Week of Jan 30

READ THIS WEEK'S BLOG ALL THE WAY TO THE END!!!  WE HAVE A VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FOR YOU!!!

WHAT A WEEK!  It has been wild and crazy with #CISD360 and it couldn't have been the success it was without YOU.  A special shout out to Layne, Megan, and Jacque for presenting on CBL and to Ashley for co-presenting on vertical scheduling.  Our tour guests went ON AND ON about the talent in our building and some heard about Lee at lunch and ditched their original afternoon tour to come to Lee!  Other Principals, Central Office, AND DR. WALDRIP heard all about your awesomeness!  THANK YOU for making me massively #principalproud!

Here are some GREAT IMAGES from the district tour.

LEEdership Council did a WONDERFUL job of greeting and escorting our visitors.  THANK YOU for sharing them throughout the day!

You want tears in your eyes?  At one point, I wondered why the tour was taking so long to get upstairs...that's because our "resident welcome wagon," Charles, was working his magic.  I turn around to see this guest holding Charles' hand and helping walk him upstairs to blue house!!!  Real men wear plaid!!

  How about this HUGE canvas that was created especially for our school and gifted to us from Huffman ISD?  As a thank you for YOUR inspiration (they have visited at least 5 times in preparation of opening a new school) they had this custom made for us.  We can't wait to find the perfect spot for it! 

Check out Mary Kemper's CBL Sketchnotes from our girls' presentation.  They rocked it!

There were SO MANY JOYS along our journey this week!

DID YOU KNOW

• our payroll system has changed over?  Please verify that your pay is accurate and that direct deposits are correct.  Your net pay will be different due to to changes in IRS Tax Tables.  If there is an issue, please let Carla in payroll know by MONDAY.  You received an email about this from Kelly Penny on Tuesday.
• that the City of Coppell is opening Life Safety Park this weekend?  It is modeled after Frisco's Safety Town and would make a great field trip opportunity!
• that it is that time of year where we select what we want in our school supply kits for the 2017-2018 school year?  ALREADY?!  Please edit this document and make changes in your next cycle of team time so I can get it to PTO.  I will know your grade is ready when the date on your tab is changed to 2017-18.  Remember that costs need to stay as close to $50 as possible so that after our group discount they fall within district guidelines.  The deadline is Monday, February 6.

TELPAS
Please make sure you read and understand Angela and Claudia's emails regarding TELPAS.  Please ask if you have ANY questions.


IT'S TIME TEXAS
This week, you can wear warm ups with your college shirt on Wednesday AND your school shirt on Friday if you make a minimum of one staff shout out before Wednesday.  Here are the rules:

• A minimum of at least three school staff or faculty must be in the photo holding this downloadable/printable ITT Shout Out card.
• This is for school staff and faculty only. Photos involving students are not allowed.
• Photos of the same group of people are not allowed. (But you can be in multiple groups which will earn our our district more points)
• Tweet your staff shout out group photo to @ITSTIME @LWnCoppell #CommunityChallenge 

INNOVATORS MINDSET
At Lee, we believe that everyone is a leader!  Chapters 8-12 of Innovator’s Mindset are all about leading the charge in innovation by using your strengths and unleashing your own talents.  Please have these chapters read by February 3rd.  Also, take time to reflect on the chapters and complete one of the reflection choices by February 3rd. We hope you find a new tool for reflection that you can also use with your learners! More details are posted in our Lee Schoology course!  


WEEKLY WALKTHROUGH FOCUS

THIS WEEK'S CURRICULUM COURIER

LEE LIFE PRINCIPLE:

Loyalty- faithfulness to another.

LESSON IN LEADERSHIP:

If you hear something negative about one of your friends, don't repeat it.  If necessary, let a designer know what was said.

LEE QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody." -Benjamin Franklin

DATES TO REMEMBER:
January 30- Mentor Meeting (3:30 Green House)
February 1- College Shirt and Jeans
            Digital Learning Day (every day is #DLDay-register & tweet out)
            Leadership Meeting (3:45 On the Border)
February 3- Innovators Mindset Assignment Due
            Spirit Stick Sales (Recess Time)
February 6- 100th Day of School (see letter shared by Courtney)
            School Supply Lists for 2017-2018 Due

CONGRATULATIONS TO RICHARD J LEE ELEMENTARY- WE ARE OFFICIALLY A STATE SCHOOL OF CHARACTER!!!

We found out this evening and wanted to surprise you in a FUN way, however, a press release will go out tomorrow-so we wanted you to be the first to know.  THANK YOU to all of you that contributed evidence to our application.  A special THANK YOU to Angela who worked MANY extra hours to get our application complete and accepted.  This is a HUGE honor for our school, YOU, and our famiLEEs because it is truly a team effort.  There will be future award events coming up that we will keep you informed about.  Please keep this award off of social media until I have sent a Parent Link to our stakeholders.  CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Week of Jan 23

Thank you for your hard work designing your next challenges.  Ashley and I are so impressed with your collaboration, planning, and designing this week.  You have come so far with your CBL work and understanding of Challenge Based Learning.  Please take time to reflect about how far you have come and CELEBRATE that!  Our classroom visits this week also highlighted the greatness in our building.  Watching you with your learners brings us JOY in our journey!

DID YOU KNOW

• there is a cool website I learned about from Blue House called Solve Me Mobiles?  Have fun checking it out.
• that RJL raised $4,291.52 for the American Heart Association?  THANK YOU Julie and Julie for promoting this awesome fundraising on campus!
• in order for us to remain an Apple Distinguished School when we renew that 70% of our staff will need to be Apple Teachers?  (have you seen Alli's email about upcoming training?)  Some of our designers already completed this and your Principal has only passed the iPad portion, so don't panic, but if you are looking for ways to earn flex time, this could be a great way to do so.  

CISD TOUR

We will have super important tours coming through campus on Wednesday.  This means jeans on TUESDAY, not Wednesday.  Thank you to Layne, Megan, Jacque, and Ashley for helping to present on Thursday.

Please have the following clearly posted in your spaces:  CBL Language, I can statements or learning standards, 8 Expectations for Living, LEEdership tip/quote/quality of the week, anchor charts in ALL subject areas, and learner work.  There WILL be MANY folks through our building on this day, so please be prepared.  They may want to ask you or your learners questions.  They have permission from the district to do this.  You design amazing experiences each day, that is why these visitors are paying $198 each a day to observe the BEST experiences for learners.  What our guests observe will help them with visioning in their schools and push boundaries in their districts.  My expectation would be to model best practices with choice/voice, differentiation with product/process, use of technology at the creation and redefinition level (a great opportunity to showcase your coding skills), inquiry based experiences, cross curricular connections, and high learner engagement.  PLEASE come see me if you have any questions.

NOTES FROM OUR IC

Please take 2 minutes at your earliest convenience to fill out Jacque's 3rd Nine Weeks Survey so she can start partnering with you on your goals this nine weeks.   A friendly reminder, Chapters 8-12 are to be read by February 3rd. We will have a Reflection menu for you to choose how you prefer to reflect on your reading! 

REMINDER FROM ASHLEY

We have many new learners on our campus that may not be familiar with our attendance policies, as well learners who have had a high number of absences the first semester.  We need to make every effort to encourage them to be here every day!  Please include the following note in your newsletters:

Parents, 

As a new semester begins, please take time to review our district attendance policies on our school website here.  We ask that you keep us informed of your child's absences and have them at school whenever possible.  Attendance is a very important part of learning!  We do not want your children to miss valuable learning experiences, and we miss them when they are gone!  Thank you for partnering with us in this!  

INAUGURATION
You received an email from the district regarding watching the inauguration event with your learners.  It is a campus decision, therefore, I would request that if you are using this in conjunction with your curriculum, tomorrow, that you speak with Chantel or Ashley first.  THANK YOU.


WEEKLY WALKTHROUGH FOCUS
There are new district expectations.  Instead of 12 walkthroughs a week, Ashley and I have a minimum of 5 required, now.  We will continue with Domain 2 Dimension 2 for the next week.  We are looking for anchor charts, CBL language and cross curricular connections during these visits.

LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
We will meet in the cafe tomorrow morning at 9:00.  Thank you for giving your council members time to share out about our meetings and their decisions for the school.

THIS WEEK'S CURRICULUM COURIER

Say hello to sweet Liam Benson

LEE LIFE PRINCIPLE:

Integrity- acting according to a sense of right and wrong.

LESSON IN LEADERSHIP:

Do what you know is right, even if no one is watching.

LEE QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he wouldn't be found out." - Thomas Macauley

DATES TO REMEMBER:
January 23- Angela's Birthday
                    RtI Meetings
January 24-  Jessica K's Birthday
                     House t-shirt with jeans
January 25-  CISD Tours on Campus all day
                     Staff Meeting (3:30-5:00)  ALL MUST ATTEND
January 26-  Jamie's Birthday
                     Spurs Savings (7:30-7:50)
January 27-  LEEdership Council (8:30-9:30)

Week of Jan 9

What a fast and furious first week back.  THANK YOU for the experiences you designed for our children and the flexibility you have demonstrated with all of our new learners enrolling.  YOU ARE APPRECIATED!

Please place your #oneword canvases on your design studio desks to help keep you focused this winter and spring and thank you to Kristen for her tips in hand lettering!

DID YOU KNOW

• that for the 2017-2018 school year our district will be on 9 weeks grading periods K-12?
• there is a course code for a GROUP in Schoology for Curriculum and Instruction?  It is: KRQ5T-GMQ85  It is also added to the faculty website on each subject area.  There are great resources for interventions and lessons under the Response to Intervention folders.
• January 10^th will be the Jeans and CEF shirt day for this month?  Please post a photo of 5 or less friends and tweet it with #coppellisdef to win Sonic drinks.  Let's go Lee!
• that the A-F Ratings will go live today?  Please, please review the powerpoint I emailed out on Wednesday so that we present a united front to any parent who asks about this broken system or CISD.  
• Ashley and Chantel will be out next Wed-Friday?  We will be working on a research project with Apple in California.  Laurie O'Neill and Nick Conraad will be guest administrators on campus.  
• that you have permission to wear sweats on January 11 if you register and earn 1,000 points for creating an account on the Community Challenge website.  There will be weekly motivators for sweats in the future.  Stay tuned!  

MOY SCREENER and RtI:
As you begin your MOY assessments, please remember that this information is a data point to use for RtI.  As you finish scoring, please schedule a time to touch base with us at an RtI meeting about your learners.  We want to see the progress of all learners, but particularly the learners we put on the "watch" list at the beginning of the year, as well as discuss any learners who may be struggling now and need extra support.  Our upcoming RtI meetings are January 9th, January 23rd, and February 6th.  Use this link to sign-up, and as always, let Ashley know if you have any questions or need to meet sooner.   

MOY GOAL SETTING
If you are a paraprofessional, instructional aide, or office support staff, Ashley and I will be setting middle of the year goal setting appointments with you.  This is a time for us to check in with you to see how we can support you and your professional goals.  For all others that are evaluated under TTESS, Ashley and I hosted your formal TTESS Observation Post Conferences in December.  You have the option to decline middle of the year goal setting, if you prefer.  We are more than happy to meet with you if you would like to discuss your goals and ways we can support you if you need to, but the TTESS committee recognizes that we just met and discussed areas of reinforcement and refinement.  

TOUR 360
Just a reminder that CISD will be hosting a massive district tour on January 25 and 26.  Due to the importance of these visits, I will not be able to approve any more subs for personal days on these two days.  I will be getting with our core CBL training group and IMPACT participants to ask for your help in hosting a session about CBL, Lee, or more.  Please be watching your inbox for a calendar invite.  Be working towards having your displays and work intentionally showcased.


WEEKLY WALKTHROUGH FOCUS
For our focused walkthroughs the next four weeks we will be focusing on Domain 2 Dimension 2 Content Knowledge and Expertise.  We will be looking for things like cross curricular connections, strategies to avoid learning pitfalls, learners analyzing,creating and evaluating, and learner directed learning.

THIS WEEK'S CURRICULUM COURIER

LEE LIFE PRINCIPLE:

Honesty- truthfulness in words and actions.

LESSON IN LEADERSHIP:

No matter what the circumstances, always be honest.  Even if you have done something wrong, it is best to be honest.

LEE QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." -Thomas Jefferson

DATES TO REMEMBER:
January 7- May's Birthday
January 9- Karli, Priscilla, and Rikki's Birthdays
                  Educational Diagnostician's Week
January 10- Ed Foundation t-shirt and jeans
                    Math Educator Academy (3-5)
                    PTO Meeting (6:30)
January 11- Math Educator Academy (K-2)
                    House Shirt and jeans
                    CISD Spelling Bee (CMSW)
                    Fed Ex Day (3:30-4:30)
January 12- Balanced Literacy Academy
                    Spurs Savings (7:30-7:50)
                    Buffalo Wild Wings Night