September 4, 2015Dear Colleagues, School year 2015-2016 is now officially underway! It was so nice to welcome all of our staff back on Monday during our kickoff. Weren’t our student performances terrific? Many thanks to all of the members of the Performing Arts team who worked together to coordinate our musical opening. One group of staff members I also want to highlight because of their efforts in support of our opening is our Tech Department. Their work behind the scenes preparing devices, ensuring the readiness of our network and many other tasks helps to ensure a smooth start each year. Well done! As I mentioned at our kickoff, our theme for this year is “Collaboration, Reflection, and Growth.” Whether through the professional conversations occurring in your PLCs or the inspiration and dialogue generated when you observe in a colleague’s classroom, we will strive this year to support connections between and among educators throughout the district. Similarly, I also want to reinforce our interest this year in using this collaborative approach to explore three content areas: 1) the Four Cs of 21st learning (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity; 2) differentiated support of students in the classroom, and 3) social emotional learning. We have great examples of best practices throughout the district in each of these areas, and I hope we can find as many ways as possible to share this work through both formal and informal professional development this year. In particular, I want to share a resource from the National Education Association on the Four Cs that I think does an excellent job in framing the Four Cs in the context of your work. Please visit http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/A-Guide-to-Four-Cs.pdf to download this document. Now that our first week of school is behind us, I’m sure the long weekend will be most welcomed by all. Please take some well-deserved time to enjoy this beautiful weather and say a final farewell to summer. And thanks again to everyone for getting us off to a great start of the 2015-2016 school year! Best regards,David
Calendar
9/7/15 – Labor Day – No School
9/8/15 – School Committee Meeting – 7 pm – Wakelin Room, Main Library
9/14/15 – Rosh Hashanah – No School
9/23/15 – Yom Kippur – No School
9/28/15 (Monday) – School Committee Meeting – 7 pm Town Hall
Congratulations to Erin Kanavich (PAWS Teacher) and her husband, Jon, on the birth of their child, Connor Stephen, on July 2, 2015; and to Jennine Clark (WMS Special Educator) on the birth of her son, Bryson Scott, on July 29, 2015. Condolences to the Family of Brenda Hoye (Schofield School) who died on August 7, 2015 after a brave battle with ALS.
Professional Development OpportunitiesWellesleyPD
- Your username for WellesleyPD now matches the format of your WPS gmail address (lastnamefirstinitial).
- Fall course offerings may be viewed by selecting “Offerings” from the menu on the left side of the screen.
Teachers as Scholars
- Click here to view the 2015-2016 Teachers as Scholars Seminar Catalog.
- Criteria for requesting approval to attend Teachers as Scholars:
- You are beginning, at a minimum, your second year in Wellesley
- You have obtained pre-approval by your department head or principal
- If you meet the above criteria, please submit the Teachers as Scholars Registration Request form by Monday, September 14th. Please note that you must submit three choices of seminars.
- For more information, go to Teachers as Scholars on WellesleyPD.
Primary Source
Associate Supervisors and Proctors Needed!Associate Supervisors are needed to administer SATs for October 3, 2015. Proctors are needed to monitor the halls, direct students to their classrooms and assist the Main Office staff with running the test center, as needed. Both positions are paid positions so you will be compensated for your time. Associate Supervisors and Proctors need to report to the test site at 7:15 a.m. A brief training for those who have never administered the SAT will be held on Thursday, June 4, 2015. The length of the test day will vary depending on the proctoring assignment. Please note the following:
- According to College Board guidelines, Associate Supervisors and Proctors must be current or retired faculty or other professional staff of WPS or from a neighboring institution or a graduate student.
- Also, according to College Board guidelines, an Associate Supervisor or Proctor cannot administer any SAT Program test that will be taken by a member of their household or immediate family at any test center nation wide.
If you are interested and are eligible according to the College Board guidelines, please contact Kyle Getz (x4888) at the high school via email or phone. In your correspondence, please indicate which position you would be most interested in filling. IMPORTANT: Indicating interest doesn’t guarantee a position as the number of Associate Supervisors and Proctors required to run the test center is based on the number of students testing as well as their needs. Every effort will be made to make positions available to as many people as possible.
WPS Internal Job Postings on District Website
Please be aware that we added a new feature called “ Internal Job Postings” under the Faculty tab of the District’s website. We will post all of our internal jobs under this website tab. Therefore, you will no longer see internal job postings in the bulletin. This new way of posting will allow us to post internal positions any day of the week. |
