PDF CHESHIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS - cheshire.k12.ct.us

[Pages:4]CHESHIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Curriculum and Instruction

May 2013

New System for Calling Substitutes

STARTING SOON!

Beginning May 28th, our district will be using a new online system for substitute management called Aesop from Frontline (no more paper!). Teachers and instructional assistants requesting an absence will use this system to indicate the reason for being absent and to acquire a substitute if needed. We have developed a plan to transition to the Aesop system as follows:

Monday, May 20: A welcome letter will be sent to all teachers and instructional assistants via Aesop with directions and login information. Please flag and save this email because it will contain your username and pin.

During the Week of May 20th: Principals will make available a 6 minute Aesop video as an introduction to Aesop or you may view this video by going to the following link at any time! https:// help. Employee/Videos/ EmployeeBasicTraining/ EmployeeBasicTraining.html

Tuesday, May 28th: Go live with Aesop

TRANSITION Guidelines: To help with transitioning to the Aesop system, we have developed the following guidelines:

If you already requested an absence scheduled before

5/28 - Penny gets you a sub.

If you already requested

an absence scheduled for after 5/28, we will enter it in Aesop and Aesop will get you a sub (after the 24th).

New absence request

made before 5/28 AND the absence is prior to 5/28: existing procedure Penny calls sub.

New absence request

made before 5/28 AND the absence is after 5/28 we enter in Aesop and Aesop gets the sub.

New absence request

made on or after 5/28 -you make the request using Aesop.

Thank you Penny else!

We would like to thank Mrs. Penny Else who has served so successfully as our Substitute Service Coordinator for the past twenty seven years.

Penny has provided exceptional service to the Cheshire Public

Schools in this role by tailoring the teaching assignments to the specific interests and strengths of each substitute teacher as well as individual teacher requests.

Most recently, she has attended our Substitute Teacher Orienta-

tion programs to help acquaint new substitute teachers to the process and procedures of substitute teaching in Cheshire.

Penny retires after 27 years of excellent service to the Cheshire Public Schools.

Inside this issue:

CCC Special Education

2

CCC Findings

2

TEAM Mentor Info

2

Educator Evaluation

3

Health and Wellness

3

NEW PD Mandates

4

Safe School Climate

4

Special points of interest:

As part of the Town's five year capital plan, we have again included funding for additional SMART Boards as part of our 21st Century Initiative. The Cheshire Town Council will review the proposal in August to determine if the SMART Boards will be funded for next school year. Our request that was submitted would complete our project with funding to outfit all remaining classrooms in our district. We anticipate the earliest installation of these new SMART Boards would be late fall or early winter pending funding approval.

PAGE 2

CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

Cheshire Curriculum Council Meeting: Special Education

The Cheshire Curriculum Council (CCC) met on Wednesday, April 24, 2013.

This meeting included the K ? 12 special education program review. The program review was presented by: Sue Landisio ? Resource

Teacher at Darcey Ann Donnery ? Principal at

Darcey Catherine Biello ? Resource

Teacher at Highland Robin-Anne Carey ? Special

Education Supervisor for Elementary

Andrea CoFrancesco ? Resource Teacher at Dodd

Theresa Baker ? Resource Teacher at Dodd

CCC

Steve Proffitt ? Special Education Supervisor for Grades 7-12

Kristin Pelz ? Resource Teacher at CHS

Chris Brown ? Director of Pupil Personnel Services

Russ Hinckley - Principal at Chapman, served as the administrator overseeing the special education program review process.

Program strengths and suggestions are listed below.

CCC Findings for Special Education

Strengths identified by members of the CCC for special education include:

Expansion of the co-teaching model; Dedicated staff provides strong tran-

sitions from birth - 21 years old;

Technology used to meet individual

student needs;

Vertical alignment of resources from

K through age 21; and

Wonderful transition program locat-

ed at Quinnipiac University promoting real life experiences.

Suggestions made by CCC members for Special Education committee members to consider in defining an action plan for the next five years include:

Continue to expand the co-teaching

model at all levels;

Consider adding consistent full time

staff to meet curriculum needs of all students;

Write long term goals that have clear

and specific criteria/targets linked to impact on student achievement and/or progress.

Investigate in school designated

common planning time to support the coteaching model; and

Focus on "Universal Design" to en-

sure access to grade level curriculum for all students.

TEAM Mentor application

If you are interested in serving as a mentor to a new teacher in the TEAM (Teacher Education and Mentoring) program, you must complete an application that can be obtained at the following link: http://

cheshire.k12.ct.us/media/CMSImport/ F231373BDE0146BA8FF874E1BF3166CA.p df

and submit this completed application to your building principal.

The application must be reviewed and approved by our TEAM Coordinating Committee (TCC) before you are able to enroll in a TEAM Initial Mentor Support training workshop.

Caption describing picture or graphic.

CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

PAGE 3

Educator Evaluation Task Force

Our district will implement a new Educator Evaluation System next school year. Our district task force met four times to help develop our implementation plan as outlined below. The task force will continue to meet next school year to support, assess, and adjust our implementation as needed.

The members of the District Task Force are: Sarah Redford, Amy Balisciano, Marc Dalke, Tanya Kores, Cathy

Sullivan, Artur Branco, Kristen Shanley, Joe Masi, Lori Woodfield, Theresa Baker, Shelli The-

riault, Jessica Abildgaard, Lynn Glynn, Phil Passaro, Anne Marie Wintenburg, Joanne Kotlarz, Jennifer Smolenski, Jennifer Calvo, Jeff Solan, Robin-Anne Carey, Beverly Scully, Deborah Burns, Sharon Weirsman, Maureen Reed, and Scott Detrick.

A review of our implementation plan is listed below. For more information, you may want to access the SEED website at:

E d u c ato r E va lu at i o n I m p l e m e n tat i o n P l a n

April 2013: Our District Educator Evaluation Revision Task Force met to finalize our plans for implementing SEED next school year.

May/June 2013: At a faculty meeting: School leaders, with task force member support, share an overview of SEED - using a standard PowerPoint. The PowerPoint may be viewed at the following link: ? usp=sharing

August 2013: 2 hour professional development devoted to learning about SEED requirements. School leaders/evaluators (small groups) will meet with evaluatees to provide information focused on SEED components: 45% S.L.O. Development; 5% Parent Feedback; 40% Teacher Performance; and 10% Whole School Learning with emphasis on the 45%. In addition, the creation of a SEED website will include information and resources to support our district's implementation.

September 2013 - Ongoing: Professional development workshops will be offered through Protraxx to align with SEED components for interested teachers as well as some of the additional 30 minutes of time after school will be devoted to SEED each month.

November 2013: Professional development follow up workshops with evaluators and evaluatees to support SEED implementation.

District Health and Wellness: Guest Speaker

At a recent District Health and Wellness Committee meeting Mr. Andy Dousis, former senior consultant with Northeast Foundation for Children, joined us to discuss strategies to support wellness in a learning community. Click the link to view this video of the conversation with our committee.Wellness in a Learning Community

We are looking for new members to serve on our District Health and Wellness Committee during the 2013 - 2014 school year.

The meeting dates are October 15, December 10, January 28, and

March 25 from 2:45 p.m. ? 4:00 p.m.

If you are interested in serv-

ing on this committee next school year, please email L. DeAngelo by June 15, 2013.

Caption describing picture or graphic.

PAGE 4

CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

Safe School Climate Plan

As required by the CSDE we have developed a Safe School Climate plan for our district and for each school in our district. You may review this plan by going to the following link: http:// cheshire.k12.ct.us/media/ CMSImport/1C540C6566A4410B9B1C531704082AD4.pdf

We are in the process of revising this plan based on the feedback we received from the student, parent, and staff safe school climate survey results. Our Safe School Climate plan will be updated for September 2013.

Common Core State Standards Implementation Plan: Year Two

We are in year two of our implementation plan for our district to meet the expectations outlined in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Our plan highlights by year our work at each level to be done in the following areas: curriculum development, professional development, resource acquisition, teaching and learning, and assessment. Our CCSS implementation plan as well as the National Common Core State Standards site can be accessed at the Curriculum Web Page or at the following link:

Cheshire Public Schools

New Professional Development

M a n dat e s

New State Department of Education professional development mandates require all districts to create a professional development plan. In Cheshire, our Cheshire Curriculum Council (CCC) serves as our district professional development committee. During our April CCC meeting, members reviewed our district's PD plan for next school year and provided suggestions for improvement. Our 2013 - 2014 professional development plan can be reviewed at the following link: https:// docs.a/ cheshire.k12.ct.us/document/ d/1bjFL4dCgDKDDpzcFBf1Xdf BiB_3XBuNTfRcQ4DQKd1w/ edit

In addition, all Connecticut school districts must provide 18 hours of sustained small group or individual professional learning sessions. Options include online, independent research, and out-of-district learn-

ing opportunities. Each educator's individual professional development goals (as required by SEED) will be aligned with their attendance at related professional learning sessions and recorded in Protraxx.

However, CEUs are no longer required for re-certification.

Districts are required to verify each teacher's attendance at sessions related to their individual professional growth plans each year and when teachers needs to apply for renewal of certification.

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download