Team Louis (Cava's Christie Louis' Class): Some changes to schedules - Please read

Good evening Cava Families

Time is flying fast as it is already February! I just wanted to check in to see how everyone (new and continuing) is doing. I’ve been in contact with several of you and will be making more contacts this week. I wanted to send out an email just to inform you of some changes to schedules that have already been put in place or will be in the next day.

*Testing Strategies – this course is automatically placed on your child’s schedule but for most of them has been hidden up until now. It is basically an additional place your child can help prepare themselves for our upcoming state test. Some student have already completed this (if it remained on their schedules) so please disregard this if that applies to your situation.

*Compacting courses – as the end of the year draws near, it is crucial (as per the Middle School Grading Scale) that your student not only stay up on their progress but the completion of their weekly assignments, Study Island, and the additional assignments that appear on the Assignment Sheets. That being said, I will be compacting some students’ schedules if they are late enrollees or if they are far behind. If you see changes in your student’s schedule (a large amount of lessons appearing as “completed”) that is why. I will of course inform you of this prior to me doing this. The courses that this may apply to would be GUM, Composition, and History for some grade levels. Math is a different situation and will be handled by having your student “test out” . This basically means we will have your student take the unit assessments, passing with 80% or better and continuing that process until not attainable. I will be in contact with the new families in regards to this.

****PLEASE NOTE: for those students who started Cava the beginning of the school year and are behind, will have their courses compacted, leaving them with lessons that are crucial and key for their grade level year. However, the lack of progress and lack of assignments completed will be represented in their grade. This is merely, to help them stay up on their grade level courses and again be prepared for the end of the year testing.

· Hiding Courses – As you know core courses are very important for your student to be completing in order for them to be prepared and knowledgeable of the content area. Music and art, however, are courses that at times are necessary to “hide” so that students can focus their time on “core” subject areas (Math, Language, Science, History). Starting Monday, some students may notice that this has been applied to their schedules. My hiding these courses will not affect their grade but will help them catch up and work on increasing their progress in the areas needed.

Study Island – I just wanted to check in to ensure you had received and understood an email that went out last week in regards to Study Island and the extra option I gave to “match up” blue ribbons. I have taken a snapshot however, of how you can ensure your student is obtaining the ribbons necessary for the remaining part of the semester.

You will log into your Study Island account (studentIDnumber@cava/cava). You will see 2 tabs, if you click on the bottom tab (grade level/teacher name), you will be able to view ALL of the blue ribbons. This area will display how many ribbons you have out of the total required. Don’t worry too much about the due date on there as I will be working on that this week.

I hope this information helps as you start your week off tomorrow (Monday). I will be in touch with you and look forward to working with you and your family as we continuing down Semester 2. If you have not already done so, please visit the blog (listed below) I have created for this class to help keep all of the emails I send out organized and easily accessible for you and your student.