November 21

The Buzzness 

Calendar November 22          Muffins / Juice for breakfast and Soup for lunch in the teacher’s lounge provided by the PTO! Yea!              Kindergarten Friendship Celebration 11:30-12:30 pm (Campbell, McCartney) 23-25    Schools and offices will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving Holiday December    1            4th and 5th RTI/SpEd Grade Level Team Meetings 2:45pm 3            Holiday Party at the Crescimanno's  7-11pm 5            Winter BEE Program registration begins 6              5th Grade Music Performance at 1:20 (James, Crickenberger, Morris)3rd and other 5th view and 6:00 pm 7            Team Leaders Meeting 2:45 pm 8              5th Grade Music Performance at 1:20 (Humphrey, Greenwood) K and other 5th view and 6:00 pm              Faculty Meeting 2:45pm 9              3rd Grade Toga Day

Team Purchase Request to Ms. Barbour by Dec. 2nd Last day for purchase requests  will be December 2nd. We will resume placing orders when we get back from Winter Break.

A few Tech reminders: All concerns need both a online ticket submitted AND a paper BES Laptop Repair Form. (Online tickets are quick and easy! Just email servicedesk@k12albemarle.org with your concerns and contact info.) The drop off location is in the BES Library (by the sink, in a labeled crate). Repaired machines will be returned to you/students by library staff. Loaner computers are only available for 1-1 student machines in grades 4 and 5 at this time (and for emergency student or teacher needs such as testing, etc). We have a limited quantity available. For more detailed directions and explanations, please read our Technology Troubleshooting Guidelines. Please let me know if you have any questions after reviewing these directions and guidelines! :) Thanks again for your support, Anne

Toy Lift It is almost time for ToyLift again, and we are in need of some volunteers who would like to join David C. and me at the ToyLift Boxing Day for Brownsville’s families on Saturday, December 3rd at 4:15 pm. Boxing this year will be at the same warehouse as last year at 395 Reas Ford Road in Earlysville. It truly was a heartwarming and inspiring experience helping with Toy Lift last year, and amazing that this organization can impact so many families in the Charlottesville area. If you would like to donate your time on this day, we would really appreciate it :)  Please email me by Friday, November 18th if you would like to participate, so I can respond to the ToyLift coordinator about how many volunteers who will be coming.  Alyson

Van De Graph available at Brownsville If you are interested in having a Van De Graph demo for your class or team, let Lead Instructional Coach, Robbie Muncey know : rmuncey@k12albemarle.org

New Internet Search Filters in Place This school year we have made a transition to a new content filter.  Please know that we are required by the federal government to filter certain types of Internet sites: most notably sites considered to be obscene, sites that contain pornography, and any sites deemed harmful to minors.  Each of the terms mentioned are legal items and are defined via case law.  Our new content filter, as do all filtering solutions, places web sites into categories and the school division determines which categories to block or not to block.  We continue to monitor the filter to ensure that we do not put students or staff at risk and we make adjustments to web sites improperly placed in blocked categories. The new content filter has a much more robust reporting capability.  This reporting capability allows the school division a greater opportunity to ensure optimal network performance.  More important to note, as it is stated in the Responsible Use Policy, every web site that you visit while using school division technology is logged and can be accessed by DART staff.  DART staff will periodically review the logs to verify the technical operations and ensure the network is functioning properly.  During this time, staff reviews the data to ensure that neither staff nor students are violating the Responsible Use Policy by using the school division’s technology for purposes not consistent with our educational mission.

November 11

The Buzzness Lite

Calendar November 15   Wildlife Assembly  9am PreK, Head Start, 1st grade Comm. Theater Rm                                         10:15 K and 2nd         4th Grade CoGAT testing 16    Brownsville’s 50th Anniversary Celebration 6:00-7:30 Community Room                      5th Grade CoGAT testing 18     5th Grade Colonial Day   10:00-1:00             5th Grade Career Cafe 21    K Friendship Celebration 11:00-12:00 (Whitlock, Davis, Spradlin) 22    K Friendship Celebration 11:30-12:30 (Campbell, McCartney) 23-25    Schools and offices will be closed in observance of the Thanksgiving

Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veteran's Day!  

November 4th, 2016

The Buzzness 

Calendar 11/5 Film Festival @ UVA 11/7 7AM Report Cards due to admin        Making Connections 11/8 Workday - trade off for teachers who have had conferences 11/9 Fire Drill @ 10:30am 11/10 Report Corrections Due          Faculty Meeting - Celebrating Our BESt 11/11 Portal Opens/paper reports sent home 11/15 Some 4th and 5th graders CoGAT           testing         Wildlife Center Assembly 11/16 Some 4th and 5th graders CoGAT testing          Brownsville’s 50th Year Celebration 6-7:30 11/17 K PLC        1st P-based curriculum planning        2nd/3rd RtI/SPED Collaboration 2:45-3:30        4th/5th/Specials PLC      11/18 5th Grade Career Cafe          Olympic Swimmer Leah Smith in 5th grade PE classes          5th Grade Colonial Day 10-1pm

New TA’s We forgot to announce our new Teaching Assistants.The have already contributed so much. Our new Special Education Teaching Assistants: Raquel Wright will be joining us soon and she will be working with David and Courtney. She will be replacing Carrie Blake. We want to thank Carrie Blake for her time here at Brownsville and wish her the best. Kim Free our well know mom and substitute teacher has join us as a TA working with our A-Base service. Our two new grade level support TAs are: Pattie Stadjuhar and Aspen Shifflet. Their schedules have allowed our K and 1st grade TAs to provide more instructional support to students in their classrooms. Welcome! Isn’t it great to Bee a Bee!

Making Connections Making Connections 2016 is Monday, November 7!  We are looking forward to seeing you bright and early on Monday.  In keeping with our traditions of Making Connections, we encourage you to connect with your colleagues and reflect on our work within the Division, your school, and your PLC.  We are hopeful the day will inform our work as each of us process together, and bring back ideas for implementation. Here are a few details you will need for the day: 1.    Attendance will be taken when you enter your session, so please be sure to go where you are registered. Many sessions are full and lunch counts are based on where people registered for the morning session.  To double-check your current registrations, login to the Making Connections website and click on My Enrollments. 2.    Please arrive in ample time to park and find your workshop in advance of the start time (8:30 and 12:30).  Please park in a legal parking spot. 3.    Please bring your fully charged laptop.  In addition, some facilitators have handouts or resources that we will make available to you electronically. 4.    Those in the Visible Learning for Literacy sessions should bring your book if you own one. 5.    You may pick up your lunch at the end of your morning session.  Lunch is provided by ACPS this year, so there is no need to bring cash for the food court! 6.    If you are on the waitlist for a session, expect a follow-up email regarding future learning opportunities on the waitlisted topic! 7.    Finally, flu shots will be available as follows: ·         E-4 at Sutherland 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ·         Conference room at Henley 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ·         Clinic at Monticello 3:00 – 5:00 pm For more information on the flu shot, visit http://bewell.albemarle.org/programs/Pages/flu.aspx Look for an email from me on Tuesday with a link to Making Reflections so the Making Connections 2016 planning team can receive your feedback and reflections from the day!

Powerful Accessibility Tool Now Available for all Students and Educators All ACPS educators and students now have access to a powerful accessibility tool called Snap&Read, which is designed to help learners of all ages better access content and organize ideas. Snap&Read is both a Chrome internet browser extension and desktop app that provides on-demand read aloud support for students to engage with any text that they encounter — on a website in any browser, on a PDF, or even part of a picture or illustration. In addition to Snap&Read’s primary text-to-speech function, the resource also serves our learners in the following ways: ·         Text complexity: users define the degree of adjustment, an important step in our Division’s commitment to Universal Design for Learning. ·         Primary language: translates written text and then allows for translated text-to-speech. ·         Note Taking, Citing & Organizing: users can select text that can be added to outlines and automatically cited into a works cited page. The software has been “pushed” by DART to all Windows 10 and Mac laptops in the division.  It can sometimes take a little while for “pushed” software to install on all laptops so please log a ticket if you have restarted your computer and are still having trouble accessing the software.  The following guides provide a step by step for ACPS educators and students on how to access Snap&Read for the first time: ·         Windows ·         Mac Want to learn about Snap&Read? Check out the following resources: ·         Learn all about Snap&Read and take the Snap&Read challenge! ·         Additional resources about Snap&Read ·         Reach out to your school’s assigned DART Learning Technology Integrator

It Couldn’t Be Done The End There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,     There are thousands to prophesy failure; There are thousands to point out to you one by one,     The dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,     Just take off your coat and go to it; Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing     That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.