First Week of School

Breathe, you can handle this! Remember it is a process not a race, looking forward to a fantastic year!

Communication

- Language Services At-a-Glance (be sure to be signed into Lotus Notes) - information about interpreting supports from the district.

- Middle School students and personal children. Please be sure that your personal students are supervised before and after school. I have also shared with families that we are unable to have middle school students stay in the media center after school. Please be mindful of supervision of personal children.

Collaboration 

PLTs will start this week focusing on norms, role, and supporting each other during meetings. It is important to maximize our time and focus on what the students are learning, how will we know they learned it, and what are we going to do if or if they don't learn the identified standards. 

Creativity 

Be sure to complete your "befunky photo (thank you Lauren for organizing

Critical Thinking 

Did you turn in all of your forms and via the videos??

End of school year post

Critical thinking 

 Teacher Working Condition Survey Results (82% participation) -- Results can be found at - Underwood 572 -- these results will be discussed at our open of school meeting.

Communication 

Principals for the Day  (per Foundation event)-- June 8th - Madeleine Clodfelter (am) and second grader Adam Clodfelter (pm). We will be walking around the building observing classes and walking the building. 

5th grade celebration -- Applause Parade at 10:30. Celebration ceremony - 11:00-11:50 in the multipurpose room and playground area from 11:50-1:15. 

EOGs -- We have two makeups to complete today and we will have completed our 2015-16 testing season!  Thank you to Tanya and Daphne for leading the daunting tasks of testing. 3rd grade results have came back and the students did a great job on showing their knowledge of the third grade curriculum. We will be getting fourth and fifth grade results on Tuesday. 

Creativity 

Mrs. Mann's Art Elective (public art) and 5th grade classes creating a Raleigh Mural!

Field Day is on Tuesday June 7th. We are looking forward to a fun and entertaining day for all students. 

Collaboration 

Third and fourth grade class lists meetings will be on June 10th. Also, all cumulative folders reviews are completed on June 10th.

See you soon --- Thank you to Rachel Hansen for working so well with our students (and others) with IEP. Best of luck in Washington DC. Thank you to Nancy Weeks for her help in teaching our students Spanish, as well as supporting our Spanish speaking families. Thank you to Beth and Drew for their supporting in our front office! Thank you to Mr. Thrash in working with our ID-Mod2 class, he has been a big help. Thank you to Molly Hoffman for supporting second grade as one of the instructional assistants in that grade. Thank you to Karen Glenn for continuing to support our performers in the field of the Arts.

BIG THANK You to Sheryl Bryant and Jennifer Page for taking on two maternity leaves throughout the second semester. You all have been instrumental in smooth transitions! Thank you to Amelia Harrleson for supporting our ID Mod class for the last few months.

May 30th

Collaboration 

Thank you to the k, 1, and 2 teams, all specialists and special areas/curriculum support for completing the class lists for next school. You all did a great job of focusing on balance class lists that you would want to teach. Third and fourth grades will be reviewing class lists on June 10th.

Some great sharing about what is going on in our classrooms  (via Twitter)


Collaboration in Dance

Communication

Custodian -- Mr. Jones has chosen to take a different career path and has resigned from his position. We are currently interviewing for his position. We will also be changing our custodial hours and expectations to increase the consistent cleanliness for our building starting at during the new school year.

Great job on the first two days of testing (all of third grade and fifth grade science). We know this week will be just as successful! We need to continue to work together.

Critical Thinking 

Learning spaces -- 5 minute videos about creating learning spaces for students (interested in making some changes to your classroom environment? We would love to hear from you! We (Ashley, Daphne and I) met with our furniture buyer for the district to get some ideas -- Catalog. 

Creativity

 

May 23rd

Communication 

Sherry Pollock will be returning to Underwood next school year. We are anticipating adding a fourth kindergarten due to numbers and she has agreed to teach this class. 

EVAAS -- roster verification were due on Friday. I will be sending emails to teachers that have students that are over or under claimed and will need to be completed ASAP. 

Creativity 

3rd Grade baseball in third grade -- Twitter Status

Fifth grade Physics -- Fichter-Venners Science

When you feel frustrated with your children, do you tend to express your frustrations with commands, questions, accusations, or sarcasm? - Conscious Discipline® (link to an article) - "Become aware of how you are expressing your frustrations. Then strive to express your feelings in a direct and assertive way".

Critical Thinking 

Are we being purposeful with our student outcomes -- We went through 5 Cases of paper in ONE week, EEK...that is 25,000 sheets of paper - that averages out to 48 sheets of paper per student in one week.

Article -- What it means to be a great teacher 

Reflecting on your practice -- record-yourself-improve-your-practice

As a GT elective magnet, we have been given 5 additional months of employment to support our AIG program. The position will be to support in class higher level thinking opportunities for all students. It will be a coaching, modeling, and collaborative position. More information to come as the position is filled.

Collaboration 

Writing with Rich Leonard, Ellen's class wring about the Civil War --  Author 

Thank you to all that came out to support the 3rd Annual Underwood Foundation Gala -- Photo

May 16th

Communication

Congratulations to Star Davis our teacher of the year! She was recognized on Wednesday at the WCPSS teacher of the year banquet.



Hiring Freeze -- as of 5/12 WCPSS is on a hiring freeze until contracted personnel have secured positions for next school year. 

Newsletters/Updates - be sure to continue to send out infroamtoon to families about what the students are working on, upcoming events and celebrations!

Collaboration

Students working and sharing items via Google Apps (Drive), Minecraft creation, MUG T MES articles, and many more collaboration going on at Underwood!

Next week -- Kindergarten and second grade will be having their next year's class lists discussions. Third and fourth grade's will be on June 10th (times TBD based on cumulative folder review). 

Critical Thinking 

Reminder that the Underwood Under the Stars Foundation dinner is on Friday at the Contemporary Art Museum.
End of year checklist - be sure to complete all pertained items, if you have questions please see the person responsible. 
Leadership team representatives will need to be voted on during the June PLTs. Somethings to ponder -- leadership/SIP meetings will be moved to Monday mornings. We will also be having a leadership retreat on August 18th. 

Creativity 

  

Master schedule discussion at Leadership Team this week. 

Love seeing the variety of end of year activities and celebrations throughout the school building.