principal and will probably know a lot of our students.  When he is not doing supervision or supporting Gina with discipline, I have asked him to do some (or a lot) of the Talent Ed Informal walk throughs.  When you see him in your room, just welcome him.  If you really do not want him in your room, please let Gina know.  He is retired and wants to only do positive/easy evaluations so if he in your room, you will probably only hear positives.
  
• Attendance Intervention Punch Cards: I’m hoping that in the next few school days, many of the students that we started on attendance punch cards will begin to fill their cards and earn some fun gift cards, etc. Please remember to be checking in with any kids in your focus class on these punch cards, and we they fill their card, you can send them down to the office. We will celebrate them and help them to choose a reward. Alternatively, if you would PREFER to be in charge of the reward for your student, just send me an email letting me know that they have filled their card and what you have arranged for a reward.
• Supporting Gender Expansive Student: Yesterday ODE came out with a document supporting gender expansive students and I thought I would have it with you.  If you have any questions after skimming it, please do not hesitate to reach out to Gina, Beth or I.  Beth is going to look at part of this document with the GSA today.
• Winter easyCBM testing: Great news! For winter easycbm testing, we only need to test our SPED students and any students who DIDN”T test in the fall. SO….. Amy and Matt will make a plan to get their students tested, and Audrey and I will be calling gen-ed students to the library for testing during Focus class for 2-3 days per student, grouped by grade-level, beginning after the MLK holiday. This means that Focus teachers do NOT need to handle easyCBM testing for winter, unless you choose to for any reason. That said, I will probably remind you of this stroke of luck when it comes time to test the entire student body again in the spring.
• College and Career Exploration Planning Committee Update: The committee is going to start meeting later this month. Here is a quick 3 questions google form survey for staff interested in joining the committee. Even if they don’t have the time to commit to the planning committee, Beth is also looking for people who may have an idea for a presenter. We are looking for people from all different kinds of fields of work and any local college to come talk to our students about 4 main things: 

  1. Talk about their job or program & skills required and what they like about their job

  2. Why it’s important to show up every day on time (dependable)

  3. Why it’s important to try your best every day (work ethic)

  4. Why it’s important to be able to work well with others (communication, teamwork, collaboration)

• Formal Observations: Gina and I will work this month to schedule formal observations with all probationary staff.  For those contract staff who are on a formal observation cycle, we will work on doing yours in February and March.
   
  

DISTRICT INFORMATION     

• School Choice Season is Coming: January brings the school choice season.  We will hold our evening event on Tuesday, January 17 at 6:30 and morning event on the 18th at 10 am. Last year, we had one parent total for our presentations. If you’d like to join, parents love to meet and hear from teachers and staff about how awesome Madison is, but feel ZERO pressure to do it.  Gina and I will be there to sing how awesome Madison is for the students. 
                  

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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AND OTHER INFORMATION   

• Teaching Perseverance: One thing we’ve heard from many staff members is that kids are giving up much sooner or not even starting tasks they perceive to be hard or not worth their time. We’re going to talk on Tuesday about a perseverance challenge.
  • Linked here is a blog post from Angie Olson at Lucky Little Learners on teaching students what perseverance is along with a list of books that demonstrate people persevering even when things are hard.
    
  • Linked here is a blog post from Engaging Literacy on the books she uses for specific mini lessons centered around perseverance including goal setting, making a plan, learning to fail, and working through your fears. We know these are elementary books, but middle schoolers like them. 
  • And here’s a list of 20 more books about persistence and perseverance.
    
    

Looking Ahead:

Have a great week!

Peter and Gina