Hello Spring!  And, not a minute too soon.  Third term began smoothly, which is never an accident.  Your work to welcome students and implement processes that support a quality learning environment is greatly appreciated.  

Shout out to the online team:  Jessica, Adam, Emma, Rachelle and Karen have done an amazing job growing and supporting the online wing of Venture Academy.  They have created systems from scratch and then monitored and adjusted those systems along the way to meet a growing need in our community for flexible learning environments.  Thank you for taking on this complex and frustrating task.  

This is another time of year when students often struggle to focus and stay in class. The answer to this dilemma is more structure not less.  A couple of things to keep in mind:  By far, most of our students are behind academically.  And they're only in school four days a week.  And they don't have homework.  Students must be focused on doing academic work every moment in class.  This includes the  first five minutes of class, the last five minutes of class, Fridays, the day before a holiday, the day after a holiday, the last day of the term, and all of those other days.  The last day of a term can be especially challenging.  For this reason, we have a school-wide expectation of a final in every class taken on the last day of the term.  You may have noticed the picture of the student in the CDA Press who said he finished his work so he took the rest of the day off to go to the skate park.  

Here's another way to think about it:  Five minutes of downtime in each class, five times per day over a 140 day school year, equals 58 hours of lost instructional minutes.  This equals nearly 10 school days.  If we add the final day of each trimester, that's 13 lost days.  

What to do about students who have lots of time left over?  One thing that can help is to plan for more than you think they can finish.  This strategy makes it possible to cut some things out rather than try to fill time at the end of the day or term.

Advisory... Maybe our best tool for nurturing a thinking and learning community.  On Monday, we will brainstorm ways to use this opportunity to its full advantage.  Here is an article that might spark thinking.  And another one:  Fostering Relationships Through Advisories.

Phones... Please, do not let phones become a reward for finishing work early.  It undermines our school stance of phones being put away during the class day.

Celebration Assembly on Friday, followed by field games (Thank you Tony!)   We will recognize students with high GPA;s and perfect attendance. 

Here is the proposed schedule:

1st period: 7:50 - 8:35

2nd period: 8:40 - 9:25

3rd period: 9:30 - 10:15

4th period: 10:20 - 11:05

5th period: 11:10 to 11:50

Lunch: 11:50 - 12:20

Advisory 12:25 - 12:40

Assembly followed by games 

Tech Tip of the Week:   REMEMBER 2 Step Verification Required as of April 2nd

The District has turned on a requirement for 2 Step Verification, with a deadline of April 2nd, for anyone to continue to access our network. Please go to your account on Google to get it set up. If you have questions or concerns about setting this up, please complete this form.

Proficiency Scales:  Here is a folder of Sample Proficiency Scales.  We will use this on Monday to help create some for a unit.  If you or your department has been working on this, please bring your drafts on Monday.  

For the Week of March 18
Bus Duty: Eastman and Mahoney
Monday:  Certified PD and Collaboration: 8:00 am:  Agenda

Tuesday:
Wednesday:  
Thursday: 
Friday: Celebration Assembly and Field day

For the Week of March 25
Spring Break!

For the Week of April 1
Bus Duty: Doering and Cooley
Monday:  Non Work Day

Tuesday:
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Extended Learning
Friday: 

For the Week of April 8
Bus Duty: Smith and Hook
Monday:  

Tuesday:
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Extended Learning
Friday: Wellness