Pickleball, YoTeach!

Excellence in Education: Pickleball
For last week's Mustang Morning, Coach Price Thomas offered ninth graders the opportunity to play pickleball. Most of the students didn't know what they were signing up for because they haven't heard or played pickleball before. One day after school, I overheard a couple of students talking about how much they enjoyed it. 

When I went to share the news with Coach PT, I hadn't realized that the students didn't know what pickleball was so she told me that she spent much of the time introducing it to the students, many of whom were not stellar students or athletes. But what she said next was what impressed me most and has relevancy for all of us: These students are going to be ahead of their peers when we get to this unit. They're going to be experts.

What a great approach to Mustang Morning that we could all use! Instead of catching the students up, why not accelerate their learning by pre-teaching. This might mean finding a way to pique student interest with a video, building their background knowledge, introducing a concept or pre-teaching vocabulary. Instead of focusing on remediation or re-teaching, why not turn Mustang Morning upside down by advancing their learning before class? 

Excellence in Education: YoTeach! A Backchannel
I was a big fan of Today's Meet, a backchannel used to facilitate discussions. This summer, Today's Meet ceased operations. I found a great alternative though Yo Teach! 

How's it work: 

1. Go to the site and name your room and give it a description.
2. Optionally, activate the admin, password and "avoid search" functions. The admin function gives you the ability to mute/remove students, delete the room and view some simple stats about student participation.
3. Share the url with students and they enter their name or nickname.

Two cool student features are the ability for them to participate in the conversation and the multimedia features. Sometimes when discussing a sensitive topic, students may want to do this anonymously so allowing them to  use a nickname is a good idea. The multimedia features for students include a whiteboard and the ability to take pictures. The whiteboard feature would be great for a math class and the picture feature could be used for students to respond with pictures or respond to a carousel walk or to take pictures of "evidences" of exemplary work or something then need more help with.

Need to Knows/Dos
We are sending out a weekly email to all students' k12albemarle accounts with information about the week's events and other useful information (Mustang Morning, Homecoming, etc). As educators the county is requiring us not to use students' personal emails to communicate. Students can learn how to link their school email with their phone by visiting the Digital Passport in Blackboard. Also, if you would like something sent/included, just let me know.
 
If you have a student with a computer issue, needs to print.

This week's tasks for staff:

1. As part of the Crisis Management Plan, all staff members are required to complete this survey. Please complete by Friday.
2. Emergency Lesson plans are also due by Friday. Please submit these electronically into the Google Team Drive: Monticello Emergency Lesson Plans. 
3. We're in need of a teacher representative for our PTSO. We meet once a month (first Tuesdays at 6pm). Please let me know if you're interested.

PLCs 

• Use a data analysis tool (models in PLC Handbook) to analyze your pre-assessment
• Use data to begin discussing students 
• Create SMART Goals
• Design Mustang Morning system to provide specialized instruction 
• Upcoming: Meet with John (LTI), AVID team member, Beth Brown (Illuminate)

September 11, 12: Underclassman Pictures 
September 12: Back To School Night (schedule below)

Field Trips and SOLs

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday: SOL Testing for Seniors and Select Others, See Ms. Pryor's email *sent Friday at 9:42am





Stats of the Week: GPAs by Race/Ethnicity

AS: Asian, BL: Black, WH: White, HL: Hispanic, MR: Mixed Race
 
Birthdays
Sept 10: Cullen Wade
Sept 11: Rob Garland
Sept 12: Pamela McGhee, cafeteria
Sept 14: Kelly Kroese, Geoffrey Parks


Shout Outs


Thanks to Rob Ayres, Deandra McDonald, Chris Stanek, John Kinney, and Paige Pippin for their work with students taking the SOLs this week.









Useful Information
The presentations and resources from the first couple of days have been added to the Monticello Team Drive on Google.

Don't forget to use the Shared Monticello Calendar. 

Bell Schedules : http://bit.ly/MOHSbells

Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm

Announcement Request: http://tinyurl.com/requestannouncement

Teacher Handbook

Useful Information: Mustang Morning
Three new groups have been created. One is for AM CATEC students (these students can never be here for Mustang Mornings). The other is for seniors who do not have a 1st period. It has been explained to these students that if they are requested by a teacher, they must be here.

We will NOT process Mustang Morning attendance for Honor Societies.

The system is available to you through the first week of October. Students will have 1 week at a time access with it opening during 1st period on Monday.  On Mondays, please make sure to:

1. Post the slides for new clubs and enrichment activities. 
2. Check all students schedules for the week to ensure all students have signed up. 
3. Help students or sign students up who have not signed up for a session. 

During Mustang Morning sessions:

1. Please take attendance and update attendance, if needed. 
2. Do not allow students to go to another location (this includes school counselors, unless it's an emergency). The exception: the student was absent and visiting other teachers to catch up. This student should go to their assigned session and that teacher will record attendance and write a pass to the next teacher. Please communicate with the other teacher as appropriate. 

Worth Your Time
35 Google Classroom Resources That Will Make Your Day

A Sleeping Student Wouldn't Wake Up, So an Officer Pulled Out Her Taser

Take A Closer Look at Those Back To School Photos, Is Something Missing?



Back to School Night Schedule

Time	Period
6:30-6:55	Mr. Vrhovac’s Presentation in Auditorium
7:00-7:07	1A
7:12-7:19	2A
7:24-7:31	3A
7:36-7:43	4A
7:48-7:55	1B
8:00-8:07	2B
8:12-8:17	3B
8:22-8:29	4B