Limited slots for spring special projects are available through Project Graduation for all high schools. Special projects are designed to provide prescriptive support by customizing courses and class days/times to meet the specific needs of your school. 

Complete the special projects form before October 5 to request a PG Special Project course for your school. CLICK HERE for more information and detailed steps.

REMINDER: Please confirm your Foundational Literacy Laureate for the 2022-2023 school year! Please take 2-3 minutes to complete the survey using this link on or before September 15. The brief survey will provide the Early Literacy Department with contact information regarding your 2022-2023 Foundational Literacy Laureate designee.

• https://forms.office.com/r/GvTx7dSbtd

There are also updated Laureate Agreement and Laureate Stipend Disbursement forms that must be reviewed, signed by the Principal & Laureate, and emailed to EarlyLiteracyDept@scsk12.org. Be sure to note the changes in the Laureate eligibility criteria and the K-2 teachers who will be coached and supported by the Laureate. Both forms can be accessed here or using the link below.  

• 2022-2023 Laureate Forms

The first Laureate PD is Thursday, September 22, 4-5:30 p.m. at the Early Literacy Office at Hamilton High School. Laureates can register using PLZ code# 31913

MSCS continues the district-wide commitment to demonstrating responsiveness and providing excellent customer service to each student, parent, family member, employee, and community member. As you support this work, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the following information and important protocols found in the AOSS Manual:

• customer service
• reporting child abuse-DCS concerns
• bullying issues

Please review and share this information with your school teams.

Attention all K- Algebra 2 teachers, office hours are now available for additional support with implementing the digital curricular resources for mathematics.

Our Great Minds and Savvas experts will facilitate each session. A Curriculum & Instruction Math Advisor will also attend to address specific district concerns and/or questions. Please see the attachments below.

• Eureka Math Open Labs
• enVision Math Open Labs

The Department of Curriculum and Instruction provides a monthly focus on supporting Algebra 1 instruction to increase student growth and achievement. By attending these sessions, teachers will build collective efficacy as they work collaboratively to review the upcoming content, engage in the work of upcoming lessons, ask questions and receive individual support, and develop a community of practice with colleagues across MSCS.  Please encourage your teachers to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities.

• Algebra 1 Monthly PD Fall & Winter Flyer Revised 

As a reminder, state law requires all districts and schools to implement the truancy intervention process with fidelity. Per state law and MSCS Policy 6016, schools must ensure that truant students with five (5) or more unexcused absences receive a Student Attendance Review Team (SART) meeting. Failure to conduct a SART meeting impedes the truancy process and can result in truancy cases being dismissed from court. Please refer to Truancy Flow Chart to ensure each step of the SART process is completed. All truancy actions must be documented in PowerSchool, and the PSAP be entered in BrightBytes. 

Several trainings will be offered this semester around the SART process. School clerical and administrators responsible for attendance and truancy should attend. The dates are listed below. Participants should register in PLZ using course code #31824.

• September 20
• October 4
• October 27
• November 15
• December 1

Your assigned truancy specialist can provide onsite support and additional training. Contact Thomasena Stuckett at stucketttd@scsk12.org or Gail Cotton at cottongd@scsk12.org if you have any questions or need further information.

Enrollment of Kindergarten Students

• Kindergarten students must be registered and enrolled by Monday, September 19, to be eligible to attend school for the 2022-23 school year. Students whose birthday is after August 15 are not eligible to attend school this school year.

Transfer Student to Another School in PowerSchool

• School secretaries have the rights to transfer students to another school and re-enroll in school. Staff should contact the losing school to request the record be transferred to the gaining school in PowerSchool SIS.

Approved OAG/Grade Placement

• School staff of the losing school will initiate the withdrawal request for students approved for OAG/Grade Placement and transfer students to another school once SEED Office approves the withdrawal.

Immunization Support

• Shelby County Health Department will conduct an immunization event on Saturday, September 17, at the Teacher and Learning Academy (TLA) from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (no appointments necessary, while supplies last). Parents of kindergarten and seventh-grade students who need immunizations should be contacted.

Self-Paced Virtual Learning Sessions for Counselors and Teachers who need assistance teaching Explicit SEL lessons from the Rethink platform.

The Way to ReThink: School Administrator’s Guide to Compliance. The session is designed for school administrators and lead designee for monitoring school compliance. Principal Virtual Rethink Training via MS Teams.

Teachers will learn to:   

• Navigate through ReThink’s Platform from Clever log-in.
• Access the three components of a lesson required for district implementation.
• Utilize resources available to build SEL capacity and nurture classroom culture and climate.

To access the recorded video stream, please click The Way to Rethink

If you have trouble logging into Rethink, please email: Riletta Williams at williamsRW@scsk12.org

Kelley Greene greeneKP@scsk12.org

• The i-Ready Diagnostic (Screener) window was extended through September 16.

• Need to check completion status? Use the Diagnostic Status Report 
• Need to check how students did? Use the Diagnostic Results Report 
• Want to monitor personalized (online) instruction? Use the Personalized Instruction Summary Report 

The Curriculum Associates (i-Ready) team continues to be eager to support your work with the Prescriptions with Ready in Reading and Math. If your school needs PD to help support this work with our Ready resources, please reach out to Elaine Price, Marty Pettigrew, and Mike Ricci (EPrice@cainc.com, MPettigrew@cainc.com, MRicci@cainc.com) 

We hope to see you at the upcoming i-Ready PD – see attached!

• Finalized PD Plan August - November 2022.pdf

On behalf of Memphis-Shelby County Schools Professional Learning and Support, we are excited to announce the release of our October 2022 Professional Learning Catalog. As we continue to reimagine 901, we want to ensure high-quality professional learning opportunities for our teachers, leaders, and central office staff.

Check out the October PL offered here.

Our September Central Office Professional Learning Session for Chiefs, Assistant Superintendents, Executive Directors, Directors, and Managers is scheduled for Wednesday, September 28. We will offer both a morning and afternoon session to allow you to choose what best fits your schedule. These sessions will be held at the TLA Auditorium. Reserve your seat in PLZ using course #31731.

Teacher Development Week is next week, September 19-22. Thank you for identifying teachers to attend the job-embedded learning series. Please see the agenda that outlines the learning opportunities teachers will participate in. 

After completing a full day of learning, a sub-code will be emailed to you. Remember, teachers will work with you to select a date for the whole staff redelivery during a faculty meeting. The dates for redelivery will be September 26-October 7.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Racheal Addison at addisonrd@scsk12.org or Geneva Gordon at gordong@scsk12.org.

The New Principal September Meeting will be on September 27 from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Please see the details on the flyer.

Please see the flyer regarding novice principals monthly meetings.

The MSCS Compass is a new one-stop shop for all your PowerBI reports.
Including the new and improved Student Profile, which is now called Student Data 360.

• Watch our introduction and navigation video here - Intro to MSCS Compass
• Principals can give school staff members access through the PowerBI Access App
• Data domains in Student Data 360 now have the option for District Quick Reports (see an example for Attendance here). You can easily pull rates and numbers at the school and zone levels. User guides will be available soon.

Support and Trainings

• Virtual Office Hours for this week (September 20 and 22) will focus on 3GC and identifying students in need of an ASP using the Student Assessment dashboard.
• VOH trainings are held every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30 PM.
• We have also started logging VOH attendance in PLZ. However, you do not have to register there. You can still sign up for VOH here→ Virtual Office Hours (sharepoint.com)

DAIM Support and Data Quality Alerts

• Does something in a dashboard look wrong? Check our Data Quality Updates. 

And check out the rest of the DAIM Support Sharepoint site, complete with additional video tutorials, walkthrough guides, and more!
 

Per compensation, to be eligible for a stipend payout, an employee must meet the following criteria. If an employee fails to meet all stated criteria, earnings may be stopped and/or recovered:

• Must be a District employee
• Must be in an active or approved pay status
• Cannot separate from the District before payout date (even if the employee was present for the entire season)
• *Payment request must be for the sport for which he/she participated

*Please reference the Fraud Awareness, Staff Ethics, Conflict of Interest presentation by Leon Pattman and MSCS Policy 2018

As Student Support Services and the Athletics Department continue to prioritize safe athletic participation, the following checklist has been created to support schools. Please share this checklist with your Athletic Directors and Coaches as an additional guiding resource to be completed before tryouts, practices, and competitions.

Please contact India Weaver at weaveri@scsk12.org if you have additional questions.

• Current Physicals (medical clearance for athletic participation) dated April 15 or later
• Complete medical/contact information for emergencies at practices/games
• Parent's signed Athlete's Health Record includes Informed Consent & Assumption of Risk and COVID-19 Informed Consent & Risk Acknowledgement Statement for consent for sport(s) participation.
• Concussion and head injury information reviewed by athletes and parents with signed documentation
• Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act reviewed by athletes and parents with signed                               documentation

***COMING SOON***TN law -EKG acknowledgement reviewed by parents with signed                               documentation

Contact India Weaver at weaveri@scsk12.org if you have additional questions.

• CPR and First Aid Certification
• NFHS Covid-19 for Coaches & Administrators completion (yearly)
• TN law required Concussion & Sudden Cardiac Arrest completion (annually)
• SCS Safe Schools Athletic Coaches Covid Training (yearly)
• ***NEW*** TN law -NFHS Heat Illness Prevention Course completion (yearly)
• ***NEW***TN law -EAP w/ allergy and anaphylaxis emergency response plan completion (yearly)
• First aid kit, injury ice, emergency information, and water are available at each practice and competition
• Injury reporting via the MSCS Student Accident system
• Parental notification of any injuries and provide them with the secondary insurance claim form

Please contact India Weaver at weaveri@scsk12.org if you have additional questions.

Coaches must also complete MSCIAA continuing education courses as required. All Coaches must be submitted to the TSSAA/TMSAA.

• NFHS Fundamentals of Coaching
• NFHS First Aid, Health, & Safety for Coaches

Please contact India Weaver at weaveri@scsk12.org if you have additional questions.
 

K-2 Specialized Education Assistants must be assigned to the classes in which they assist in PowerSchool. The document outlining steps to add K-2 Specialized Education Assistants to class sections in PowerSchool is available on SharePoint. 

• Important Dates:
  • Friday, September 23 – Deadline to add the K-2 Specialized Education Assistants to the school’s staff list using the Staff & Teacher Request spreadsheet
  • Friday, September 30 – Deadline to add the K-2 Specialized Education Assistant to class sections (Teachers/Staff – Additional)

Again, we will be hosting ACT Family Nights this year. These sessions will target our underclassmen (e.g., grades 7-11) and their families and will be held virtually from 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m. on September 22, November 3, January 12, and April 20.

During this session, families will learn about the structure of the test, the resources available to prepare for the test, test dates, and information about registering for the test. We will also share information about how test scores are used in college admission and obtaining scholarships.

Students and families may register online at mscsactfamilynight.eventbrite.com