Week of September 3, 2017

Upcoming at AWS...

Monday, September 4 LABOR DAY (No School)

Tuesday, September 5
A DAY
8:00am Morning Meeting in the MS Lounge
10:05am Snack in the MS Office
10:20am Flex
2:15pm Design Meeting
3:15pm MS Tech Orientation (makeup session) in the Computer Lab

Wednesday, September 6
B DAY 
8:00am Advisory
10:05am Snack in the MS Office
10:20am MS Chapel: Wagstaff Advisory as Acolytes
2:15pm Math Meeting
3:15pm 6th Grade Team Meeting in the Design Room

Thursday, September 7 PICTURE DAY (Dress Uniform)
C DAY
8:00am Advisory
10:05am Snack in the MS Office
10:20am Long Advisory & Photos
Tentative Schedule

• 10:10am 6th Grade to the Great Hall
• 10:20am 7th Grade to the Great Hall
• 10:40am 8th Grade to the Great Hall

2:15pm Science and Lang & Lit Meetings
3:15pm 7th Grade Team Meeting in the Design Room
3:15pm Tech Session check-in for new 7th & 8th Grade Students in the Computer Lab

Friday, September 8
D DAY
8:00am Advisory
10:05am Snack in the MS Office
10:20am Flex
2:15pm Lang Acq and Ind & Soc Meetings
3:15pm 8th Grade Team Meeting in the Design Room

Orientation

It was a really wonderful couple of days for our students - thanks to each of you for the time away from your families, your creativity and energy for activities, and for the wonderful examples you gave our students. Very special thanks to Clare for organizing every detail with care and vision! If you took any photos, please upload to the MS Orientation album on Vidigami. 

Sunshine Committee

If you haven't already and you want to participate in the Sunshine Committee's birthday celebrations, please sign up here!

Afternoon pickup & carline...

The newly updated 10th Street Circle is causing us to pay careful attention to carline in the morning and, especially, the afternoon. We anticipate that it will take families a little bit of time to get into their school year routines and to get used to the modified traffic pattern. In the meantime, we're going to do the following:

• MS Students who are being picked up must be ready to go at 3:10. This means they will need to be dismissed from Athletics a few minutes early (3:00 release).
• Advisors: please remind students about after school plans - students being picked up must be ready to go at 3:10 - 3:15 at the latest; students going to ED must report directly to ED by 3:15.
• If you have a few minutes free between 3:05-3:20, please pop out to the carline to lend a hand and possibly encourage MS families who are blocking traffic to do a lap around the block.

Advisory

If you haven't already, please send an email to introduce yourself to your Advisees' families. In that communication, please include the following:

• Reminder about Picture Day & Dress Uniform on Thursday, September 7
• Reminder about Back to School Night - Thursday, September 14 6:30-8:30pm
• Reminder to update contact and emergency information on myAW
• Reminder about the Spring Break trip to China and the June trip to Iceland (info was in last week's Flash)

Shelli has graciously agreed to keep up slides for use in your Advisory. Slides will include calendar and schedule reminders as well as any other announcements. Please consider using the slides consistently with your Advisory, and if you have any information to communicate to students (followup info to anything announced in Morning Meeting, reminders, changes, etc.), please send that info to Shelli to include in the slides. The link to these slides will be included in the Important Links, above. 

Chapel

Only two Advisories have claimed Chapel times. Please sign up by the end of this week.

• September 27 (Inquirer): 
• October 11 (Open-Minded): 
• October 25 (Open-Minded): 
• November 8 (Thinker): 
• November 29 (Thinker): McConnell
• December 6 (Caring): 
• January 31 (Reflective): 
• February14 Knowledgeable): Hunt
• March 14 (Communicator): 
• April 11 (Balanced): 
• April 25 (Balanced): Flores/Paco
• May 30 (Principled):

Faculty Meetings

Reminder about faculty meetings: 

• A: 2:15pm Design Meeting
• B: 2:15pm Math Meeting; 3:15pm 6th Grade Team
• C: 2:15pm Science and Language & Literature Meetings; 3:15pm 7th Grade Team
• D: 2:15pm Language Acquisition and Individuals & Societies Meetings; 3:15pm 8th Grade Team
• E: 2:45pm MS Faculty Meetings (Alternating between MS business and MYP)
• F: No regularly scheduled meetings.

Typically, no meetings would be scheduled on Monday to reserve time for All Schools meetings. Next Monday will be an exception - we'll have a MS Faculty Meeting from 3:15-3:45pm to check in.

Please note the current All Schools meeting schedule for 2017-2018. Monday meetings begin at 3:30pm and may run until 5:00pm. 

• Monday, September 11: In-service: Abuse and reporting requirements
• Monday, September 18: MS/US Department Meetings
• Monday, September 25: CaP Facilitators Meeting
• Monday, October 2: Emergency Training #2
• Monday, October 9: Topic Group Meetings
• Friday, October 13: Professional Development Day: TBA
• Monday, October 23: Topic Group Meetings
• Monday, October 30: CaP Facilitators Meeting
• Monday, November 6: All Schools Benefits Fair
• Monday, November 13: Topic Group Meetings
• Monday, November 27: Topic Group Meetings
• Monday, December 4: Topic Group Meeting
• Monday, December 11: All Schools Meeting
• Monday, January 8: Emergency Training #3
• Monday, January 22: Topic Group Meetings
• Monday, January 29: CaP Facilitators Meeting
• Monday, February 5: All Schools Meeting
• Monday, February 12: Topic Group Meeting
• Monday, February 26: Topic Group Meeting
• Monday, March 5: CaP Facilitators Meeting
• Monday, March 12: Topic Group Meeting
• Monday, March 19: Topic Group Meeting
• Monday, April 9: Emergency Training #4

Professional Growth: Goals & Meetings

To guide our professional growth process this year, I've created a folder for everyone in Professional Growth Docs 2017-2018 (this link is among the Important Links above). Only you, Clare, and I should have access to your particular folder. Please add your folder to your Drive. The folder includes the following docs:

1. Goal Setting Template
2. MS Formal Observation Templates
3. MS Informal Observation Templates
4. Mid-Year Reflection
5. End of Year Reflection
6. Schedule for Professional Growth Process 2017-2018

An explanation of each doc is on the Schedule for Professional Growth doc. Instead of making copies of a master doc or printing docs out, please edit these docs directly for this process - hopefully this will streamline the document sharing. 

Action items: complete professional goals articulation, and schedule a meeting with Bill directly or via Alicia before September 22.

MS Office & Alicia's role

The MS Office is really meant to be a hub for supplies and communication for the Middle School. Coffee and snacks are always a draw, so we'll continue to keep those things stocked! 

For the last couple of years, we've been lucky to have Alicia with us as our MS Office Coordinator. To accommodate her other role as Extended Day Coordinator, Alicia is generally in the building from mid- or late-morning through the close of ED. Alicia will continue to provide administrative support for the Middle School and keep the MS Office stocked with supplies. Please reach out to Alicia for any supplies requests. Additionally, please reach out to Alicia with any help creating tickets for maintenance, housekeeping, transportation, or special events requests. She will collate all requests and ensure that details are coordinated. Finally, if you have any receipts and requests for reimbursement or need help making a school-related purchase, please bring it all to Alicia. 

Classroom & Classroom visits

As classes get up and running, in your classroom, please be sure to make visible:

• Statements of Inquiry
• Learner Profile
• Key Concepts, Related Concepts & Global Contexts
• Outside your classroom, post plan for units for the year. 

As you know, I love to pop into classrooms to see what's going on. Sometimes I'm checking in on a particular student or I'll be looking for a tweetable moment, but usually I'm really just popping in to see what learning looks like in our Middle School that day. My intent is never to surprise you or to "keep you on your toes" - please never feel the need to stop or alter instruction or the flow of the class for my presence. If it's not a good time to pop in, give me a little "side eye," and I'll slip out. If you'd ever like me to pop by - to get another set of eyes on a group or on a student, or just to see an activity in process - just let me know!

Tweetable?

And speaking of tweetable moments, if anything interesting or particularly tweetable is happening in your classroom, please give me a heads up or shoot me a text - I'll try to swing by to snap a photo! Or, if you take a picture with your own camera or phone, please text or email it to me. If you're on the Twitter, please considering checking out or following our school accounts - @AnnieWright1884 @AWSHead @AWSUpperSchool @AWSMiddleSchool @AWSLower School. Our colleagues on the communications team is looking at a handle for the Upper School for Boys - stay tuned!

Think about...

The Downtown Campus

Two days a week, the AWS Downtown Campus is sitting mostly empty this year. If you've got a project in mind that could use an off-campus location, think about whether the Downtown Campus would be an option! I'm going to head down to explore the campus some time this week - maybe Wednesday or Friday. If you're interested in popping down, let's carpool!

Upcoming cultural & religious observances...

• Friday, September 1 was the Muslim holiday Eid al Adha (eed ul AHda), one of the most important days of the Muslim year, which marks the climax of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Makkah and which is observed through prayer and giving to charity.
• Monday, September 4 was Labor Day in the United States. 
• Tuesday, September 5 is the Chinese Ghost Festival, during which families celebrate the legacy of their ancestors.