THE FALCON 411

"A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE....
We Are GREAT BY CHOICE!"

January 4th - January 8th

I hope you had a relaxing break and the opportunity to spend time with family and friends. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed. Additionally, I hope you found time to rest and re-energize, as we embark upon a brand new year. Let's prepare to push ourselves, and our scholars, to the next level with professional growth, teamwork, accountability, and hard work!!

In looking at the surface level data from the completed literacy tasks, our scholars' areas of growth are:

comprehending complex text
identifying the task of the prompt
organizing their writing
providing specific evidence from the text to expand upon their opinions/thoughts

Therefore, our school-wide literacy focus areas will center around:

text structure (to support scholars with organizing their writing)
close reading/annotating (to support scholars with developing a deeper understanding of complex text and providing specific evidence to support their opinions)
academic vocabulary (to support scholars' understanding of complex vocabulary in texts and writing prompts)

Professional Development will focus on supporting you with developing a deep understanding of the aforementioned literacy strategies, effectively incorporating them into your lessons, and understanding how to effectively teach the strategies to scholars.

We will strictly enforce the uniform policy. Please check uniforms during the first 5 minutes of each class. Scholars MUST be in uniform every day, in all classes. If a scholar is out of uniform, please send him/her, with a pass, to the ISS Room. Again, please do not allow scholars to sit in your class out of uniform. REMINDER: Have scholars unzip and unbutton jackets and sweaters to ensure they are wearing the correct uniform shirt. Shirts MUST have collars. Army green/brown bottoms are NOT part of the uniform.

Cell phones, ear buds, and/or ear phones MUST be turned off and out of sight during instructional time (unless used for instructional purposes). We MUST "sweat the small stuff" consistently across the entire school.

Please use the Google Doc LVL 1 Form to document minor scholar behaviors, and scholars with attendance concerns. Send the LVL 1 form to all appropriate staff members. Remember, three LVL 1 referrals, that show interventions attempted, must be submitted prior to submitting a Google Doc Discipline Referral.

Please limit all hall passes. We must enforce our expectation that instructional time is the priority, and all scholars MUST be in the classroom to learn. You know who your "hall pass" scholars are - they ALWAYS want a pass. Please DO NOT issue passes, with the exception of true emergencies. Additionally, passes should NOT be issued during the first and last 15 minutes of each class period, or after 2:00pm.