Hello RLT!

We have purchased the Rosetta Stone program for the 2009-2010 school year. After reviewing a few language learning programs, we have determined Rosetta Stone is one of the best programs out there. Because it is software, it can easily integrate audio, text, and images. This allows the learner to associate the sound and look of the written language with real-life images in a natural way. At this time, we have purchased four licenses of Rosetta Stone's Level 1 & 2 version in Spanish. This will allow up to four people working on the program at a time (program is for staff). The software will be uploaded on the computers in the library. If the program meets teacher approval, we will purchase additional licenses.

Next Friday, teachers will receive their tentative teaching assignments for the 2009-2010 school year. Please know the word tentative is very important when looking over the assignments. If there are concerns regarding next year's assignments, please let us know.

Finally, we are currently reviewing a new bell schedule for next year. After meeting with the leadership team, it was determined that we will share where we are with the process. We feel the proposed schedule provides flexibility with alternate bell schedules, opportunities for tutoring/class meetings, and once again allows us to conduct weekly focused walk-throughs--and yes, and a fifty minute lunch for teachers. We will keep you posted once the decision is final.

Have a great weekend,
Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

For the past 15 years, communities across the country have set aside the first full week of May, including the second Tuesday, National Teacher Day, to shower their teachers with well-deserved thanks. In celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week, the administrative team would like to demonstrate our appreciation for the difference you make in the lives of young people.

As stated by Theresa Grimm, “without teacher appreciation there can’t be any student progress.” With your steadfast focus on investing in students, your tireless commitment is invaluable. We know how hard you work and how artfully you continue to get productivity from your students. We would like to say thank you with the following tokens of appreciation.

Monday

• Spine Check & Massage (7:00 – 4:00)

Tuesday

• Cobblers & Ice Cream

Wednesday

• Breakfast provided by Senior Exec.

Thursday

• A special gift

Friday

• Spine & Massage (7:00-12:00)
• Desserts provided by PTSA

Oh by the way, a jeans week for you all!

Thanks for making a difference,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

The state accountability system is reviewed annually. First, a Focus Group of Educators meets to review various accountability topics for the current year and beyond. Next, the Educator Focus Group proposal is presented to the Commissioner's Accountability Advisory Committee (CAAC). Yesterday’s release of the commissioner’s final decisions for 2009 Accountability did not have any last minute surprises. If interested, please review the entire 13 page report at this web address: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2009/index.html

Cloyd Hastings has highlighted important information from the document:

• Academically Acceptable rises 5% for Writing and Social Studies (to 70%); for math (to 55%); and for science (to 50%).
  
• The Texas Projection Measure (TPM) that was originally designed for use in AYP will be used in AEIS immediately. A TPM for grade 8 will not be available until 2010.
  
• The hierarchy for meeting a given subject’s standard is:
  The Absolute Standard, Required Improvement, Texas Projection Measure, & Exceptions.
  
• The School Leaver Provision is no longer available. This means that the high school’s completion rates for All Students and the four subpopulation groups can impact a campus and/or district rating. This also means that the middle school dropout rates can have a similar impact.
  
• The Underreported Students indicator is now fully in play and can impact a district’s rating.
  
• College Ready Graduates moves from a report only status to an actual Gold Performance Acknowledgement.
  
• In 2009 GPA standards increase for 9 of the 14 indicators.

We feel the changes will only benefit our campus.

Also, as mentioned yesterday during our faculty meeting, we have moved up according to Newsweek's annual school ranking report from 838 in 2008, to 637 this year. Keep up the good work RLT! http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380/?q=2008/rank/1.

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!


Our kids have many success stories this year in fine arts, athletics, as well as academically. Today we would like to recognize one of our students for being selected as a Presidential Scholar.


The Presidential Scholars Program was established in 1964, to recognize and honor the most distinguished graduating high school seniors. Each year, up to 140 students are named as Presidential Scholars-- one of the Nation's highest honors for high school students. The scholars represent excellence in education and the promise of greatness in young people. RLT is proud to honor Charuta Gavankar for being selected as one of approximately 560 semifinalists to advance to the final round of competition. Congratulations Charuta!

A message from the FF coordinators;
Faculty Follies is an eagerly-anticipated tradition held every year at RLT. Our staff graciously gives their all every year to put on a great and hilarious show. If participating is not an option, please plan on attending. This talent show is very entertaining and cannot be missed.


Faculty Follies will be Monday evening, May 4th, at 7:00 PM. The cost of admission is only $5. All of the proceeds go to senior scholarships. Please encourage all of your students to go! Faculty Follies is definitely a must-see show!

If interested in participating in the show, it’s not too late to join in on the fun. There’s a part for everyone! Contact Lori Dumerer or Brandon Walters for more information.

Have a great weekend,
Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

The R.L. Turner Coaching Staff and Fine Arts Directors are contributing greatly in the success of our Freshmen Initiative. The data shows that 62% of ninth graders decide at semester if they will complete the high school journey or drop out. After researching a few strategies with other districts, we created the REEL Team.

The REEL team is a coaching effort to make a mentoring relationship with struggling freshmen. Our purpose is to provide additional support to ensure these students do not fall through the cracks. Students were selected based on their first semester performance. Once again, RLT is a leader in innovative approaches for connecting with kids and taking it to the next level. Kudos to the coaches and fine arts directors!

As the veterans know, the final stretch is packed with activities that will keep us extremely busy. We would like to share a timeline of upcoming events. Should be exciting! S:\Upcoming Events

Innovation

Mr. Toulmin has discovered a cool site that he is implementing for the journalism program. According to Mr. Toulmin, it's a free service offered by Google. You just have to invest a little time in it. Here is the link: http://sites.google.com/site/turnerjournalism/.

Thanks for all you do,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!


As a reminder, Tuesday, April 14th is our Parent Conference Night. This conference night is required in exchange for our Fair Day holiday. Our time frame will be from 3:00-8:00...one evening instead of two. During our department chair meeting, we discussed each teacher scheduling ten meetings with parents.

Our students will have received their 3rd 9 weeks report cards. The scheduled meetings will address students who we are concerned about passing—what do they need to do in the last 9 weeks to finish strong. Any TAKS concerns could also be discussed. We will have a conference log and some guidelines to send out prior to the Parent Conference Night.

Instructional Tip of the Week:

In The Art and Science of Teaching, Robert Marzano outlines six action steps to student achievement by using learning goals rooted in standards.

Action Step 1: Make a Distinction Between Learning Goals and Learning Activities or Assignments. A learning goal is a statement of what students will know or be able to do, not an activity or assignment. The learning goal is rooted in the standards (TEKS) with both content and cognition.

Action Step 2: Write a Rubric or Scale for Each Learning Goal. Marzano recommends a 5 point scale (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4). 0 indicates “even with help, no understanding or skill demonstrated” while 4 indicates “In addition to 3.0, in depth inferences and applications go beyond what was taught.”

Action Step 3: Have Students Identify Their Own Learning Goals. This brings the learning to the students’ quality worlds by tapping into student interest.

Action Step 4: Assess Students Using a Formative Approach. Assessment is rooted in the standard and aligned with the rubric so that students can demonstrate understanding or room for improvement.

Action Step 5: Have Students Chart Their Progress on Each Learning Goal. By tracking understanding of learning goals, teachers and students know what standards the students understand or still need time to learn.

Action Step 6: Recognize and Celebrate Growth!

Announcements:

Congratulations to Vince Cowdrey for being named as our newest member of the Very Important Profession of Teaching.

Have a great weekend,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

Few burdens are heavy when everybody lifts. In usual Turner fashion, we proved that kids are our number one priority. Thank you for a job well done on ELA TAKS testing yesterday. The time, dedication, perseverance demonstrated for our kids in proctoring the exam is second to none.

Allowing our students all day to test is a gift worthy of our time. Even with the almost 200 students still testing at 1:20pm, the staff of RLT was patient and ready to help move the testers and wait until testing could begin again. Also, a special thanks to the English Department for prepping the students to take their time and give their best effort.

Please show Turner Pride tomorrow by wearing jeans!

Thanks for making a difference with our kids.

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

As mentioned during our meeting on Monday, the C-FB ISD Board is seeking community and staff input on the Superintendent search. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD community and staff are encouraged to fill out an online form to help the district's Board of Trustees develop a profile for the next Superintendent of Schools.

The online form contains four open-ended questions, and all community members, including business owners, parents, students, faculty and staff are invited to fill out the form.
All responses to the online form are confidential and are being gathered by Executive Search Services of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).

Online Survey

C-FB ISD Website Superintendent Search Page

Please take a moment to fill out the online survey.

Have a great weekend,
Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

RLT has experienced numerous successes over the past few weeks. We would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of these celebrations:

• Two National Merit Finalists
• Nominee for the Presidential Scholarship (two from each state are recognized)
• Student's film selected to be screened at the South by Southwest Film Festival
• Four students participating in the All State TMEA
• Boy's soccer combined record-- 33 wins-2 losses-2 ties
• Ten students qualified for Regionals in Swimming and Diving
• Seven choir members received Superior Ratings advancing to State Competition
• Three students qualified for Regional Meet in Wrestling
• 2nd Overall in the Winterfest German Competition
• Two students advanced to State in the PTSA Reflections contest
• Business Professionals of America Competition Team-- State Alternate Competitor

Thank you all for making a difference...GO RLT!

Instructional Tip of the Week:

We heard about great practices this week from our teachers in PD, and we want to highlight a few ideas.

"How can we share standards with students and have them discuss what they know and need to know, building lead management?"

Madira McKee gave her class 10 specific TEKS. The students worked to craft 2 quality questions about each of the TEKS. This gave the kids ownership of the discussion and focused the discussion around the "needs to know."

Nadirshah Velasquez has students write 3 "knows" and 3 "need to knows" on one side of an index card. Then, she has the students partner and share their ideas. Then, they flip the index card and come up with 2 new, original "knows" and "need to knows" that neither one had on their individual index card.


Theresa Buntain and Heather Purdue have a poster of "knows" and "need to knows" in their classroom constructed as a class at the beginning of the unit. As they progress, they change the poster and use it to review for the summative assessment.


Erin Middleton shared that the Chemistry teachers are creating a "need to know" list for students to include in their Interactive Notebooks (a great AVID strategy--ask IPC or Chemistry teachers to share more info!). The Chemistry teachers have noticed that kids are going back to the list as they progress through the unit, checking off what they know and asking questions about what they do not yet know.


Candice Teague had students draft individual "knows" and "need to knows," and then students moved to groups to create a group draft. Candice then took the group information and compiled into posters for each class period. The students gave her ideas of how they could better demonstrate their learning, and she incorporated into her lesson plans.

Have a great weekend,
Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!

This week marks the beginning of the window to collect TELPAS writing samples. TELPAS is designed to assess the language acquisition progress of LEP students. As discussed during PD, students are required to be assessed annually in reading, writing, listening and speaking.

As a campus we are required to provide quality examples that show the student’s true ability. In an effort to ensure instructional time is not lost to the completion of this assessment, please create prompts which help classroom instruction and also fulfill our state requirements. Assessments are due to Melanie Freeman on February 13 and February 20. Please see Ms. Freeman or Mr. Julian if you have any question. Thanks in advance for meeting the needs of our students.

A celebration to share: We have begun the after school TAKS Academy and our College Night tutorial sessions. Attendance for the TAKS Academy has been roughly 95-98% each night. The College Night (provides tutorials from college students) has increased from thirteen the first evening to twenty-six students this Thursday. Please continue to encourage students to attend the tutorial sessions in the library.

Hope you all have a great weekend,
Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!


This week, we would like to share our first semester data in terms of our passing rates for the core classes as well as our attendance data. As you recall, we sent information regarding our passing rates from 2005-2007 S:\Semester Data. One of our campus goals is to increase earned credits by 3% for each course taught. Please take a minute to review our first semester data S:\Grade distribution for 2008. We are already well on our way to achieving our campus goal.

Additionally, we would like to share our first semester attendance data. One of our SMART goals is to increase our annual attendance rate to 96% by 2011. Currently our data represents the following:

• First Six Weeks 95.5%
• Second Six Weeks 94.7%
• Third Six Weeks 94.2%
• 1st Semester 94.8%

We are certainly off to a great start, but as the veterans know the spring will be our greatest challenge. However, the staff of RLT is up for the challenge. Thanks for believing in kids and making a difference each day.

Have a great weekend,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!



As you know, the majority of our students are either involved in extra-curricular activities or work. Due to the time our students spend with these additional activities/responsibilities many are unable to attend teacher tutorials. Fortunately, Brookhaven college students, trained in effective tutoring, will be available to provide tutoring to our students free of charge. College Night tutoring will be available to all students every Monday and Wednesday from 3:00-5:00, beginning February 2, 2009 in the library. All students are welcome to attend and teachers are encouraged to make recommendations. More information will be provided at a later date.



Please remember we have provided end of the semester procedures that need to be completed by all teachers:

• Final Exams- a list of students who did not take final exams


• Exam attached with student name on it and key


• Remaining Unclear Students


• Remove all student work from the halls/classrooms


• Failure lists for Nine Weeks/Semester and documentation of parent contact

In closing, please remember we will provide a Continental Breakfast Tray on Tuesday morning. The tray consists of a flavorful selection of warm breakfast bread and pastries: orange cranberry scones, strawberry pound cake, bagels, seasonal fruit, muffins and all butter croissants. Accompanied by butter, jelly and flavored cream cheeses. Sounds good!

Thanks for making a difference,

Lance

Lion's Lore

Hello RLT!



As the first semester comes to an end, we would like to revisit one of our campus goals:

• Increase earned credits, semester and year long by 3% for each course taught.

We have monitored the data over the past three years, and have seen an increase in the number of earned credits S:\Semester Data . We know that students are much more likely to complete high school once they reach the sophomore level (six credits). The NCLB accountability system regarding dropouts has become standardized over the past couple of years... as to what percentage of students graduate in a four year period. Based on the class of 2007, we had 74% of all students graduate (67% of our Hispanic students). As you know, the AEIS report is one year behind when looking at graduation and attendance data. We feel our numbers will be higher for the class of 2008, as we had close to 400 graduates. It is imperative that we continue to provide multiple opportunities for kids to be successful. Let us know if we can be of assistance.

In continuing our conversation with NCLB, we have begun meeting with our identified LEP students about after school tutorials. We have strategically selected fifty students to participate in after school tutoring. Our first meeting was a success as each student decided it was in their best interest to participate in the TAKS Academy. The ELA TAKS Academy will begin on January 27, and our Math TAKS Academy will begin on March 10. Each session will last approximately two hours, with food provided at the end of each session. We feel confident this program will improve our LEP students overall performance. If you are interested in participating, please talk to Ms. Warnock.

Lastly, we would like to share our discipline data for the first semester. Thank you for keeping all students engaged in the learning process. Our discipline data continues to be impressive. S:\Discipline Data

Thanks for making a difference!

Lance