January 4, 2016

2016-globe

 

See you next year!

I would like to wish everyone a joyous Christmas and hope that all your wished come true over the holidays.  This is a special time to relax, reflect, and look forward towards an abundance of joy in store for you in 2016.  Cherish your time and enjoy your family and friends!  Have a Merry Christmas and an Awesome New Year!

Steve

 

Coming soon to Arno in 2016…

Christmas Break December 19-Jan.3

January 4

Welcome Back!!

January 5

Nothing Scheduled

January 6

3rd Grade DRA Day – make sure your subs are set

PTSA Reflection Tea

January 7

PTA Meeting- Founders Day Nominations read

ICC 4:00

January 8

Nothing Scheduled

 

Ugly Sweater Day- The New Awesomeness!

Check out these in style, Christmas masterpiece sweaters that some of our great teachers wore on Ugly Sweater day (Check out the pants, too!).  Way to get in the holiday spirit!

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Arno Decks the Halls with Christmas carols

The building was alive with the sounds of our Arno students belting out some awesome Christmas carols, helping all of us feel the holiday spirit (still no snow to do that).  Huge thanks to Todd and Jeff for an outstanding performance and in leading in holiday song this morning, much appreciated!

 

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Honor Choir Holiday Concert

What a wonderful holiday performance from our Elementary Honor Choir Thursday from Arno, Bennie, and Lindemann.  congratulations to all of our students and to Mr. Tracy Hoffman for showcasing the incredible talent we have at Allen Park Schools!

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data

 

February Data Day

Please add February 23 to your calendar for data day.  We will follow the same schedule and cover your 2nd common assessment, talk M-STEP, and look at reading.

The schedule is as follows: Arno Elementary

8:45-9:30         Grade 3

9:-35-10:15       Grade 5

10:20-11:05      Grade 2

11:10-11:55        Grade 4

12:45-1:30         Grade 1

1:45-2:30           Grade K

 

M-STEP Update on Classroom Activities

The Office of Standards and Assessment has decided to remove the classroom activities associated with the mathematics and English language arts (ELA) Performance Tasks (PT). In the last few months, the performance tasks in all grades underwent extensive review to determine if the classroom activity associated with the performance task was crucial to student understanding the context of the performance task. The ELA performance tasks were determined to have sufficient embedded resources to allow students to demonstrate what they know and can do without participating in a preceding classroom activity. Similarly, most of the mathematics performance tasks can stand on their own without a classroom activity. However, the review documented four mathematics performance tasks for which the classroom activities are likely necessary additional supports for students. Those four PTs have been removed from the pool of available performance tasks. For the Spring 2016 M-STEP administration, the mathematics assessment will continue to contain performance tasks at grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, but there will no longer be classroom activities to administer. The updated ELA assessment will contain performance tasks at grades 5 and 8 only, which will no longer require classroom activities.

Arno Family Caring Night

What a great time we had together last Friday night as an Arno family, enjoying each other’s company and showing how much Arno cares about the community.  At our Caring Night, kids and parents enjoyed pizza, listened to Christmas stories, of course crafted an ornament for the residents of the local senior center.  Way to go Caring Cougars!

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Arno Cares

What an incredible job Arno did in collecting cold weather gear and food.  That included 166 cans of Spaghettios!  Thank you for being so generous and showing the true meaning of Christmas!

Below, Darren Putnum, Seth Black, Tyler Tillery and Bryce Sauve help load up all the donations to area people in need.

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 Winter DRA Schedule- Mark your calendars & call a sub

Date Grade Level/Teachers # of Subs Needed
January 6 Third Grade 4
January 12 Second Grade 3
January 20 First Grade 3
January 21 Kindergarten 3

 

The advanced Google searches every student should know


GOOGLE HAS AMAZING TOOLS FOR FINDING SCHOOL-WORTHY SOURCES. TOO BAD MOST KIDS DON’T KNOW THEY EXIST

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/11/23/how-search-google-592/

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3rd Grade Fur Trade

Metro Parks visited Arno 3rd graders once again this past week to talk about the fur trade back in the day.  The students got treated to lots of history on the fur trade in Michigan hosted by a French accented colonial woman that helped them understand what it involved.  Thank you Metro Parks!

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Obsolete Books/Textbooks

Guidelines to support policy/regulation 3900, 3900-R, 7350-R-3

-Annually, prior to June 30, the building administrator seeks permission from the superintendent in writing (electronically is acceptable) to dispose of obsolete books/textbooks.  

-The building administrator shall provide a list of the books/textbooks, year published, reason for disposal, and other pertinent information to the superintendent.

-After permission for disposal is granted, the obsolete books/textbooks shall be stamped on the inside cover as “obsolete.”  

-All books/textbooks for disposal shall be placed in boxes, secured with tape, and disposed of via the school district’s waste receptacle.  

See you in 2016 Arno Cougars!

 

 

 

 

December 14

 

A Merry Christmas message from the office

Coming soon to Arno…

Dec. 14

Ad Council 9:00

Liedel X-mas 2:00

Wesley Xmas 2:45

MTSS district meeting 4:00

5th grade maturation program

Dec. 15

Steve @Riley all day

5th grade maturation

Dec. 16

Haskin/Warneck Field trip 8:45

Santa Cash pizza party per regular lunch schedule

Watson Xmas 1:30

5th grade maturation

Brown Xmas 2:45

Dec. 17

RESA leadership conf. Steve

Elementary Honor Choir

Dec. 18

Christmas sing-a-long 9:30

Kids Hope Pizza Party 2:00- cafeteria

1st grade to The Henry Ford

Dec 19-1/13/16

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Jan. 4, 2016

School Resumes

 

Please let me know if you need any room space to reserve this week if your class is doing any projects.  Almost there, 5 days and counting!

 

Congratulations Mrs. Pushman, Mrs. Ellis!

IMG_0284Congratulations goes out to Mrs. Pushman for the Founder’s Day Award for Outstanding Educator 2015. This is a well deserved award for Mrs. Pushman’s hard work and dedication to her students, parents, staff, and her teaching craft. Mrs. Pushman, along with other award winners from around the district will attend a dinner in their honor in February.

In addition, Congratulations to Mrs. Ellis for the Founder’s Day Distinguished Service Award. She has been very active on the PTA and spent a lot time making sure our Arno Fun Run was a huge success. Mrs. Ellis currently serves as secretary for the PTA, among other responsibilities that she gladly takes on for our kids.

Other results just released from our PTA:

Stephen Zielinski for the 2016 Outstanding Support Personnel
Barbara Pushman for the 2016 Outstanding Educator Award
Kelley Ellis for the 2016 Distinguished Service Award

 

Title 1 room change

Cathy Gorski will be relocating all of our Title 1 materials, etc. to the larger room next to Sandy’s office.  This will help accommodate her materials more efficiently, and we will use her old office as an extra room for testing, etc.

 

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Arno Christmas Sing-A-Long

Get ready to fa la la la this December as Jeff Skebo has put together a wonderful Christmas sing-a-long down in the gym on December 18th .  We are going to pack the whole building in to have some yuletide fun!

December 18  @9:30 in the gym

 

MTSS Site Visit

Lisa, Jennifer, Cathy, Barb, and myself were invited to participate in a building site visit to an elementary school in Livonia that as established an intervention system.  It was great to hear their building dialogue and learn about their processes on implementing interventions, as well as learn of their core expectations (guided reading, 90 minute ELA block, math, etc.)  Some of our key take-aways included thoughts about setting criteria on who gets additional time, who does the interventions, scheduling ideas (they have a building wide recess), and how they structured child study discussions.  The MTSS district team will debrief after school Monday about what we are already doing (which is a lot, and what are the additional things we need to address moving forward. As with the district team, I would like to assemble a building team in January to look at all of things we are doing for kids, and what are our strengths and weaknesses.  I will let you know when I schedule that open meeting.

 

This just in to the newsroom… Big education policy change

Senate scraps NCLB: education; battle moves to states

 

The Senate sent a bill to the president’s desk Wednesday that replaces much of the widely disliked No Child Left Behind Act and shifts more power over education to states and school districts.

The bill passed the chamber 85-12 on the heels of its passage in the House last week. After No Child Left Behind established a high watermark for federal involvement in education, the new bill slashes the federal role by historic proportions, experts say. The bill — which the president is scheduled to sign Thursday — would dump the current law’s intense focus on test scores and the well-intentioned but impossible goal of having all students reading and calculating at grade level.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (S.1177) allows states to set their own guidelines for rating schools and improving them, with federal oversight and restrictions. It was a victory for many Republicans and teachers unions, who were allied in their mission to undercut what they viewed as prescriptive, top-down regulation and intrusion into local schools.

The bill would “put education back in the hands of those who understand their needs best: parents, teachers, states and school boards,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday. “It’s conservative reform designed to help students succeed instead of helping Washington grow.”

Democrats see the bill as a chance to offload some of the aspects of NCLB that are unpopular with constituents, while maintaining their paramount goal of protecting poor and minority students, whose performance often lags their peers and who disproportionately attend the worst schools. The bill requires states to track performance of such students closely and intervene when schools are failing. Because of this, it earned the backing of the president and overwhelming support from Senate Democrats.

Senate Republicans supported the bill, with the exception of a handful of conservatives including 2016 presidential candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who don’t think it walks back the federal role in education far enough.

The bill “unfortunately continues to propagate the large and ever-growing role of the federal government in our education system—the same federal government that sold us failed top-down standards like Common Core,” Cruz, who didn’t vote, said in a statement Wednesday. “The American people expect the Republican majority to do better.” Fellow 2016 contenders Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders also didn’t cast votes. Paul voted against the bill.

The new bill bans future Education secretaries from pushing a Common Core-like set of academic standards and limits what the department can and can’t regulate. Dozens of waivers from No Child Left Behind granted by the Obama administration would be void starting in August 2016. States would have more than a year to shift to the new system, which would take hold starting in the 2017-18 school year.

But there will also be places for the Obama administration to leave an imprint, thanks to a streamlined regulatory process written into the bill that it will have a year to leverage. For example, the department could place broad parameters on when a group of students would be considered “consistently” low-performing, signaling a need for intervention.

Even before the bill was headed to the president, a swath of education, civil rights and business groups were already lining up ways to shape the law’s implementation. Since the bill returns power to states, advocates plan on waging state-by-state battles over education policy that were previously fought in Washington.

Advocates in D.C. have worked furiously over the last year to preserve strong federal protections in the bill for poor and minority students. But in the coming years, they’ll be “trying to make equity at the heart of education in states,” said Ryan Smith, executive director of The Education Trust-West, the California arm of the Washington-based education advocacy group.

“With all of this wonderful flexibility comes great responsibility” for states, said Cheryl Oldham, vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is highlighting the need to continue to focus on minorities this week with a conference it is co-hosting with the NAACP on African-American student achievement.

One central issue for the Chamber will be making sure states continue to heavily weigh academic measures of students success — like test scores and graduation rates — when they rate schools. The new law allows states to also use some non-academic measures, such as student engagement, when evaluating schools.

That change in school rating metrics alone was a major legislative victory for teachers unions. Unions pushed all year to ditch No Child Left Behind’s embrace of testing, which they’ve dubbed a “test-and-punish” approach. Lawmakers ultimately settled on keeping a federal requirement that schools test students annually — but they gave states more leeway in how much test results matter. The law will also provide new funding to help states audit and get rid of excessive tests.

“You’ve had 15 years of test, test, test, test, test, test, test,” American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten said. “This is a vast improvement over what we have right now.”

And in another win, states will no longer have to evaluate teachers in a way that takes student outcomes — such as test scores — into account, a provision in the Obama administration’s waivers that unions opposed.

Now unions are making preparations of their own for the new law.

The National Education Association is pulling together a task force to begin planning how to educate teachers and organize in states.

The Obama administration, too, has begun positioning itself for an intense new phase — designing regulations to implement the law.

“We’re gearing up,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview Saturday. Getting the law passed now is important to the Obama administration so it has “13 months to think about implementation,” he said. On Tuesday, Duncan was at Maryland’s National Harbor kickstarting outreach about the new law in a speech to educators.

Duncan is set to step down at the end of the year, so the dash to regulate the law will be the work of his successor, John King. And King will be operating in a different environment than Education secretaries did in the past because of the bill’s limit on the secretary’s power.

Senators celebrated the bill’s passage, but the next steps already loom on the horizon. Senate HELP Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pledged Tuesday to keep close watch on implementation now that the work in Congress is done.

“We can’t just sign the bill and walk away,” Murray said. “We have to follow through and make sure they’re doing what we wanted to do with this law.”

 

Kiwanis donates dictionaries to all third graders

Kiwanis, which has been in Allen Park since 1939 and is celebrating their 100 year anniversary, came to Arno on Thursday to donate a new dictionary to every third grade student.  Dave Goodwin, who spoke with the classes indicated that this is the Kiwanis’s 10th year of donating dictionaries.  We thank them for this great resource gift to our kids!

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Santa Cash

Thanks to everyone for participating in Santa Cash.  The pizza lunch will be Dec. 16th at the student’s normal time to eat.  They can come down to the conf room for the lunch.

 

concert

5th Grade band a holiday hit

Thursday night’s 5th grade band concert that included students from Arno, Lindemann, and Bennie helped raise our Christmas spirits as the band played a selection of holiday favorites in front of a packed crowd at the Center for Performing Arts. Although no snow was falling, the holidays never looked, or sounded better. Congratulations to all of our your band members, you sounded professional!

Arno 5th grade band members include: Alexis Ballard, Avery Loving, Teagan Montgomery, Glenn Doss, William Keysaer, Samantha Manson, Juliette Torres, Molly Hool, Victoria Koziel, Carla Schultz, Madilynn Vaughn, Jackson Pettit-Pokora, Drake Steele, Luis Diaz, Cameron Greene, Mia Hool, Cameron McGinnis, Cole Mucha, Damani Dewberry, Meadow Merchanco, DiegoSanchez

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Make it a great week!

 

 

 

 

December 7

tree4

Coming soon to Arno…

December 7        

IEP’s Sbonek

Steve out

December 8

Smalley X-Mas 10:30

MTSS Site visit to Livonia- Lisa, Jennifer, Steve 12:00

December 9

Guyot X-Mas 10:00

Schultz X-Mas 12:15

PBIS meeting 3:45

December 10

Kiwanis Dictionary visit to all 3rd grade rooms 9:00 start

District Safety committee 10:00

Staff Christmas Luncheon from Liberatis (Gym) 11:00 (special lunch schedule for the day)

5th Grade Band Concert 7:00

December 11

3rd Grade Metro Parks in Media Center

PTA Family Caring Night 6:00

 

Data Day Take Aways

I want to thank everyone for their rich dialogue on our data day this week.  Some take-aways for me:

  • I was very impressed with the data charts that were being used.  It was very clear to me that you created the means to identify strengths and weaknesses of all students in your classroom, as well as your grade level.
  • There was a need to ensure we use review questions (Q1 questions)  along with the Q 2 test- that could be done on a separate day and cold use recycled questions.  The important idea there is that we need to make sure the students are able to retain the skills throughout the whole year, and we must assess that to know.
  • Some of our dialogue also pointed to the necessity to include higher level questioning into our practice.  There was an indication that students were able to grasp a simple concept, but may not be able to take it to the next higher level of application.  All Questioning flip books were passed out, use those as a quick guide for lit discussion, math, science, ss- infuse them where you can but be consistent in getting our kids use to higher level thinking.
  • We had a lot of great thoughts on “What’s next” in terms of intervention.  Beyond the thought of what we are doing or planning- we simply must be sure we are taking the data and making changes/interventions because of the story it tells us.   Remember- if the students must know these standards to be successful next school year, then we must use the data to help us intervene with those who are struggling in those standard areas.  Let me know how I can be of assistance

 

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Arno Christmas Sing-A-Long

Get ready to fa la la la this December as Jeff Skebo has put together a wonderful Christmas sing-a-long down in the gym on December 18th .  We are going to pack the whole building in to have some yuletide fun!

December 18  @9:30 in the gym


Math Mania

Thank to Sarah for providing staff the information on getting started with Math Mania, a connected strategy to the SIP.  From Sarah:

The goal for this school improvement effort is simple: math fact fluency.

Mania Mania will begin after the break. This program involves flashcards with parent volunteers and an online component utilizing XtraMath. K-1 students will need to master numeracy before utilizing the flashcard or online components. (This may be different for each child’s skill level.)
Please secure at least 1-2 volunteers to do flashcards with your students. (We are hoping for at least twice a week.) Please stress to your parents that because this is fact fluency, they should only be allowing the child 3 seconds to answer. If you are having difficulties getting volunteers, please contact Mrs. Manson who is organizing VOICE volunteers this year. Her email is:  hmm1201@att.net
Here is the link to create an account and enroll your students in XtraMath:  https://xtramath.org/#/home/index

You may also choose to use many other features of XtraMath:
   printable parent enrollment letters
   printable student progress reports
   printable class reports
   classroom testing option (student will complete another session and then the computer            prompts that student to get another student)

The Math Mania classroom log sheet for parent volunteers to use when doing flashcards as well as a copy of mine to show the process of logging and keeping track of assigned operation.

sleighspinHoliday Giving

December brings around a wonderful time of year.  Unfortunately, many people do not have the ability to enjoy the season as much as others.

To make things a little bit easier for some families, we will be collecting non-perishable food items for the Christine Food Bank/Soup Kitchen.  The food bank provides non-perishable goods to families to help stretch their grocery budget.  The soup kitchen provides hot meals to school children that might not get one during the week.  The kid favorite…Spaghetti-o’s

Arno school families have always been generous in the past.  We are asking for donations of food to help brighten the holiday season for others.

In the spirit of sharing holiday warmth, we will also be collecting new, warm outerwear like hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves to share.

We will begin our collection on Monday, Nov. 30 through Wed.  December 15.  Your donation can be put in boxes that will be available aess.

We hope that you can join us in this holiday tradition!

santa coffee

 Coffee Break Reminder

 

Just a reminder, if you have yet signed up for your free 30 minute prep so I can come in and read Christmas stories, please contact me and let me know what works.

 

Christmas Luncheon

Please remember to come hungry on Thursday this week.  We will be having our holiday lunch in the gym starting at 11:00 for some, 11:10 for the rest.  Schedule for lunch that day is below:

11:00-11:30  K-1  Eat first

11:30-12:00 K-1   Recess

11:00-11:30  2-3  Recess

11:30-12:00  2-3 Eat in classrooms

11:10-11:40   4-5  Recess

11:40-12:10   4-5  Eat

** Only second and third grade are eating in the classroom

 

 Snow Policy (As shared in the parent blog)

As we have already been hit with one snowstorm, more is always on its way.  As far as snow goes at Arno, please read the following:

1. As long as our play areas have been treated, we will continue to go out throughout the winter (as long as the wind chill/temp isn’t too low).

2. Students who wish to be in the snow should at a minimum be in boots and protective leg wear to keep them dry.  This prevents large amounts of students from needing a clothing change, and missing class time.   Students who are not wearing protective covering for the snow will be required to stay out of the snow for recess.

3. Snow stays on the ground.  Please talk with your child about the dangers of throwing snowballs, which can sometimes contain ice.  Students are free to build a snowman or snow fort, etc., things that keep the snow on the ground.

All of these rules apply before/after school, bus stop to walking home, and recess.

 

 Third Grade Fur Trading

Just in time to help keep warm, our adventurous third graders wrote on fur traders, complete with their own creative version of a fur trader.

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Kindergarten Thanksgiving Community Project

Thanks to all of our Pilgrims, Turkeys, Indians, and Parents for making the Thanksgiving placemat project a big success!

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dok_ocean_ela_copy DOK

 

DOK

Please take a look at the document that shows how Depth of Knowledge and it compares/line-up to Bloom’s Taxonomy.  This is the critical thinking that has to prepare students for future college and career, as well as state testing on the CORE.   The Cognitive Questioning flip books are in and  I will get something together soon so that we can start using more higher level questioning in the classroom.  If you would like your flip book early, just let me know.  Here is the link to the chart:  http://www.missionliteracy.com/uploads/3/1/5/8/3158234/dok_ocean_ela_copy.pdf

 

 

PTA Reflections Tea

What an awesome evening we spent with some of Arno’s talented students honoring their entries into the PTA Reflections contest on Monday.  This year’s theme was “Let Your Imagination Fly”  and as you can from some of that night’s pictures, our students reached for the stars.  The next step is to give awards to some of the entries, which will then go on to a state competition,.  Congratulations to all of our Arno students who entered- you’re all superstars!

Anna Watson, Ava Berkebile, Ben Klos, Gerry Klos, Cooper Obrycki, Elizabeth Lesatz, Ella Elliott, Gracyn Gartside, Hailey Rose, Isabella Garrison, Jeran Moody, Juan Vega, Julia Schroeder, Madeline Every, Meadow Stewart, Peter Lenart, Phoebe Elliott, Selena Swidan, and Victoria Koziel.   Special thanks to Mrs. Emilia Vega and Mrs. Dawn Watson for organizing the our Reflection Tea!

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PBIS Rewards Pay Off

Monday marked another PBIS rewards day for the month of November, awarding those who displayed good behavior and good work habits with a dance party down in the cafeteria.  The students had a great time and we are all looking forward to December’s reward!

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Consumers Energy Grant for Kindergarten

A huge thank you to Mrs. Julie Hegedus for securing a $250 grant from Consumers Energy which will be going to our Kindergarten to use on technology for the classroom.  On behalf of Arno, thank you Mrs.  Hegedus for your donation to our kindergarten program.

 

Make it a great week!