Week of October 17, 2016
Waunakee Community High School
WHS Weekly Bulletin
ALICE Drill
In This Issue
ALICE Drill
October 27th Professional Day
November Faculty Meeting
Qtr. Ends and Nine Week Progress Reports
PLC Team Meeting
Standardized Test Dates Update
New Course Proposals
Think Tank News
Needs Repeating
November Leadership Team Meeting
Board of Education Listening Sessions
Building PLC Team Updates
Academic Support
Board of Education Meeting
October HSPAC Meeting Agenda
Building SLO
Field Trips/School Nurse
National Merit Scholars & Commended Student
Progress Reports Due
Staffings/504 Meetings
Tutor.com
Please note that an initial ALICE drill for staff is scheduled to
occur in all buildings with all K-12 staff from 7:45–8:15AM on
Thursday, October 27 – this is a Professional Development Day.
Joe Bellomo will be sharing detailed information regarding the
logistics associated with this drill in the near future. The
original information regarding the ALICE drills, as shared by
Mr. Bellomo earlier in the school year, is attached to the Weekly
Bulletin for your reference. Please contact Mr. Bellomo or a
member of the High School Administration Team with
questions.
Quarter Ends and Nine Week Progress Reports
Please note that Quarter 1 ends on Friday, November 4. As such,
Nine Week Progress Reports must be completed for all students
including TAs, Coop and Apprentice students. The Nine Week
Progress Reports are due on Wednesday, November 9.
October 27th Professional Development Day
The Professional Development Day scheduled for October 27
has a departmental focus. The schedule for departments as
shared by Mr. Schell is attached to the Weekly Bulletin.
-Charles Kuralt
November Faculty Meeting
Please note that the November Faculty Meeting will be held in the PAC from 7:30–8:05 a.m. on Wednesday,
November 9. The tentative agenda is as follows: 1) Celebrations and Affirmations (Brian Borowski);
2) Instructional Rounds - (Authentic Intellectual Framework) David Carley, Eric Huttenburg, Jackson Gabriel;
3) EduClimber Update – Brian Grabarski; 4) PBIS Share – Meagan Galdes; 5) Other. Please notify Mr. Kersten in
advance if you will be unable to attend the meeting due to an IEP, staffing or other conflict.
PLC Team Meeting
The PLC Team will meet in HS Administration Conference Room B from 3:45–4:45PM on Tuesday, October 25. The agenda
is as follows: 1) Norms Review; 2) Building and Sustaining a PLC/PLT Culture - Will this be the Focus? Strategies? Leading?;
3) Next Meeting.
New Course Proposals
The following New Course Proposals were discussed at the recent Systemwide Meeting and were approved to proceed to the
Board of Education Committee level for further consideration.
 Art Department – Print Making (Gr. 10-12)
 Phy Ed/Health Department – Advanced Health (Gr. 11-12)
 Science Department – Project Lead the Way – Principles of Biomedical Science (Gr. 9-10)
 English Department – American Literature (Gr. 11-12)
 CTE Ag Department – Ag Business (Grades 11-12), Biotechnology Applications (Gr. 10-12) and Food Science (Gr. 9-12)
 Tech Ed/Science/Art – HS Innovation Center Course Proposal
Please contact Mr. Kersten or your Leadership Team Representative with questions.
WHS Think Tank News
Upcoming PD Opportunities:

New! GROVO Introduction Sessions on Wednesday, October 19 or Wednesday, October 26 at 3:45PM in
the LMTC. Choose the session that best fits your schedule to learn about our new online, self-paced classes
that are for points! If neither session works, please see Becki Cassel or Jeannine Ramsey to get enrolled. We
are currently offering the following classes, more will be added in the future:
Google Classroom
Google Gmail
Google Calendar
Google - Managing Drive
Google - Create a Survey in Forms
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Ed Camp - Beaver Dam, Saturday, Nov. 5 from 8:00am to 1:00pm
Mid-West Google Summit in Wisconsin Dells - Pre-Conference Sessions Only,
Sunday, November 13, Noon to 3:00pm
Did you know?
New! Naviance: They have updated their directions for Letter of Recommendations and the Common
App: Naviance Teacher Quick Guide
 SMART Notebook - We currently have version 11 and are looking to upgrade to version 16, so more information to come! Some of the new features include:
 New math tools
 Ability to use mobile devices so students can do assessments, brainstorming activities, and surveys (similar to
Kahoot, Quizizz, Padlet, etc)
 Concept Mapping Tools
 Can use pens on PDFs
Google Forms now has a built-in quiz option, so you can have Google grade your submissions. If you have a
You Will Want to Take a Moment to Look at What Rita Pierson has to say in a TED Talk about Building Relationships:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFnMTHhKdkw
NOVEMBER LEADERSHIP TEAM MEETING
The November High School Leadership Team meeting will be held from 7:25–8:05AM in High School
Administration Conference Room B on Thursday, November 10.
The Agenda is as follows:
1) PLC Culture and Climate Discussion
▪ Culture and Relationship Focus
√ What does this look like?
√ How do we do this?
▪ Mandated Completion of PLC Components vs Intrinsic Belief that Integrating PLC Components into Culture
and Professional Practice is Essential to Improving Professional Practice and Student Learning
▪ Leadership Team/Building PLC Team Common Focus Integrate “Work” focus?
2) Graduation Policy - Focal Point for November Leadership Team Meeting
▪ Other
S TANDARDIZED T EST D ATES U PDATE
Standardized test dates and formats were discussed at the October 6th HS Leadership Team meeting. An update on
dates/logistics follows:

Tuesday, February 28, 2017 – ACT (Barb Fassbender and Jamie Maglior) Junior Only Day

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 – ACT Work Keys Juniors – (Barb Fassbender and Jamie Maglior) Three Hour Late Start

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 – ASPIRE (Sarah Stimart and Jamie Maglior) Sophomores – Three Hour Late Start

Wednesday, May 10, 2017 – ASPIRE (Sarah and Jamie) Sophomores – Three Hour Late Start

Thursday, May 11, 2017 – ASPIRE (Sarah and Jamie) Freshmen – Three Hour Late Start

Friday, May 12, 2017 – ASPIRE (Sarah and Jamie) Freshmen – Three Hour Late Start
Advanced Placement (Mark Landis and Jamie Maglior) testing will occur in a window between May 1 st and May 12th.
Logistics for administering the FORWARD Exam to sophomores in the March 20th – May 5th window are still being
discussed. Test administration may occur over a series of days during Contact Time. Mr. Schell is checking with
DPI to see if it is allowable to stop testing and then resume over another day or multiple days which would be
necessitated if administration of the FORWARD is moved from Social Studies courses to Contact time. More
information will follow in the future.
- N E E D S RE P E AT IN G PLC/PLT TIMELINE REMINDER
Please make sure you have shared your Norms/Collective Commitments with Mr. Kersten, Mr. Grabarski and Mr. Borowski
and thank you for your focus on further ingraining a PLC focus into your professional practice and our school culture:
√
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√
√
√
√
Department/Disciplinary Team Norms/Collective Commitments (completed by 9-16-2016)
Team SMART Goal Perhaps Tied to SLO/Literacy (completed by 9-30-2016)
Department/Disciplinary Team Essential Learning Outcomes for all courses taught (completed by 10-14-2016)
First Common Assessment Administered (completed by 10-27-2016)
Analysis of Student Performance on First Common Assessment (completed by 11-11-2016)
Strategies identified/implemented to support students not achieving ELO mastery/performing at a failing level (completed
by 11-18-2016)
√ Department/Disciplinary Team Common Summative Assessment (completed by 1-13-2017 – remember this would
typically be the starting point from which to backwards map all formative assessments)
√ The literacy plan developed to support achieving the Building SLO (School Learning Objective) developed at the
August 11-12 School Improvement Institute. The building SLO will retain a focus on literacy. Our target will be
enhancing literacy skills in all of our students. However, growing literacy skills in the members of the classes of 2018 and
2019 will be the primary focus of the building SLO. As such we will focus our efforts on growing our students’ capacity
to master the reading literacy sub-skills associated with ACT College and Career Readiness Benchmarks. Each PLC will
complete a Team Literacy Plan identifying a minimum of one reading sub-skills to target each semester
(completed by 8-30-2016)
√ Results of a minimum of three common benchmark assessments with at least one reading sub-skill question stem per
semester. PLT’s will analyze/discuss student performance on the assessment and create instructional plans to address
student needs.
Building PLC Team Updates
The discussion in the meeting was grounded in setting direction for the Building PLC Team focus for the year.
Suggested areas of focus – to be further discussed at Leadership Team, Faculty Meetings and future Building PLC
Team Meetings included:



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Developing a culture that reflects interdependent relationships a key component of high functioning PLC’s/
PLT’s
Developing a culture that promotes and values teacher leadership
Developing a culture that reflects intrinsic motivation for completion of key components of PLC’s/PLT’s rather
than extrinsically motivated completion of PLC/PLT components to “check the box” that the component is
completed
Integrating Leadership Team and Building PLC time/focus to further intrinsic completion of PLC/PLT
components
Partnering in PLC Teams – Interdisciplinary discussions with suggested focus:
 What does PLC look like for you team?
 How often do you meet?
 How do you assess students?
 How do you create common formative and summative assessments?
 How do you analyze student work?
 What positive aspects have developed from working as a PLC/PLT
 How are you utilizing Contact Time to support students?
 Has you department PLC and your PLT developed guidelines on how best to support students?
 How do you decide which students to request for Contact Time?
This discussion will continue throughout the year and is reflected in the November 10th Leadership Team Agenda.
- N E E D S RE P E AT IN G Academic Support - As the school year begins please take a moment to pr omote the following academic suppor t sites
Khan Academy and Tutor.com. The link for Khan Academy is as follows: www.khanacademy.org/ Khan Academy is a free
resource offering over 2400 videos which provide enrichment and remedial activities in many discipline areas.
Board of Education Listening Session - Please note that member s of the School Boar d will host a listening session in the
PAC on Wednesday, November 2. The listening session will begin at 7:30AM.
Board of Education Approval - Please be sur e to for war d any fundr aising or over night/out-of-state field trip request
needing Board of Education Approval to Mr. Kersten by 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 26th. The requests received by
Mr. Kersten will be forwarded to Mr. Guttenberg so that they can be considered for approval by the Board of Education at the
November 14th Board of Education Meeting.
Building SLO - Please be sur e that you ar e familiar with the SLO and the Action Plan. All member s of our school
community have a role in achieving the Building SLO. Mike Dreyer will be working pro-actively with all departments to
provide professional development related to literacy nto existing lessons.
Field Trips/School Nurse - J ust a r eminder that it is imper ative that all staff member s check the Emer gency Health
Concerns List and communicate with Sarah Nordloh, School Nurse and Nola Luhtala, Health Assistant, well in advance of any
field trip they are planning which may involve students with medical needs. Sarah needs to know about the trips so that she
can train faculty on various emergency medications and to make sure they know how to respond in case a student manifests a
health concern while on the field trip. She will also send a med kit along so that the required supplies are available that a
student may need. Field trip transportation requests will be copied to Sarah and Nola to alert them to field trips.
National Merit Scholars and Commended Students - As was shar ed in the 9-19-2016 Weekly Bulletin, three members of
the Class of 2017 have been named National Merit Semi-Finalists in the 2017 National Merit Scholarship Program which
placed them in the top 16,000 students of the approximately 1.5 million high school juniors in 22,000 high schools that took
the qualifying examination. These students include: Daniel Steinl, Sarah Woerner, and Breyden Helwig. Additionally,
Mr. Kersten recently was notified that five other members of the Class of 2017 - Vivian Wilhelms, Nicholas Mott, Jade Roth,
Benjamin Calkins, and Grace Van Deelen were recognized for achieving “Commended Student” status in the 2017 National
Merit Scholarship Program. Achieving “Commended Student” recognition reflects that Vivian’s, Nicholas’, Jade’s,
Benjamin’s and Grace’s scores were in the top 50,000 of the 1.5 million juniors who took the qualifying exam. Please take a
moment to congratulate these students for being recognized for their academic excellence.
Staffings/504 Meetings - J ust a r eminder to all faculty member s that you must prioritize attending all staffing/504
meetings that you receive invitations too. These meetings disseminate impor tant infor mation r egar ding emotional,
health or academic issues that students are working through. This is vital information for you to have in order to best support
the student the staffing/504 meeting is being held for. Equally important is that these meetings provide you with an
opportunity to share your expertise and perspective regarding students with the student, the student’s parents and other
providers that may be in attendance at the meeting.
Student Earns Perfect ACT Score - Congr atulations ar e also extended to junior Alexis Anunson on ear ning a per fect
ACT score of 36. Alexis is the sixth student in the history of Waunakee Community High School to have achieved this
laudable feat.
Tutor.com - The Waunakee Community Public Libr ar y continues to par tner with the Waunakee Community School
District to provide our students with access to Tutor.com. This website is available as a free service to students that possess a
Waunakee Public Library card. The service is a live online tutoring service available from 3-9 p.m. every day. The following
video provides an overview of the service: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpJ0M-0498&feature=youtu.be