Happy Friday! Here are my highlights from Week 7!

1. Data Wall – as part of the state-regulated Response to Intervention model, our school is creating a data wall in order to visualize and track student growth. Basically, we have transformed an unused classroom into a data room, in which staff can meet and reflect on student needs, progress, and goals. The chalkboards are magnetized, and we have a magnet for each student. On each magnet, we have colored dots to represent different groups/needs/demographics. We also write the students’ RIT scores (MAP scores for Reading, Language Arts, and Math) on the magnet, and we place them on the board from left to right based on their performance (Low, Low-Average,, Average, High-Average). It’s exciting to see this project finalized! Actually looking at the data laid out like this helps us to see where we need to concentrate our efforts.

2. Oh What A Beautiful Morning – Okay getting up at 5am stinks. I am a morning person, but right now, 5am still feels like ‘night.’ It’s dark and cold and yucky! But as I was driving to work on Tuesday morning, I had my breath taken away by this stunning view!

3. Time to Dance! My husband and I had an absolutely wonderful time at a wedding this past Saturday. It was an at Urban Ecology Center – what a cool venue!

4. All In! My students completed and turned in their Scholarship Letters on Thursday. They are so proud of their final products – they look so professional! For most of them, this is the longest and most important thing they have written in their lives. Before the iPads, I would get about 94% handed in – some kids just couldn’t cross the finish line with this project. Now, with the iPads, I got 100% of the letters. That’s HUGE!

5. Girl’s Night: On Monday, I went shopping with my mom and sister. We hit the mall for about 4 hours after work, then went out for sushi. I love shopping with these ladies! We visited J. Crew, Express, Ann Taylor, LOFT, and White House Black Market looking for a new suit and separates for my sister to wear on her interviews for dental residency program. It was definitely a successful trip! I think we spent way too much money… 🙂