Hi All,
Here we are again, we made it through a long short week! We've got 5 full days this week and some interesting weather. Here's to muddy boots and vitamin D.
Observations from the Field
- Folks finding and celebrating the joy of our work
- Folks being proactive and forward thinking
- Teams supporting each other and working towards solutions
- Lots of welcoming and kind hellos and greeting students at the doors
News and Announcements
- Chronic Absenteeism Follow- Up
- I wanted to take a moment to share an example of how the "system" at BES is moving the Chronic Absenteeism work forward. Here's an example of the shift in conversation at the school level. OurSST group was exploring a deep dive into attendance data. We were exploring attendance surrounding our artist in residence experience. Here's what we found:
- In the three weeks before the circus, the students with 10-14 absences, about a third of our students, had an absenteeism rate of 13.68% from school. In the three weeks after the circus, the rate of absence for this same group dropped to 5.43%.
- While we don’t know for sure, we believe that the feelings of connection, belonging, and community that came from the circus impacted students, in such ways that they felt more inclined to come to school, a more than 50% drop in absence.
- I want to share a big thank you to all the classroom teachers who are reaching out to families with the "We missed your student" messages when they've missed for a day. We are creating relationships with families that center belonging and that's vitally important.
- Looking for Feedback
- https://forms.gle/VJFnUjpk4QuBcEpQ7 ---Classroom Teacher/Interventions around assignments and desires. Remember---this is an opportunity to share with me what is most important to you as I make assignments for next year.
- https://forms.gle/JGyRdk4eTdTCbaN66 --- Math Night Feedback
- Exciting News
- Berlin was awarded the Act 78 Center Track Grant. This is HUGE news for our school and our community. It is a significant amount of money to fund free Extended Day Programming for our school for 5 years.Our Center Track Grant will be supported by an additional Act 78 Program Grant that will be run through U-32. Here's a brief overview of what this means for us:
Berlin Extended Day Center is designed as an interest-based, extended day programming at BES for all Berlin elementary aged students, and is staffed by youth educators and adult experts from across the community.
The Youth Community Educator Program is a work-based learning program that trains youth educators to be interns in, and ready for employment by, the Berlin Extended Day Center.
The intersection between the Youth Community Educator Program and Berlin Extended Day Center creates a sustainable model for programming for robust expanded and enriched learning opportunities for all students, a core pillar of our community schools work.
As this grant becomes functional and we get some work plans up and running I will be looking towards a group of us to help vision and steer the work. If this is something that excites you or you want to learn more please let me know.
- Reminders:
- We will do our "Secure the Perimeter" Drill on Thursday. As a reminder it's the outside in drill. Both groups will participate. Lunchroom stays put, recess comes inside into the Library.
- Winter Wellness Day will be 3/19
- No Staff Meeting Next Week--- Conference Day is 3/20
Marshall Memo 1127
This might be a good time of year to check out the Best of Memo website sections on Interviews and Hiring and Teacher Leadership. Each has a super-curated collection of articles; just click on the right to preview the summaries, download a PDF, and listen to an audio recording. This week's articles come from Coaching Letter, Education Gadfly, Language Magazine, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Learning Dispatch, Edutopia, Greater Good, and YouTube. Here are the headlines:
- What rowing can tell us about school improvement
- How some beat-the-odds schools sustain their success
- Teaching early reading as a "reciprocal cycle"
- Unchecked technology has failed us; we need relational intelligence
- What happens when a student's phone buzzes
- What "warm demanders" do
- How teachers can work within today's curriculum constraints
- A video with seven insights on teaching and learning
If you want an HTML version of this week's Memo, please click here. To listen to a podcast of last week's issue (#1126), click here. For a podcast of this week's Memo, log in at www.marshallmemo.com later this week and click Podcasts (let me know if you want a reminder of your password). Justin Baeder of The Principal Center interviewed me recently on teacher evaluation, feedback conversations, and the role of artificial intelligence. Here's the video.
Legislative Updates
- You can stay current with all VPA related testimony and more at VPANEWS (Legislators on break during the first week of March)
What's Happening at BES?
Where is Celia?
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