Purpose Corner - Welcome to my first blog post for the 2020-2021 school year! In the video below I preview my blog, welcome new families, thank our community for a great start, and describe our parent communication process!
Family Connect Conferences - On Wednesday, September 30th from 4:00 - 7:30 P.M. we will be having our virtual "Family Connect" conferences. We will be continuing on with our recent format for these conferences by having them as an appointment only with a focus on family connection. The format of the connection time will be 7-minute conferences with teachers leading the conference by asking these two questions:
1. Is there anything you would like me to know about your family that will help and support the continued success of your student at West?
2. What do I need to know about your student academically and/or personally in order for your student to have a successful learning experience in my class?
These conferences are in the place of traditional student/teacher conferences where grades and work completion were predominately discussed. Grades and work completion are just as important as they have always been, but technology allows families to track these things and communicate more efficiently with teachers. So, I have purposely changed the format so that connections can continue to be made to support student success. Why?... see the snippet below of this March, 12th 2019 Ed Week article on why relationships matter as in captures and reaffirms my thought process.
"People sometimes mistake a kind of casual familiarity and friendliness for the promotion of really deep relationships that are about a child's potential, their interests, their strengths, and weaknesses," said Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who studies the effects of emotions and mindsets on learning.
"A lot of teachers ... have really strong abilities to engage socially with the students, but then it's not enough," she said. "You have to go much deeper than that and actually start to engage with students around their curiosity, their interests, their habits of mind through understanding and approaching material to really be an effective teacher."
A reminder to all parents that the sign-up genius link for these conferences will be coming out this Thursday, September 24th. Once you have signed up, teachers will be sending you a link to the virtual conference.
Principal Advisory Committee - The Principal Advisory Council for 2020-2021 has been set and has met with me virtually on Wednesday, September 16th. We will be meeting on a monthly basis. Please contact any one of the representatives (below) with feedback and/or questions about anything West related. Please access the meeting minutes linked here:
West "Theory Of Action" - Our (Theory Of Action) TOA is what drives our professional development plan for us as an organization. It is data-driven and looked at on a yearly basis and adjusted accordingly. This year we focused our leadership work and professional development plan utilizing principles learned through the book "The 4 Disciplines of Execution." I will expand more on this through my "Purpose Corner" video series in future blog posts: Below is our TOA:
School District COVID Dashboard - Our school district does have a COVID dashboard that is public for anyone to follow.
COVID-19 Testing - Please access the information below regarding COVID-19 testing:
Link to Waukesha County COVID-19 Testing Information
Archived Announcements (Link) Please access this link to find all of the information in our daily announcements from previous weeks.
GO WOLVERINES...WHOOP!!
