PCS SI Update Setting the Foundation for Instructional Rigor & Engagement July 31, 2025 Instructional Rigor & Engagement is one of the key elements to imporoving student acheivement and ensuring all students make academic growth. The Rigor & Engagement Scope & Sequence outlines 4 elements that all teachers need to complete before the 1st day of school. The 4 key elements for Phase 1 (Summer work) are:  1. Develop Understanding of the Content;  2. Develop Effective LF Lesson Plans 101; 3. Internalize Existing Lesson Plans; 4. Write an Exemplar . Here are some key things to consider as we head towards our first teacher workday.  In the first element,  1. Develop an Understanding of the Content,  the baseline is to make sure all new teachers have access to the curriculum. How will we ensure every new teacher is enrolled in the Canvas Curriculum course they need? More than that, teachers need to be able to describe and ...

PCS SI Update Setting the Foundation for Management and Relationships July 24, 2025 Over the Summer Leadership in June 2025, Don Marlett talked about implementing structures to move from goals into positive outcomes utilizing structures. In talking to leaders in our 4 schools, one challenge that is common among all schools is the need to support our new and under performing teachers in classroom management and in building positive relationships with students. One common theme among our conversations has been considering what kinds of structures and systems need to be implemented for the entire school, for each grade, and for each classroom to make that happen, especially given the number of teachers at the R1 and R2 ratings. The more structure there is, the more consistency we have for students, teachers, and substitutes. The more autonomy we have, the more each classroom can be individualized to meet the needs of each student and class of students. Part of the conversations we will ha...

  I hope all is well in your world, whether it's on vacation, on a PL Trip, or busy at school planning for success. I wanted to share some thoughts about how we can utilize SitLead to design support for teachers in " Levels of Support ". I'm playing with that phrase rather than Tiers, because Tiers can have some negative connotations. Levels of Support utilizing SitLead also embeds the idea that "for this task" this is the level of support. We are assessing the current performance rather than the human and the human can grow and the levels of support can shift. Using SitLead allows us to assess where each teacher is on specific task at different levels. I'm currently thinking there are 3 levels of Task to consider. First, is the task of " Positively impacting student achievement ". That is a BROAD task and normally we aim for specific, targeted task, but for our purpose, I think this first task is appropriate. It's what each teacher is ass...

  Welcome to the inaugural edition of the "Weekend Update". I'm your host Seth Brown...I imagine reading that like Colin and Michael during their SNL sketch. I was trying to figure out an email layout that I can use weekly to make sure we are all aligned and connected. This is a trial, so part of that means giving me feedback on what might make it more useful or if we even need something like this. Eventually, I would love this to be a weekly update with some of this information: Seth's schedule to our schools over the next few weeks on a continuous basis. I created an attempt to keep track of when I'm going to each school and provide opportunities for each principal to have some autonomy on when I'm able to come to your schools. This will be a work in progress. This is the trial Google Appt Scheduler for SI (School Improvement) Visits - https://calendar.app.google/3CyGwQqDR5ony1236 (there is also a button below) It's designed to allow principals to selec...