Friday Focus - December 14, 2012

• Child Study on Monday.
• Holiday Shop continues through Wednesday.
• Super Citizens' Ceremony is on Tuesday.
• The Diversity Theater Holiday Show is next week.  We have two school performances, K-2 at 12:45 on Tuesday and 3-5 at 12:45 on Wednesday.  The performance for families is Wednesday night at 6:00 PM.
• Next Thursday will be our Holiday Colors Dress-up Day.
• Teachers, please make sure that you follow our procedures for behavior concerns in the classroom.  You must fill out a referral online if the behavior is so warranted.  Students should never be sent to the front office without contacting us first.   
• Based on observing the activity that we conducted at Monday’s faculty meeting and the results of that activity, it is clear to me that some teachers do not know what formative assessments are.  Here is a website with a great definition of what formative assessments are and what they are not - http://www.amle.org/publications/webexclusive/assessment/tabid/1120/default.aspx and here is a website with numerous examples of formative assessments - http://wvde.state.wv.us/teach21/ExamplesofFormativeAssessment.html  What I would like to see at our January 18 PLCs is a discussion at each PLC of how we are using formative assessments in our classrooms and presentations from teachers of some of these strategies. 

Quote of the week - "A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion." ~ Chinese Proverb.  Sometimes we all have to do and/or say things that might not be popular, but, if we know in our hearts this is the right thing to do, we must always choose that path.