REPORTS TO THE BOARD

WMS Report

Date:      10/29/2008
To:          Michael Z. Green, Superintendent
From:     Cari Thomson, PhD
RE:          October Summary of Teaching and Learning

Halloween comes on a Friday this year, and it is superhero dress up day at WMS! 

During the month of October WMS staff spent time on Monday mornings on department collaboration and student-led-conferences.  October 21, the LID day was also dedicated to student-led-conferences.  Each staff member makes a schedule of times they are available and parents/students schedule within these times.  The staff member has the student in their homeroom and also in a class.  If a parent cannot make the times that the staff member has offered, then a “floater,” person without a homeroom picks up that conference.  I have had the early morning parents the past two weeks.  If a parents cannot come in for a conference (we have only had 6 so far), then the student still presents their portfolio to the building counselor or myself.  This is WMS’ third year doing student-led-conferences, and the process is always being refined. 

With Navigation 101 being in the planning stage, WMS is looking at possibly modifying our homeroom/advisory structure by "looping" students and possibly having more homerooms (Looping means that a staff member will keep students for both years they are at WMS).  An advisory committee is currently looking into this. 

The WMS English department has been working on analyzing WASL strand data, looking at new novels, and aligning curricula.  The math department is continuing math standards training and working on curricula.  Mark Knudsen has an amazing moodle site http://courses.woodlandschools.org/course/view.php?id=18 which students and parents can use.  Physical education, social studies, and the arts are also working on implementation of classroom based assessments, which are required by the state this year.

Please take a moment to check out the various WMS teacher web pages as well as the WMS calendar and athletics page.  We have been updating these to increase communication with our constituents and free up time for parents.  For example, a parent can download all of the physical forms and signature slips for athletics and make one trip to WMS with them all filled out.  Additionally, WMS is using Leagueminder this sports season to build the master schedule and facilitate better communication with parents.  Once it is up and running, any game schedule changes will automatically be updated via e-mail to parents.  Currently, I send out group e-mails to parents. 

Woodland staff will have their first non-working day on November 11, Veteran’s Day.