Stoneridge SPARK & Essentials
As a review for all staff, and especially for our new teachers, I thought it would be helpful to provide some history, information, and clarification about the Stoneridge Essentials, SPARK, and how all of the houses and essentials are connected-- and how they relate to our monthly assemblies. Our first assembly will be on the 25th.
Essentials:
Our Stoneridge Essentials, although modeled in format after Ron Clark's Essential 55, are our own shared agreements about expectations for our Stoneridge students. Last April, I was fortunate to spend the day here as last year's teachers edited/changed/deleted from Ron Clark's list to come up with something that was uniquely Stoneridge, and something that all grades would agree to teach students. Last April on . the site PD day, Sara and Dalen did a presentation on the Essentials, and then on August 15th Erin and Jill presented on houses as part of our PD to kick off the year. I know April was awhile ago, and also those first two days were filled with so much information and super busy. So, if you would like to review the Stoneridge Essentials, they are found at the page linked below in a variety of formats.
Also, at the end of last year, and over the summer, some staff members shared that it might be overwhelming to try to teach all 22 essentials, or wondered which to start with. To help with making the essentials more manageable, we organized them using the acronym SPARK, which stands for Safety, Positivity, Attitude, Respect, and Kindness. The idea behind organizing the essentials into these 5 categories was to allow teachers to start with the 5 big ideas, and then teachers could choose which essentials to specifically teach based on the age of the students etc. For instance, kindergarten probably would not start with the one about addressing all adults by name. SPARK is the way in which we organized the 22 essentials, but you also could just teach 1-22 if you chose to. Hopefully, the different formats provides you with flexibility to teach these essentials to your students. These shared agreements for behavior should provide our students with common expectations that over time should become the culture of our school.
If you are wondering how to teach the SPARK skills or display them in your room, check out the pictures from a few classrooms. If you have them displayed, I would love to add your picture, too!
Houses & House Leaders:
Where did the houses come from? The team that visited RCA was inspired by the Harry Potter-ish houses and we now have a similar, very new, house system here! In my August 25th blog post to families (read here) I explained houses and how they fit within our Stoneridge Timberwolf community. Each staff member chose a house, and a few volunteered to be House Leaders, a role which does require some additional time during school related to house meetings and house related things. This was open to new and existing staff, and is entirely voluntary. As we begin to roll out the houses and essentials, there is quite a bit of foundation laying- upfront work, and thinking because it's all so new. I anticipate that we we learn as we go, things will evolve, and get even better. I think the role of house leader will also change over time-- and that right now it might feel like a lot. So, if you volunteered to be a house leader and now are feeling like it's too much or that the role isn't a good fit for you, please let me know. I'm sure others will step up! Also, I know the house system was a topic some were considering for personalized PD, so if you chose to dive into that topic, you would also have one Wednesday a month to do work related to that.
Character Assemblies:
Last year, I sent out a google form to all staff asking a variety of questions, including what we did well and what could be improved. There was a trend I noted about behavior/expectation, and also about re-imagining the character assemblies. And so, as we embark down the houses/essentials journey, the emphasis at those assemblies will still be on positive recognition, community, and character traits. The previous traits focus has not gone away, but has been shifted to reflect the SPARK categories and essentials so that everything is connected. Student leaders will definitely be part of this, and can be both house leaders and leadership. This too will evolve I am sure, and the house leaders, myself, and Cathy will be meeting to discuss the format and content next week. We are still working on details and will let you know prior to the 25th.
One thing we did discuss was having each teacher choose two students to recognize at the assembly from her class, and we are working on how to recognize why using a blog, or Flipgrid, or tweet, lunch with principal, or a combination so that we don't have 600 kids sitting through 50 mini speeches :) We are hoping to keep the assemblies fairly short, super fun, and engaging. The first one will likely be a little longer as we explain the SPARK stuff and format.
I hope this information is helpful! Please let me know if you have any questions! We will continue to work together and I am here to support you. Have a great day!
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