Category: Principal’s Blog

Double digit gains for both Math and ELA virtually on every grade level felt almost unbelievable, and we felt it was important to share how a community of 1,500 transformed itself from one that prided on its traditions to one that was relentlessly adaptive. These are the weekly staff updates I sent out from my first week as principal. Most recent on top.

102 Review, April 23rd, 2017: Get to Know the SBO

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Thinking Generator Highlight: Always, sometimes, never: I understand things better when I have to explain/present the answer.

-Ms. Mills

Sometimes that’s all it takes: a TG that puts a tight focus on students to develop the common sense we often take for granted by having them think about it. Remember, it might be the Nth time we’re teaching a certain topics/skill over the years, but for students, it’s very likely the present 45 minutes will be the only time they’ll ever experience the learning.

Writing effective TGs is hard work, and it’s work that’s important for us to get better at. Monday afternoon–when we’re all fried from a day of teaching–just isn’t going to cut it, and I’ve asked our UFT to conduct an SBO to see if we can use a half day in May or June to allow us some professional learning time after we send the students home early.

Tomorrow at 3:30PM we ask all staff to go to the auditorium to learn more about the aforementioned as well as a few other School-Based Options we can vote for.

Until 3:30PM, individual teacher teams not listed below may work on items as they see fit.

K-2: Blended Learning Refresher: Lexia, SmartyAnts, and introducing Mathletics. RM 325

3-5 STEM: Plan for Tuesday’s’ afternoon event. RM 329

Middle School Math: Placement protocol for 2017-2018 RM 405

ICT SPED Teachers: Reviewing students with inadequate progress RM 327

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

K-5 DISMISSAL: K-5 teachers please be mindful not to be lax in ensuring you are releasing students to parents. We’re now a school that regularly receive new students, and it is important our dismissal protocols are tight and PERFECT. It only takes one careless mistake for the world to turn upside down–don’t let it happen.

TECHNOLOGY INVENTORY: Mr. Horodyski is working on updating our equipment inventory, and he will be asking students to visit every room to look through all technology items. Please excuse the interruption and they should not take more than a few minutes per room.

RUNNING ON TV: Did you know our students were featured on New York Road Runner’s latest TV campaign? See for yourself: http://www.ps102q.org/nyrr

(Oh, Ms. Merino just completed the Boston Marathon last week, for fun, apparently.)

2017-2018 Preference Sheets will be handed out tomorrow.

Inaugural 102 Bring Your Child to Work Day will be busier than I had anticipated–and that’s hardly a bad thing. Enjoy!

Report Card Grade Changes: Should grades on the Marking Period 2 report card be inaccurate due to clerical errors (assignment not included the average, typo, etc.), you should request the necessary changes to your AP. Families should have accurate report cards, and we need to fix any inaccurate report cards brought to us from families.

Student vs. Staff Games: Take your pick: Soccer or Basketball. Official dates will be announced this week. Not that this year’s school teams have a bad record or anything, but STAFF CANNOT LOSE. Have fun, of course, and winning isn’t everything, but DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT LOSING.

102 Review, April 1st, 2017: New Assistant Principal

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Due to the decision of one of our most loyal, intelligent, kind, and effective staff member to move onto the next chapter of her journey, we were unable to publish this installment of 102 Review until now as we scramble to find her replacement. And it is with a full heart which we must announce the end of Ms. Mulé tenure at 102, and we wish her the best of everything.

Fortunately, we were able to quickly appoint a new Assistant Principal who will lead the exceptional middle school team beginning this week. Welcome to 102, Mrs. Weinstein!

For the 3 people who will read this before getting ready in the morning, here are some things you need to know:

  1. Light It Up Blue for Autism Monday:Ms. Arduini has teamed up with Ms. Marshall to organize 102’s Autism awareness initiative this year, and we ask all of 102 to wear blue Monday, April 3rd, in support.
  2. ELA Scorers to report directly to score site.The following teachers will be scoring this week from 4/3-4/6: Summo, Goldin, Gaffan, Chao, Arlequin, Gelormino, Jenal, and J. Arsenault.
  3. Monday Professional Learning:We will be pushing back the planned Focus Thinking Generator Workshop until 4/24/17. Instead, this will be time for staff to engage in self-directed professional learning
  4. Hallway Student Behaviors:As some students were still testing, many of the 5th grade students going to lunch were noisy, raucous, and disrespectful to their younger peers who are trying with all their might to focus on their written responses. It is understood that students need to exhale after the gruels of state testing; however, it is never tolerated for students to disregard the needs of others.

The same goes for morning line-up. After months of staying inside during winter, excessive student energy will be on full display this week and it is important that we are mindful in setting the right tone in the morning and maintaining it throughout the day.

  1. Teachers may apply to work summer school. Our host site this year will be 24Q058, and you should know that this year there will be more days with more hours.
  2. Spring Break is on the horizon. Let’s finish the next 5 days strong.

Thank you!

102 Review, 2017-3-26: 7 THINGS YOU SHOULD DO THIS WEEK

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

SPECIAL EDITION: THINGS YOU SHOULD DO

This week students in grades 3-8 will spend 3 days taking the state ELA exam. With fewer lessons to plan for some of us, here are some things you can do instead:

  1. Take a 7-question quizto see how much you know about the worst myths of learning. It’s astonishing how much bad science are fed to teachers. You Professional Learning this week is to get a perfect score.
  2. Spend $100 on ShopDOE.com. Ms. Wyckoff mentioned that while at Success Academy she was able to freely purchase supplies and rewards for students. Challenge accepted. All teachers, classroom or not, may put in a ShopDOE order immediately. Ms. Fremgen will reach out should there be a need to follow up. Middle school orders are due on the 27th, 3-5 the 28th, and everyone else the 29th.
  3. Upload your Operation Thank You Videos to Vimeo.com. Our OTY websiteis almost done, and the last step before we publish it to the world is to add the actual videos. Upload videos to our school Vimeo account and be sure to include a brief description of your OTY mission and the name of the recipient. Use account: wko@ps102q.org, password: emerson102.
  4. Look at Photos of our FFFFF. Ridiculous showing by the Fitness 7, and thank you Ms. Green for some Pete-sque photos!
  5. Email Ms. O’Donnell to participate in the June carnival. We will have a carnival meet-up next week. More info to follow.
  6. Marvel at Ms. Allen’s success with using Lexia. Only 2 out of her 60 students are not meeting Lexia usage, and as a result, 37% of her students are now above grade level. In September, that number was 0%.
  7. Say, “I am excited”.Look, the only thing we can do now for students taking the test Tuesday is to help them prepare mentally. Let them know that when their hands get clammy and their stomaches get twisty, they should tell their brain to say, “I am excited” instead of “I am nervous”. Both emotions generate the same physical response, and it is just a matter of hacking your brain to believe it’s excited (an emotion that IMPROVES performing in test) rather than thinking it’s anxious (anxiety kills test-taking performance). Unlike learning styles, this is real science.

102 REVIEW, 2017-3-19: MOSL AND MOTP

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

Your end-of-year rating from NYCDOE depends on two components, Measure of Student Learning (MOSL aka test scores) and Measure of Teacher Practice (MOTP aka Danielson Framework). Here are some information and thoughts:

MOSL UPDATE 3/20

Tomorrow we’ll meet in the auditorium at 3PM to go through some information about the 102 state test process. After that, we’ll share some information regarding the city’s new way of using test scores in teacher ratings, and we’ll do our best to clarify and answer your questions.

A WORD ON MOTP

Don’t let the Danielson Framework and our City’s ADVANCE observation process distract you from doing the things you know work. DF is hardly a cure-all, and it’s actually not hard to make the case that using it to measure teacher practice is actually making some teachers less effective. It compartmentalizes instruction and reduces a dynamic, complex, and distinctly inter-human process into a checklist of actions to be counted, noted, and quantified, and we all know instruction is so much more about the sum than its many parts.

Imagine what’d happen if we judged other types of artists using the same logic: that to judge the quality of a painting, we simply count how many colors were used, how many shapes are included, and whether the canvas meets the minimum size requirement. And then ignore the feelings and interpretations these paintings can evoke for different viewers–because they are impossible to standardize–even though they were probably the reasons why the painting was made in the first place.

Good instruction is not about how many times we do turn and talks, ask students to show thumbs up or thumbs down, or by asking endless open-ended questions with little regard to student abilities or the learning objective. Good instruction is having a clear focused learning objective and then designing a series of purposeful tasks/prompts that generate the precise student thinking needed to get them there. That’s it.

After the state test we’ll engage in a series focused workshops on this type of work in building a tighter through-line from a lesson’s objective to its Thinking Generator to student outcomes. Until then, do what works.

HIGHLIGHTS

Speaking of through-line from learning objective to Thinking Generators, check this TG one out by the consistently amazing Ms Arlequin:

“How are hashtags after a social media post similar to annotating in the margins of a text?”

(If only she could annotate for everyone the things I write and say…)

From Ms. Mintiens: The amount of writing that the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students are producing is staggering.  If you haven’t checked out many of their bulletin boards, please do!  The choice in writing that TC gives them has been so positive. Ms. Monteleone and Ms. Wyckoff took a risk this week when they turned the tables and let the students teach their peers.  While the students were working on their independent writing both teachers pulled small groups. Ms. Monteleone reviewed punctuation with her group, playing a fun game ( Which phrase goes in which bag – ?, . , or !). Then she explained that the students would be turn keying this information to their table mates.  She used a mid workshop interruption to explain what was going to occur to the rest of the class and the students became teachers. This exercise was a first, but empowered the students greatly to take charge of their own learning.  I love seeing the risks teachers are taking to engage and reach their students!

Both Pre-K classes had an interesting visitor this past week.  An animal expert came in and the students got to check out turtles, lizards, rabbits, chinchillas, and more.  The students had a wonderful time, and this was a great learning experience.  Ms. Devito got a great video and and Ms. McLain got some great pictures.  This was a great way to give the students an experience/field trip without leaving the building, which can be stressful.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Fast and Furious Family Fitness Fun Night is this Tuesday, 3/21 from 4:30-6:30PM. Let me know if you’re interested in participating–it’s a guaranteed good time when Martial Arts and Zumba are involved in the same event.

Surveys: The first class in each of the grade bands to return all parent surveys will receive a pizza party. The first team of teachers to do so will also get a group prize, and a raffle will be done for one individual winner. Please turn your sealed surveys to Ms. Delvecchio or Ms. Falesto.

Individual Meetings:  The APs and I will begin individual meetings with teachers regarding the success and challenges of this year as well as goals for next year. Many of the systems we introduced this year are working, and it’s time we shift the conversation to how we see ourselves fitting into them now that we’ve seen and experienced it.

3rd Floor Hall of Fame: While the STEAM team takes over the 2nd floor gallery to amazing effects, Mr. Borelli is leading the charge on transforming the 3rd floor gallery into 102’s Hall of Fame. Soon we’ll begin accepting writing entries from classes to showcase student voice; more info to follow.

102 Review, 2017-3-11: PREPARING FOR PTC

Posted on by mrkobot in Principal's Blog

There’s a great deal of information this week, so we’ll go full bullet-points.

HIGHLIGHTS:

-I did a double-take when I thought I saw Ms. Mills doing Tai-Chi with her students. But they weren’t really doing Kung Fu in slow-motion; it was actually a game of “Simon Says obtuse/acute/right/ x degree Angle”.  I can’t think of a single test prep question or lesson that would be more effective at helping 4th grade students visualize and recognize angles come May. Simon says pat yourself on the back.

-Friday night after everyone has long gone in anticipation of freezing temperature and wind, I see Mr. McManus return with the girl’s basketball team from an away game. Who cares about the score; our girls won in life by having the opportunity to be coached by Mr. Mac.

And Ms Devito and Mr. Bianculli: you both are stars in your own rights and we can’t wait to see what happens at our first FFF Night. The best PE team in Queens, and it’s not even close.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Make Deadlines.

We know you are all incredibly competent so we’ll never micro-manage how you should tackle your heavy workloads. But deadlines must be met. They exist because someone somewhere need your work to do theirs. Care for others; Make deadlines.

PTC 3/16: Social committee is doing lunch, I’ll get coffee, and the coaches will be hosting mini-workshops on reading with their children as well as using online programs at home as test-practice. You should strategically direct parents to the workshops after you meet with them.

Should you encounter an upset parents, please direct them to an AP or myself ASAP. Again, it’s not your job to be yelled at, it’s ours.

102KNOW: Thank you to Ms. Babakitis and Ms. Khatibi for writing amazing pieces for our latest 102KNOW family newsletter. Let me know if you’re interested in providing content and/or ideas for upcoming issues.

POSTING HALLWAY MATERIALS: We love seeing staff taking the initiative to make our shared spaces more beautiful and/or more informative, and a memo will be distributed Monday regarding guidance on posting materials in hallways and other shared spaces. In short: get it approved first, aesthetics matter, and always have an end date.

BRING YOUR CHILD TO WORK DAY 4/27

A letter will be backpacked home this week explaining to families that students will be excused should they go to work with their parent(s) instead of attending school on the 27th.

If you are interested in bringing your child to 102, please make sure to submit a request form that will be made available to all staff at the end of the week.

MONDAY PL: A few of you have asked for more self-directed learning time, and this Monday you should use the afternoon time as you see fit. Marking period 2 grades will be due close of business Tuesday, and you are free to use this time to prepare submitting grades (Mulé will send a reminder one-pager Monday).

Suggestion: If you have not been communicating with your students’ other teachers (RtI, AiS, ENL, SPED, speech, etc.) this is a great time to do so before meeting with parents Thursday.