Sunday, September 24, 2017
Update ~ September 25-29, 2017
CELEBRATING SUCCESS...
I am excited to announce that this year CHS has a full-fledged Speech and Debate and Mock Trial Team. Bryce Brothers and Katie Scholler are the coaches and last week we had 48 plus students audition for a spot on the team. Woohoo, Go Panthers!
PRE-EVALUATION CONFERENCES...
Tuesday, September 26
Certified Evaluation Groups and meeting places:
Cris ~ 2:45pm Room # 201
Stacie ~ 2:45 pm Room # 204
Steve ~ 3:00 pm Back Conference Room
* If you are not sure who your evaluator is please check evaluation list under documents on the blog
* If you are unable to attend, please email your evaluator to schedule a make-up pre-conference
BULLETIN BOARDS...
This is the time of year we start to see advertisements for meetings, clubs, sports etc., around the school. If you need to hang flyers or display student work, please use the bulletin boards in the hallways and do not tape or post objects on the walls or red pillars.
HOMECOMING...
Celebrating 51 years of Panther traditions, pride, and spirit. Our student council has worked hard to create a special homecoming week filled with school spirit. Each day is a different themed spirit day, please remind students that the dress code is to be followed during homecoming week. No head coverings will be permitted inside the building during school hours.
Monday ~ Carnival
Tuesday ~ Tourist Day
Wednesday ~ USA Day
Thursday ~ Country Western Day
Friday ~ CHS Spirit Day
Press on! Panther Strong!
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Sunday, September 17, 2017
Update ~ September 18-22, 2017
CELEBRATING SUCCESS...
A big shout out to our front office staff! The last several weeks we have had a high volume of teacher absences and have not been able to fill the absences with substitutes. The CHS office staff has decided to work together to cover classes, and they do this with smiles and great attitudes. I just wanted to take the time to say thank you to our amazing office staff and a special thank you to Diane for taking this on and making it all happen.
WELCOME TO THE PANTHER FAMILY...
We have a new counselor. Mrs. Tina Jacobs will be joining the counseling department for the balance of the year. Tina brings many years of counseling experience in FUSD and spent many of her early years as a counselor right here at CHS. CHS is very fortunate to have Tina back. Welcome back Tina! Tina's alpha is A-Ga.
UPCOMING FACULTY MEETING...
Wait whattttt another meeting?
Kind of...We are scheduled for a faculty meeting on Tuesday, September 26 at 2:45 pm. In lieu of a whole group faculty meeting, this meeting will be our group pre-conference meeting. Before formal evaluations can officially begin, we are required to meet for a pre-evaluation conference, we plan to use this scheduled meeting date for this purpose. The location for your pre-evaluation conference will be sent out in next week's Panther Report. Please mark the date your calendars.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT...
There are a lot of quality teacher led 301 workshops being offered in our district this year. In our own building, Les Hauer and Angela Buzan are offering a course entitled Master Teacher strategies #49441. Please note, the date for this course is the same date as our teacher pre-conferences. If you are enrolled in the 301 course, we will offer a make up date for your pre-evaluation conference.
Also SMS Teacher, Kris Penca is offering a workshop entitled Writing Rubrics for Standards Based Grading, Course # 49452 beginning on September 27.
To register for these 301 workshops just log into True North Logic (TNL) and search the course title or number and follow the prompts. Click here for TNL
MIA...
Cris and I will both be out of the building Monday and Tuesday, September 18 & 19, this week attending trainings. Les Hauer will be filling in and helping Steve in our absence.
NEXT WEEK...
CHS Homecoming. Click here for this year's homecoming week schedule of events and bell schedule. Please mark your calendars.
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
A quote for this week...
"Take pride in how far you've come. Have faith in how far you can go. But don't forget to enjoy the journey."
-Michael Josephson
A big shout out to our front office staff! The last several weeks we have had a high volume of teacher absences and have not been able to fill the absences with substitutes. The CHS office staff has decided to work together to cover classes, and they do this with smiles and great attitudes. I just wanted to take the time to say thank you to our amazing office staff and a special thank you to Diane for taking this on and making it all happen.
WELCOME TO THE PANTHER FAMILY...
We have a new counselor. Mrs. Tina Jacobs will be joining the counseling department for the balance of the year. Tina brings many years of counseling experience in FUSD and spent many of her early years as a counselor right here at CHS. CHS is very fortunate to have Tina back. Welcome back Tina! Tina's alpha is A-Ga.
UPCOMING FACULTY MEETING...
Wait whattttt another meeting?
Kind of...We are scheduled for a faculty meeting on Tuesday, September 26 at 2:45 pm. In lieu of a whole group faculty meeting, this meeting will be our group pre-conference meeting. Before formal evaluations can officially begin, we are required to meet for a pre-evaluation conference, we plan to use this scheduled meeting date for this purpose. The location for your pre-evaluation conference will be sent out in next week's Panther Report. Please mark the date your calendars.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT...
There are a lot of quality teacher led 301 workshops being offered in our district this year. In our own building, Les Hauer and Angela Buzan are offering a course entitled Master Teacher strategies #49441. Please note, the date for this course is the same date as our teacher pre-conferences. If you are enrolled in the 301 course, we will offer a make up date for your pre-evaluation conference.
Also SMS Teacher, Kris Penca is offering a workshop entitled Writing Rubrics for Standards Based Grading, Course # 49452 beginning on September 27.
To register for these 301 workshops just log into True North Logic (TNL) and search the course title or number and follow the prompts. Click here for TNL
MIA...
Cris and I will both be out of the building Monday and Tuesday, September 18 & 19, this week attending trainings. Les Hauer will be filling in and helping Steve in our absence.
NEXT WEEK...
CHS Homecoming. Click here for this year's homecoming week schedule of events and bell schedule. Please mark your calendars.
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
A quote for this week...
"Take pride in how far you've come. Have faith in how far you can go. But don't forget to enjoy the journey."
-Michael Josephson
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Update ~ September 11-15, 2017
CELEBRATING SUCCESS...
Thank you all for the coming together to participate in the Here's What, So What?, Now What? activity as we looked at some of our CHS student academic data. Your assumptions, reflections, thoughts and related plans are critical to drive our future work and improve student academic achievement at CHS. There were many thoughtful observations shared from our PLC on Wednesday, below are some of the common ones.
HERE'S WHAT...
Commonly used acronyms:
PLC ~ Professional Learning Community
CT ~ Collaborative Team
ELO ~ Essential Learning Outcome
C.O. ~ Content Objective
IB ~ International Baccalaureate
AzMerit ~ Arizona Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching
MP ~ Minimally Proficient
PP ~ Partially Proficient
P ~ Proficient
HP ~ Highly Proficient
Q & A...
Q: Are we supposed to use the norms and member roles we established during the all school PLC on September 6, to guide our CTs, or was that just practice?
A: The intent of the work on Wednesday, September 6, was for CTs to use the time together to develop, or in some cases revisit, their group norms to help guide productive CTs. If your CT needs more time or not happy with the norms and roles, feel free to redo them.
Q: Is there specific work we are supposed to be doing in our CTs?
A: Yes, remember the number one question is What do we want students to know or be able to do? The answer to this lies in your Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) aligned with content standards. Part of the work for this year will be to review, revise and update your ELOs. This work will drive the rest of the work for your CT. If you do not know where your ELOs are, come by the learning lounge (back conference room), the ELOs are housed in a notebook, which will be on the work table. Once you make copies please return the master list to the notebook.
Q: Which dates did you say have been set aside for vertical PLCs, or meeting with colleagues outside of CHS?
A: 9/20, 10/25, 11/8, 1/31, 2/21, 3/28, 4/11, 5/30
Finally, I conclude this blog and PLC debrief by saying; goals give teamwork meaning, and goals that are precise, demanding and realistic will help take our school to the next level. Thank you for your willingness to engage in the process and to accept the challenges necessary to ensure that ALL our students learn at high levels. I sincerely appreciate you all!
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
Thank you all for the coming together to participate in the Here's What, So What?, Now What? activity as we looked at some of our CHS student academic data. Your assumptions, reflections, thoughts and related plans are critical to drive our future work and improve student academic achievement at CHS. There were many thoughtful observations shared from our PLC on Wednesday, below are some of the common ones.
HERE'S WHAT...
- We see some positive trends in our school's standardized test data
- Positive relationships between teachers and students contribute to student academic success
- Attendance (absenteeism) likely plays a role in the "F" list
- Hard to determine trends in classroom level data, "F" list
- Many variables in classroom level data, making the data unreliable
- Teacher collaboration positively impacts student achievement levels
SO WHAT?...
- While we see some areas of success we have work to do
- Many of our students are not showing academic gains
- We should look at progress throughout the year, not just at the end
- Should we try to separate academic achievement data from attendance and other data?
NOW WHAT?...
- Commitment to working collaboratively to improve academic achievement
- CT goals are centered around a focus on learning, curriculum alignment, creating and using formative assessment to improve student learning, improving literacy skills, improved technical reading and writing skills, working on high quality instructional practices, assessing effectiveness of our instruction by regularly analyzing student learning data, increased rigor and supports, regular feedback to students about their learning progress, consistency, continuing to build relationships with our students, encouraging our students and helping them become confident learners and figuring out ways to ensure that "Failure is not an option."
MORE DEBRIEF...
PLC ~ Professional Learning Community
CT ~ Collaborative Team
ELO ~ Essential Learning Outcome
C.O. ~ Content Objective
IB ~ International Baccalaureate
AzMerit ~ Arizona Measurement of Educational Readiness to Inform Teaching
MP ~ Minimally Proficient
PP ~ Partially Proficient
P ~ Proficient
HP ~ Highly Proficient
Q & A...
Q: Are we supposed to use the norms and member roles we established during the all school PLC on September 6, to guide our CTs, or was that just practice?
A: The intent of the work on Wednesday, September 6, was for CTs to use the time together to develop, or in some cases revisit, their group norms to help guide productive CTs. If your CT needs more time or not happy with the norms and roles, feel free to redo them.
Q: Is there specific work we are supposed to be doing in our CTs?
A: Yes, remember the number one question is What do we want students to know or be able to do? The answer to this lies in your Essential Learning Outcomes (ELOs) aligned with content standards. Part of the work for this year will be to review, revise and update your ELOs. This work will drive the rest of the work for your CT. If you do not know where your ELOs are, come by the learning lounge (back conference room), the ELOs are housed in a notebook, which will be on the work table. Once you make copies please return the master list to the notebook.
Q: Which dates did you say have been set aside for vertical PLCs, or meeting with colleagues outside of CHS?
A: 9/20, 10/25, 11/8, 1/31, 2/21, 3/28, 4/11, 5/30
Finally, I conclude this blog and PLC debrief by saying; goals give teamwork meaning, and goals that are precise, demanding and realistic will help take our school to the next level. Thank you for your willingness to engage in the process and to accept the challenges necessary to ensure that ALL our students learn at high levels. I sincerely appreciate you all!
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
Monday, September 4, 2017
Update ~ September 5-8, 2017
CELEBRATING SUCCESS...
During the summer, Puente de Hozho, Sinagua Middle School and Coconino High School formed a collaborative to start the process to bring the International Baccalaureate (IB) program to our schools. The three of us applied for a grant through the Arizona Community Foundation to help with first steps to become authorized by the IB World Schools Organization to offer an International Baccalaureate Program at all three of our schools. Last week we learned we were awarded the grant. Puente is now in IB Candidacy Phase while SMS and CHS are considered to be in the Pre-candidacy phase. This is great news for our schools and I look forward to sharing more about this with you all in the near future. In the meantime, if you would like to read more about IB, click here for the IBO website.
THANK YOU all for being there for our fall open house. As I stand in the front entry way I hear wonderful things from parents about how much they like Coconino, our counselors teachers and staff. You rock!
Please remember to submit positive stories and anecdotes to me to be included in the A+ application. Thank you to those who have already sent stories my way.
POWER OF YOUR PRESENCE...
Thank you for being in the hallways and greeting students during passing periods. Not only does your presence deter undesirable behavior, but greeting and welcoming students helps to show you care about them and are glad to see them each and every day. Also, please check the new and improved duty schedule ( in Documents on the Panther Report), and be sure to be at your duty station on your assigned duty day.
THIS WEEK...
On Wednesday, we will have our first school-wide PLC at 1:15pm in the cafeteria. Topics include: Collaborative Teams, Data Review and Committee Sign Ups.
LOOKING AHEAD...
Homecoming week is the last week of September. During the week of September 25-29 we will have combined lunch days and the week will conclude with a parade, lip dub filming, pep assembly and evening football game on Friday September 29, which will require an abbreviated class period schedule on 9/29. A schedule of events and details will be sent out soon, but wanted to make sure you mark your calendars in advance.
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
During the summer, Puente de Hozho, Sinagua Middle School and Coconino High School formed a collaborative to start the process to bring the International Baccalaureate (IB) program to our schools. The three of us applied for a grant through the Arizona Community Foundation to help with first steps to become authorized by the IB World Schools Organization to offer an International Baccalaureate Program at all three of our schools. Last week we learned we were awarded the grant. Puente is now in IB Candidacy Phase while SMS and CHS are considered to be in the Pre-candidacy phase. This is great news for our schools and I look forward to sharing more about this with you all in the near future. In the meantime, if you would like to read more about IB, click here for the IBO website.
THANK YOU all for being there for our fall open house. As I stand in the front entry way I hear wonderful things from parents about how much they like Coconino, our counselors teachers and staff. You rock!
Please remember to submit positive stories and anecdotes to me to be included in the A+ application. Thank you to those who have already sent stories my way.
POWER OF YOUR PRESENCE...
Thank you for being in the hallways and greeting students during passing periods. Not only does your presence deter undesirable behavior, but greeting and welcoming students helps to show you care about them and are glad to see them each and every day. Also, please check the new and improved duty schedule ( in Documents on the Panther Report), and be sure to be at your duty station on your assigned duty day.
THIS WEEK...
On Wednesday, we will have our first school-wide PLC at 1:15pm in the cafeteria. Topics include: Collaborative Teams, Data Review and Committee Sign Ups.
LOOKING AHEAD...
Homecoming week is the last week of September. During the week of September 25-29 we will have combined lunch days and the week will conclude with a parade, lip dub filming, pep assembly and evening football game on Friday September 29, which will require an abbreviated class period schedule on 9/29. A schedule of events and details will be sent out soon, but wanted to make sure you mark your calendars in advance.
PRESS ON! PANTHER STRONG!
Please acknowledge you have read this post by clicking here
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