Sharing and supporting one of our own

Today I officially shared some hard news about one of our students. Below is an email that I sent out to 600+ families and then later to our 100+ staff members about one of our students who is battling brain cancer.

In the coming months we will share additional ways that our community can rally behind the Houston family and our friend, Ely. 

We thank each of you in advance for the countless ways you have and will continue to lift this family up.

Here is what we sent out to our families today:

"Baker-Butler parents and guardians:

I am writing to share information about one of our students, Ely Houston.

I am sending this message in partnership with our PTO as well as his parents, who have shared the parts below in italics.

"Recently Ely Houston, a sharp and very athletic 4th grader in Ms. Wright's classroom, was diagnosed with a type of pediatric brain tumor called a medulloblastoma. He had a successful surgery at UVA on September 28th to remove the tumor, and he had a follow-up surgery on October 9th to install a shunt. He has spent the last couple of weeks at Johns Hopkins (Kennedy Krieger Children's Hospital) in Maryland participating in the physical therapy program there.

He has not been home since his first surgery on September 28th.

Ely has a younger brother, Graham, in 2nd grade in Ms. Baker's classroom. He also has an older brother, Marek, in 6th grade at Sutherland and an older sister, Katelyn, in her freshman year at Albemarle High School. Ely's mom, Allyson, works as a United States Tennis Association Tennis Official and has been an active volunteer at Baker-Butler. His dad, Mark, is a career Army Officer and is the Professor of Military Sciences at UVA.

Ely will have several months of follow up treatment (radiation, chemotherapy, spinal taps, physical therapy, etc), but at this point in Ely's recovery the family is asking only for your thoughts and prayers. The Houstons will bring Ely home on Thursday, October 29th and they are planning to stop by Baker-Butler prior to the school's Trunk or Treat. This will be Ely's first opportunity since late September to visit his school and friends.

If you would like to visit Ely and to welcome him home, please join us in the main lobby and library of the school starting at 6:00pm."

I know that it is difficult to receive news like this, but we - both the school and his family- want to keep you all informed about Ely and his family. We have been working closely with his family and our staff, including classroom teachers and school counselors, for the past 4 weeks as we support both Ely and Graham as well as their classmates and friends. As the Houstons need meals and other ways of support in the future, they will communicate with us and then we will share those needs with our school community.

If you are available, I invite you to come to Baker-Butler tomorrow starting at 6pm to welcome Ely home.

We will be holding this time tomorrow with the Houstons even if inclement weather forces us to postpone or cancel Trunk or Treat, which begins at 6:30pm tomorrow.

Thank you for your support of our students and families, and in particular Ely, Graham, Marek, Katelyn, Ally, and Mark Houston. 

Sincerely,

Steve Saunders, Principal"

Celebrating John Baker and former students

Recently we had the honor of attending the 5th annual John Baker Legacy Dinner at Farmington Country Club. This event celebrates the life of Lt. Col. John Baker, for whom our school is named, and it serves as a fundraiser for the African American Teaching Fellows program.

You can learn more about the evening and event by reading this article here. 

As one component of the evening, they recognized two former Baker-Butler students who won the John Baker Award last year as 5th graders. We were excited to see Teddy & Amy and to catch up with them about their experiences so far this year at Sutherland.

Here's a picture of our former students with their certificates!

Congrats again, Teddy & Amy!

What our teachers have been learning after school

One of the many benefits of having our school blog is that we use it to share some of the stories that go on behind the scenes or after our students leave for the day. A question that we sometimes get is "What do teachers do after school?" or "What do teachers do when the students are not here?" We'd like to share some quick highlights from what happened last Thursday.

Every Thursday our teachers stay after school until 4:00pm for professional development and other types of meetings. The 2nd Thursday of the month they get the opportunity to select their own professional learning based on a number of choices. We call these "STAR Days" because we will offer sessions on the following topics: Students, Technology/Maker Work, Assessments, and Responsive Classroom. We offer these sessions, and the teachers choose which topics they are interested in exploring and learning more about that day. Ms. Eckerle regularly surveys our staff for ideas and she coordinates the logistics of the STAR days.

Here are some brief examples of what our teachers had the opportunity to learn about just last Thursday:

Students:
Our teachers could learn more about Proloquo, a symbol-based communication app to give voice to those who cannot speak.

Special education teachers learning about Proloquo

Our PE team shared about the speed cup stacking and helped prepare for our school's participation in the World Record Stacking Event on November 12th.  

Learning more about speed stacking: learning by doing!

Technology
Our teachers got to explore and learn more about our new Maker tubs and Maker challenges in the library

Learning more about the Maker Tubs!

Assessments
Our teachers partnered with Instructional Coaches to present ways to use EdModo and other technology tools with students

Learning about EdModo

Responsive Classroom
Our teachers partnered with Instructional Coaches to learn more about our new Cooking Cart and how the principles of Responsive Classroom can be utilized when students are using the cart. Our Cooking Cart was bought through a grant from the Shannon Foundation (read more here).

A Responsive Classroom message for our Cooking Lesson

Preparing to make pumpkin pies.

Making bread

Our teachers help guide the topics that we offer each month based on their needs and interests, and they also help present on topics to their colleagues. Our STAR sessions are a great way for our teachers to explore new ideas, tools, and strategies to use with their students this year.

This is just a quick glimpse into some of what our teachers do after school in order to improve professionally. Be sure to ask them about the Cooking Cart, Proloquo, speed stacking, EdModo, or the Maker Tubs the next time you see them!

Being a student (again) at Baker-Butler

Today was an exciting day for me (Mr. Saunders): I got to go back to third grade (again). I'd like to share a little bit about my time today as a student.

Ms. Eckerle and I both want to experience what school is really like from the perspective of some of our students, so we're both spending an entire day shadowing a class through their day at Baker-Butler. We believe that this experience will help us continue to improve our school as well as help us see Baker-Butler through the eyes of our students.

I started the day in my new third grade classroom as we began our specials' time first thing in the morning. Today we had Art for about 45 minutes. We had a great time learning about adding details to our quick sketches of a tree. The class will draw the same tree here at Baker-Butler throughout the year as it goes through the four seasons. This is a companion activity to a book they're reading in Music and Art and that extends the curriculum that they're learning about in Science class.

Ms. Purdon demonstrating how to add details to our drawing in Art class

After Art we returned to the classroom and had our Morning Meeting, which is a time when we sit in a circle, greet one another, and share something about ourselves. After our time together we started our 90 minutes of Language Arts.

Part of our Language Arts time was on our computers

Today we learned more about revising our sentences and then we read independently. One of our classmates suggested a book that she loved reading, so I read Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCarmillo. We then shared character traits from our time reading, and I got to share that Flora has the traits of being clever and hardworking since she thought of performing CPR on the squirrel who wasn't breathing after it had been sucked up by a runaway vacuum cleaner.

 We then worked on revising some of our stories into a cleaner copy and with more details.

Revising our writing.

After that we started our Science activities, when we learned more about why leaves turn different colors in the fall.

Some of the great artifacts in our classroom

 Then we got to go to lunch. I sat with our class in the cafeteria and got to eat a taco salad and fruit (with chocolate milk, of course). We then cleaned up our table and came back to class.

When we returned, we got to do our calendar math and weather activities together. After that, it was time for our math lesson. Today we did a scavenger hunt to find different shapes and line segments in the classroom (such as items with acute angles or congruent shapes). I was amazed at how creative our classmates were in finding these items in the classroom: light switch panels for parallel lines, ceiling tiles for intersecting lines, and slightly opened book covers for acute angles.

Next we had our Extended Learning Time, during which time we got to catch up on missing work, try enrichment activities, or work with Ms. Newman for some extra help. After our ELT time, we got to have recess for the last part of the day. Because of the rain, we spent our recess time inside today. I got to play checkers against another student, and many students played board games or other fun activities with their friends. After indoor recess we packed up and headed to the buses. 

Playing checkers. Guess who won?

Indoor recess games

I had a wonderful time today being a student in 3rd grade. It was another great reminder of how amazing our school and our students are and what an incredibly special community we have here at Baker-Butler. This was an exciting day for me, and I really had a great time seeing our school through the perspectives of our students.

Baker-Butler: State of the School

The past few weeks have featured some of our favorite community events at Baker-Butler: our annual Back to School Nights. These are the nights when parents come to meet their children's teachers as well as to hear what is going on at school, which we cover in our State of the School address. Wendy Eckerle and I always enjoy talking with and meeting so many of our great families.

We held Back to School Nights on September 8th for grades 3-5 and on September 15th for Kindergarten-2nd grade, and we had large crowds for both evenings.

During our State of the School address we shared the exciting news that Baker-Butler is fully accredited and we met our federal AMO benchmarks!

Let's explain what that means on a practical level.

Every year our students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades take the Virginia Standards of Learning end of course exams in Reading and Math (and Social Studies and Science in 5th grade). Our students' achievement on these exams, while certainly not the only significant measurement of their progress in school, count towards both our state and federal accountability benchmarks.

The Commonwealth of Virginia sets benchmarks for overall achievement levels for a school to be accredited by the state. As an example, your school's overall Reading achievement average for grades 3-5 must meet or exceed 75%. We are pleased to announce that we exceeded these benchmarks this year, and we are Fully Accredited. 

The Federal government uses a different achievement calculation for its accountability designation of Annual Measurable Objectives. In this case for both Reading and Math there are 9 separate categories (18 total) of achievement that include an overall average, subgroup scores (e.g., Hispanic students' scores), as well as Gap Groups (e.g., students with disabilities). In order for a school to meet AMO, it needs to meet AMO benchmarks in all 18 areas (if you make it in 17 categories but miss it in 1 area, you do not make AMO).

We are pleased to announce that we met or exceeded these federal benchmarks, and Baker-Butler met AMO!

We are really proud of how hard our teachers and students worked last year. We're also proud of the growth that we've seen our students make across all of the contents in just one year.

Most of all, we're proud and excited to see what they're accomplish next.

Sharing good news like this is just one of the many reasons we enjoy our annual Back to School Nights at Baker-Butler. Thank you all for your continued partnership and support of our school and our students.

Sincerely,
Steve Saunders, Principal

We're sharing some of our achievement data below in case you were unable to attend our State of the School addresses.

SOCIAL STUDIES & SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT

	2013-2014	2014-2015	Change
Social Studies	87	89	+2
Science	68	75	+7

 READING SOL ACHIEVEMENT

	2013-2014	2014-2015	Change
3rd grade	75	82	+7
4th grade	78	78	0
5th grade	75	84	+9
All students	76	82	+6

 MATH SOL ACHIEVEMENT

	2013-2014	2014-2015	Change
3rd grade	60	82	+22
4th grade	87	87	0
5th grade	69	79	+10
All students	73	83	+10

Mindfulness at Baker-Butler

Last year we started a partnership with the University of Virginia's Contemplative Sciences Center to teach our students mindfulness. This year we have continued this partnership, and we're excited to share that we've increased the number of students who are benefiting from breathing strategies and meditation.

We are also excited to share that Baker-Butler has received national press coverage for this initiative. Mindful magazine spent a day covering our school to share the story of how this is supporting and helping our students.

You can check out the story here to read more about this and to see our students benefiting from this partnership!

Baker-Butler awarded Five Shannon Grants!

We are pleased to announce that Baker-Butler was recently awarded five Shannon grants totaling $2436! 

As you can see in the ACPS news release here , our second grade teachers won several grants to be used in the classroom this year. 

As noted in the story, 

"Baker-Butler Elementary School received funds for five different programs, with teachers
Lee Owen and Lisa Baker submitting two successful grant applications apiece. Owen’s grants will fund a cooking program linked to math instruction and a program that will teach second graders about life cycles as they follow the hatching of quail eggs. One of Baker’s programs will teach second graders how to grow and harvest vegetables and flowers from a garden, and a second program will teach second graders to research and create artifacts that represent ancient Egypt. A fifth new program at the school, led by Lisa Harman, will center on hands-on experiments to teach children about various states of matter." 

Congrats to our 2nd grade team of teachers!