Thinking about online presence and student learning objectives….

This week Tuesday, teachers are going to be working together to share their experiences of working with various online grading options, blogs, or Edmodo.  You may have already received an email or notice from your students’ teachers requesting that you respond and sign up so you can view grades at your convenience.  Please be sure to reply as soon as possible so we can better work together to ensure that your student stays on track for graduation.  Teachers will also begin working on their student learning objectives (SLO) over the next few weeks.  SLOs are the core of teaching and learning.  Teachers need to ask themselves four essential questions when considering their SLOs for this year:

• What are the most important knowledge/skills I want my students to know and be able to do by the end of the interval of instruction
• How will I know if my students have met the learning goal?
• What are my learning expectations for each student?
• What strategies will I use to ensure that all students meet the target?

Our entire Professional Development Day on September 2^nd will be dedicated to learning about writing effective SLOs – from setting the learning goal, creating an assessment plan, determining effective targets, and choosing optimum instructional strategies.  All schools in the West Complex will be involved in SLO training on the 2^nd which means that students will have a four day weekend coming up.

Here’s an excerpt of this week’s staff bulletin:

Meetings/Activities this week:          

                                                                                   

Tuesday August 26, 2014

•        EXTENDED FACULTY meeting – 1:45 to 3:45 pm in LRC and various breakout sessions for last hour.  Please bring your laptops with you

Wednesday August 27, 2014

•          6 pm – ELL parent night at LRC

Friday August 29, 2014

•         First KIF regular season FB game against Kapaa at Hanapepe Stadium.  JV at 5 pm; Varsity at 7:30 pm

Announcements/Reminders:

1.        If you have 10^th and 11^th grade advisories, please check the WHS teacher resources and let your students know what their WHS gmail account is.  If they need help, please refer them to Mrs. Ishida for assistance at the LRC. SPED teachers – we have tentatively scheduled your 10^th and 11^th graders for three sessions in S103; that schedule will be distributed this week.
2.          We will replay the support breakout sessions (the ones we had to cancel last week b/c of internet issues….) at this week’s extended meeting.  Please bring your laptops with you to the meeting.
3.          Please be sure to check that students are in school wear in the morning.  If they’re not in uniform, please send them to the office for follow up.  Thanks.

Have a great week everyone!

Mrs. Anguay

Reflections on Open House and a football game against HPA…

Mahalo to everyone who made it to our Open House last Thursday; we had a great turn out of parents and family.  Everyone had a chance to hear about our Title 1 plans before breaking out to visit individual teacher classrooms, the book fair in the café, the Achieve3000 presentation or to purchase student pottery items right outside the band room.  The PTSA made over $300 from the chili sale and also signed up over 30 new families.  Thank you to all of our staff members and volunteers who made Open House a success!

The WHS varsity football team launched their season on Saturday night at Hanapepe Stadium with a game against visiting Hawaii Preparatory Academy from the Big Island.  Down 14-0 at one point early in the game, our boys plowed ahead to post a 20-14 lead until the last three minutes of the game when HPS scored and took a one-point lead. However, our boys showed poise, resilience, and confidence as they drove all the way down the field to score the game winning touchdown with seconds remaining on the clock.  They never gave up.  Thank you to Coach Caldeira and his staff who are molding a positive group of young men and leaders at our school.  Please come out and support both teams when we open the regular KIF season against Kapaa HS on August 29^th at Hanapepe Stadium.  The JV game starts at 5 pm and varsity follows at 7:30 pm. 

Here’s some excerpts from the staff bulletin for this week:

Meetings/Activities this week:

Tuesday August 19, 2014

•  EXTENDED FACULTY meeting – 1:45 to 3:45 pm in LRC and various breakout sessions for last hour.  Please bring your laptops with you

Wednesday August 20, 2014

•  8 am meeting with Gary Ellwood from KCC – Nitta, Guillet, Chaffin, Taira, Asahi, Rita, Anguay

Thursday August 21, 2014

•  Pd. 7 DEPARTMENT HEAD MEETING at LRC

Friday August 22, 2014

• ADVISORY PERIOD – Welcome Back Assembly on front lawn (rescheduled from first week of school).  Liko will send out a revised bell schedule for the day; we will need to capture back approx. 3-4 minutes from each class period on that day.  

Thank you very much; have a great week everyone!

Mrs. Anguay

Iselle, Julio, and a very busy week ahead!

Aloha!

Thankfully we escaped the potential damage that Iselle and Julio could’ve caused to our school and community this weekend.  Faculty and staff worked hard to ensure that our valuable (and limited) school resources were put away, tied up, or locked down..... mahalo nui to all!

This is a short 4-day week for us due to Admissions Day on Friday but it’s a very busy week.  Here’s excerpts from the staff weekly bulletin:

Monday August 11, 2014

·         6 pm   SCC meeting in the LRC

Tuesday August 12, 2014

·         STAR math testing continues in individual math classes

·         Advisory – Anguay/Asahi to do Disciplinary Assembly ‘en masse’ for all students via MTV3 since gym repairs are not  

Wednesday August 13, 2014

·         STAR math testing

·         Barret Graf, Achieve 3000 training.  Mrs. Rita advised teachers of periods to report; please be there on time.  Subs will cover your class for one period; please be sure to leave plans.

Thursday August 14, 2014

·         Barret Graf, classroom demo in selected classes.

·         Open House/Book Fair/Parent Meetings – registration starts at 5 pm; meeting starts at 5:30 pm in band room.  Please see email from Ms. Asahi sent last week/copied below:

Teachers and Staff,

Below is the tentative schedule for our Open House on Thursday, August 14.  The Open House begins at 5:00 pm with registration in the Band room.  We are asking that all teachers be in their classrooms between 5:45 - 6:45 to meet and greet parents.  We will not be ringing bells every few minutes to signal class changes this year; parents will have a 45 minute block of time to either visit your classroom, check out the Scholastic Book Fair in the Kekaha side of the cafe, peruse the Menehune Pottery Sale (outside the band room) or sit in on an Achieve 3000 presentation in S103 with Barret Graf.

Open House Agenda

5:00 Registration (retired Kekaha Elementary Teachers manning table)

·         PTSA will be doing membership sign ups ($10.00 per family) and will be selling chili/rice or hot dog for $5.00 outside of the Band room

5:30 – 5:50 Welcome (Band room)

·         Introductions

·         Title I Community Meeting (share data from last year)

5:55 – 6:40 Open House.  Parents may:

·         Visit Teachers (classrooms)

·         Purchase items at Menehune Pottery Sale (outside band room)

·         Check out the Scholastic Book Fair in west end of Cafeteria

·         Check out the Achieve3000 presentation in S103 (Doors close at 6:10)

6:45 – 7:45 Class (Parent) Meetings

·         Grade 12 – Band room – Anguay and counselors

·         Grade 11 – LRC – Asahi or Rita and counselors

·         Grade 10 – Cafeteria east end – Rita and counselors

·         Grade 9 – R101 – Asahi and counselors

Please come and join us at the SCC meeting on Monday and our Open House on Thursday; looking forward to meeting you all!

Have a great week…..

Mrs. Anguay

He wa'a, he moku; he moku, he wa'a

Aloha everyone!

We had a series of focused, powerful, and relevant opening meetings this week.  On Tuesday, teachers had a chance to work with Tom Shimmer, a consultant from Canada, on assessments and grading.  He used a coaching analogy of providing feedback to athletes and reacting in “real time” to help kids improve… not days or weeks later.  At the end of the day, he talked to us about grading practices which caused many of us to stop and rethink the way that we give grades.  I noticed that quite a few teachers have restructured their syllabus this year, trying to implement some of the practices Mr. Shimmer shared with the group.  We purchased a copy of Mr. Shimmer’s book for each teacher to use as a resource and we’re all looking forward to his return to WHS in January.

In opening meetings with teachers and staff, I shared two videos (Malama and Laulima) that used the Hokule'a to introduce the concept of “he wa’a, he moku; he moku, he wa’a”; this translates to “a canoe is an island; an island is a canoe.”  These videos reminded us that we need to care for one another, embrace and fulfill our individual responsibilities, and continuously seek knowledge to find our way as a community. How we are on land is what we bring with us on the canoe – to be successful, we must prepare properly for our voyage of learning, take ownership of our responsibilities, and understand our obligation to truly care for others.  Without this mindset, we will not be successful.  You can click on the link below and view the Malama and Laulima videos.

He wa'a, he moku; he moku, he wa'a

With this mindset, I want to introduce two significant changes at WHS this school year.  I’ve talked about this first change for months now – we will not be offering credit recovery courses during the school day.  If a student needs to make up a credit, he or she will have to do it on their own time.  We will provide support by opening up the LRC in the evenings and having a teacher present to help students.  If your student needs to make up a credit, he or she will be required to attend these evening sessions to ensure that he/she stays on track to complete the course by the end of the year.  The second change is that we will be giving students GLO (General Learner Outcome) grades in addition to their content grades for each class.  This is a WASC accreditation recommendation that we have to implement; however it also helps to reinforce the GLO/college and career readiness skills of being a self-directed learner and a community contributor.  Students will receive a S or U grade from each of their teachers that reflects their skills in these two critical areas.  If a student receives three (3) or more U grades, he/she will be placed on behavior probation for two weeks which means that he/she will not be able to participate in extracurricular activities.  Students will be required to clear grades and GLOs in order to be eligible to participate in athletics and events like Prom, Winter Ball, Homecoming Court, and May Day Court. 

The Common Core State Standards and the upcoming SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) test that our students will now take is extremely rigorous.  Students are being asked to think critically, analyze information, and apply their new knowledge in a wide range of situations in order to prepare them for post-HS opportunities.  Students will need to take school seriously.  At Freshman Orientation on Friday, I reminded students that their job is to be a student and they will be expected to learn more than just content – math, English, science, social studies – but important life skills such as being a self-directed learner and community contributor in order to ensure that they leave WHS college and career ready.  This message will be repeated continuously by all of us at WHS and we will need the support of our parents and community to make it happen.

I look forward to working with you this school year.  Please mark your calendars for our Open House/Parent Night/Book Fair on Thursday August 14^th.  We will begin promptly at 5:30 pm in the gym; please be sure to arrive and register early.

Thank you very much!

Mahina