News From Mrs. Graves

Upcoming Events
National School Choice Week
Monday, 1/27
Tuesday, 1/28  NTB Reading Day
Wednesday, 1/29  Early Dismissal, 12:30 - Parent Conferences
Thursday, 1/30  Student Coalition Meeting, 11:15
Friday, 1/31  Kindergarten Snow Day; NTB Book Talk, 11:30-12:30

Monday, 2/3
Tuesday, 2/4  District Spelling Bee; NTB Reading Day
Wednesday, 2/5  School Tour, 9:00
Thursday, 2/6  Student Coalition Meeting, 11:15
Friday, 2/7  PTO Meeting, 8:10

February 10-14  Peace Week
February 11-14  5th Grade Camp


Peace Week
During the week of February 10th we will be led by our Bullydozer Student Coalition in activities and events designed to help us focus on peaceful classrooms, peaceful playgrounds and a peaceful school community.  This week is being developed entirely by our student coalition.  We will renew our commitment to a creating bullyfree community with our Bullydozer Pledge. You will be invited to make a family pledge for home and school.  Watch for details!


Congratulations 5th Grader, Jimmy Xin!
Jimmy will be representing Roberts Elementary in the District Spelling Bee on February 4th.  He was well-prepared for our campus Bee and I have no doubt he will represent our community well!


News on Musicals!
3rd grade
Our 3rd graders are working so hard on our upcoming production of Annie!  We are finalizing costuming and need the support of 3rd grade parents.  You will receive a letter with details about your child's costume needs.  For all principal roles, costumes are bring provided and should be returned, with the exception of a few minor items and shoes.  For students participating in the chorus (those 3rd graders not staying after school for Magnet Enrichment), you will receive a note detailing what your child should wear.  The show is Thursday, February 27, 6:30 p.m.

We may also need a few additional adult hands to help with preparing costumes for the 40+ students who have taken on principal roles as cast or dancers. If you are willing to help iron and/or organize and have some flexibility in your schedule, please send me an email.  I will chose one morning after drop off closer to the show and send a call for volunteers to those who expressed interest.

5th grade
We have selected Aladdin for our final production this year.  Representatives from all four 5th grade classes met with me to make the final decision last week.  We will be performing at Hamman Hall, a 466 seat theatre, home of the Rice Theatre Department, on the Rice University Campus on Thursday, May 22nd.
  

News From Mrs. Graves

Monday, 1/20  No School, MLK Holiday
Tuesday, 1/21 
Wednesday, 1/22
Thursday, 1/23  Staff Appreciation Luncheon; Student Coalition Mtg, 11:15 am
Friday, 1/24  3rd Gr Traditions Feast, Covered Area 12:00-1:00

Saturday, 1/25  National School Choice Week Kick-Off

Monday, 1/27
Tuesday, 1/28
Wednesday, 1/29  Early Dismissal, 12:30; Parent Conferences
Thursday, 1/30
Friday, 1/31  Kinder Snow Day

What is National School Choice Week?
excerpt from http://schoolchoiceweek.com/about

National School Choice Week provides an unprecedented opportunity, every January, to shine a positive spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children.
Independently planned by a diverse and growing coalition of individuals, schools, and organizations, National School Choice Week features thousands of unique events and activities across the country. The Week allows participants to advance their own messages of educational opportunity, while uniting with like-minded groups and individuals across the country.

Participants in National School Choice believe that parents should be empowered to choose the best educational environments for their children. Supporters plan events that highlight a variety of school choice options — from traditional public schools to public charter schools, magnet schools, private schools, online learning, and homeschooling.

National School Choice Week is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical public awareness effort. We welcome all Americans to get involved and have their voices heard!

You Can Show Your Support for School Choice...
Join us on Saturday, January 25 at Minute Maid Park for the kick-off celebration beginning at 5:00 p.m.  Check twitter for our location at the event.  There will be music, dancing and speakers, along with a District Roll Call.  Schools are encouraged to wear school gear and show District or School pride with posters.  Arrive no later than 4:30.  Parents, students, community members and teachers are invited.


School Attendance Took a Big Dip

As you may know from our annual School Improvement Goals, we are expected to maintain an annual average daily attendance rate greater than 98.00%.  You will see from the chart above that over the last three year we have actually dropped rather than increased to the 98% goal set by the District.  You will also notice that our attendance rate in December is often lower than in other months, but this past December was unusually low.  That, along with the usual dip in March due to travel, puts us on course to come in well below our 98% goal.

We will be offering incentives to encourage individual, grade-level and campus-wide attendance rates of 98% or greater.  Please make every effort to ensure your child is at school each day, unless they are ill. Scheduling appointments for after school hours is encouraged. Please also be advised, no travel related absences will be excused.  

Remember, attendance impacts school funding.  This school year we only received 97.31% of the funding allocation, resulting in a loss of $69,940.  We need your support to improve our attendance and ensure our school receives every available funding dollar.

Spotlight on IB:

What are Key Concepts?

excerpt from Making the PYP Happen

Central to the philosophy of the PYP is the principle that purposeful, structured inquiry is a powerful vehicle for learning that promotes meaning and understanding, and challenges students to engage with significant ideas.  Hence in the PYP there is also a commitment to a concept-driven curriculum as a means of supporting that inquiry. 

Which concepts were chosen and why?

A set of eight concepts was drawn up, each of which, it is felt, is of major importance in the design of a transdisciplinary curriculum.  These concepts are:

• form - the understanding that everything has a form with recognizable features that can be observed, identified, described and categorized.
• function - the understanding that everything has a purpose, a role or a way of behaving that can be investigated.
• causation - the understanding that things do not just happen, that there are causal relationships at work, and that actions have consequences.
• change - the understanding that change is the process of movement from one state to another.  It is universal and inevitable.
• connection - the understanding that we live in a world of interacting systems in which actions of any individual element affect others.
• perspective - the understanding that knowledge is moderated by perspectives; different perspectives lead to different interpretations, understandings and findings; perspectives may be individual, group, cultural or disciplinary.
• responsibility - the understanding that people make choices based on their understandings, and the actions they take as a result do make a difference.
• reflection - the understanding that there are different ways of knowing, and that it is important to reflect on our conclusions, to consider our methods of reasoning, and the quality and the reliability of the evidence we have considered.

At Roberts, students are encouraged to consider all concept levels when developing questions to help guide their learning.  Often times, when we are asking questions about new ideas or information we are focused on questions of form or function. It is important we encourage learners to consider other concepts such as change, connections, perspective and responsibility.  

Ask your child about some of their questions from their classroom Wonder Wall for the current Unit of Inquiry.  Are they developing questions other than those falling in form or function?

  

News From Mrs. Graves

Upcoming Events

Monday, 1/13 
Tuesday, 1/14  Report Cards go home; NTB Reading Day
Wednesday, 1/15
Thursday, 1/16  Spelling Bee, Cafe at 8:15; Kinder Field Trip, 8:45 am; SDMC Meeting, 3:30 pm
Friday, 1/17

Monday, 1/20  No School, MLK Holiday
Tuesday, 1/21 
Wednesday, 1/22
Thursday, 1/23  Staff Appreciation Luncheon
Friday, 1/24  3rd Gr Traditions Feast, Covered Area 12:00-1:00

Monday, 1/27
Tuesday, 1/28
Wednesday, 1/29  Early Dismissal, 12:30; Parent Conferences
Thursday, 1/30
Friday, 1/31  Kinder Snow Day



Parent Conferences
Later this month you will have the opportunity to meet with your child's teacher to learn more about your child's progress.  If you have not already met with your child's teacher this year, please contact your child's teacher to schedule a conference.  This is a great opportunity to learn more about how your and the classroom teacher can work together to help your child succeed.

Attendance
During the month of December we took a big hit to our attendance rate, under 97%.  It is critical that your child attend school every day.  The District expects elementary schools to have a 98% attendance rate. Attendance directly impacts school funding, with an increase or decrease of 1% equal to approximately $26,000, annually.  This is a tough goal to meet, and it will take everyone's diligence to make it happen.  

Remember, if your child is sick, and has a fever of 100 degrees or more, home is the best place to be.  

What it means if your student’s report card has an ‘NG’   from www.houstonisd.org

When HISD parents from grades K-12 receive report cards on Jan. 10, they may be finding a new notation – “NG” – that blocks the grade from being seen because of poor attendance.

NG isn’t a reflection of failure – in fact the grade may be passing – but under expanded state requirements for school attendance, the student didn’t put in enough time in class to receive a grade in it.

“Excessive, unexcused absences,” is the official explanation parents will see – meaning the student was missing 10 percent or more of the time the class met. A grade will actually be assigned and recorded by HISD, but it will, in effect, be masked on the report card.


That’s the bad news. The good news, says Mark White, HISD’s director of School Support Services, is that the situation can be remedied – but only if the student has a passing grade for the period. “It’s up to parents to find out from the school right away what corrective steps they and their student might be able to take as they enter the second half of the school year to recover credit or move toward promotion,” White says.

Depending on the student’s circumstances, that could include repeating the course, credit recovery, or credit by exam for grades of at least 70 percent.

Another option is one that has been available for several years to students who missed class between 11 and 25 percent of the time. They can work with the principal to create a plan to remediate the situation, which allows credit to be awarded upon completion.

A final option, for students with extenuating circumstances, is to file an appeal with the campus attendance committee.

The “NG” is part of new regulations – known as HB 5 — passed by the Texas Legislature in its last session to create uniform, rigorous standards for promotion and graduation. It’s one one of several changes students and parents are seeing due to HB 5.

The number of required STAAR end-of-course exams required to graduate from high school has been reduced from 15 to five. Starting with the 2014-2015 school year, entering ninth-graders will have to select from two graduation paths of varying rigor and will have to choose “endorsements” – areas of academic and career focus – to pursue as part of their graduation plan.

For more on STAAR and HB 5, go to www.houstonisd.org/STAAR.

News From Mrs. Graves

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 1/7  NTB Reading Day
Wednesday, 1/8  School Tour, 9:00
Thursday, 1/9  +Talk: Survive Parenting Your T(w)eens, St.Vincent dePaul, 7:00 pm (See Tuesday Folder)
Friday, 1/10  PTO Meeting, 8:10 am; NTB Book Talk, 11:30-12:30

Monday, 1/13
Tuesday, 1/14  Report Cards go home; NTB Reading Day
Wednesday, 1/15
Thursday, 1/16  Spelling Bee, Cafe at 8:15; Kinder Field Trip, 8:45 am; SDMC Meeting, 3:30 pm
Friday, 1/17

Monday, 1/20  No School, MLK Holiday
Tuesday, 1/21
Wednesday, 1/22
Thursday, 1/23  Staff Appreciation Luncheon
Friday, 1/24  3rd Gr Traditions Feast, Covered Area 12:00-1:00

Happy New Year!
As our first graders are learning, the Babylonians celebrated New Years Day over four thousand years ago. They celebrated the new year in March, rather than in January, coinciding with the planting of crops.  This long standing celebration of a new year allows us to look back, but more importantly encourages us to look forward to the coming year.  I invite you to help your child look forward to this new semester and set personal goals for showing strong achievement at school, at home, or even on the soccer field.  Children who can image success are more likely to achieve it with a commitment to the daily work needed to forge the pathway to their goal.

Principal's Challenge
Tomorrow I will post a new challenge for our students.  Coaching from the sideline may be helpful, but do it with questions rather than answers.  Good questions can help guide your students to thinking through the process on their own, rather than waiting for someone else to solve the problem.

This challenge is most appropriate for grades 3-5, but I am confident we have some 2nd graders with the tenacity to tackle it.  The problem will require a little research, and students may benefit from the use of a calculator.  And, while the mathematics of the problem is important, translating their findings into the written word is the key to making the connection between numbers of a page and the real world around them.

The Challenge will be posted until next Friday, January 17th.  I will post the names of everyone who turned in an accurately solved problem on Tuesday, January 21st.

Magnet Update
The deadline for applying to Magnet Schools was December 20th.  Just over 900 applications were received before the deadline for students wishing to attend Roberts.  Over the last 4 years, our applications have steadily increased, with nearly 600 applications last year, ranking Roberts as one of the most applied to elementary schools in the District.  We are thrilled to see such an increase in interest in Roberts.

Safety Drills
As you know, to ensure the safety of students and staff, we participate is emergency drills to ensure everyone knows what to do in the event of an emergency.  The most common, and most frequent of those drills is the monthly fire drill.  We also participate in drills to prepare us in the event of inclement weather, need for evacuation, or need for locking down the campus.  This month we will take part in some of those less common drills.  I cannot give you information regarding the date, time or type of drill in advance.  I will notify you after the drill has taken place, should your child have questions or wishes to talk about the drill. None of the drills are done in a way that would be frightening to students.  When the drill begins we will make an announcement stating that it is a safety drill and not a real emergency.  If you are on campus during one of the emergency drills it is imperative that you follow the directions of the administration, faculty or staff. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Have a great week!