February 13th EditionSuccessful Inclusive Practices - When Everyone Belongsby Debra Ahrens, Education Consultant, DPI, and Jenny Bibler, Education Consultant, DPI It’s Monday in Ms. Romero’s class. In reviewing her daily schedule, she notes which students will be leaving the class throughout the day, in ones, twos, or more, for specially designed instruction provided by another educator in another part of the building. She sighs when she realizes that there is no block of time when all of her students will be present for instruction in their home class. She wonders how she can possibly ensure that all of her students are accessing the core content that will prepare for them for the next grade. When she looks at trend data, she sees that the students who are taught in segregated, pull-out settings are actually falling further behind their peers every year. Hey Alexa - Are You Allowed in My Classroom?by Melissa Thiel Collar, Attorney, Legal Counsel - Green Bay Area Public School District With the proliferation of voice assistants such as the Amazon Echo or Dot and Google Home, educators have begun to explore how to use these devices in classrooms and not just their living rooms. A quick internet search of “Alexa in the Classroom” results in a number of web links to various teachers touting the benefits of these devices in the classroom. However, this search is only half of the story when it comes to using these devices in the classroom. A second search, that for “Alexa and FERPA Compliance,” results in a number of web links to various articles detailing the concerns for student privacy and the inability to filter internet access when using these devices. For the reasons noted below, K-12 school districts are declining to permit voice assistants in classrooms. Get Your Copy of the 2019-20 Professional Concerns ReportClick here for AWSA's 2019-20 Professional Concerns Report. The report includes data on salaries, contract length, and members most frequently asked contract questions. We are appreciative of the 450 members who completed the 2018 Professional Concerns Survey which is one of the primary sources for the report. We provided an overnight stay at Kalahari Resort and Waterpark to one member who completed the survey. The lucky winner was Peter Haubrich of Central High School in Westosha. AWSA is grateful to Horace Mann for their support of this report. AWSA 2019 ElectionThe AWSA Board of Directors election will be held electronically from April 15-April 30, 2019. This year, Directors will be elected from Regions 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 9. Members of each of these regions will be emailed a notification on April 15, 2019 with a link to an online ballot listing the candidate(s) for that region. As part of its succession planning, the Board has recruited candidates in each region.
In addition, write-in candidates can stand for election by submitting a petition to the AWSA office by March 15. If you have any questions, contact Robin Herring at [email protected]or (608) 241-0300. 2019 State Mathematics ContestsThe WMC State Math Contests for both middle and high school students will be held the week of March 4-8, 2019. Schools participate at their home sites, and each school chooses the day the team will participate in the contest. The school team advisor corrects the individual events and all of the items on the team event, and tests and results are returned to WMC. Medals are given to individuals from top-scoring high school teams, ribbons to high scoring middle school teams, plaques to top scoring schools. Top team and individual scores are published in the WMC Newsletter, and high school students with perfect scores are awarded $50, middle school students receive a medal. The entry fee is $25 for WMC members and $50 for non-members.
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