From Bri...Working at school, I believe a large part of my role is helping take care of our staff. This goes beyond words, notes, and evaluations. It’s about creating an environment where everyone feels safe, valued, and truly appreciated. When people know they are cared for and supported, they are naturally motivated to give their best to our students and our school community. Since I am coming back from time away from Venture, I wanted to make sure I can continue building this culture of care, To get to know you all better and show care beyond words, I’ve created a quick survey to learn about your favorite things so we can celebrate and support you in meaningful ways—because you matter!

Take the Favorite Things Survey Here

January and February can feel like a long, gray stretch for both students and teachers. The holiday fun has passed, and spring feels far away. It’s a time when school has settled into the routine, and the pull of spring days or holiday festivities no longer competes for our attention. Midwinter can feel dull, but it also offers a unique opportunity to ignite a spark in our classrooms and create high points in the school year for our students and ourselves.

This season, we have a chance to lean into the quiet and use it as a springboard for powerful, meaningful learning. These moments of engagement and discovery can break the monotony and bring back some of the joy of teaching and learning. When students are immersed in meaningful work, it not only brightens their days but also builds their confidence and sense of accomplishment.

Consider ways that students can be more "hands-on, minds-on".  Some ideas:  Analyze real-world data, design and test structures for various purposes, host a mock trial, create time-lines, re-enact an historical event.

Encourage creative expression.  Some ideas: create short videos to explain thinking or give life to a narrative, use technology to create visual presentation or infographics to explain complex information, have students write short scenarios that they can act out with classmates to explain an event or concept.

Gamify.  Use AI to create some competition to liven up a review, set up an escape room (there are templates for this online), have students create games to reinforce content area skills. 

Let students lead.  Empower students to take the lead in their learning by creating student-run discussion panels on issues that matter to them, work on projects that align with something they care about.

Keep the joy in our own journey.  Ideas: collaborate with colleagues to swap ideas and support one another, celebrate wins by looking for small successes, learn something new to grow your own instructional skill.

Let’s use this season as an opportunity to create memorable, enriching experiences for our students and ourselves. By focusing on engaging, meaningful learning, we can make this part of the school year a bright spot.

February 14 Certified PD Day.  How fun for us all to be spending Valentine's day together.  Maybe Caryn will help us plan a potluck.💕   We will be talking about Academic Dialogue (chapter 5 from Phenomenal Teaching)  I would like to try something new this time and dig into a different resource.  Some of you have recommended "The Cult of Pedagogy" and I would like to dig into one of her episodes for that day:  Listening and Discussion Techniques  It's an oldy but goody.  

Edit:  February 14 is a cross district collaboration day.  We will meet as a Venture staff on Feb. 21.

Week of  January 27
Bus Duty:  Vaughan
Monday: 
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Non work day

Week of  February 3
Bus Duty:  Levy
Monday:  TK out all week
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Non work day

Week of  February 10
Bus Duty:  Smith
Monday:  
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Certified PD Day

Week of  February 17
Bus Duty:  Hook
Monday:  President's day No School
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Certified PD Day

Week of  February 24
Bus Duty:  Penske
Monday:  
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Non work day

 

Happy New Year, Team Venture!

I hope you all had a relaxing holiday and are feeling refreshed for the next leg of our school year. I’ve been reflecting on where we are and where we want to be, and would like to share some thoughts with you as we dive into this next chapter together.

Discipline and IEPs

To ensure consistency and clarity, here’s a quick reminder of our roles regarding discipline and IEPs:

• Skyler: Freshmen and TSC
• Brianne: Sophomores
• Teresa: Juniors and Seniors

While we can all step in for each other as needed, big decisions should involve the assigned administrator to align with previously agreed-upon plans.  We are not asking teachers to try and remember who to contact regarding individual students.  Please include all of us on discipline related emails and we will triage as necessary.

Supervision of Instruction

We’ve structured supervision of instruction to provide targeted support:

Brianne:

• English: Levy, Smith, Cysewski, Eastman
• Online: Mires, Fehling, Alison, Doering, Orchard, Whaley
• Counseling: Smotherman
• Electives: Hook, Cooley

Teresa:

• Math: Mazhan, Gonzalez, Mahoney, Vaughan
• Special Education: Mantz, Miller, Njoku
• Science: Pensky, Nettles
• Social Studies: Wilson, Tacke
• MSW: TBA

Addressing the Current Crisis

I recognize that we’re in a challenging moment regarding student academics and behavior. To respond, I’d like to make two promises:

1. One of us will be present in the commons at least 90% of the time to ensure visibility and support.
2. We are here to assist you. Whether it’s working with individual students or providing extra support in your classrooms, we’re ready to help.

Here’s how you can call on us:

• Email one or all of us with the name of a student you’d like us to focus on or details about a class where you need extra support. We can work with students in content areas, we can read with them, help them write, help with their writing or various assignments.  
• Please consider which students might benefit from this additional support and be sure you send any materials that we will need to work with them.  
• My hope is for at least one of us to be working with a student or small group for at least 4 of 5 periods per day.
• We’ll collaborate with you to strengthen students’ social and academic skills.

Moving Forward Together

I believe in the power of this team and the work we do for our students. Let’s continue to lean on each other and stay focused on creating the best possible learning environment.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these plans—what works, what could be improved, or any other ideas you’d like to share. Together, we can tackle these challenges head-on.

Here’s to a strong start to the new year!

Staff Collaboration... Last time we met, small groups chose a lesson plan and made a commitment to helping the teacher adapt and improve that lesson so that it aligned with workshop model for the purpose of improving student learning.  How is that going?  Please check in with the teacher this week to bounce ideas around or offer suggestions to improve the lesson.  We will debrief this on Friday, 1/27.

Also on that day, we will review chapter 5 in Phenomenal Teaching and do a mid-term check in of IPLP goals.  Remember our commitment to get 1% better at something?  We will review progress with that goal as well. 

Week of  January 6
Bus Duty:  Cooley
Monday: 
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Non Work Day

Week of  January 13
Bus Duty:  Wilson
Monday: 
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Certified collaboration PD day: meet in library at 8:00 am

Week of  January 20
Bus Duty:  
Monday: Martin Luther King Jr. Day No school
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Certified collaboration PD day

Week of  January 27
Bus Duty:  
Monday: 
Tuesday: 
Wednesday:  
Thursday: Trent visiting Venture
Friday: Non work day