Merry Christmas from GCMS!

This Week at GCMS:

The hustle and bustle of the holidays has certainly arrived at GCMS this week!  With five days of merriment, four school play productions, three holiday concerts, two home ball games, and a 7:40 Christmas flash dance, the middle school has been a whirlwind of activity.  As our week winds down, and everyone heads off for Christmas Break, I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Get your minds off of school for a while, and spend some time with family and friends.  In the words of Charles Dickens, “God bless us every one.”

Good Luck:

Good luck to our Regional Champion GCMS Cheerleaders as they compete at State Competition Saturday in Lexington! 

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to make this a special week for our students at GCMS.  While lessons and learning have continued, we have also been able to spread some Christmas cheer to the GCMS Cougars!  Thank you to everyone who has worked to make it a great week for our kids.

Congratulations!
Hats off to Melanie Manion for winning a $500 MAC grant from McDonald's this week!  I appreciate the hard work that Melanie does on behalf of our GCMS students.

CIITS Entries:

Just one more reminder, make sure to complete your roster verifications and PGP mid-year review in CIITS before you go home on Friday.  Merry Christmas from CIITS.

Instructional Rounds Follow-Up:

The top responses from our Instructional Rounds Follow-Up Gallery Walk were as follows:

• Establish common expectations for questioning by 2/15/16
• Continue focus on open ended questions and building common understanding
• Continue to work through the PGP process to improve personal development of questioning techniques
• Work in grade level PLC’s to develop open and closed questions
• Develop common terminology when discussing higher order questioning
• Those were the top five responses for our Next Level of Work for our focus on questioning at GCMS.  We will be concentrating our next PLC day on this focus area. 

Observations:

Each non-tenured teacher will need to complete your second mini-observation by January 15.  Also, those in your summative year will need to complete your peer observation by January 15.  Thank you to all those who have already completed these observations.  Just get with your administrator or peer observer to schedule your observations.

Quote of the Day:

“’For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.’ That’s What Christmas is all about.“  ~L. Van Pelt

Coming Attractions:

Dec. 17…Drama Club Christmas Play (during school), public performance at 5:30

Dec. 17…Home Boys Basketball, 5:30

Dec. 18…due date for Teacher’s CIITS items (teachers, see earlier email)

Dec. 21-Jan. 1…Christmas Break

Jan. 8…Due date to have distributed parent permission (passive consent) forms for student voice survey

Jan. 15…Due date for 2^nd mini-observation for non-tenured teachers

Jan. 15…Due date for all peer observations

Jan. 15-29…Student Voice Survey Window