On Fire- Rise Up for the Challenge

Wow! What a week at PVES. Monday we had an unexpected fire alarm. We joke at times that our "Thriving Thursdays" has become "Surviving Thursdays," and this was never more true than this past week. As we prepared for dismissal, we were greeted with smoke and the realization that a car was on fire in our carline right next to the school. Immediately folks went into action and made sure that students and staff remained safe. Parents moved cars and called the fire department. Staff members calmed students, listened to directions, and responded accordingly and our students followed suit. If there was ever a moment to embrace the challenge and rise above it, it was at this moment! Mr. Moore and I are extremely proud of our staff and students and the way everyone responded. Teachers on duty stepped in and adjusted our dismissal procedures so we could proceed as normally as possible. This is what makes PVES the best! We have folks to take initiative. Folks who see a challenge and rise up instead of backing down or running away. You should all be very proud of the way you stepped up to the challenge on Thursday and know that you are the best staff around! 

Celebrating happenings at  PVES...

Third graders celebrated the end of their fractions unit with the Powdersville Bakery. Parents were invited into classrooms to see the delicious bakery treats created by our students. It was great to walk down the hallways and classrooms buzzing with excitement. Our teachers and students always rise to the challenge and embrace our fractions units!  

The second annual Father Daughter Dance at PVES was a huge success. We had over 400 people attend the event. The girls were amazed as they walked through the doorways into the beautifully decorated multi-purpose room. Our PTSO always make sure this event is one to remember! 

Mrs. Redmon is making sure our students understand what it means to embrace the testing challenge. During her morning cafeteria duty, she had students write down things they were going to do to prepare for testing. We are always so thankful when folks, like Mrs. Redmon, find innovative ways to engage our students and help them rise up for the challenges. 

Monday Class Meeting- STOPit App
Along with the district, we will be rolling out a new reporting app for bullying behaviors. The new system is called STOPit and allows students to report bullying behaviors anonymously. These electronic reports go directly to Mr. Moore and Mrs. Tollison for a follow-up investigation.  This tool can be very powerful for our students and our culture. We do want to make sure that we train and educate our students about the program and how it is best used. Homeroom teachers are asked to use THIS presentation to share this roll-out on Monday, March 2nd. Teachers, be sure to read and share the speaker notes as you walk through the lesson with students during your Olweus class meeting time. Posters will be placed around the school in high traffic areas as well as in each classroom. Students can simply scan a QR reader and fill out the information requested by the program.  A letter will be sent home with students this week to explain the roll-out. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns that we can address. 

Heath Fair March 12th 

Anderson School District One is excited to be hosting "Spring into Healthy Habits" health fair on Thursday, March 12th from 5:00-8:30pm at Newspring Church Powdersville Campus. There will be speakers, vendors, free classes, raffles, and prizes. The Blood Connection will be hosting a blood drive and participants receive a $20 VISA gift card. AnMed Health Mobile Mammography Coach will also be at the event and you can call now to schedule an appointment. Please make plans to attend and invite your friends and family to take part in this great event! 

Live PD Wednesday

We will have a Live PD session this week. Check your email for more information about topics, locations, and more! 

MAP Testing Preparations

We will be MAP testing on March 16th (ELA) and March 17th (Math). Students will be asked to keep iPads at school beginning on Friday, March 13th. This will allow us to make sure everyone has a charged iPad ready for testing. Homeroom teachers will need to communicate this and request that students bring charges to school with them on that Friday. It is important to spend the next couple of weeks setting goals, discussing students' fall MAP scores, and preparing them to do their very best. You can offer incentives and rewards for students who meet or exceed their goals. HERE are the goal-setting sheets shared at the beginning of the year. You will also want to be sure you have reviewed this video for how to set up testing sessions in NWEA. 

Tollison's Tidings:

• Grade level teams worked this past Monday or completing their post-assessment for teacher SLOs. All teachers who have a SLO should plan to have their post-assessment data in by Friday, April 3rd. We must meet with all teachers completing a SLO/GBE by Monday, April 27th to take care of your end-of-year meeting in SCLead. 
• Mrs. Tollison and Mr. Moore will be observing teachers over the next two to three weeks who are going through formal evaluation this year. 
• Please continue to help students record their 5 books for the Reading All Stars Program as we inch closer to 100% participation. 
• Monday's fire alarm counted as our February fire drill. We do have a new system in place. The alarm sounds different and has a voice to prompt students to evacuate the building. Thank you to everyone for helping us when this unexpected alarm went off on Monday, especially folks in the cafeteria. 
• If you will be administering SCREADY testing this year, please complete THIS form is to let administration know your classroom needs for testing, such as desks, tables, and chairs. If students have been testing in flexible seating all year they are free to use the seating that they are accustomed to testing in, however they will need to test on a hard surface. Please let us know what additional supplies you will need to provide a conducive testing environment in your classroom. 

Mark Your Calendar (MYC):

• STOPit Roll Out 3/2
• 3rd Grade Engagement Survey 3/2 8:45-12:30
• Dandy Lions 3/3
• Grade Level Planning and Live PD 3/4
• Robotics Club 3/5
• PVES Spirit Day Wear House Shirt/Colors and Jeans 3/6
• End of Reading All Stars Program 3/6
• PVES Ambassadors Meeting 3/9
• Fourth Grade Field Trip Meeting for Chaperones 3/10
• Papa John's Dollars for Dough 3/10-3/11

Video of the Week: Are You Up for the Challenge?

Lifelong Learner

The phrase "lifelong learner" is a part of the mission statement of thousands of schools. And while overused, I certainly understand the reason why. More important than learning basic skills and content, we desire for our students to learn far beyond those formal years of education. This is an intrinsic motivation for some of our students; an acquired taste for others. However, let us not lose sight of the fact that we, adults and educators, must practice what we preach. We must model what it looks like to be lifelong learners. Lucky at PVES, our teachers have made a habit of doing just that. 

What a week!

Our Monday Professional Development Day offered an opportunity for our teachers to learn. We focused on the mini-lesson component of our reading block. We know that improving the quality of our mini-lesson means adding more rigor to our instruction. We challenged teachers to take this learning with them to the classroom and make some changes. We look forward to seeing those in action as we pop in classrooms. A special thank you to Mrs. Scarborough for sharing her presentation with us as well! 

Our grade level teams were able to further their learning even more this past week as they visited Hunt Meadows to participate in PD with the famed Lindsay Reyes. Teachers were able to "practice" their learning. There is no doubt these opportunities to learn and grow empower our educators. We are proud of our teachers for attending, learning and growing! 

5th grade's Fractions Celebration was a huge hit and was well attended by parents. I'll certainly admit I had to continue my learning when posed with various problems involving fractions! Great job 5th grade teachers and students! 

I hope everyone survived the great blizzard of 2020! And while there was no snow to enjoy on Friday, we did finally get to implement an eLearning Day in ASD1 (and mental health day). It was wonderful to see the pictures of our teachers and students still engaged in learning on a day off from school. We know how hard our teachers worked to make this possible. We look forward to receiving feedback from you!

I have to give third grade a "shout out" in the blog because their collaborative time on Thursday was well spent. They engaged in great discussion and learned from one another. And to top it all off, they planned for a response day in which they shared students. Remember our commitment that we teach "our" students...not "my" students? Great job, 3rd grade!

Monday OLWEUS Class Meetings:
Homerooms are reminded that we will have our regular classroom meetings on Monday morning during PRIDE Time as part of our OLWEUS program. Remember, if you are not present on a Monday, your sub will not engage in OLWEUS time given that they are not trained to do so. Next Monday, March 2nd we will roll out our STOPIT bullying application. More information will be emailed to you later this week.

• OLWEUS Resources
• OLWEUS Shared Folder

Student Surveys:
As discussed last Monday, Mrs. Tollison and Mr. Moore will be coming around to all home rooms in the next week and a half to administer the student survey that counts as a portion of our school report card score. See the schedule below. When we arrive, we will take about 15 minutes of your class time to complete the survey. You are free to take a restroom break and grab some coffee. You can help by making sure students have iPads ready to scan a QR code and talking to them in a positive way about their opportunity to share how great our school is on the survey!

• 5th Grade Classrooms - Wednesday, February 26th from 8:45 - 11:15 A.M.
• 4th Grade Classrooms - Friday, February 28th from 8:45 - 11:15 A.M.
• 3rd Grade Classrooms - Monday, March 2nd from 8:45 - 11:15 A.M. 

PTSO Events:

Our February Skate Night is scheduled for Thursday, February 27th from 6-8 P.M. at Roller Time Family Skate Center in Piedmont. Admission is $4.00. We would love to see teachers there to support this event. Our Father/Daughter Dance is now scheduled for Friday, February 28th from 6:30-8:30 P.M. We have over 415 signed up thus far! 

PVES Teams in Competition:

Thursday is a big day for some of our students. 5th grade teams will compete a Spearman in the Jet Toy Car competition. 4th grade teams will compete at the YMCA in the Cardboard Regatta competition. We wish these students the very best of luck. Thanks to Mrs. Hughes for wearing many hats while preparing these students for competition! 

Moore's Musings:

• Grade level teams worked this past Monday or completing their post-assessment for teacher SLOs. All teachers who have a SLO should plan to have their post-assessment data in by Friday, April 3rd. We must meet with all teachers completing a SLO/GBE by Monday, April 27th to take care of your end-of-year meeting in SCLead. 
• Mrs. Tollison and Mr. Moore will be observing teachers over the next two to three weeks who are going through formal evaluation this year. 
• We will have a Fire Drill this week. It is currently scheduled for Thursday, but we will see what the weather has in store for us. 
• Please continue to help students record their 5 books for the Reading All Stars Program as we inch closer to 100% participation. 

Mark Your Calendar (MYCs):

• Team 6 Patrols Begin - 2/24
• Teacher Cadets Observe in some 4th grade classes - 2/26
• 5th grade student surveys - 2/26 from 8:45-11:15 A.M.
• Grade Level Planning - 2/26 after school
• NO Live PD - 2/26
• Fire Drill - 2/27
• Cardboard Regatta - 2/27
• Jet Toy Car Competition - 2/27
• Robotics Club - 2/27 after school
• Skate Night - 2/27 from 6-8 P.M.
• SIC Meeting - 2/28 at 7:20 AM
• Father/Daughter Dance - 2/28 from 6:30-8:30 P.M.

Video of the Week:

Lead with Empathy

Last week was a long and emotional week. I was very proud of the way our school handled such a crazy week with sickness, absences, tornado warnings, flooding rains, and much more. I appreciate the way our teachers keep the focus on learning and growth by making every attempt to keep students in a positive, loving and structured environment. This week, appropriately, we focus on leading with empathy. Of course, empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Effective teachers have an innate ability to listen carefully and put themselves in the shoes of another human being. Whether it be the angry parent, the strong-willed student or that colleague with whom you do not see eye-to-eye, having emotional intelligence and proactively listening and solving problems based on an empathetic approach makes all the difference in the world. Valentine's Day is Friday. Our goal should be that every student and colleague knows how much we love and appreciate them. There is enough negativity in the world. Let your love and purpose shine. Lead with empathy.

Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate our counselors last week. They lead with empathy. Ms. Lee and Ms. Ernst champion the causes of our most at-risk students and are always willing to support our teachers by taking on the challenges of serving a student population with diverse needs.

Thanks to everyone for your patience on Thursday during the severe weather. Everyone acted quickly and communicated well. This is why we practice drills and take them seriously. What impressed me even more was the grace everyone extended to others that day. During such a stressful time, it made my heart smile to see teachers comforting students who were upset and others who volunteered to step up and help when things got busy. Being empathetic can manifest itself in different ways, but there is no doubt empathy was on display at PVES last week. 

I had the opportunity to interview Clemson seniors on Friday for our district. Finding quality teachers has always been a strength for ASD1 as evidenced by the success at PVES. As I wrapped up the day, I reflected on the young candidates I had interviewed and critiqued. Do you remember what it was like starting out as a teacher? Do you empathize with and assist our new teachers at PVES? Do you set a good example for them? We must invest in our new folks so our tradition of excellence continues. 

We must love our students; even the most challenging ones. When we show empathy, we realize our students long to be loved, nurtured and challenged. I have noticed all the fun we have had with our fractions unit of study. Our students respond so well when we make learning fun. Have you ever pondered what it would be like to spend 5 days a week in your class. If you were a student in your class, would you be treated fairly, enjoy your learning experience, and grow as a learner? 

OLWEUS Class Meetings: 

As always, Monday morning during Pride Time will be left open for class meetings. Our OLWEUS team has been working hard to plan and organize lessons for this time. Please view this document created by our OLWEUS committee. We would ask that you drop in/link lessons, activities and resources as we go along. This would be a huge help for all. Perhaps your OLWEUS time could be spent focusing on empathy in the classroom? Regardless, we should let this time be transformational and change the culture of our school. 

Reading All Stars:

We will be participating in the Greenville Drive Reading All Stars program again this year. We use this program as a way to encourage students to keep reading! Our expectation is 100% participation (i.e. every student). Between Monday, February 3rd and Friday, March 6th, students will read five (5) books and record this on the reading log provided to you by Mrs. Fowler. Mrs. Fowler will be keeping track of this for us and will send you an email when she is ready for you to submit your reading logs. Additionally, our teachers have done an excellent job of keeping track of this in the classroom by simply displaying names outside the classroom of students who have reached the goal. 

• Participating students receive a free ticket to the celebration game on Sunday, May 3rd where they will get a chance to walk on the field before the game.
• Participating students also receive a free t-shirt and a free book at the game.

Health Room:

Hopefully, we are on the mend at PVES. Please consider the following before sending a student to the health room. Remember the 7 B's as well. 

1. Please be sure to send students with a pass that has specific symptoms. 
2. If a student has a stomach ache with no other symptoms, please try a few things: drinking water, eating a snack, resting, or going to the bathroom. 
3. If a student complains of aches or fever (hot),  you can send them up for a temperature check. 
4. If it is something minor that can be attended to in the classroom, please handle if at all possible. This is within reason. If you feel it needs the nurse's assessment you can definitely send the student up. 

We do not want to have students who are well with only minor needs (i.e. a small nose bleed, not gushing) sitting in a room with students who have fevers and flu like symptoms. Thank you so much for your help to make sure our students and staff stays healthy. Also, please do not contact a parent via SeeSaw or text messaging and ask that parent to come pick up the student because he/she is not feeling well. This determination is made be the nurse after a careful examination. 

Tetherball:

We are so thankful that our PTSO has added some activities to our blacktop area for recess. Tetherball is a fun game that has been around for a long time. However, our students need some instruction on the correct way to play this game. This will cut down on misuse of the equipment and injuries that can occur. Please view the video below with students and have a quick conversation about expectations whole playing this game. 

Live PD:

We do have Live PD scheduled for all teachers on Wednesday, February 12th at 3:15 P.M. after grade level planning. We will be addressing behavior management from various perspectives including classroom and whole school. We postponed this session due to sickness and other events last week. Home room teachers will meet in the media center. All others will meet in the Art Room. 

Anderson One Loves Teachers:

How many blue jean days will you get the next two weeks? Well, that all depends on you! Help support the Anderson One Loves Teachers Scholarship Program AND wear blue jeans. Click here to view the flyer. There is an envelope in the office where you can drop off your money if you decide to participate. 

Real Men Read:

PVES will celebrate Real Men Read Day on Friday, February 14th. Men from across our community will be in our building to read to students. Mrs. Martin will briefly meet with our visitors in the media center. Then, around 8:10 A.M. or so, our PVES Ambassadors will escort our guests to the classrooms to which they have been assigned. It is appropriate to gather your students at the carpet or front of the room for this time. Of course, please ensure that our students are respectful and polite to all guests. Mrs. Martin will be sending out additional information this week, but your Pride Time will be used for this wonderful event. Please help us secure additional men to visit classrooms as we still have some classrooms without an assigned guest reader. 

Tech PD with Thomas:

Tech PD with Thomas McAuliff is scheduled for Friday, February 14th. This is our monthly required Tech PD. Thomas will provide additional information this week. Sessions will be held in the following rooms:

• 8:45 A.M. - Schumpert's Room
• 9:30 A.M. - Michael's Room 
• 10:15 A.M. - Barnett's Room 
• 11:00 A.M. - Ezell's Room 
• 12:10 P.M. - Hughes's Room 
• 12:55 P.M. - Odom's Room 
• 1:40 P.M. - A. Williams's Room 

Moore's Musings:

• With more rain on the way, go ahead and plan on indoor recess. This is an important time for students and teachers to take a quick break from the academic portion of the day. 
• Monday, February 17th is a PD Day in ASD1. Our goal is to meet in the morning and finish up by 11:00 A.M. or so. This will give teachers an opportunity to work in their classrooms. We will send our a more detailed agenda this week. 
• PTSO will be in the building on Friday this week and will be passing our Cookie Grams to students and staff. 
• 3rd grade will take students to the MP Room for Related Arts on Tuesday this week for a dental hygiene presentation. 
• There will be no official blog next week. 

Mark Your Calendar:

• Office Staff Meeting - 2/10 at 8:30 A.M.
• PVES Ambassors Meeting - 2/10 at 2:35 P.M. 
• West Pelzer observing RISE - 2/11 in morning 
• RTI Team Meeting - 2/11 beginning at 2:45 P.M. in Keel's Room 
• New Best Meeting - 2/11 at 3:15 P.M. in media center 
• Grade Level Planning - 2/12 at 2:25 P.M.
• Live PD - 2/12 at 3:15 P.M. 
• Cookie Grams - 2/14
• Real Men Read - 2/14 Pride Time 
• Tech PD with Thomas - 2/14 during planning

Video of the Week: Empathy

Belief

Belief is a powerful word from which many shy away. According to dictionary.com, belief is trust, faith or confidence in someone or something. I would ask you to take 60 seconds and ponder this word. Do you believe in yourself as an educator who can reach and grow all learners? Do you believe in your students and their abilities? Do you have a belief in your school and your fellow educators that you all are working toward the same end with the same vision in mind? Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney once responded to a question asking him if he was an overachiever. His response: "No, I am an over believer!" We MUST believe in ourselves as educators, in our students, and in our shared vision. If not, negativity will fill every void. Remind yourself that you do have a strong and unwavering belief. Be a part of our team effort to positively impact our students and be the best school around. Embrace challenges head on, rise to another level - all through a simple, but powerful word. Belief.

February 3rd-7th is National School Counselor's Week. I want to take a moment and thank Ms. Lee and Ms. Ernst for all that they do to assist our students. They are our first line of defense when students come to school not quite ready to learn. Whatever the social-emotional need, they are there to step right in and be an advocate for our students. This, in turn, directly supports the classroom teacher. Thank you both for loving, leading and believing in our students. I hope many of you will stop by and personally thank Tammy and Heather and also encourage your students to write letters of appreciation to these ladies. 

It was a great week at PVES...

Thanks to Mrs. Redmon for always leaving treats for us in the work room. These treats act as a friendly reminder that our students have many needs and that we must work collaboratively to serve those needs. Mrs. Redmon believes in the process and believes that her students can grow and reach goals through the right amount of support! 

Our Live PD sessions were a success once again. Teachers learned interventions for will and skill deficits, practiced some strategies that help them stay calm, focused and positive, and also shared ways to best serve individual needs during Pride Time. Thanks to those who presented and all who actively participated. We are always learning and growing as educators because we believe the best if yet to come!

Mrs. Tollison and I met with our ESOL friends to encourage them before ACCESS testing that begins this week. Thanks to those of you who wrote these students a positive message prior to testing. In each note that I signed, I made sure to let them know that I believed in them. Good luck to Mrs. Thomas as she begins this process of getting all of her ESOL students tested. 

Mrs. Tollison and I presented to our School Improvement Council last week. Our focus: Professional Learning Communities at PVES. My statement to the SIC was that I believed PLCs were the missing piece to the achievement puzzle at our school.  

Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Tollison and Mr. Moore will continue to visit classrooms to observe mini-lessons as part of ELA block. We look forward to sharing feedback with our teachers. We will also be using some planning and Live PD time to discuss our observations and continue to support our teachers with implementation. I believe that the mini-lesson that includes teacher modeling/think aloud and time for students to practice what they just learned is invaluable when talking about preparing students to be successful in the classroom and as lifelong readers. 

Construction continues to move right along at PVES. I am excited about what this addition means for our school and believe it comes at just the right time. We will talk a lot about this transition to this new wing and its impacts later. Thanks for being flexible this year as evidenced last week when one classroom had to pick up and head elsewhere because of, let's say, an environment not conducive to learning. 

The Talent Show was a wonderful displayed of #pvespride. This event always renews my belief in our students and our school. We have sweet and smart kids who are destined for great things. I am honored to lead them. And our teachers always step up (and the kids love it). Enjoy the teacher dance by clicking here! 

OLWEUS Class Meetings:

Thanks to our OLWEUS committee for preparing this lesson to be shared with classes on Monday during class meeting time. February is Black History Month and we will also be sharing an introduction to famous black Americans during some of our morning announcements throughout the month. As always, we encourage you to make OLWEUS time focused on improving your classroom climate. 

Greenville Drive Reading All Stars:

We will be participating in the Greenville Drive Reading All Stars program again this year. We use this program as a way to encourage students to keep reading! Our expectation is 100% participation (i.e. every student). Between Monday, February 3rd and Friday, March 6th, students will read five (5) books and record this on the reading log provided to you by Mrs. Fowler. Mrs. Fowler will be keeping track of this for us and will send you an email when she is ready for you to submit your reading logs. Additionally, our teachers have done an excellent job of keeping track of this in the classroom by simply displaying names outside the classroom of students who have reached the goal. Please share this video on Monday after The Roar Report and get students hyped up about this program. You can also share the following with students:

• Participating students receive a free ticket to the celebration game on Sunday, May 3rd where they will get a chance to walk on the field before the game.
• Participating students also receive a free t-shirt and a free book at the game.

House Meetings:

We will have House meetings on Monday afternoon. Wear your House shirts! We will make an "all call" around 1:50ish for everyone to transition. Remember that Isibindi will now use the courtyard area. I will be sending our agenda to House leaders. Mr. Moore will be making his way to those meetings who have a home room teacher whose class earned the right to pie Mr. Moore in the face! Remember, we want these meetings to re-focus our students on our Pride Practices, celebrate the many positive things taking place in our building, and build a sense of House and school pride! 

ACCESS Testing:

ESOL students will be ACCESS testing this week in the Strings room with Mrs. Melissa Thomas. Strings will take place in the cafeteria. Additionally, we would ask all classes to be considerate of students testing by making sure hallway behavior is appropriate as they pass by this area. Good luck  to these students and thanks to everyone for supporting this effort! 

Live PD:

We have our next Live PD scheduled for Wednesday, February 5th after school. Home room teachers will meet in the media center. All other certified teachers (and Ms. Durham) will report to the Art Room. We will be discussing classroom management, behavior expectations and other means of making sure our students remain focused and learning during this very crucial time of year. Plan to bring your laptop or iPad. The sessions will take place from 3:15 - 4:00 P.M. And as a "thank you for your dedication and attendance, you are free to wear blue jeans all week as well as leave early on Thursday and Friday after your responsibilities have been handled. 

Moore's Musings:

I wanted to pass along a quick message in regard to communication. We pride ourselves on communicating in a positive, consistent and effective manner. This is our expectation. Obviously, we use SeeSaw for the bulk of our communications. If you notice a concern; perhaps a decline in behavior or academic progress, be proactive and get in touch with the parent. Positive phone calls home often make such a difference as well. I was on the phone with several parents last week and it was obvious that the teachers of those students had done an incredible job of communicating throughout the year. Many of you have posted pictures of you attending a basketball or other sporting event in support of your students. This is a wonderful way to build relationships. It gets busy this time of year, but we should not let this stop us from communicating often. 

Mark Your Calendar (MYC):

• National School Counselor's Week - All Week
• ACCESS Testing in Strings Room - All Week
• Kick Off Greenville Drive Reading All Stars Program - 2/3 after announcements 
• OLWEUS/Black History lesson - 2/3 during Pride Time
• House Meetings - 2/3 at 1:50 P.M.
• Dandy Lions - 2/4 at 2:35 P.M.
• Progress Report Folders - 2/5
• Common Planning - 2/5 from 2:35-3:15 P.M.
• Live PD - 2/5 at 3:15 P.M.
• Guiding Coalition - 2/7 at 7:20 A.M. in Mrs. Thomas's Room 

Link to "In the Know" Newsletter 

Video of the Week: Believe In Yourself