Hello Jerri and Mr.

Jones,
How are you both doing? I hope you are well and that you enjoyed the beautiful weather this
weekend! I had the amazing privilege to be in Toris and Catherines classrooms this past week
and would like to share the strengths I saw, as well as the areas of growth we are working on this
upcoming month.
Lets start with Catherine, who I saw with an Algebra 2 and an Algebra 3 class. Catherine is really
hitting her stride in planning for Algebra 3, which was evidenced through the proof for the
Pythagorean trig. identity she led her kids to with skillfully scaffolded questioning. Her students
had an audible aha moment with almost half of the class saying wow, no way, and that
makes so much sense. She has been incorporating a variety of ways for interacting with the
material that flexibly engages her students, as well as appeals to their various learning styles.
She is holding her Algebra 3 students to high academic and behavioral expectations, which was
demonstrated when she redirected two boys through reminding them to think back to their
active listening protocol. Catherine came to the realization that she inconsistently reinforces her
expectations with Algebra 2 as a result of her lack of confidence in her planning for this subject.
Moving forward, we will continue to work on planning, especially in regards to Algebra 2 and how
to maximize both the time before testing and the weeks after testing. With planning, we are
building Catherines skill in appropriate pacing of the lesson, building in aligned student practice,
and clarity of a teacher model with 1-2 problems. Relatedly, we are also weaving in other
standards when reviewing/reteaching particular standards so that students are internalizing the
connections between content.
At Toris request, I observed her with her 4 th hour class. She asked me to observe her with 4 th
hour because she feels that out of all of her classes the culture in 4 th hour is not where she would
like it to be. This request highlights two of Toris strengths which are her desire to build a class
culture where every student feels that they could voice their opinion, read a passage, etc.
without the fear that another student will make fun of their abilities, thoughts, etc. and her
practice of continuous reflection so that she can be even better for her students tomorrow. Tori
consistently holds her students to high behavioral and and social interaction expectations. When
I was in her class students were engaging with To Kill a Mockingbird through an interactive, and
silent, gallery walk in which they first independently looked at a seemingly unrelated image and
then wrote a connection they saw between that image and the story. This speaks to Toris
strength in intentionally planning for student engagement. Lastly, Tori has created a great culture
of independent reading in her class where you can see every single student entranced in their
novels the first 10 minutes of class. In breaking down why Tori perceives 4th hour to have the
weakest culture of all of her classes, she came to some eye-opening understandings. She has
very strong values and when those values are being breached in her class it causes a visceral, or
even instinctual, reaction on Toris part that does not result in Tori helping her students realize
why what they are doing is harmful to the class culture or specific students. Tori has also realized
that she has taken away the engaging learning activities or heavily restricted them in 4 th hour as
a result of the shaky class culture. This was a very hard realization for Tori to make as she greatly
cares about all of her students, so moving forward Tori will daily analyze her interactions with her
4th hour specifically, how she frames expectations in a way that models the environment she
wants to see, and how she reacts to breaches. We will also be working on more regular quizzes or
tests to assess students knowledge, share with students their progress, and making instructional
shifts based on data. Furthermore, Tori will be focused on increasing the level of rigor in student
output through regular feedback from her and their peers.
It was a pleasure to be at Lawton last week as you are a friendly and dedicated bunch. Thank you
and if you need anything please let me know.
Warm regards,
Jessica McNally