Important Links Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment
Teacher Resources
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Content Resource Site
Grading Resources ● Grading Guidelines
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HCISD Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Expectations
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Grading Timeline - Elementary
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HCISD Lesson Planning Guidelines
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Grading Timeline - Secondary
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District Assessment Calendar
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TEAMS Guide for Teachers
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Academic Calendar
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TEAMS Update 2023-2024
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TEAMS Skillbook for PreK
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TEAMS Guide for Monitoring Grades
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Exchange Day Info and PD Options
Technology
Schoology
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Technology Help Desk
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Schoology District PLC Codes
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Parent Resource Site
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Schoology Parent Resources
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Student Resource Site
SEND A HAYS HIGH FIVE HERE! The Hays High Five program is a way for you to salute any Hays CISD employee who goes above and beyond what is expected. Whether you're a parent impressed with that special touch your child's teacher added to a moment, or you're a coworker who thinks the campus PEIMS clerk doesn't hear often enough about the great job she is doing - you can send a Hays High Five! Anyone can award any Hays CISD employee.
Table of Contents Department Pages Assessment and Accountability Digital Learning Professional Development ● INSPIRE New Teacher Academy Guidance and Counseling ● College, Career and Life Readiness ● Social Emotional Learning Human Resources Intervention Multilingual Department Pre-K Student Services Content Pages Advanced Academics ● Gifted and Talented Athletics Career and Technical Education (CTE) Fine Arts Literacy ● Elementary ● Secondary Mathematics ● Elementary ● Secondary Science ● Elementary ● Secondary Social Studies K-12
Special Education Student Health Services
Assessment & Accountability Raise Your ‘Aware’ness Want to see how students responded to individual items in “New” Aware? This is super easy in Single Test Analysis going to the Item Response tab. This makes it easy to review correct and incorrect responses w/ students!
For additional “New” Aware tips and tricks, please go to: bit.ly/newaware and reach out to Jaime Kinslow or Kevin Malandruccolo if you need help!
Understanding Academic Growth Feel free to view our short refresher video on Understanding Domain IIA: Academic Growth. For all RLA and Math teachers who just gave their first CBA of the year, get with your Instructional Coaches to review the updated Lead4ward Growth Tool!
#GrowthForAll Student Support Tools for Online Testing Want to learn more about how online testing student supports look in the classroom, Eduphoria, and on STAAR? Check out this document.
Digital Learning 2nd semester Schoology courses should be available after December 13th. For 2nd semester course content, you can create that in your current course shell or your Sandbox and move it over when it becomes live! You may have noticed that your Adobe Reader program has disappeared from your computer. There was a potential security breach with the program. White our network was not involved, we needed to remove the program in order to keep our network safe. You can set Google Chrome to be your default PDF reader in the computer settings tab. Click Settings > Apps > Default Apps. Scroll to the bottom and select set defaults by app. Open Google Chrome and set the .PDF file type to Google Chrome. If you have questions, please call the Help Desk (4-4357). Free Professional Development from December 11 to January 5 organized by Matt Miller, our Keynote speaker from HaysCon2023. Below are some recommendations for Math apps in stations if your campus has not purchased Dreambox or ST Math.
Happy Numbers K-1
Splash Math K-2
Math Fact Lab 2-5
Boddle 2-5
Professional Development
Professional Development Planning for 24-25 School Year First of all, we want to take a minute to express our gratitude for all the hard work that you are putting in to ensure that our students have the very best learning experiences in our schools. As we begin planning for our 24-25 school year and our goals for summer professional development, we would like to take an opportunity to gather feedback from our teachers and staff. We have created a Google Survey to gather some information and suggestions as we plan. Please make sure that you are logged into your Hays Google account as you complete the survey and it will be open until January 2. The link to the survey is below: Hays CISD Professional Development Needs Survey
INSPIRE New Teacher November/December INSPIRE This month our INSPIRE participants are completing a self-paced course focusing on stress management. We know our line of work is a job that can have high stress, but it also yields high satisfaction. We wanted our novice teachers to gain some tools that can help them navigate the stressful times.
Click the image above to view a TED Talk from an ER doctor on triaging your "crazy busy" life.
The Stress Cycle There are 5 parts of the stress cycle: 1. Stressor 2. Filter 3. Stress Response 4. Coping Skills 5. Long-Term Results We have power over: ● Eliminate or reduce stressors ○ may involve major life changes ● Change your perception (filter) of the stressor ○ learning to respond differently ● Add and increase healthy coping strategies ○ easiest to do Self-care and self-comfort are two different things. Self-care is truly caring for yourself (see examples in the image to the left). What is one way you can commit to a form of self-care?
Intervention Professional Development Jan. 3, 2024 10:00 am - noon
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Dyslexia Team @ SMS (Dyslexia Classroom) Intervention Team @ Upper BES Rm 308
MOY Screeners mClass November Newsletter
❏ BUBS 1/08 - 1/12
Boost Reading Nov Newsletter
❏ 1/08 - 1/17
Click above for all the latest!
Dyslexia Screener
❏ 1st/2nd Gr Students due January 19, 2024 MOY Screener Parent Letters
* REMINDER * Please send home all parent letters following MOY screener administration
Growth Measure Windows
*January 8 - January 17* However, we encourage you to have your students complete the growth measure assessment by
JANUARY 12 Read 180 personnel will be generating reports and we want all of our student data to be calculated.
Intervention Texas Tutoring Website
Aim for a minimum usage
20 minutes 3 x week in independent reading
1140
students With 1140+ students already receiving intervention, Texas Tutoring is taking off! Next up? Meet our goal of 3000 students benefiting from tutoring!
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Multilingual Department From the desk of Ben Estrada, TELPAS/LPAC Coordinator: December communication newsletter Campuses using Summitt K-12 will use this platform for TELPAS practice. More information from your LPAC chairs from all campuses on TELPAS practice coming soon. From the desk of Logan Stroud, World Languages Lead Teacher: World Languages December newsletter
Bilingual Campuses: Austin Area Association for Bilingual Educators Dec Newsletter 1. The Adelante Conference is scheduled for Saturday, 2/24. Submit a proposal today! The deadline for submissions is January 8th. We are calling all bilingual educators to consider sharing their talents, knowledge, and skills with the Multilingual Educator Community. *The presenter’s conference fee is waived. https://bit.ly/AAABEproposal2024 2. Submit this interest form linked here by January 5, 2024 if you are interested in being considered to attend. CIMA Conference, 1/18/24 ○ Fill out this form if you are interested in attending. ○ Fill out this form if you are interested in presenting. The submission deadline is 12/10/23.
Key points for the Bridge as we close out our 2nd 9 weeks: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
The Bridge reflects the oracy you developed with the students. The Bridge can come from graphs, illustrations or anchor charts that were used to teach the content of that unit. Once cognates are used in The Bridge, we can move onto other areas of focus such as morphology (prefixes, suffixes, etc.). The two allocated colors for each language support students in noting similarities and differences between the languages. It is important to adhere to the colors. Once the Contrastive Analysis is created, it continues to "live" in the instructional space (wall) so that students are able to add to it as they notice this pattern (similar or different sounds, word meanings, etc.) in later units of study or in other content areas, they can add those to the posted Bridge chart. This practice supports students in internalizing the patterns or non-patterns between the languages.
Ready to make your innovative idea a reality with a grant from the Hays Education Foundation? Check out the Hays CISD Education Foundation website for more information.
www.haysef.com
Do you know any Language Learner Rock Star that deserves a nomination? ...click HERE”
Multilingual Department Congratulations
JoAn Zavala- PK Bilingual teacher at Hemphill Elem.
Eliah Erazo- NAC teacher at Simon MS
Flo Arevalos & Rosalinda Rodriguez- 2nd Grade Bilingual Teachers at Tom Green Elementary
The TELPAS World Tour continues with our Secondary ICs! Be on the lookout for TELPAS practice opportunities coming your way.
Pre-K
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MOY Window opens Nov. 27th and closes Dec. 15th
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MOY does not count for TIA
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Pre-K Teachers will administer 6 measures to all students in their class (not district assessment team)
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CIRCLE PM Guidance & Support
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2nd 9 wk. Letter Names/Sounds window opened Oct. 16th and closes Dec. 15th - Due in Eduphoria Jan. 5th
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2nd 9 wk. Pre-K Skillbook (TEAMS) window opens Dec. 15th and closes Jan. 5th
Upcoming Dates ●
District PLC ~ January 3rd ~ 10:00 - 12:00 ~ Location: BVES ~ Register
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Pre-K Assessment Calendar
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Pre-K Annual Calendar
Student Services THANK YOU!
Thank you for all you do for our students and families. We have so many students that come to school everyday because you are the best parts of their days. I hope that you take time to rest, relax, and recharge over this holiday season. We are all so grateful for all that you do for so many! Brian Dawson, Ed. D. Director of Student Services
Getting Back on Track After the Holidays ● Invest in the ongoing work of building and nurturing authentic relationships. ● Ensure that your instruction authentically integrates academic and social development. ● Take care of yourself and stay connected to others. ● Be Empathetic. ● Reflect on Your Strategies. ● Have a Plan for Stress Management. ● Have students set resolutions and goals. ● Reteach and revisit expectations. ● Practice speaking and listening activities. ● Don’t be scared to dive right into engaging content.
Dr. Brian Dawson
Gifted and Talented (G/T) Know someone who is doing an awesome job supporting the needs of gifted and advanced students? One person from each campus will be recognized. Nominate someone for the G/T Spotlight Award by clicking on the link below. G/T Spotlight Award Nomination
Gifted and Talented (G/T)
Students in Ms. Monita’s 1st grade WIN designed their own planets.
Ms.Stanfield’s 5th Grade G/T Students at Tobias researched Blue Zones which are places in the world with the healthiest, longest-living populations. The G/T students then sent a letter to the Kyle City Mayor, Travis Mitchell, requesting a Students in Ms. Sanchez’s class meeting to discuss how to make Kyle a at Barton designed obstacle Blue Zone. courses and calculated speed.
Ms. Krause’s 1st Grade G/T students at Buda performed a Reader’s Theater. Students constructed the characters out of toilet paper rolls and created the different scenes using poster paper.
Ms. Finley’s 5th Grade class at Negley engaged in a critical thinking thinkLaw lesson titled How Scary is Too Scary?
Ms. Villalobos 5th Grade class at Camino Real engaged in a critical thinking thinkLaw lesson titled How Scary is Too Scary?
Advanced Academics
★ 32% of high school students in Hays CISD are enrolled in at least one college-aligned course for the 22-23 school year. This is the highest percentage ever–thanks for supporting students in challenging themselves! (Let’s help them leverage these opportunities to become Texas Core Complete by high school graduation!) ★ AP exam orders are up 19% for tests in May 2024 (and this doesn’t include one-semester spring courses!) Thanks, AP teachers for encouraging students to challenge themselves with the exams!
Coming to an email near you–January 2024 PSAT and PSAT results are in–it’s time to start recruiting for the 2024-25 school year! 8th grade ELA and math teachers be on the lookout for lists of students to encourage to take advanced coursework in high school AP teachers, be on the lookout for AP potential lists.
Hays CISD Athletics
Hays CISD held their annual “Battle for the District” Wrestling tournament over Thanksgiving break! All 3 of our high schools competed against each other to try and take home the awesome Hays CISD Wrestling trophy. The coaches did a wonderful job putting on this event and Johnson HS girls and boys were able to take home the hardware. Congratulations! If you haven’t done so already, please check out the FCAGuyPodcast.com to get a great insight on our coaches and athletes. Barrett Christwell does a wonderful job interviewing our wonderful staff of coaches. It is awesome to get to know more about our coaches on a personal level!
Hays CISD Athletics
Basketball is in full swing for our Middle and High Schools and all of our teams are off to a great start! The Bob Shelton Hays Boys Coach of the golf won Week is still going their strong! Check scramble out the District tourney by Athletic Website shooting a to see those 59! Good coaches who job! have been honored! Congratulations to Johnson Boys Basketball Team for winning the Woodlands tournament against some great competition! They had a couple named to the All Tournament Team and Jaxson Vandegard was named MVP of the whole tourney! Great Job Coach Kinnison and staff!
CTE (COOLEST TEACHERS EVER!) Our CTE Team “pugged” Jolene Richlen from Lehman High School in November. Richlen is “pretty unbelievably great!” From volunteering to present at conferences to mentoring new teachers to growing her Forensic Science Class (where we almost need to hire another teacher), we are so happy to have her in CTE! Thank you, Richlen!
Oscar the pug made his way to Chapa Middle School! Owen Taylor was pugged because he is "pretty unbelievably great!" He applied for a grant to get equipment for an amazing broadcasting studio and his students were happy to show us around. He helps new teachers with planning and definitely has some amazing ideas to keep his students engaged and learning. We are so happy to that we were able to honor Mr. Taylor before we left for Thanksgiving break!
At the start of December, we “pugged” Hays High School Culinary Teacher Betsy Slemmons. Ms. Slemmons is our 1st CTE teacher to be pugged TWICE! Ms. Slemmons recently created a Twitter for the HHS CTE department so be sure to follow @HHSCTE23 to keep up with all the great things happening in the department!
Where will our traveling pug, Oscar go next? Stay tuned…#TEAMCTE
Fine Arts Arts Fine Reminder! District Fine Arts PLC on January 3rd 10:00 am - Noon Thank you! Teachers: Thank you so much for all of the amazing performances and showcases that have happened throughout the holiday season. Hays CISD Fine Arts is truly impacting THOUSANDS of student lives daily thanks to YOU!!!
Elementary Literacy Upcoming “Just in Time” Sessionsat Historic Buda Upper Campus Cafe Discuss with your principal before registering! SIgn up in Eduphoria and bring a copy of your CBA 2 ECRAs to the training. 4th grade- December 11th AM or December 12th AM 5th grade-December 11th PM or December 12th PM 3rd grade - Jan. 8th or Jan. 10th (ELAR/SLAR- AM MathPM)
Elementary Literacy Students in 3rd Grade at Tom Green published their “Story Behind the Crunch” ECRs.
4th and 5th grade students at KES celebrate their ECR writing success!
Students in Ms. Patrick’s 1st grade class at UES enjoy reading their decodable texts.
*Ms. Echeverria’s class poses for a group picture and then takes their compositions to read to their 1st grade learning buddies. *Students in Ms. Callahan’s class read each composition and leave feedback for each other.
Students in Ms. Debord’s classroom at Tobias Elementary work together to show their reading strategies.
Elementary Literacy Hays CISD Reading Academies
We have completed our first five Reading Academy sessions with our new cohort. They have already turned in their first artifact. Our next session is on January 17th at the Upper Buda Cafeteria. 23-24 Upcoming Reading Academy Training Dates: ● 1/17, 2/1, 3/6, 4/24, 5/8 ● Time: 8:00-3:30 ● Location: Old Upper Buda Elementary Cafeteria- (300 N. San Marcos St. Buda, TX 78610) ● Teachers should sign up in Eduphoria Secretaries can use this code to enter when creating the absences: ● 199-11-6112-RA-911-11-2-0
Secondary Literacy Tis the season to send MOY growth measure reports!
Reports need to be sent to parents by December 15th. HMH: - How-to print reports - Parent letter template - English
Spanish
Reading Plus: - How-to print reports - Parent letter template - Resources for Parent & Family Support MindPlay: - Video: How-to print reports
Simon 8th grade PLC using the close reading planning guide to develop learning objectives and choose formative assessments for January!
Hays Education Foundation is back and better than ever! Ready to start awarding grants NOW check out the new website
ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS “Just in Time” Sessions
at Historic Buda Upper Campus Cafe Discuss with your principal before registering! 3rd grade - Jan. 8th or Jan. 10th (w 3rd gr ELAR) 2nd grade - Jan. 23rd or 24th 1st grade - Jan. 23rd or 24th
TEA STAAR Scoring Clarifications Check out slides 8-13 for details on math related new item scoring. Not in these slides, but confirmed at an in-person meeting: If a question asks for an answer in dollars and cents, 4.5 (without the last 0) will be incorrect.
ST Math Ending - December 15, 2023 The TEA grant that funded free access to ST Math ends Dec. 15, 2023. Students and teachers will not be able to log in past this date. Please discuss other options with your campus admin team.
Hays Education Foundation is back and better than ever! Ready to start awarding grants NOW check out the new website
Do professional mathematicians rely on standard algorithms? According to this study, only about 4% of the time! This research is from 1992, but I only ran across it this year - Looks at processes used when asked to estimate as well as variety of methods deployed, error analysis and attitudes toward wrong answers - pdf available here
We will be using the 2023 STAAR Released Assessment for Benchmark. Please make sure you are not using these questions with your students.
MIMI SALMON
ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS Mrs. Bostick at NES turned her 5th classroom into a cafe to practice operations with decimals. Mrs. Meredith’s 2nd graders at KES began their lesson with Math affirmations and then used Schoology to read their STEMScopes explore. Ms. Davilla’s 5th graders at GES used their knowledge of fraction operations to create juice cocktail recipes.
MIMI SALMON
6-12 MATHEMATICS Additional Planning Days for MS Math! Please register in Eduphoria (links below) as it helps me make sure I’ve got hardcopies for everyone in attendance. Goal is to use this last day to plan as much of Units 7 and 8 as possible or at least preview all of the lessons since this is our last date. Links to register: January 16 – 6th
January 22 – 7th ,
8th math - if you need ideas for how to arrange the geometry part of Unit 5, see if this is helpful…
February 6 – 8th ,
I started this collection of ideas for “non-curricular tasks” - anyone can add to these slides if you’ve got a good resource to share!
Algebra 1 - A.10B and A.10D (supporting standards for multiplying polynomials) were inaccurately reported on the YAG and Unit Planners In Desmos Unit 7 - Quadratic Functions - factored form is introduced and used and then multiplying kicks off Unit 8 - Quadratic Equations using an area model. In case you’d already been looking ahead, I didn’t want anyone confused when you go back to those documents!
Hays Education Foundation
7th math - GP Shared several
is back and better than ever! They are ready to start awarding grants NOW check out the new website
recording sheets to go with lessons in unit 5! Check them out here… and add to the collection if you’ve got anything to share!
Natalee Peterson - Secondary Mathematics
6-12 MATHEMATICS Do professional mathematicians rely on standard algorithms? According to this study, only about 4% of the time! This research is from 1992, but I only ran across it this year - Looks at processes used when asked to estimate as well as variety of methods deployed, error analysis and attitudes toward wrong answers - pdf available here
TEA STAAR 2.0 Scoring Clarifications Check out slides 8-13 for details on math related new item scoring. Not in these slides, but confirmed at an in-person meeting: If a question asks for an answer in dollars and cents, 4.5 (without the last 0) will be incorrect.
COMMITTEE! Don’t Forget: Module 2 should be completed when we meet on January 3 at 12:30
We finally received these poster sets! If you still need/want some, I will get them delivered to you -
I hope that your break is truly wonderful! Natalee Peterson - Secondary Mathematics
Elementary Science Upcoming Assessments (on Eduphoria) 2nd GradeUnit 4 Dec 11 - Jan 12 3rd GradeUnit 4 Dec 7 - 15 4th GradeUnit 5 Dec 4 - 15 5th GradeUnit 3 Nov 13 - Dec 1 Reminder: Please reach out to your admin team about getting supplies to ensure your students get the hands on experiences they need.
Assessment question(s)- Jaime Kinslow Any other question(s)- Derek McDaniel (Marina Tupikov is on FMLA)
Secondary Science CI: District PLC for 8th Grade Science Campus Approval Required then Register in Eduphoria via Classlink. Location: Old BES Room 308.
9/28 12:30 - 3:30 pm
2/22 8:15 - 11:15 am
Force & Motion Interdependence Among Living Systems
CI: District PLC for HS Biology Campus Approval Required then Register in Eduphoria via Classlink. Location: Old BES Room 308.
8:15 - 3:30 pm
Nucleic Acids, Protein Synthesis, & Epigenetics
1/18
Taxonomy
11/3
8:15 am - 3:30 pm
PLC Support Resources
TEKS Instruction Guides (TIGs) 6th
Energy Transformations
Frankie Carrillo was honored with the Superintendent’s Coin of Excellence for her science leadership and reflective teaching practice.
7th
Asexual & Sexual Reproduction
8th
Plate Tectonics
Lehman High School
Biology
Genetic Combinations
Elementary Social Studies We want to hear from you! We are looking for feedback on how lessons are going!! Please submit this form with how we can make them better for the Spring!
Need Help? Our 2nd Annual Hays History Day event will be January 20, 2024 at Johnson High School. This event ties into the Texas History Day event and the National History Day event and is a fantastic opportunity for students to display their knowledge and interest in humanities from grades 4-12. It is also a great option for GT Showcase projects.
Could you use some Active Classroom training? Interested in doing a large Social Studies project? Not sure how to teach certain district lessons? Reach out! Kim is here to help! Elementary Request Form for More Social Studies Support
Our entry form is live now and will be open until January 10! T-shirts are available for order! T-shirts are $15. Fill out this form if you are interested and Kim will send you a RevTrack link for payment. If you have any questions please contact Kim Peña.
Are you receiving the HaysCISD Social Studies monthly newsletter? If not sign up here!
Secondary Social Studies District PLC 8th Grade Social Studies Sessions Talk with your Principal and register in Eduphoria via Classlink. Location TBA. 10/3 PM
District PLC & Resource Plan for CBA 1 and DBQ
2/22 PM
CBA reflection and Plan for Interim & STAAR
Our 2nd Annual Hays History Day event will be January 20, 2024 at Johnson High School. Our entry form is live now and will be open until January 10!
District PLC US History Sessions
T-shirts are available for order! T-shirts are $15. Fill out this form if you are interested and Kim will send you a RevTrack link for payment.
Talk with your principal and register in Eduphoria via Classlink. Location TBA.
We are looking for High school students who are interested in earning community service hours! Please have them fill out this form if they are interested.
11/3 PM
District PLC & Resource Plan for CBA 1 and DBQ Trainings
2/13 PM
CBA 2 reflection and Plan for Interim & EOC
Please let Kim know if you have any questions.
Are you seeing great things on your campus? Nominate a teacher for a monthly recognition and gift card!
Student Health Services