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@D114Stanton
@D114Lotus
@FLGSD114
#District114proud
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Thanks to our administrative assistants for all the strategic planning data and for taking charge for improving our registration processes for next year! You are such a fabulous team!
and
To all our district Ready...Set...STEM volunteers! What a FABULOUS event---thank so you!
Jeff Sefcik
Rachelle and Matt Peters
Natalie Udstuen
To all our district Ready...Set...STEM volunteers! What a FABULOUS event---thank so you!
Jeff Sefcik
Rachelle and Matt Peters
Natalie Udstuen
David Roat
Erica Barazza
Coleen Hitzler
Kathleen Winkiel
Maureen Koenig
Liz Andersen
Joan Kantenwein
Karen Brnot
Becky Brnot
Kally Kibitlewski
Barb Brown
Denise Kelley
Brenda Martin
Jenny Schiller
Erin Connolly-Jordt
-From Heather
Hi there,
I just wanted to send an email of thanks.....what a great club and Justin is just loving the coding class. He comes home every Monday and Tuesday to tell us what he learned. My husband is a engineer/software programmer so it makes him smile when they sit down and he tells him all the neat stuff he is learning.
So thank you very much for offering these clubs to the young 3rd grade minds....
-From Jenny Sotos (Parent)
Thanks to the Mental Health team and all the participants in Wednesday/s SEL materials selection process:
Connie Lancaster
Erica Barraza
Fiona Wisniewski
Greer Lally
Jackie Harmon
Jamie McCormick
Jessica Richardson
Kim Husko
Melissa Williams
Theresa Kovach
Niccole Culbertson
Paige Schaffer
Stephanie Brual
Tegan Maybrun
Tiffany Tardio
Victoria Miller
-From Keli Swierczek
Melissa Boyce, Meghan Hower, and Carmen Carbajal for teaming together to find a quality candidate for our ESL teacher at Stanton. One Team!
All of our Mental Health and Special Education staff for their care and concern for our most needy students! All In!
The entire Stanton Team for simply being awesome...We Are 114!
-Jeff
To Matt and Natalie for taking time out of their day to support kids social-emotional needs & taking a positive approach- even when it is hard!
To Laura Myers for thinking outside the box when it comes to emotional and behavioral interventions.
To Theresa Kovach who came last minute to the SEL top 3 night!
To Cari Miller, Sarah Ferens, and Lynn Smolen for taking over when I physically cannot be there! :)
-Christina Martorano
Thank you to Matt Peters, Natalie Udstuen and Cari Miller for all your in- class support for my students this week! It is truly appreciated!!
Thank you to Cari, Christina, and Sarah for all your help, suggestions, for listening and for creating the Wednesday mental health mornings. I needed that!
-Tegan Maybrun
Thank you Melissa Williams for always going above and beyond to connect with students. You rock!
-Cathy Jawnyj
I was hoping to add a kudos for the next morning memo! Shout out to Joan Kantenwein for offering and coming upstairs on Thursday to listen to two of my students informational papers that they worked very hard on. They enjoyed having someone to listen to share their hard work with!
-Paige Shaffer
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
Support Staff Contract Verification Letters
To all our fabulous support staff--you'll get copies of contract letters by the end of the day Wednesday. Please review for accuracy and see Becky Allard with any issues.
Please note--everyone--our intent is to have all these ready for the first day of school next year. There's just been A LOT to fix. Thanks for your patience and understading!
Make Sure Your Info Is Accurate
This week, we learned that we do not have accurate emergency contact information for staff. This resulted from a situation in which we needed to reach a contact, and the most recent data was from 2008!
The steps to update your information are attached to the Monday Memo email--please take a moment to do so. You can also trust that verifying all personal information will be a part of "back to school" processes for next year!
Thanks!
Tax Documents
We've had a few questions about BCBS verification forms. Per BCBS:
"Blue Cross should have these 1095-B forms mailed to members by the end of this month. The IRS deadline is March 2nd."
For the record, if you were covered by Humana during the prior term, you should have already received the form. Additionally, we would certainly verify coverage if needed, and an audit for this reason has not been reported.
Bottom line...you'll be just fine. :)
Insurance
Last week, Horton Group emailed us the updated benefit guide, featuring the corrected insurance rates. The new version is attached to the Monday Memo email as well.
I'm happy to share information about an upcoming class at the College of Lake County that may interest you teachers and help support our talents and leadership skills in the classroom. The class, Technology and Common Core: Powerful strategies that work for all students (EDU 299-001 course number 5380) is a 1 credit hour class that will fulfill CPUs as CLC is an approved provider by the state. The class meets on Wednesdays from February 28 through April 11th from 6:00-9:45 p.m. at the main campus in Grayslake.
This special topics course will take an in-depth look at the technology embedded K-12 Common Core standards along with other technology related topics. Teachers will explore apps, websites, lessons and software that they can immediately use in the classroom! The professor, Valerie Morrison, is the co-author of series of books (2016) addressing real application of technology (Meeting Common Core Technology Standards) and also brings a depth of public school teaching experiences to this conversation.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to:
Speech and Language Tips from Abbey
Check out this week's tips from Abbey! She came up with the fabulous idea of putting each week's ideas on a slide, then adding the slides so all the info is in one place...you can go back and look at any time!
Click here to see her amazing ideas! Updated today!
FACILITIES UPDATES
Keep watching here for updates!
Keep watching here for updates!
Education Association of Fox Lake News and Updates
At the recommendation of a colleague (thanks CJ)... this week we are taking a little break from our normal program to bring you this special report! 
Many of you know Madison Walk, and I have had the pleasure of knowing her since she has been in 5th grade and we've always had a special connection. Those of you that know her, know her love of animals and her "eccentric" style of dressing. Madison has had her fox hat for as long as I can remember and I always thought it was cute. Well as luck would have it, and for reasons I still cannot fully explain, my fiancee got me my very own fox hat for Christmas! (I am one lucky girl, I know!) Since we now had matching fox hats, Madison and I made a plan to wear our hats together for a twin hat day to support the NJHS fundraiser on Thursday. As I came into the cafeteria to pay my $1 for hat day, it just so happened that Madison was also paying her $1 at the same time. I have never seen her SO happy, she was literally jumping around and laughing! I've had a lot of great moments with Madison over the years but this will definitely be one that I remember for a long, long time. So even though we are all up to our ears in ten thousand ninety-nine things to do, don't forget to take time to enjoy the "little" moments because sometime they are the big things in disguise!
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
17-18 Payroll Schedule--UPDATED 10/22/17
Blue Cross Blue Shield:
Guardian:
Questions for thought as you read...
These strategies are great for ALL learners!
What do you already do?
What do you already do?
What is one thing you're willing to try?
Being an English-Language Learner Is Hard. Here Are 5 Ways Teachers Can Make It Easier
February 7, 2018
Many of us have had the experience, when sitting in a foreign language class or visiting another country, of fumbling for the words to convey our thoughts.
In a brilliant essay from his book Me Talk Pretty One Day, comedic writer David Sedaris describes a discussion about Easter that took place in his conversational French class. His teacher asked who brings chocolate on Easter morning, and Sedaris answered, "The Rabbit of Easter."
"A rabbit?" The teacher, assuming I'd used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wiggling them as though they were ears. "You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?"
"Well, sure," I said. "He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have the basket and foods."
The teacher sadly shook her head, as if this explained everything that was wrong with my country. "No, no," she said. "Here in France the chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome."
I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?"
"Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"
This demented conversation—with its various semantic and cultural misunderstandings—provides a window into the struggle our English-language learners face every day.
There are plenty of hard things about school for all kids. Too many tests, too much sitting, too little recess. But for English learners, there is an added layer of difficulty. The constant effort to understand and make yourself understood can be exhausting.
All 25 of my students speak either Spanish or Marshallese at home. Here are five ways I’ve found to make school a little easier for them.
1. Get them laughing.
Many of us have observed how much better we speak a foreign language—or at least think we do—when we’ve had a few glasses of wine. Alcohol lowers the "affective filter," that barrier of embarrassment, self-consciousness, and fear of looking foolish that can stifle our thoughts and trip up our tongues.
Kids don’t have that option for lowering their affective filter, but we can help lower it in other ways. One of the best is to get them giggling, then laughing out loud. It’s hard to feel anxious when you’re cracking up.
Have your students sing silly songs. Read hilarious books aloud like the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems or the chapter on whizzpoppers from Roald Dahl’s The B.F.G.
Don’t be afraid to be ridiculous. Last week during our shared reading time, I had covered up the letters between "b" and "s" in the word "bones" for the sentence, "Jellyfish don’t have b____s." My 1st graders tried to guess a word with those beginning and ending sounds that would also make sense in context. When I suggested, "butts?", they roared with laughter. (True fact, by the way. Jellyfish have neither bones nor butts.)
2. Warm them up.
When I taught a class of new arrivals to California from Tibet, Japan, South Korea, and other countries, we’d start our day with a game called "Invisible Ball." We sat in a circle and pretended to pass a ball from one child to the next without talking. The ball could change sizes, squishing down to a marble or expanding to a boulder-sized sphere that almost crushed you under its weight. It was a great way to get the kids engaged in a warm-up activity that didn’t require them to say a word.
Shared reading can be a great warm-up, too. In that choral babble of the whole class reading together, no one has to feel self-conscious about their errors or pronunciation. Read Aloud can be a warm-up in the morning or a midday break, a time when kids can just sit and absorb the language without having to speak it. I also have my class do a think-pair-share at our morning meeting about some easy subject—what they like to do after school, or their favorite place in their house to read—before we get into denser topics with academic language like "characters" or "photosynthesis."
3. Make most of the talking happen with partners or small groups.
Most kids feel a little nervous when called on to speak in front of the whole class, and that’s especially true for many English learners. It makes sense to equalize whole-class participation with methods other than raising hands, like pulling popsicle sticks that have the students’ names written on them. But if you’re going to do that, have the kids do a think-pair-share first. That way they have the chance to practice the language they’re about to use before the daunting experience of talking in front of the whole class.
It’s a good teaching practice, with all students but especially English learners, to do less "teacher talk" and more conversation and group work. The kids, not the teacher, are the ones who need practice speaking English. If you give them frequent think-pair-shares, partner work, and opportunities to work in small groups, they’ll learn more, talk more, and feel less nervous as they develop their language abilities.
4. Don’t let your frustration show.
There is no faster way to make a child clam up than to express anger or frustration. The affective filter clangs up like a gate.
I can find myself getting frustrated when a child isn’t doing what I have asked her to do—to get out her crayons, or to bring her clipboard and paper to the rug. I often assume she’s not paying attention, when sometimes she simply didn’t understand the directions—either because I talked too fast, used words she doesn’t know yet, or because she’s exhausted from trying to understand a foreign language all morning. Take a deep breath, slow down, and show your students the same grace you would want if you were taking an Algebra class in Russian.
5. Realize that more is going on in their minds than they can express.
One of the hardest parts about struggling with a foreign language is that you don’t have the words to express your thoughts. At a dinner party where everyone is speaking French, I might have a deep observation about literature that sounds sophisticated in my head, but comes out in caveman talk: "Me like books when they is good and not bad.”"
A 12-year-old English learner is capable of the same complexity of thought, innovative ideas, and profound questions as a native English speaker of the same age. But that adolescent English learner might be limited to the vocabulary of a 5-year-old until his speaking abilities catch up with his thoughts.
If you can give a child a chance to speak in his native language, do it. If you speak the child’s native language, speak it with him once in awhile. If you speak the language like a toddler, even better—it’s a wonderful role reversal to have the words rolling off his tongue while you fumble and make mistakes.
If you can put together a small group once in awhile of kids who all speak the same language, especially for content areas like math or science, do it. There’s a pervasive idea that children will learn a new language faster if they’re forbidden from speaking their native language. The reality is that opportunities to speak your maternal language provide a bridge to difficult concepts by removing the language barrier.
English learners contribute a lot to our classrooms—cultural richness, a different perspective on the world, and a fresh take on language itself. We can make their days more joyful by taking the time to put ourselves in their shoes, then making the path a little easier for them to walk.
February 13--PTA Meeting (just before Long Range Planning Meeting)--6:00 at Lotus
Final Long Range Planning Meeting--7:00-8:30 at Lotus
February 20--Board of Education Meeting
Welcome, Bridget Bridget Wojciechowski! We're so happy you're stepping in to fill Becky Vedder's maternity leave!
Speaking of...congratulations to Becky Vedder and family on the arrival of Baby Jacob on Tuesday!
Please keep Gizelle Wells in your thoughts! She was in an auto accident last week and is not recuperating from a back injury at home.
Have a wonderful week!
Heather
