Happy Monday, all!

@D114Stanton @D114Lotus @FLGSD114 #District114proud

  

Now that the Day of Service 2 is complete, and the dust has settled, HUGE KUDOS to Jill Becmer!!  Her coordination and leadership has made the 3rd Annual D of S a huge success. Thanks to the entire district and the PTA for partnering and building the D of S into an amazing event.  By the way...a district from Wisconsin will be visiting in November to learn about the D of S.

and

Kudos to the 5th grade Team for their willingness to review and rewrite their NORMS and to schedule "team time" to better meet the needs of their students!

and

To Michele Burgess - only she take make a beast look like a beauty!!!

and

To Cathy Jawnyj for sharing her strategies on tracking her student caseload with the entire Sped Team.

and

To the 6th Grade Team for taking our students to the Museum of Science and Industry.

and

To Donielle Williams for taking time out of her busy schedule to meet with Dr. Groebe!

and

To Heather for going above and beyond with BCBS so that our medical coverage is correct!
-All from Jeff Sefcik

Wanted to give a shout out to Erica Barraza, Amanda Lorenz, Kelli Kuehn, Cary Scarpino, Tiffany Mihovilovich, & Natalie Miller for attending our info session on the Zones of Regulation and Second Step!  
-From Cari Miller and Christina Martorano 

I have a Kudos for Joan Kantenwein...
Thank you, Joan, for lending me your personal set of whisper phones for guided reading! It is greatly appreciated
-Jamie McCormick

Thanks to everyone who attended the Board of Education meeting! WOW! We had a full house and it was AWESOME! Huge props to Maureen DeVoss, Natalie Miller, Cathy Jawnyj, Gizelle Wells, and Jessica Richardson for presenting! You ROCKED it! 

I would like to send a Kuddos out to the Early Childhood team (Gayle Mondie, Jill Glauser, Rachel Lundberg and Cathy Lamberty) for being so flexible with their room space during ECAT evaluations.
-From Alana Carlson

Thank you to Jessica Lanners for getting all required paperwork turned in for students that required a student physical and/or immunizations! 

and

Thank you to Melissa Williams and the 7th grade Stanton Foxes volleyball team for winning the championship!

​
​
and

Thank you to Brian Becmer for putting together detailed sub plans since he is going to be covering for another paraprofessional. We love the communication! 
-All from Rachelle Peters

A big  SHOUT OUT to the Stanton Staff for helping me out with the PBIS ice cream celebration, Great team work! Truly appreciated  the help!
-From Chris and the Kitchen Team☺


Thank you to Tom Robinson and Linda Rasmussen for being flexible with their hours and filling in for Russ.

and

Thank you to Don Ukleja for being organized and well prepared for the Safety Inspection walk through.  It really helped to make things go smoothly.

and

A special thanks to the mental health team this week and for all of their assistance in the office.  Your help is truly appreciated!

and

Thank you Kim VanHoorelbeke for your expertise and for assisting with a student situation.

and

Thank you to Stephanie Brual, Melissa Boyce, Amanda Lorenz, Kelli Kuehn and Joan Kantenwein for being part of the Field Day Planning Committee.  We appreciate your time and effort to make Field Day a great experience for our students.

and

Amazing job to the staff members who presented at the BOE meeting this past week.  Way to represent!!!
-All from Matt Peters

Thanks to Colleen Robinson for entering and REENTERING all of the SWIS data!

and

Thanks to Cary Scarpino for offering admin incentive lunches to her students!  It was a pleasure to eat lunch with 3 of her students.
-From Natalie Udstuen

When you have a kudo to share for someone, please just email me and I'll include it here! The goal is to create system celebrations--so your input is truly welcome!

News from the Business Office  

Insurance

I think (hope!) the last piece of the puzzle is HSA accounts! I have a conference call on Monday to resolve the final issues here--they relate to a change in account number that took effect but we were not informed of. More to come ASAP, but trust that your dollars are safe and we'll get you account info just as soon as we have it.

You should have received a handout on how to access your insurance accounts in your mailbox. If not, please let know, and I'll get you the info immediately. Please remember that the following links are ESSENTIAL for all of our for insurance management (and are now added to the "Helpful Links" list below):

Blue Cross Blue Shield:

www.bcbsil.com

Guardian:

www.guardiananytime.com

Payroll

In investigating the wire transfer issues from the most recent payroll, we have learned that it's in our best interest to adjust the "cut off" dates to be a bit earlier than originally published. Please click here for the adjusted dates, also linked below so they are always accessible. Thanks in advance for keeping these dates in focus for timesheets, etc.  

Conference/Workshop Requests

Please turn in requests to attend a conference ASAP! The expectations for requesting to attend a conference are linked here and added to the links list below. 

Thanks!!!

FACILITIES UPDATES

Wahoo!!!! The Stanton stairs and doorways have been updated for students with visual needs. This is AWESOME...THANK YOU to everyone who helped to get this done!

When you have pictures or events that you think our community would like to see, please reach out to David/Mike to add them to the website! As you know, a website is only as good as its content...and making sure that content stays current. 

So...show your stuff! If you/your team has great stuff to share, let's post it!!

Also--keep those tweets coming! Our Twitter feed is AWESOME and I've gotten lots of positive feedback on it!!! THANK YOU!

Education Association of Fox Lake News and Updates

A few members have expressed interest in having an EAFL hoodie.  If we have enough interest we can place an order for hoodies.  The design would be the same as our t-shirt design and the cost would be $20.  Please let Melissa Williams know if you are interested in purchasing one so we can gauge if we have enough interest to place an order.  

Upcoming IEA Events:
IEA Professional development Conference 12/1-12/2 in Springfield. Click Here to Register  (Early bird pricing ends 10/15).

Melissa Williams, President 

Maureen DeVoss, Vice President for Certified Staff 

Chris Brown, Vice President for Non-Certified Staff 

Katy Gardner, Treasurer 

Betty Cwiak, Secretary 

Barb Brown, Region Representative

Matt Shannon, Stanton School Representative

Tiffany Tardio, Lotus School Representative

Business Office "Who Do I Go To"

Work Order Request

Technology Support Request

17-18 Payroll Schedule--UPDATED 10/22/17

Mentor Expectations

Mentoring Log Sheet

Mileage Recording Form

Early Release Plan 17-18

Blue Cross Blue Shield:

www.bcbsil.com

Guardian:

www.guardiananytime.com

Workshop/Conference Request Procedure

Questions for thought as you read...

How do you build in opportunities for students to collaborate in learning? 

What do you find interesting in this article?

Structuring Lessons So Students Struggle Productively and Collaborate

(Originally titled “Turning Teaching Upside Down”)

In this Educational Leadership article, math educator and writer Cathy Seeley remembers the logical, straightforward way she was taught to teach math: explain the concept, guide students as they work with examples, and then have them apply what they’ve learned as they work independently. The problem with this pedagogy is that it “may set students up for frustration and failure,” says Seeley, “especially when they’re faced with challenging problems they haven’t been taught how to solve.”

The alternative is what Seeley calls upside-down teaching – teacher-structured but with students doing most of the work. Here’s how it works: the teacher presents a problem students don’t already know how to solve, provides support as they wrestle with it, and then joins with them to connect their solutions to the mathematical goal. As students work, the teacher circulates, asks questions to clarify students’ thinking, and makes strategic decisions about which students should share their work, and in what sequence. The upside-down lesson reverses the conventional I-We-You sequence. Now it’s:

• You tackle a problem.
• We talk together about your thinking and your work.
• I help connect the discussion to the lesson goal.

“The focus is on students coming up with ideas, solutions, approaches, and models,” says Seeley, “even as the teacher facilitates the discussion…” It’s important to create a climate where it’s okay to make mistakes, students listen to each others’ contributions, and the ultimate solution is a group endeavor.

Why is this approach effective? Because, says Seeley, “constructively struggling with mathematical ideas can engage students’ thinking and help them learn to persevere in problem solving.” Upside-down teaching also helps students develop a growth mindset – the belief that they can get smarter through effort, strategy, and persistence.

The key to launching such lessons is a “low-floor, high-ceiling task” – with multiple entry points so all students can access the task at some level, and also plenty of depth. As students work, the teacher circulates and might say:

• How did you decide to divide by seven?
• Can you draw a picture of what you just said?
• Let me know when you’ve decided between your three different models.

When the class comes back together, students present their findings and the teacher asks clarifying questions, facilitates the discussion, makes good use of errors and misconceptions, and finally makes explicit the connections between students’ work and the mathematical goal of the lesson. Seeley describes four examples of upside-down lessons, with a video of each:

• Second graders watch a video of the Cookie Monster grabbing an unopened package of cookies, eating several, and putting the package back on a kitchen counter. “What did you notice about the video?” asks the teacher. “What did you wonder?” The question: How many cookies were eaten? Students work in pairs, the class reconvenes, and the teacher highlights different approaches and summarizes with a subtraction equation. http://bit.ly/22dMIic.

• A sixth-grade teacher shows students she can achieve the perfect shade of purple paint by mixing 2 cups of blue paint with 3 cups of red paint. Students are challenged to figure out, and model with colored cubes and drawings, how many cups of red and blue paint would be needed to make 20 cups of perfect purple paint. http://bit.ly/1Od4lbH.

• A 12th-grade teacher has students examine a tire from her car, noting its dimensions and characteristics, and then asks what would happen if someone replaced her tires with bigger ones – how would the car’s speed, gas mileage, odometer accuracy, and the space the car would take up on the road or in a parking space be affected? http://bit.ly/2yuzCY3.

• A pre-calculus teacher draws a graph on the board with coordinates labeled in two different colors and tells students there might be an error in the coordinates shown in red. http://bit.ly/2hK2tgR.

“Turning Teaching Upside Down” by Cathy Seeley in Educational Leadership, October 2017 (Vol. 75, #2, p. 32-36), http://bit.ly/2gb1rup; Seeley can be reached at cseeley@utexas.edu.

October 26 and 27--Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences!

You are AMAZING, and your students are soooo lucky to have you!

As I shared at the Board meeting, one area where I know I can do better in my job is classroom presences. As we all work on SMART goals, I wanted to share mine moving forward, as having a goal means planning to win, and failing to plan is planning to fail...

By December 2017, I will visit 3 classrooms per day, providing informal feedback to each teacher whose classroom I visit. 

Thanks in advance for letting me "crash" your rooms...and for being patient, since getting in classrooms has been a priority that, due to other reasons, I haven't yet delivered upon!

Here's to a fabulous week! Thank you for all the hard work you put into report cards and conferences...it's GREATLY appreciated! Heather