February 26th

Celebrations!

• Congratulations to our six students that were nominated for our Spotlight on Students Award! Congratulations to Maddie Lisk for being celebrated at the Wake County Board meeting on March 27th! 
• 5th graders creating a video for "Why have Media Center Stations" - love how they connected to the standards -- iMovie
• Excited to hear about NC Ties from our staff members that will be attending the conference on Thursday and Friday. 

Collaboration

Lunch and Learn --  Tanya will be hosting Lunch and Learn on a variety of technology tools during lunch times. For more information -- see Lunch and Learn flyer. She will also share at our Business meeting on Tuesday. 

Technology Request -- If you have a technology problem that you would like to be looked at complete the Tech Help request and if on-site staff is unable to fix then they would be submitted to district help desk.  If you are need of a equipment  be sure to complete Funds Request form . This would be for cords, bulbs, ink, batteries, etc.

Creativity 

Student and Staff Awesomeness -- Check out what our team is doing in their classrooms -- via Twitter - @underwoodgtm -- #weareunderwood Keep up the great work! 

Happy Dreamer --: What kind of dreamer are you?  Lauren has a wonderful project that all staff and students will be able to participate in.  Objective-  Decorate your purple circle with the kind of dreamer you perceive yourself.  STAY TUNED FOR MORE ARTPLEASURE INFORMATION! 

Communication 

Severe Weather Drill - We will part in the Statewide Tornado Drill scheduled for Wednesday, March 7, at 9:30 AM EST. Board Policy 2312 R&P states that all schools must complete the severe weather drill annually. In the days leading up to the drill, please examine the routes and shelter safe locations to make sure they are open and free of clutter.

In response to a busy March.....there will be NO Business Meeting on March 6 and NO PLT meeting on March 28.  Enjoy the gift of time!

Reading Credits (or other CEU's)-   Are you in need of Reading or other CEU's? Please check out this link for credits. One of our very own is facilitating a course!!!  https://place.fi.ncsu.edu/

Duties:   If you have a lunch duty, am/pm duty, secure a "Back-up Person" or "Permanent Sub" so that when you are out, the duty is covered simply by contacting the back-up person. This would eliminate scrambling at the last minute to find coverage, it would prevent the same person from always volunteering to cover, and it would ensure there is coverage in the cafeteria especially while teachers walk across the building to heat up their lunches.

Lunch Schedule: It was noticed that there has been some congestion around the transition to 4th grade and 3rd grade lunch. The lunch schedule has been slightly adjusted to relieve the congestion. Please let Mallory know if the adjustment does not work. The schedule has been updated in the 2017/ 2018 Schedules folder on Google Drive. The link is also here :) 2/16/18 lunch

Case Managers:  The role of the Case Manager is to provide support in creating tier plans (individual and groups), bring instructional feedback to the ILT and seek answers for questions about resources and interventions.  Case Managers are:  Kindergarten-Ashley; 1st grade-Jen Page; 2nd grade-Mallory; 3rd grade-Melissa Raley; 4th grade-Alexandria; 5th grade-Travis. Slide 18 will give details about our roles within your PLTs. 

Communication Survey for parents: Please share this link in your weekly communication. Survey can be found at - Communication Survey. 

Critical Thinking 

Next School Year -- Staff we are entering that time of year where we are starting to make plans for next school year. If you are considering a change in locations, be sure to complete the transfer application process - via https://wakeconnect.wcpss.net/sites/transfer-process/SitePage/28515/transfer-process - Please see Travis if this is an opportunity that you would like to explore for next school year. 

Feedback -- If you have more feedback (things that have worked or things that could be better throughout the school year) you would like for us to consider, please feel free to email, discuss or fill out this form. https://goo.gl/forms/XNwhdAo6gU8lOfck1

Calendar:

February 27th-Interims go home
March 2nd-Early Release; 1:15pm
March 3rd-Grounds Day
March 13th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 15th-CD Cohort; 7:45am
March 23rd-Foundation Gala at CAM; 7pm
March 27th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 27th-Artspleasure; 5-8pm
March 29-Q3 electives end

*Staff attended events listed here

February 19

Celebrations!

• Parent reaction to School Family Assembly (via email): "Both kids were explaining the system they learned and how they practiced the "I Statement".  I am so grateful that you are implementing these skills which I believe are essential life long skills".
• Ashley and Rachel are extending their knowledge of Conscious Discipline through the Advanced Institute (CD2) 2018 in Orlando. 
• To the staff members that are willing to give time to our students through the silent auction. We raised over $3500! Here is the list that continues to be updated with the students that won -- Winners of the Silent Auction. 

Communication 

In response to a busy March.....there will be NO Business Meeting on March 6 and NO PLT meeting on March 28.  Enjoy the gift of time!

Minor referrals:  The goal of minor form is parent communication.  If you have a phone call or email conversation with the parent, that will suffice and you don't need to send home the minor referral form. Otherwise, the minor referral form will need to go home.

Duties:   If you have a lunch duty, am/pm duty, secure a "Back-up Person" or "Permanent Sub" so that when you are out, the duty is covered simply by contacting the back-up person. This would eliminate scrambling at the last minute to find coverage, it would prevent the same person from always volunteering to cover, and it would ensure there is coverage in the cafeteria especially while teachers walk across the building to heat up their lunches.

Lunch Schedule: It was noticed that there has been some congestion around the transition to 4th grade and 3rd grade lunch. The lunch schedule has been slightly adjusted to relieve the congestion. Please let Mallory know if the adjustment does not work. The schedule has been updated in the 2017/ 2018 Schedules folder on Google Drive. The link is also here :) 2/16/18 lunch

Case Managers:  The role of the Case Manager is to provide support in creating tier plans (individual and groups), bring instructional feedback to the ILT and seek answers for questions about resources and interventions.  Case Managers are:  Kindergarten-Ashley; 1st grade-Jen Page; 2nd grade-Mallory; 3rd grade-Melissa Raley; 4th grade-Alexandria; 5th grade-Travis. Slide 18 will give details about our roles within your PLTs. 

Communication Survey for parents: Please share this link in your weekly communication. Survey can be found at - Communication Survey. 

Collaboration

Lunch and Learn --  Tanya will be hosting Lunch and Learn on a variety of technology tools during lunch times. For more information -- see Lunch and Learn flyer. She will also share at our Business meeting on Tuesday. 

Technology Request -- If you have a technology problem that you would like to be looked at complete the Tech Help request and if on-site staff is unable to fix then they would be submitted to district help desk.  If you are need of a equipment  be sure to complete Funds Request form . This would be for cords, bulbs, ink, batteries, etc.

D.C. Trip --  Thank you to all of those who expressed an interest in the trip to D.C. We have quite a large group interested!  For those who responded please plan on attending a brief planning meeting on Friday February 23rd at 8:15 am.  Location to be announced. Very excited about this opportunity!

Critical Thinking 

Next School Year -- Staff we are entering that time of year where we are starting to make plans for next school year. If you are considering a change in locations, be sure to complete the transfer application process - via https://wakeconnect.wcpss.net/sites/transfer-process/SitePage/28515/transfer-process - Please see Travis if this is an opportunity that you would like to explore for next school year. 

Instructional Learning Teams (ILT) - We will be completing some walk throughs in 3-5 classrooms to gather knowledge of the district (national) tool. Christine will be emailing the people that we will plan to visit. The walkthrough tool helps us to identify practices in our classrooms that reflect the Shifts in the ELA common core curriculum. 

3 Shifts in ELA 

1.  Regular Practice with complex text. 
2. Reading, writing and speaking grounded by evidence from the text, both literal and informational. 
3. Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction 

Behaviors - be sure that you are documenting both minors and majors behaviors after they occur. This information is used to make decisions, used to see if there are patterns and are used to report incidents to admin.  

Feedback -- If you have more feedback (things that have worked or things that could be better throughout the school year) you would like for us to consider, please feel free to email, discuss or fill out this form. https://goo.gl/forms/XNwhdAo6gU8lOfck1

Creativity

Student and Staff Awesomeness -- Check out what our team is doing in their classrooms -- via Twitter - @underwoodgtm -- #weareunderwood Keep up the great work! 

Happy Dreamer --: What kind of dreamer are you?  Lauren has a wonderful project that all staff and students will be able to participate in.  Objective-  Decorate your purple circle with the kind of dreamer you perceive yourself.  STAY TUNED FOR MORE ARTPLEASURE INFORMATION!

Calendar:

February 22nd-Spotlight on Students Breakfast; 8am

February 27th-Interims go home
March 2nd-Early Release; 1:15pm
March 3rd-Grounds Day
March 13th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 15th-CD Cohort; 7:45am
March 23rd-Foundation Gala at CAM; 7pm
March 27th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 27th-Artspleasure; 5-8pm
March 29-Q3 electives end

*Staff attended events listed here

February 12

Celebrations!

• The Arts Team for such an intentional, thorough and powerful upcoming Artspleasure event centered around the theme of "Happy Dreamer"
• A captive Professional Development session on Friday with great sharing, collaboration and focus on learning for all students! 
• Ceil, Megan, Lauren, Glendia, Rhonda, Ellen, Mallory and Sherry are all registered to attend the DIG Conference in March to explore how urban agriculture, community gardens, and edible gardens in schools and child care settings grow a healthier Wake County. 
• Underwood staff members for attending Winter Carnival, it was shared with me many times during the Carnival, "how great it is to see teachers and staff members here". 

Communication 

Duties:   If you have a lunch duty, am/pm duty, secure a "Back-up Person" or "Permanent Sub" so that when you are out, the duty is covered simply by contacting the back-up person. This would eliminate scrambling at the last minute to find coverage, it would prevent the same person from always volunteering to cover, and it would ensure there is coverage in the cafeteria especially while teachers walk across the building to heat up their lunches.

Lunch Schedule: It was noticed that there has been some congestion around the transition to 4th grade and 3rd grade lunch. The lunch schedule has been slightly adjusted to relieve the congestion. Please let Mallory know if the adjustment does not work. The schedule has been updated in the 2017/ 2018 Schedules folder on Google Drive. The link is also here :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u5b4sZedCgADLBBpB9sRy9B_tTpcHhc_w6IQXn0fGuA/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you!

Eschools:  Please be sure to complete your evaluations in Eschools, so they are feeding into your transcript to renew your license!  

Case Managers:  The role of the Case Manager is to provide support in creating tier plans (individual and groups), bring instructional feedback to the ILT and seek answers for questions about resources and interventions.  Case Managers are:  Kindergarten-Ashley; 1st grade-Jen Page; 2nd grade-Mallory; 3rd grade-Melissa Raley; 4th grade-Alexandria; 5th grade-Travis

Substitutes:  This is a reminder to enter your subs into AESOP.  Cindy works to try to find coverage when a sub cancels or multiple people are out.  She calls all regular subs that have not already signed up for a job at Underwood.  Her last resort is to contact a teacher assistant to help with the day.  As much as we know this is not convenient, we have to have someone with students.  We appreciate the teamwork and understanding each of you show when Cindy is put into the hard position of pulling a teacher assistant.

4th Grade Performance Task:  4th grade students will be participating in a countywide performance task on March 27.  We do not have a ton of details, but as we get them we will keep you all posted. 

Communication Survey for parents: Underwood Leadership team would like to get some feedback about how best to community with our families. If you are willing, please fill out this four question survey to provide feedback as we continue to reflect on how best to communicate with our families about school events. Survey can be found at - Communication Survey. 

Love the Bus:  This week (February 12-16) is Love the Bus week.  We will be offering our bus drivers a few small trinkets of appreciation.  Buses will be called one at a time on Tuesday afternoon to complete cards for their bus driver.  We will celebrate the bus drivers more during teacher appreciation.  

Collaboration

Lunch and Learn --  Tanya will be hosting Lunch and Learn on a variety of technology tools during lunch times. For more information -- see Lunch and Learn flyer. She will also share at our Business meeting on Tuesday. 

Technology Request -- If you have a technology problem that you would like to be looked at complete the Tech Help request and if on-site staff is unable to fix then they would be submitted to district help desk.  If you are need of a equipment  be sure to complete Funds Request form . This would be for cords, bulbs, ink, batteries, etc.

EDCAMP Wake -- Our Carroll Magnet Middle School community is proud to host the biannual EdCamp Wake the morning of Saturday, March 24. I hope you will be able to attend this fantastic event which always provides ample learning, sharing and collaboration opportunities. Everything is free and the here is the link. We hope to see you in a few months! 

D.C. Trip --  Thank you to all of those who expressed an interest in the trip to D.C. We have quite a large group interested!  For those who responded please plan on attending a brief planning meeting on Friday February 23rd at 8:15 am.  Location to be announced. Very excited about this opportunity!

Critical Thinking 

Instructional Learning Teams (ILT) - We will be completing some walk throughs in 3-5 classrooms to gather knowledge of the district (national) tool. Christine will be emailing the people that we will plan to visit. The walkthrough tool helps us to identify practices in our classrooms that reflect the Shifts in the ELA common core curriculum. 
3 Shifts in ELA 

1.  Regular Practice with complex text. 
2. Reading, writing and speaking grounded by evidence from the text, both literal and informational. 
3. Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction 

Behaviors - be sure that you are documenting both minors and majors behaviors after they occur. This information is used to make decisions, used to see if there are patterns and are used to report incidents to admin as well as central office (student due process). 

Feedback -- If you have more feedback (things that have worked or things that could be better throughout the school year) you would like for us to consider, please feel free to email, discuss or fill out this form. https://goo.gl/forms/XNwhdAo6gU8lOfck1

Feedback responses -- See Link to feedback to see responses to the staff's questions and feedback. This will continued to be updated monthly. 

Creativity

Stop Action Notes --: Link (example) of Stop motion digital note taking can be created in about 10-15 minutes with the free Stop Motion iPad app! 

Student and Staff Awesomeness -- Check out what our team is doing in their classrooms -- via Twitter - @underwoodgtm -- #weareunderwood Keep up the great work! 

Happy Dreamer --: What kind of dreamer are you?  Lauren has a wonderful project that all staff and students will be able to participate in.  Objective-  Decorate your purple circle with the kind of dreamer you perceive yourself.  STAY TUNED FOR MORE ARTPLEASURE INFORMATION!

Calendar:

February 15th-CD Cohort; 7:45am

February 22nd-Spotlight on Students Breakfast; 8am

February 27th-Interims go home
March 2nd-Early Release; 1:15pm
March 3rd-Grounds Day
March 6th-Business Meeting; 7:45am
March 13th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 15th-CD Cohort; 7:45am
March 23rd-Foundation Gala at CAM; 7pm
March 27th-SIP/Leadership Meeting; 7:45am
March 27th-Artspleasure; 5-8pm
March 29-Q3 electives end

*Staff attended events listed here

February 5

Celebrations!

• Thanks to Karen for her help preparing Q3 elective signs!
• Continuing to work together and cover classes and duties throughout the school week. We need to continue to work together to be successful! 

Communication 

Eschools:  Please be sure to complete your evaluations in Eschools, so they are feeding into your transcript to renew your license!  

PD Opportunity:  Are you interested in revisiting Discovery Education or exploring for the first time? Sign up is easy and first class is Wednesday Feb. 7th at central office - it will be fun connecting with other educators in our county!   See this link for more information-  Presentation

ER Day- In an effort to honor time and listen to your needs, we are going to provide you an hour to complete things in your classroom or with your team and then an hour of staff development.  We know how sitting for an hour can un-motivate some to go back and work in your classrooms (on a Friday), so we are offering a survey to determine the best way to deliver the professional development.  Please vote for your top choice!
https://goo.gl/forms/Dxrad7gwslS4j0py2

Collaboration

Lunch and Learn --  Tanya will be hosting Lunch and Learn on a variety of technology tools during lunch times. For more information -- see Lunch and Learn flyer. She will also share at our Business meeting on Tuesday. 

Technology Request -- If you have a technology problem that you would like to be looked at complete the Tech Help request and if on-site staff is unable to fix then they would be submitted to district help desk.  If you are need of a equipment  be sure to complete Funds Request form . This would be for cords, bulbs, ink, batteries, etc.

EDCAMP Wake -- Our Carroll Magnet Middle School community is proud to host the biannual EdCamp Wake the morning of Saturday, March 24. I hope you will be able to attend this fantastic event which always provides ample learning, sharing and collaboration opportunities. Everything is free and the here is the link. We hope to see you in a few months! 

Critical Thinking 

Spotlight on Students - The Spotlight on Students is a recognition ceremony for 5th graders at Underwood who have either overcome a challenge, or made significant personal and/or academic growth, and also show positive character traits.  Please see the attached form for a list of criteria that can be used when choosing students. 

If there is a 5th grader that fits this description, please email Amy the name and 3-5 sentences about that student and why they are being recognized.  All nominations are due by 3pm onThursday, February 8th.

Behaviors - be sure that you are documenting both minors and majors behaviors after they occur. This information is used to make decisions, used to see if there are patterns and are used to report incidents to admin as well as central office (student due process)

Feedback -- If you have more feedback (things that have worked or things that could be better throughout the school year) you would like for us to consider, please feel free to email, discuss or fill out this form. https://goo.gl/forms/XNwhdAo6gU8lOfck1

Feedback responses -- See Link to feedback to see responses to the staff's questions and feedback. This will continued to be updated monthly. 

Creativity

Stop Action Notes --: Link (example) of Stop motion digital note taking can be created in about 10-15 minutes with the free Stop Motion iPad app! 

Student and Staff Awesomeness -- Check out what our team is doing in their classrooms -- via Twitter - @underwoodgtm -- #weareunderwood Keep up the great work! 

PDP Midyear -- All certified staff members need to meet with their unassigned evaluator to complete their mid year reviews prior to January 26th. See Mallory or Travis if you have questions or to set up your meeting.  Travis's Sign-up link and Mallory's Sign up link

Calendar:

February 6th-Report Cards go home

February 6th-Business Meeting 7:45am
February 6th - ILT Day 3 Meeting 

February 9th-Early Release and School Family Assembly; 9:30am

February 10th-Winter Carnival; 11-3pm

February 15th-CD Cohort; 7:45am

February 22nd-Spotlight on Students Breakfast; 8am

February 27th-Interims go home

*Staff attended events listed here