Regional Office of Education 47

The ROE 47 Summer Learning Series has many professional development offerings available to schools involved in the Pathways program. Career Exploration Facilitator: Chanda McDonnell, Pathway Navigator Tuesday, June 15, 2021 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m, Virtual Registration Required. Click here to register.

Congratulations to Kyle Ackman, Principal at Rock Falls Middle School. Kyle was named Middle School Principal of the Year for the Northwest Region of the Illinois Principals Association! Thank you Kyle for all you do for your students, faculty members, parents and community members every day. Very well deserved honor!

A great read from our friends at Math for All Learning and the Pandemic By Babette Moeller There has been much media coverage recently about “learning loss” that has occurred during the pandemic. Such reports often reference studies that have attempted to predict or measure student performance in reading and mathematics using common assessment instruments such as the NWEA Map Test (e.g., Kuhfeld et al., 2020) or iReady (Curriculum Associates, 2021). Findings show that, compared to previous school years, students perform lower on these assessments in both reading and mathematics. These studies also show that the most marginalized students are disproportionally affected, with drops in performance being greater for the lowest performing students, and for students attending schools that serve a majority of Black and Latinx students or schools in low-income zip codes. Such findings are clearly very disturbing. However, we need to be careful in how we talk about these findings, and how we use them to guide practice. This blog offers some thoughts about learning during the pandemic and offers some practical suggestions for how to act on them. Describing students’ lower performance on assessments administered this year as “learning loss” is problematic. The use of the expression “learning loss” assigns blame to students for not performing as expected. However, more often than not, students haven’t mastered specific grade-level academic content because schooling was disrupted, and not because of any fault of their own. Students cannot lose what they have never learned! What students lost were opportunities for learning of academic content typically covered during a school year. There were multiple reasons for the lack of such opportunities, including experienced trauma, lack of access to computer hardware and internet connectivity, curricula that were not flexible enough to be adaptable to different face-to-face and remote learning contexts, the use of technologies (e.g., video conferencing programs) that were not specifically designed with education in mind, and teachers being put into roles (e.g., teaching online or in hybrid modes) that they had little preparation for and practice with. The expression “learning loss” is misleading for another reason. Learning is a basic human activity that helps us make sense of the world. It is a life-long pursuit that happens not just in school, but also to a large extent outside of school. It does not stop or get lost during historic events such as epidemics, natural disasters, or other unexpected happenings, but rather it will be shaped by such events. Learning mathematics is no exception. As a well-established body of research (e.g., Nunes et al., 1993; Saxe, 1991; Scribner, 1986) has shown, children and adults who have experienced very little schooling can develop quite sophisticated mathematical understanding and skills that derive from their everyday activities, such as street vending, playing video games, sports, construction work, and shopping. Moreover, the mathematics that children learn in out-of-school contexts has been shown to be shaped by the specific activities they engage in, and their family and cultural contexts (e.g., Guberman, 2004). With the disruption of schooling during this past year, and the fallout from the pandemic and racial tensions, students’ learning has not been lost, but rather it has been much more varied than in previous years. What this means is that we cannot make assumptions about what understanding and skills a student brings to any given learning experience, and we have to work harder to understand individual students’ strengths and challenges so we can tailor instruction accordingly. Perhaps most concerning is the fact that a narrative around “learning loss” may negatively impact students’ mindsets and subsequently their success in school. If children are told, or indirectly receive the message that they are deficient (perhaps in the way they are being tracked into groups), it may undermine their confidence in being able to succeed. Moreover, using the results from aggregated formative and summative assessments to make instructional decisions could be very harmful and may result in teachers lowering their expectations for students most affected by the pandemic. When we make instructional decisions as teachers and administrators, we need to take individual students’ strengths and challenges into account instead of relying on a students’ group membership (such as race, ethnicity, socio-economic status (SES), or disability status). For example, we cannot assume that just because a child is from a low SES household or has a disability that they will have larger learning gaps than other students. Given that different students may be in very different places as a result of the disruption in schooling and the experiences they have had over the past year, what are the implications for practice? Here are some suggestions for closing out the 2020–2021 school year: Finish on a high note and celebrate the many accomplishments that students and teachers achieved. Have students share stories about how they coped with COVID and celebrate their resilience. Celebrate a technology skill that students or teachers have learned. Acknowledge students’ and teachers’ persistence in the face of encountering an obstacle. Encourage teachers to engage students in open-ended activities that allow them to discover what students know and are able to do, and to celebrate such discoveries. In mathematics you may want to utilize rich problems that we have described in previous blogs, or utilize routines such as Notice and Wonder that will give you insights into students’ unique ways of thinking. And as you plan for the next school year, keep the following in mind: Do not assume that things will be fully “back to normal” next fall. Accept that recovery will require extra effort to familiarize students and staff with new routines, and that it will take time. Provide students with access to grade-level content and address gaps if and where you discover them rather than focus solely on remediation. Remember that productive struggle propels learning. Resist the temptation to take over and alleviate students’ struggles, as it may demotivate them over time. Be mindful that in addition to addressing learning gaps, students also need emotional support to re-engage in learning. Do not focus on academic content at the expense of students’ social-emotional wellbeing. Provide teachers with opportunities to build relationships with individual students and engage in informal assessment. This includes opportunities for teachers to spend one-on-one time with students. Ask students and their families what they need. Help students to self-advocate and to ask for help when and where they need it. Empower students to help each other and use peer tutoring as a strategy to provide extra support to students who may be struggling. Provide teachers with professional learning opportunities and give them flexibility to adapt curricula to better meet individual students’ needs. It is important to remind ourselves of the pervasiveness of learning. It will help us to maintain a positive outlook on our students and to nurture their confidence in themselves as learners.

Monday Motivation : Summer is almost here!

ROE 47 is helping promote area District openings. The Board of Education of Prophetstown-Lyndon-Tampico CUSD #3 is looking for a committed educational leader to move this district forward by creating a positive culture for staff and students while developing a vision for exemplary education and valuable opportunities for all students. Qualifications Superintendent Endorsement in Illinois or equivalent. For more information and how to apply, contact Administrative Assistant, Jeannie Richmond, at jrichmond@plt3.org

Summer will be here in a few weeks! Join us for professional learning! We have added sessions for math learning trajectories with Jennie Winters and our Tom Toney SEL/Culture/Career Exploration cohort. Mentoring training coming soon! Link to Summer Learning Catalog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FQTBalxJzGFDZA856teESOCCSzby5_LG6tpyNGS27gw/edit?usp=sharing To register: www.roe47.org

ROE 47 is featuring schools who recognized their teachers and staff for Teacher Appreciation Week. Jefferson Elementary Staff celebrated last week with a World Wide Adventure to show our appreciation and gratitude for a year worth remembering! Our theme for Staff Appreciation Week 2021 was “This Year Has Been a Trip”.

The ROE 47 Summer Learning Series has many professional development offerings available to schools involved in the Pathways program. Team Based Challenge Development Facilitator:Jennifer Stevenson, Morrison School District Wednesday, June 9th from 9:00 am - 11:00 am, Virtual This training provides an in-depth look at the team-based challenge, including what it is, ideas, examples, approaches to feedback, how to schedule, and integrating challenges into the 60-hour experience. Registration Required. Click here to register.

Illinois School & Campus Safety Program Digital Threat Assessment May 20th (9:30 - 4:00) via Zoom Register by May 14th

Administrators Evaluation Recertification - #1865 Wednesday, May 19th 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Virtual Registration Required - Click Here to Register Facilitator: Jody Ware Description: The Academy focuses on a high rate of interrater reliability using the required performance evaluation ratings. Using case studies, the participants will collect evidence and use the Illinois Standards for Principal Evaluation to rate the principals. Participants will use data collected from the case studies and compare the data to best practices for evaluating principals and assistant principals. This data will also be analyzed to prepare administrative and school-level professional development plans. Participants will prepare targeted professional development, in a collaborative and supportive way, plans that consider past results and contribute to professional and personal growth. This plan will be aligned to the school improvement plan. The instructional environment indicators will be analyzed. The purpose of the evaluation plan will be to communicate the outcomes and findings in such a manner that the principals and assistant principals set goals for improvement. The participants own personal bias will be analyzed while making these decisions. This training will serve as the RECERTIFICATION training for any administrator who evaluates other administrators in the building or district.

Looking for educators to join our team! Regional Specialist - Elevating Special Educators Grant Grant-funded, Full-time position (220 work days) ROE 47 Office of Professional Learning is looking for a Regional Specialist for the new Elevating Special Educators Network. About the Elevating Special Educators Network The Elevating Special Educators (ESE) project is a statewide system of professional learning funded by IDEA Part D State Personnel Development Grant dollars. The primary objectives of the ESE project are: - To enhance the effectiveness of staff who support students with disabilities through research-based professional development. - To deliver mentoring to increase the retention of early career special education teachers to address the Illinois special education teacher shortage. - To increase the engagement of families as partners in the educational process and decision making. - To deliver professional learning and technical assistance to build seamless and sustainable delivery systems for specialized populations of learners. About the Position The Regional Specialist provides training (virtual and face-to-face), coaching (virtual and face to face push in services), and technical assistance for districts in the Area One service area and identifies Tier II districts. A complete job description may be found on Applitracks. Start date is July 1, 2021. Office Location The Regional Specialist will be a part of the ROE 47 professional learning team and will be housed in the Sterling office. Compensation The salary range starts at $50,000-55,000. The final salary will be based on relevant experience. This position offers sick, vacation and personal days, as well as a full TRS contribution. Health and dental benefits are not offered by ROE 47. Travel Regional travel is a component of this job, and the successful candidate will be required to travel up to 30% of total work time. Questions Email Anji Garza Director of Professional Learning & Educational Services at agarza@roe47.org ROE 47 is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applications accepted through Wednesday, May 19th. To apply: https://www.applitrack.com/roe47/onlineapp/default.aspx?Category=Administration&subcategory=Other

Monday, May 10th starts a very important celebration at ROE 47. Stay tuned, you won't want to miss it! @RegionalOffice47 #RegionalOffice47

ROE 47 is featuring schools who are recognizing their teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. Amboy High School At AHS, we are having lots of goodies! Popcorn with M&M's, treats from parents, School board gave out blankets, lunch being catered from Triple P's B-B-Que in Dixon, and lots of thanks!!

It's everything ROE 47...check out our easy to use app! @RegionalOffice 47 #RegionalOffice47

ROE 47 is featuring schools who are recognizing their teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week, May 3- May 7. “Go Big or Go Home”. Staff, we want you to know how much we appreciate all of you and the work you have done this year has not gone unnoticed! Massage Monday ~ To thank you for breaking your backs all year please sign up for a 15 minutes massage. D/C TuesDay ~ To thank you for your tireless efforts all year we want to energize you with donuts and coffee on Tuesday. Covid to Calm - To thank you for all your blood, sweat, and tears this year guest Speaker Elizabeth Priller is sharing her expertise in self-care and self-reflection. ICU ThursDay ~ Thank you for all you do! We see you and so do the students and staff!!!!!! Pizza Friyay for Staff ~ To thank you for making it through another week of school we will have pizza and pop in the lounge for all staff!

The ROE 47 Summer Learning Series has many professional development offerings available to schools involved in the Pathways program. Let’s Get Google Certified! Google Level 1 Certification Exam Prep Facilitator: Ben Sondgeroth, LTC Monday, June 7th & Tuesday, June 8th from 8:00 am - 12:00 pm at SVCC: 1H16 The Level 1 Certification workshop will prepare participants to take the Google Educator Level 1 certification exam. Level 1 certification indicates a fundamental understanding of using Google Tools in the classroom and confirms standard technology implementation skills. This workshop is designed for teachers that have a solid base of implementing the Google tools in their classroom and is not designed as an introduction to the Google tools. Educators who pass the certification test will be able to advertise their status with a personalized certificate and badge. Certification lasts 36 months. Participants should bring a Chromebook or laptop to the workshop. Registration Required. Click here to register. Limited to the first 25 registrants.

ROE 47 is featuring schools who are recognizing their teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week, May 3- May 7. Reagan Middle School will be providing some fun snacks and drawings throughout the week for staff as well as our main luncheon on Wednesday afternoon. Palmyra Pub and Eatery in Dixon will be catering Chicken George, Garlic Mash Potatoes, Macaroni and Cheese, and Corn Muffins.

ROE 47 would like to say THANK YOU to all the teachers in Lee, Ogle & Whiteside counties. We appreciate you EVERYDAY!

Illinois School & Campus Safety Program Digital Threat Assessment May 10th (9:30 - 4:00) via Zoom Register by May 5th

ROE 47 is featuring schools who are recognizing their teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week, May 3- May 7. Rock Falls Middle School-The D-13 RFMS is celebrating our Teachers & Team with a lunch from Candlelight on Wednesday as well as providing each team member with a grab bag of goodies and a custom made D-13 cutting board to show them how much they are valued.