September 3, 2009

Another great week for the Turner Lions! Thank you for your continued help in maintaining consistency with our expectations. Showing the video of expectations and discussing expectations with students, along with building relationships will allow us to have a great year!

Professional Development Update:
The core teachers read the first two chapters of Influencer this week and discussed our thinking about the text. Our framing question is--what are high leverage student and/or teacher behaviors for us to target as a staff to evoke change on our campus? We will continue to discuss at faculty meetings, department meetings, and in PD. We invite the enrichment teachers to join in the discussion in these venues. This will be a guiding book for us this year.

We had our first Instructional Improvement Process overview and Focused WalkThroughs this week--we saw great instructional strategies in Science today!

College Tutorials:
College tutorials are tutoring sessions with our AVID tutors (college students). They are here from 3 to 5 PM every Tuesday and Thursday in the library. They use a structured tutorial system. Please target one child you believe could benefit from this type of tutoring and help them commit to come on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons.

SMART Update:
Our SMART Leadership Team met on Thursday to review SMART goals for this year. We will have our first SMART PD on 9/14/09. Please make sure to turn in your T-shirt size to your department manager--we are having a SMART branding campaign on our campus. Our SMART goal: 85% of RLT students will meet or exceed the state standards on TAKS by 2011.
More info to follow...

Campus Improvement Committee:
Our CIC met today for the first time. The CIC reviewed the summary statements from the Summer Planning Academy and looked for trends so that we can develop a working campus improvement plan. Great ideas from this summer! We are on the right track. Look for more information in your department meeting next week. We need your feedback.

9th Grade Update:
Our first ZAP is on Friday, September 4, 2009. We are asking all 9th grade teachers to deliver their 7th period "zappees" to the Library at the end of 7th period and to help get them started on their work. Thanks to Ms. Cherney, Ms. Smith, the 9th grade teachers, and NHS for their work on ZAP!

Administrative Information:
If you have not already, please join PTSA. This is a worthwhile organization that supports us--please help support them. 100% staff membership is a goal for PTSA, and they receive state recognition if they reach that goal.

The Beginning of the Year check list is due on September 11, 2009.

Meet the Teacher Night will be on Monday, September 14, 2009 from 6-8 PM. If you have a conflict, please let me know.

Ms. Cherney will send out a "TEAMS Proficiency" checklist. Please use this self-assessment tool to decide if you need to come for optional help on Thursday, September 10th.

Have a great weekend!
Georgeanne