January 2nd

Celebrations

Staff Connection:  

For 34 years, Jeffery H. Richardson was the band director at Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Originally from Portsmouth, Virginia, “JR” is a 1978 graduate of The University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a Bachelor of Science in Music Education. During his tenure at Broughton, the program grew to a 165-member marching band, one 65 member symphonic wind ensemble, one 55 member concert band, two jazz ensembles and one winter guard performance group. He has been awarded the Richard M. Jewell Teaching Excellence Award in 1988, 1993, and 2007 and also the prestigious $25,000 Richard Jenrette Teaching Endowment Award in 1994. He has also been awarded the “Inspire The Future” Award presented by the North Carolina Symphony and Fidelity Investments for his tireless efforts and devotion to music education. In 2007, Raleigh’s own News and Observer newspaper honored him as their “Tar Heel of the Week” for his dedication to public education. In 2008, Mr. Richardson was awarded the “Medal of Arts” by the Raleigh Arts Commission for continually contributions to the arts community during his teaching career. Upon retirement and due to his service to North Carolina, Governor Beverly Perdue recently presented JR with the “Order of the Long Leaf Pine”, the highest honor any citizen of the state may receive. Past recipients include: Maya Angelou, Reverend Billy Graham, and basketball legend Michael Jordan. Also due to his commitment to education and the Raleigh community, the Wake County Public School System and the City of Raleigh renamed part of the Fred Fletcher Park in his honor. He has also served as talent coordinator for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games held in Raleigh. In 2003, he was awarded the Wake County PTA Outstanding Teaching Award for high school educators. He has also been inducted into the Broughton Athletic Hall of Fame for his continued contributions to high school athletics at the school.

     During his tenure at Broughton, his bands performed in the 2012 and 2008 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. They also traveled in 2001 to Kerkrade, Holland where they were presented the “gold” medal in the World Music Contest. Other highlights include performances for three United States presidents (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Barrack Obama) and the 2004 Grand Championship of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

     Although he retired in 2012 from Broughton, he was rehired by the Wake County Public School System and has continues to teach at Underwood Elementary School, thus accumulating over 40 years of teaching in public education in Wake County. He also has serves as a staff member for The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill band program and serves on the “game day” staff for various football activities. He has served as President of the Board of Director of Theatre In The Park and also as the “chair” for the annual production of “A Christmas Carol.” Under his leadership in 2009, he assisted “ACC” with traveling to France for a cultural exchange program with Raleigh’s sister city of Compeigne, France. He also enjoys traveling and has visited New Zealand, Australia (twice), China, Hong Kong, Russia (3 times), and the European continent.

• Welcome to our team - Danielle Shepherd. She will be taking over Sharon Hanson’s first grade classroom. Danielle is a former Unicorn student in the late 90s/early 2000s. 

• Kudos to our Dance and Music Elective students for sharing their gifts and talents on Tuesday night. Well orchestrated by Rachel and Dawn! 

• Kudos to our Orchestra and Band Elective students for sharing their music with us on Thursday night. Way to go JR and Jill in leading these groups! 

• Each year we keep an ongoing document of awards received on behalf of Underwood, Underwood students or Underwood staff.  Please notify Ashley if you have anything to share!                                                                                                                                                       Wish Well

• Everyone….welcome back!

• All those that have things going on in their lives 

Communication:

Q3/Q4 elective placement spreadsheet can be found here.  Brochures were due December 21-return to Ashley’s mailbox.  Elective registration will take place in early January. Ashley will be in touch with coordinating times.  

Check the shared Underwood google team drive, folder-Daily absences and info for the preferred sub list.

Resource for parents to include in your newsletters:

Just a reminder that our Homework Resources for Parents page is growing! We now have ELA resources for Grade 3 through 5 in both English and Spanish! This is a great way to engage families in how to have the conversations with their child around their learning.  You can find it by going to Parents, then Homework Resources in the dropdown, on either the district site or on your school's homepage.

Helping Hands

We are excited to have the Helping Hands program return to Underwood!  The program will be an afterschool program to mentor some of our African-American males in grades 3-5.  The first meeting will be January 14th. Mallory and Amy are following up with families to see who will be a part of the mentorship. There will be new letters to go home to the families next Tuesday, as well as a call from Mallory and/or Amy.

Together we are better!  Feel free to share feedback/celebrations anytime here

Creativity

 

Let’s learn more about YOU!!  In the celebrations section of this blog, we have been featuring our new staff members in an effort to learn more about them.  Now it’s your turn!  We would like to showcase all staff members throughout the course of the year.  (These will also be archived in the Team Drive). If you are willing, send Ashley 2-3 paragraphs as well as emailing me a picture of you! Things you might want to mention:

• Family, Hobbies, Role at Underwood, What you love about being an educator, Past experiences

Critical Thinking

 

Admin aspirations? - NC Fellows Program is taking applicants until January 15, 2019. There are also two info sessions along with fellow Unicorns that have been a part of the program or considered it at one time.

 

NKT/AMC

If you need help setting up interventions for your students and remembering how to progress monitor, please see Alexandria.  Here is the link to the students in red and yellow. This also includes students that are above the benchmark by the end of their grade.   https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uHqL_xMeTPmC5ObZJalLzvstHE2EwYxnVgJumV7F9SY/edit?usp=sharing

K-2 Intervention/Progress Monitoring Next Steps Webinar :

• If your school needs additional support with K-2 math interventions and progress monitoring, join us for a live webinar on December 12th from 11:00-12:00.
• The webinar will be facilitated through YouTube and is located here.  
• Any teacher or support staff who would like to participate should sign up on eSchools:194100902
• Following this session the webinar will be archived and posted on Canvas for any teachers who were not able to attend or participants who wish to reference it later.
• If your school has added additional K-2 classes for the 18-19 school year and needs additional materials, please fill out this link.  

NCEnsi:

• All students who fell within the STRATEGIC and INTENSIVE range on the NKT should be progress monitored using the NCEnsis.
• Students within the STRATEGIC range should be progress monitored every 3 weeks and students within the INTENSIVE range should be progress monitored every 2 weeks.
• NEW: Once teachers have completed AMC assessments on students they should go straight into interventions. Students do not need to be given an NCEnsi probe as a baseline because these are mastery measures that do not rely on a rate of improvement. The baseline data for Tier II or Tier III plans should be 0.

Collaboration

Grants (including Donor’s Choose) - Thank you to Ellen Nightingale and Mallory Mbalia for being our Grant Contacts. Ellen is willing to provide support in writing grants that would also include Donors Choose. If you are intending to apply for a grant be sure to meet with one of them as grants are approved by these two leaders.

Media Center- So, in support of MTAC's focus:

MTAC will meet next on Thursday, January 24. MTAC's focus this year is Equity and Cultural Competency. To learn more, please join us and/or check out the Library Media Program Portfolio (this is a work in progress.) Also, we ask that all staff members consider the following:

• How often do my students have access to the library? How often do my students have access to technology to support their learning? How can I help to improve my students' access to resources? How can the library media program help to improve my students' access?
• We will be beginning a diversity audit of our collection in January. Do you know of parents/community members who would be interested in assisting with this task?

Questions? Contact Andrea.

There are a number of  afterschool clubs going on:  Fitness Club on Monday’s, TEK on Wednesday’s, LEGO on Thursday’s.  Club rosters can be found here.

Conscious Discipline Corner

Quote of the week:   The next time you make a mistake, attribute a positive motive to yourself and reflect on what you will change next time.

Resource of the week:  Since Conscious Discipline is a mindshift, it affects relationships at school, home and even within marriages.  Listen to Kim Hughes’ most recent podcast to learn more!

Calendar/Important Links:

Important Dates Document-  Please double check this against the school calendar.

January 4th-TA Meeting; 7:45am

January 8th - Business Meeting; 7:45am

January 10th-Q2 Electives end

                   -Theater Production (Grades 4&5); 7pm

January 15th - Leadership  Meeting

January 17th -CDAT Team meeting; 7:45am

                     - Quarter Ends

January 18th - Makeup Day

January 21st - Holiday

January 25th-Spelling Bee

January 28th-Q3 Electives begin

January 29th-Q2 elective reports cards/K Specialis grades due

January 29th - SIP Meeting