** ALSO AVAILABLE ON INFINITE CAMPUS **

STAFF NEWS AND NOTES

NUTS & BOLTS

24 EDITION 24, ISSUE 27 Superintendents Workshop Day Edition Apr. 25, 26, 27 Thurs, April 26 Tues, May 1 Wed., May 2 Thurs., May 3 Tues., May 8 Wed., May 9 Thurs., May 10 Wed., May 16 Fri., May 18 May 23-June 1 Thurs., May 24 Fri., May 25 Fri., June 1 Mon., June 4 Thurs., June 7 Wed., June 13 Fri., June 15 Fri., June 23

23, March 23, 2012

KUDOS - Break a leg to the cast, crew and all adults associated with this weekends presentations of Beauty and the Beast. We know the work that has gone into it and we also know that it will be a truly positive reflection on everyone involved as well as our school!! - From Judi Stott via Liz McNamara expressing her appreciation for the excellent work that Steve Brown is doing to support the Library at Shaker Junior High School. Steve assists us all, not just the library. For example, he recently provided invaluable support for a special video conference and does a lot of work in preparing and administering the NWEA math and ELA assessments. He has also assisted and will assist again with the technology literacy online assessments and with the implantation of all technology throughout the building. He also assists individual teachers whenever asked. Steve also was responsible for setting up the technology for the Junior High School Grade 8 Student Assemblies that highlighted high school programs. He truly goes above and beyond to provide support to our students and teachers. Thanks for all of your hard work Steve, not only from Liz and Judi but from all of us! We certainly appreciate all that you do and provide on a daily basis! - To Kathy Skeals for the excellent literacy workshop held this past Monday. Kathy clearly understands what it means to teach literacy skills to students and she provided us with two very practical steps that each of us can take to focus on literacy in our classes. Everyone should consider pre-reading and during reading activities when assigning reading to students. Pre-reading sets the stage and gives students fore knowledge of what they will be reading. Kathys point that we comprehend while reading and not after certainly rings true, so having students complete activities when reading such as annotating each paragraph, will tremendously aid students comprehension. Thanks also to our colleagues who made us look good by answering questions correctly. Our thanks go to Jaimie, Seth, Trina, Dave and Will for earning a collective 100% on the questioning part of the workshop!! - To Steve DeMarco, JV boys basketball coach, on his excellent season recently completed. Jeff Holmes, Varsity basketball coach, had a kudo in last weeks edition of Nuts & Bolts and we know that our varsity program relies tremendously on its JV program to be successful. Steves JV boys team ended with a 15-3 overall record, 12-3 in the Suburban Council. They also won the Girmindl Holiday Tournament. This is the second year in a row that Steves JV team won or tied for the leagues best record. Also noteworthy, Steve had only one technical foul this year, one of his most notable accomplishments! He did break another clipboard, however. Great job, Steve! -To John Slyer who is providing an energy show to several of our elementary schools. Most recently John gave an energy and matter science show to approximately 100 5th graders at Southgate school. One way to excite students about science education is to show them exciting demonstrations and examples of what can be done with science. John presented the same show at the Schenectady Museum during the February break, with approximately 100 kids of all ages attending. Thanks, John, for your willingness to share your expertise with possible future scientists but also in helping younger students see that science can indeed be exciting and fun. Of course we know that it takes time to prepare and to present; your efforts are greatly appreciated!! - To Mike Moffre who accompanied our math team to RPI this past Saturday for the state wide Math Counts competition. This necessitated Mike giving up most of his Saturday to provide this opportunity for our very high ability math students. Although our team did not end up in the top 10 state wide they did well representing themselves and our school in a fashion that we have come to expect. Thanks, Mike, for your willingness to give up your time on a Saturday for providing this opportunity for our students.

Math 7/8 Assessments PTA/PAC Meeting 7:30pm Concert #1 7:00pm Public Forum on the budget SJHS French 8 Field Trip to Clark Art Institute 7:30pm Concert #2 Wear Green Day 7:30pm Concert #3 6:30pm District Art Show 7:30pm Concert #4 PTA/Staff Appreciation Breakfast 7:00pm Faculty Play Science 8 Performance test Track Meet Track Meet Rain Date Science 8 Performance Test NCTA Retirement Dinner Science 8 Written Assessment 6:30pm Studio Art Show Reception 7:00pm Parent Orientation 7:00pm PTA/PAC 6th Grade Student Orientation 7:00pm Grade 8 Awards Program/Dance Regents Rating Day

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Mon. Mar. 26 Bus Drills All Halls Tues. Mar. 27 1:00 pm Administrators/Counselors 2:30 pm Guidance Department Meeting 3:15 pm PTA/Staff Recognition Tea Assem. Rm Wed. Mar. 28 Russian Olympiada Field Trip Thurs. Mar. 29 7:45 am Science Steering Committee Meeting Fri. Mar. 30 Math 8 3rd Qtr. Assessment In Class CHARACTER TRAIT ASSIGNMENT Mar. 26 30 Social Studies Apr. 2 5 Science Apr. 16 20 Math Apr. 23 27 Art/Tech/H&C Apr. 30 May 4 Foreign Language May 7 11 PE/Health/Music May 14 18 English May 21 25 Social Studies Generous Cheerful Loyal Sympathetic Patriotic Trustworthy Fair Cooperative

PTA/STAFF RECOGNITION TEA The PTA Council is planning on holding its annual Staff Recognition Tea on Tuesday, March 27. Employees are recognized for their years of service beginning at 20 and denoted every five years after that. Shaker Junior High School staff members to be recognized include: 25 years: Bob Bedell, Steve DeMarco, Cheryl Germinerio, Jeff Holmes and Debra Howard. 20 years: Holly Blau If anyone should be recognized for 20, 25, 30years of service, please let R. Moore know asap. STAND UP COMMITTEE T-SHIRT DAYS One t-shirt day sponsored by the Building Stand-Up Committee is on the schedule. Tuesday, May 8 Wear Green Day Please mark your calendars and be ready to wear green on May 8. In total there will have been 5 t-shirt days during the school year that will be combined to create a total value for each hall. These values will determine point distribution in the inter-hall competition. FACULTY FEUD SCHEDULE Our Faculty Feud is set for Thursday, April 5th! The proposed schedule is as follows: Period 1 Period 2 Period 3 Period 5 Period 8 Period 9 Calhoun 8 vs. Houston 8 Clay 8 vs. Norris 8 Clay 7 vs. Norris 7 Calhoun 7 vs. Houston 7 7th Grade Championship 8th Grade Championship

PM BUS SUPERVISION ZONE #1 ZONE #2 ZONE #3 ZONE #4 CAF M. Brandt T. Jones J. Slyer R. Spring L. Stevens People are reminded to be on duty on a daily basis to make sure that supervision is provided.
ALL STAFF MEMBERS ARE REMINDED THAT THE BUS SUPERVISION IS AN ASSIGNED DUTY AND IT IS IMPERATIVE FOR ALL STAFF MEMBERS TO BE WHERE ASSIGNED DUTY; IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ARRANGE FOR REPLACEMENT PERHAPS BY SWAPPING WITH A COLLEAGUE.

LONG-TERM CALENDAR OF EVENTS Fri. Mar. 23 Teacher Workshop Day 7:30 pm Beauty and the Beast Sat. Mar. 24 7:30 pm Beauty and the Beast Sun. Mar. 25 2:00 pm Beauty and the Beast Mon. Mar. 26 Bus Drills All Halls Tues., Mar. 27 3:30 pm PTA/Staff Recognition Tea Fri., Mar. 30 Gr. 8 3rd Qtr. Math Assess. In Class Sun., Apr. 1 National Holiday Mon. Apr. 2 Gr. 7/8 3rd Qtr. ELA Assess. In Class International Potluck Dinner Tues. Apr. 3 Gr. 7/8 3rd Qtr. ELA Assess. In Class Wed. Apr. 4 Gr. 7 3rd Qtr. Math Assess. In Class Thurs, April 5 Faculty Feud Fri. Apr. 6 Good Friday No School Mon. Apr. 9 - 13 Spring Vacation Apr. 17, 18, 19 ELA 7/8 Assessments

Let Dawn, Mickey or R. Moore know if you see a problem. GOOD LUCK, DEB! We want to wish Deb the best of luck as she undergoes some surgery next week and will miss anywhere from 4 6 weeks for her recovery. We will stay in touch as we are all very interested and concerned with her health and we look for a speedy recovery and getting her back to Shaker Junior High School!

BUS DRILLS SCHEDULE REVISED ON MONDAY, MARCH 26 Bus drill instruction will all be on Monday, March 26. Calhoun and Norris remain as is, Houston 7/8 will be at 9:45 am and Clay 7/8 will be at 10:00 am. Please note the change to allow us uninterrupted class time to complete 3rd quarter assessments in ELA and math. At 9:15 Monday morning there will be eight buses (identified #1 - #8) lined up at the curb. At that time, homerooms will be taken to an assigned bus, the students seated, and instructions will be provided. Teachers are asked to remain with their homeroom students on the bus for the duration of the drill. As soon as the instruction is completed for the first group, students will be dismissed to follow their regular schedule and the next group will report. Teachers are asked to remain with their homeroom students on the bus for the duration of the drill.
Monday, March 26 9:15 AM Calhoun 7 & 8 #1 B206 C. Patenaude #2 B202 D. Walllingford #3 B204 D. Howard #4 B209 J. Gara #5 B208 J. Berti #6 B203 A. Favro #7 B205 J. Beach #8 B210 S. Mangan 9:45 AM Houston 7 & 8 #1 C101 T. Lyng #2 C104 S. Harris #3 C106 T. Schanz #4 C109 J. Slyer #5 C102 E. Mailloux #6 C103 P. Coughlin #7 C105 S. Rossi #8 C110 A. Bisnett #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 9:30 AM Norris 7 & 8 C205 M. Goebel C203 C. Myer C202 H. Lindhurst C209 W. Salvi C208 J. Edgar C204 M. Kerr C206 E. Carroll C210 L. Bullis 10:00 AM Clay 7 & 8 B104 B. Bedell B103 K. Rizzo B105 M. Moffre B109 S. Strouse B102 C. Froehlich B106 K. Peterson B108 J. Beach B110 D. Jaffe

behavioral concerns with the artist, Tracey will talk to Dawn about the appropriateness of hanging these. The Video: If You Only Knew Me Due to changes in the State Science Assessment scheduling, we are no longer able to show the video on track meet day. Faculty Feud is Thursday April 5th, and we are penciling in period 4 to do this. Tracey & Stacey are designing discussion questions to accompany this video. Sarah, Lisa, and Stacey are working to get this video copied to a Mac. The goal is to get this cut down to being a one period activity. If all goes wellwe should have this completely set by Friday March 23rd. Mix it Up Day This will take place on track meet day. Lisa & Tracy H. met to iron out the details and this is looking AWESOME. They will report to the committee on this great event at our next meeting. Side Notes Big activities completed in the fall. Time is a HUGE issue around state assessment time. Max, a Clay 7 kid stood up for a young girl today who was being physically and verbally bullied by an 8th grade student. He came forward, explained the situation, and truly became this young ladys hero. So proud of him, and so were his parents when I called to share the good news! NEXT MEETING DATE: MARCH 28th SUNSHINE FUND Each year we have several events that take place which call for recognition from the entire school community. Money for these cards of sympathy, flowers, etc, comes from our building Sunshine Fund. We periodically have to replenish the fund and your assistance in doing so is appreciated. Contributions of $10.00 can be given to Holly Lindhurst or Holly Blau for our building Sunshine Fund. ALPHA/NUMERIC AUTOMATIC FEATURE BEGINS QTR. 3 1. The Grade Book rights for all teachers will be turned on. 2. In the Assignments module, teachers set the JH Alpha Curve for the four Quarter Grades, Mid Term and Final Exam for each course they teach. 3. When the grading window opens, teachers use the Grade Book to enter grades. All they do is enter the number grade in the green percent field and the alpha grade automatically appears for them. TEACHER OF RECORD Many of you have already twice this year verified your rosters; this meant being given a roster as it currently appears in Infinite Campus and verifying that those are the students in each of the classes taught. This process has been followed to verify who exactly is the teacher of record for students. This will of course be linked to the teacher and principal scores that will be generated by SED. The first two roster verifications were done via hard copy with teachers physically signing each class roster verifying that it was accurate. The next verification will be completed in a different manner, however. Details are being worked out but teachers will have to register online with Portal accounts and PIN numbers provided for each teacher, and will verify class rosters online the files accessed by teachers will be read only files, if there is an error in a class roster it will need to be brought to the attention of the building principal. Again more specific details will be provided in the near futureStay tuned. BACKWARD DESIGN From Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe Teachers are designers. An essential act of our profession is the crafting of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. We are also designers of assessments to diagnose student needs to guide our teaching and to enable us, our students, and others (parents and administrators) to determine whether we have achieved our goals. Like people in other design professions, such as architecture, engineering, or graphic arts, designers in education must be mindful of their audiences. Professionals in these fields are strongly client-centered. The effectiveness of their designs corresponds to whether they have accomplished explicit goals for specific end-users. Clearly, students are our primary clients, given that the effectiveness of curriculum, assessment, and instructional designs is ultimately determined by their achievement of desired learnings. We can think of our designs, then, as software. Our courseware is designed to make learning more effective, just as computer software is intended to make its users more productive.

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ELA/MATH ASSESSMENT REVISED TESTING SCHEDULE The following is a proposed testing schedule for the ELA/math assessments, each scheduled for 90 minutes daily on three consecutive days. The schedule that follows reflects missing periods 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9 in equal amounts over the six days of testing. We have made one switch to take A/B days into account. Please bring any suggestions to one of the building administrators. April 17 April 18 April 19 April 25 April 26 April 27 ELA - Day 1 ELA - Day 2 ELA - Day 3 Math - Day 1 Math - Day 2 Math - Day 3 Per. 2 Test 5 6 7 3 4 Per. 1 Test 5 6 7 8 9 Per. 1 Test 5 6 7 8 9 Per. 2 Test 5 6 7 3 4 Per. 1 Test 5 6 7 8 9 Per. 2 Test 5 6 7 3 4

* The books for both ELA and math, given on Day 1 for each, are again secure. We will need to account for the exact number given to each homeroom teacher, as we did last year. Good news!! There is no separate field testing as field test questions are (finally) embedded in the actual assessments!

NO MATH PRACTICE ASSESSMENT We had scheduled on the calendar a math practice assessment for next Tuesday that will not take place. Instead math and ELA teachers will be administering a 3rd quarter assessment in class on Friday, March 30 and Monday Wednesday, April 2 -4. These assessments will be completed in class so should not impact other teachers. STAND UP COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES - MARCH 14, 2012 Book Talk- (Laura, Calyn, Tracy, Toni) As of now, the date that was picked for this event is up in the air. The plan is to have students read Chapter 17 of the book Reinventing My Normal in Silent Reading, Advisory, or Fundamental Reading. Guided questions would be sent out to staff so they would be prepared, and this activity will be done over a few sessions. Copies of this chapter will need to be made available. Note for next yeardo this earlier in the year when time is more plentiful, and we are not competing with state assessments. T-Shirts Days (Sarah, Tracey) Wear White-Tuesday 03/20. Wear Green-Tuesday May 8th. Also, www.ellentv.com has a really cool bullying black v-neck t-shirt, that can be purchased. Go to the website, and check it out. If we combine our orders, we can get free shipping. Stacey is contacting the store to see if we can get a discounted price for a bulk order. If you would like to purchase a shirt (or a hoodie)-email Stacey your size and she will let you know what the final cost will be. Current cost-T-shirt $20 and Hoodie $52. Spread the wordthese are pretty cool.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration. James Allen

Walk a Mile in Someones Shoes (Margaret, Tracy, Toni) Packets were sent out to all special area and advisory teachers. Thank you Margaret and Toni!! Teachers will complete this activity by March 9th. A lot of shoes are still trickling in. Student government (thanks John) offered to hang them. Margaret-could you send out a final email ensuring all of them have been turned in? Thanks! Take a Stand Tuesdays: Are we all set for the month of March? Dr. Moore is sending them, but they are not always on. Stacey will talk to Judi about a preferred format to ensure that they make it on each Tuesday. Posters: Evan Hennessey created a nice drawing of holding hands and presented it to Mary Lancaster, who brought it to our attention. Tracey Maynard made this into a poster which will be hung around the school. It goes along with the new statewide policy, which is Take a Stand, Lend a Hand. Due to recent