Update ~ December 1-5, 2014

Celebrating Success
Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving Break. Welcome Back!

Deck the Halls
CHS Student Council invites you all to join in on our annual Holiday Door Decorating Contest.  The contest will take place on December 4 during Pathway/Study Hall time. 

PBIS
Data shows that earbuds in the hallways is on the rise at CHS.  On Monday, Dec 1, during passing period between 2nd and 3rd periods we will "Flood the Hallways" with Pawsitive Panthers.  As you see students in the hallways exhibiting expectations please give out Pawsitive Panthers freely and generously 12/01. We will include reminders of the expectations in the morning announcements and follow up with appropriate consequences for students who are consistently not meeting expectations. 

TPEC
As you know "Questioning And Feedback" is one of the categories on the teacher performance evaluation. My colleague, John Coe recently included information in his weekly blog pertaining to Questioning and Feedback.  With his permission I am posting the information here in the Panther Report.  Below is a reminder about the differences between the Innovating and Integrating ratings on the TPEC as well as a good article about crafting questions that help provoke deeper thinking.  I hope you would find this helpful too. 
The TPEC Rubric for Innovating states:

Teacher provides consistent, immediate feedback to all students. Teacher uses Questioning Strategies that address higher order thinking and allow students to critically investigate the subject matter on a consistent basis.

The Rubric for Integrating states:

Teacher provides feedback to students. Teacher uses Questioning Strategies that on occasion address higher order thinking and allow students to investigate the subject matter.

 In the article Inquiring Minds Really Do Want To Know: Using Questioning To Teach Critical Thinking, the author, Alison King, points out, "Good thinkers are always asking What does this mean?, What is the nature of this?, Is there another way to look at it?, Why is this happening?, What is the evidence of this?, and How can I be sure?"  The article also includes a helpful table of examples of question stems designed to provoke critical thinking.  King has compiled a helpful table of examples of critical thinking questions.  
As a rule of thumb, it's helpful to remember that "thought-provoking or critical thinking questions require students to go beyond the facts to think about them in ways that are different from what is presented explicitly in class or the text... Critical thinking questions induce high-level cognitive processes, such as analysis of ideas, comparison and contrast, inference, prediction, evaluation, and the like."  Pre-planned questions can be a powerful strategy to evoke curiosity and promote passion about a subject. 

***If you have not yet set up your first formal evaluation please email your evaluator to do so asap.  Thank you!

Calendar (Go to CHS Webpage and click Schedule Star for all CHS Athletic Events.  Username  ~ CHS@fusd1.org, Password ~ panthers)

This week:
12/2 Department Chair Mtg 2:30pm
12/3 Academic Parent Night 5:30-6:30pm

Next Week:
12/9 Faculty Mtg 2:30pm
12/9 Accreditation Debrief, Following Faculty Mtg 
12/14 CHS Holiday Party 3:30-5:30pm

Looking ahead:
Click here for finals schedule

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." 
-Henry Adams

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Thanksgiving Week

Celebrations Short week, short blog

Date Change
Due to a scheduling conflict the December 2, accreditation debrief meeting has been rescheduled to December 9. We will have a regular faculty meeting and follow the meeting with the accreditation discussion for those who wish to stay. 

Power of your Presence
Please remember to be at your door during passing periods.  Teacher presence in the hallways absolutely changes behavior and helps to promote and maintain our positive school climate. For an added power play, during these next two days, say hi to everyone that you can.  Thank you!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break.  I hope you find time to relax and enjoy time with family and friends. I'll end this post with a silly joke and a quote from Jerry Blumengarten, #edchat moderator. (In case you're wondering, #edchat is a really great twitter chat held every Saturday morning). 

What did the turkey say to the computer?…“Google, google, google.”

"Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Giving Thanks, to everyone, everywhere! Here’s wishing that you keep the spirit of giving thanks alive every day of the year."

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Updates ~ November 17-21, 2014

Celebrating Success 

• Congratulations to Laura Locke and Interior design students for winning the Coconino Proud and College Bound door decorating contest! Thank you to everyone who participated; we have over fifty decorated doors helping us promote this week's college application campaign.

• A grateful heart and yummy pie, what a perfect combination, and a wonderful tradition.  Thank you Karen Rathbun and culinary arts students for sharing words of gratitude and delicious holiday pies with us all. 

• CHS CocoNuts Robotics Team are Superheroes.  Last week the CocoNuts won the superhero award for the Most Innovative STEM Club.  The award came with a check for $500 and an NFL helmet signed by Jake "The Snake" Plummer, retired Cardinals player. Christine Sapio and Dave Thompson were also finalists for the most dedicated STEM Teacher award. Congratulations!

Perfect Attendance 
It is time to recognize CHS students with perfect attendance for the first quarter of this school year. These students will be called to the cafeteria for a frozen yogurt treat on Thursday 11/20, at 1:45pm during Pathways.  Passes to eligible students will be delivered early this week.

Links and Study Skills
Link Leaders will be in 7th period Study Hall on Thursday, November 20th to provide study skill tips to all 9th graders. 9th grade students will be released to meet with their Link Leaders during pathway study hall period on 11/20.   More information will be provided in an e-mail early this week. 

FYI
Grand Canyon University will be at CHS, in the teachers mail room on Thursday, November 20, to provide information about continuing teacher education programs at GCU. 

Accreditation
I could not have been more pleased with the responses, thoughts and ideas from many of you following the AdvancedEd External report on November 6.  I so appreciate your positive attitudes and willingness to work together to work toward our school improvement goals; both internal goals and those imposed by the review team. Please join me on December 2 at 2:45pm in the mini -theater to debrief the information together and begin to consider a strategic plan to help meet the expectations set forth by the accreditation team.  In the meantime Cris, Steve and I will do our best to pop in and out of classrooms in between formal observations to gather our own data about student engagement at CHS. 

Calendar
11/18 College Application Campaign Parent Night
11/19, 11/20 College Application Campaign CHS Seniors

Planning Ahead
Please mark your calendars for our annual CHS Holiday Party. Sunday, December 14, 3:30pm, My house.  

Press On! Panther Strong!

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Update ~ November 10-14, 2014

Celebrating Success ~ Think of the tune from the sound of music "The hills are alive with the sound of music" now change the words to the same tune...The halls are alive with the signs of college...Hmmm hmmm hmmm. Wow, not only do the doors look great, the conversation in the hallways has been more about where the teachers at CHS went to college than ever before. Thanks to everyone for helping to promote our upcoming college application campaign. Your participation makes all the difference.  Several colleges have already agreed to waive the application fees and scholarships and financial aide will be discussed during the two college application days, November 18 and 19. 

ADE Information ~ On November 3, 2014 Az Board of Education announced the adoption of our new statewide achievement test to replace AIMS.  The test is called the AzMerit.  The testing window will be the entire month of April beginning this April, 2015.  As I learn more details, I will share information with you.  In the meantime click AzMerit for information and resources regarding the new test.

PBIS Update ~ The Panther Tracks Team wants to remind us that giving out the Pawsitive Panther cards helps to create and promote a positive school culture.  Publicly recognizing students for positive contributions to our school and for doing the right thing sends a strong message of recognition and appreciation to our students.  Hopefully you found a bundle of Pawsitive Panther Cards in your mailbox.  Please choose 5 students in your 3rd hour class that meet or exceed expectations on a daily basis and give them a Pawsitive Panther.  Thank you for helping to create a positive learning environment at CHS. 

PBIS Survey ~ We want your input. Please take a few minutes to complete the PBIS Monkey Survey that will be sent out on Monday, November 10 in an email from Dawn Lacivita. This survey will ask for your input regarding our CHS behavioral expectations, behavioral flowchart, and three tiered approach to student discipline.  The survey will remain open for one week.  Please complete the survey by Monday, November 17th. Your responses are crucial to help guide future decisions and direction of the the Panther Tracks Team. 

Legion Of Kindness School-Wide Activity ~ To help support our efforts to create and maintain a kind and compassionate school climate our Legion of Kindness student group has developed a school wide activity for the month of November.  This Thursday, November 13 during designated homeroom time in 3rd period, please watch the video from Nick Vujicic.  Click here for the video. Following the video use the lesson guidelines below to help facilitate a class discussion and school wide Turkey Feather activity to pause and share thoughts about what we are grateful for. 

Discussion Topics and Activity (Following the Video)

Act of Kindness (Script for discussion)

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, take time to tell someone why you are thankful for them: write down thoughts and give it to them, take them out for a coffee, make them something to eat, offer to help them out with something.

Quote for Thought: Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms and no legs. The quick answer is that I have a choice. I can be angry about not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude. - Nick Vujicic

Ethical Question: Are you nice to someone only because they are nice to you? If someone isn’t being nice to you is it ok to be mean in return?

Discussion: How have you been impacted by thankfulness/kindness shown to you?

Target of Kindness:

Please write down what you are thankful for on the "feather" provided and give it to your teacher. Each feather from every CHS student will be used to create a "Turkey of Thankfulness" that will be on display in the south commons.

Teachers: Please collect all of the "feathers" at the end of the activity.  Students from the Legion of Kindness will come by to pick them up during pathways. Be sure to get the "feathers" from your mailbox on Wednesday.

Accreditation phase I ~ While I was reading the Character Counts blog this weekend entitled What will Matter,  I came across a passage that I read over several times. I found the excerpt below to be apropos for us as we digest and process the information shared from our accreditation external review report:

"The wisdom of the oldest advice in the world: “Think ahead.” The maxim telling us to count to three when we’re angry and to ten when we’re very angry is designed to prevent foolish and impulsive behavior. But anger is just one obstacle to good choices. Others are fatigue, frustration, impatience, misunderstanding, disagreement,  etc.  When faced with important decisions it is critical to reflect on what we have done and what we are about to do. Just like we teach our children to stop and look both ways before they cross the street, we should remember that we must stop to sort out the facts, to evaluate the evidence and examine options so we can choose the most effective and ethical course of action. Stopping to think before we act also allows us to muster our moral will power to overcome emotions and temptations.  The “stop” is a break in the action that allows us to ask ourselves a few crucial questions that could set us on a better road."

Perhaps I chose the the quote above because it rang true for me and my initial reaction to the report. It might not be true for you, but I wanted to share.  As I said in my email to you all, I am very proud of all of the work you all do and the collaboration and camaraderie we have here is not matched by too many other schools. With the external review behind us, accreditation in place for the next five years, and the work ahead, I look forward to working with each and every one of you to achieve our school goals. With this is mind we will have an optional get together on Tuesday, December 2, at 2:45pm to talk about the preliminary AdvancedEd report and next steps. 

Dates to Remember

11/10 ~ Door decorating Judging 

11/11 ~ Veteran's Day No School

11/12 ~ CTE Testing begins
11/14 ~ Door decorating Judging 

11/18, 19  ~ College Application campaign days

Press On! Panther Strong!

Update ~ November 3-7, 2014

Celebrating Success
AIMS, Dodgeball v. FHS, Volleyball v. FHS, Halloween, Pep Assembly and FB v. FHS all in the same week...The week is behind us, definitely cause for celebration.
Congratulations to Coach Smith and our Panther Football Team for taking home the big W Friday night v. the Eagles...Woo hoo! Congratulations also to Coach Kriesel and the Lady Panther Volleyball Team for a great season.  They are headed to the state playoffs this weekend.  And, for the first time in as many years, under the disciplined coaching of Andrew Benford, our Girls and Boys X-Country Team placed 6 and 7th in the regionals and headed to state as well. Coach Jim Popham and the CHS Golf team had a successful season finishing in the top 20 teams in the state. Our stunning Cheer and Dance teams, under the direction of Lori Wright and Erin Moate continue on for the winter sports season.  A special congratulations to you all and good luck to all who are moving on. Go Panthers!

AdvancedEd Accreditation
The moment of truth is upon us.  This week is the long anticipated external review week. On November 5 and 6 the AdvancedEd Team will be at CHS both days all day. We have created a schedule for the team to follow and classrooms to visit, but rumor has it that they will randomly select classes and people to talk with while they are here.  Should you be one of the lucky people to be randomly selected please welcome our guests and answer any questions that they may have.

Student Attendance and Tardies
I believe you are aware we have been actively working to decrease excessive absences and tardies at CHS. Thank you all for your help with these efforts and for all of your help and support for lunch detention.  During the GDM meeting we discovered that there are some discrepancies in attendance data. The front office has received several phone calls from parents checking to verify absences due to calls home by the RTR.  It seems in some cases students who were confirmed absent all day, are only marked absent in four of the six periods, or three of six etc. (This has been the case for several students).  In order to fix this problem, we need your help.  Please remember to take attendance at the beginning of each period everyday and mark students tardy as soon as possible. Also, please leave a note on your door when you are taking your class to an alternative location. This is a tremendous help to our office staff when parents are here to pick up students for appointments etc. A great big THANK YOU to the front office for everything you do, you are one of the many bright stars of CHS.

Coconino Press
I am excited to announce the debut edition of the new Coconino Newspaper called the Coconino Press. CHS Student Leo Mercer and his student journalists and editing team have ambitiously taken on this task. With the help and support of the Azdaily Sun, the first edition should be in circulation by mid week.

Bus Evacuation Drill
Remember we have a required Bus Evacuation Drill on Monday, November 3, beginning 2nd period. Click here for detailed schedule.

Faculty Meeting/Prep Hour Mtgs
We were scheduled to have prep hour meetings this week.  Instead we will have a faculty meeting on Thursday, November 6,  2:30-3:00pm.

College Application Campaign
The halls are alive with our State University and Community College pennants, banners and posters.  Thank you Laura Locke and the interior design class students.  We are looking forward to the door displays in the next few weeks.

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Have a great week...Press On! Panther Strong!