Welcome to our 2014-15 School Year

Welcome to our 2014-15 School Year

We a blasting off this year for our Janssen Way/PBIS focus on making good decisions each and every day.  Our staff has worked extremely hard this summer to get our focus, lessons, and boosters finalized to deliver to our students.  The focus aligns with our school's vision statement:

We have narrowed our target to being respectful and responsible for what you do at school and in the community.  Each morning our students are reminded about our focus and purpose as Janssen students during our all school Morning PAWS.  We share with our students that it is not simply about knowing what to do but to put this knowledge into practice each day.  It is great to see the collective value that the Janssen Way brings into our building, defining our building to best support our students.

In addition to making meaning and practicing our community values,  we are also targeting 'making connections'--teachers and students making connections to support students who may be having moments where they are not engaged and productive.  In other words we want to ensure that our students truly believe they can come to an adult at school when having issues--academic or social.

I am very happy on how we have started our school year and am excited for my staff to continue with making the Janssen Way the enduring fabric of our building.

Sincerely,

Principal N

Great Job to our Janssen Bulldogs Triangle

As I look over SWIS data for the month of April, it is obvious that 10% of all students had at least one minor recorded.  This means that 90% of our students did not have one minor.  Over 400 students and 18 days of schools in the month and only 10% needed a booster to what is the Janssen Way.  Only 1% of our students had two or more minors for the month of April.  This means that 99% of students did a great job practicing the Janssen Way.  What about the 1%?  Yes great kids who simply are making some poor choices this past month.

Why is this happening at Janssen?  TEACHERS, STUDENTS, & PARENTS.  April will be ending tomorrow and our teachers are still holding our students to a high level for practicing our community values. April will be ending tomorrow and our students definitely know what is a poor decision and what is a good decision.  April will be ending tomorrow and our parents understand and continue to promote what we do at school in the community.

As the building's principal, I cannot be more proud of our the Janssen Bulldogs Triangle of Ts, Ss, and Ps.
You Rock!  Woof!  Woof!

Sincerely,
Mr. N

Because outside of school...we also can do the Janssen Way

Sharing with our community:

One of the proponents of PBIS/Janssen Way is sharing what we do with our families--directly and indirectly.  The direct correspondence includes emails, phone calls, all school artifacts, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and 1:1 meetings.  Indirect communication comes with what our students share at parents in the vehicle, at the dinner table, while playing a board game, and putting toys away.

It is great to hear parents share with teachers about the PBIS vocabulary that their students are using in experiences outside the school.  It is great to see our students in the Y-Care program practicing our line and body basics.  It is great to see our students show this level of citizenship in community programs like Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, and rec league sports.

Resiliency and perseverance need to be our reminder and support system.  We are to continue to teach and hold our students accountable for acting as important and productive citizens as school and out of school.  It our responsibility as adults in our community.  Why?  We should want this generation of citizens to have the skill set to lead us when they become productive adults and provide the same conviction to citizenship for their children.

Thank you for you time.

Mr. Nikolaou

The Time of Year 4 Boosters

The time of year for boosters:

Our winter break is over and our students have come back to us with their seasonal high energies.  Their excitement from their break can carryover into school and compete with the normalcy that we have set up from the beginning of the school year in our classroom matrices.  With that said, post winter break times calls for boosters to re-establish our normalcy for good decision making and the daily practice of the Janssen Way...
...and we started with boosters on our first day back from winter break by re-calibrating our students' expectation levels and practices of line basics, body basics, and voice levels during lunch time.  Great job to Mr. Mueller, Mr. Zdanovec, classroom teachers, and noon-hour supervisors on working together to provide our students with lunch room boosters to the Janssen Way.
Why did we target the lunchroom for boosters?  Our SWIS data shows us evidence that our students' behavior for respecting our noon hour supervisors and sustaining appropriate voice levels needed some tweaking.  Through our staff's efforts, we were able to provide timely and purposeful feedback and redirection to our students at a universal level.

We will continue to look at our SWIS data through the year to drive purposeful and timely actions that build our school's capacity in the Janssen Way.

Because at Janssen every day...

Mr. Nikolaou

Because at Janssen, everyday...

...we DO the Janssen Way!

Our students orate this catch phrase each Monday morning at Morning Paws.  The purpose is to build ownership with our students on the Janssen Way.  It is not about simply know what to do or not to do, but to make the decision and act on making positive choices.  The weekly reminder is purposeful.  We want to continue to keep the DOING at the forefront of the students' day.  When we see the positive choices when then acknowledge.  The acknowledging makes the students feel successful.  When the students feel successful they are more motivated.  When they are more motivated they DO more.  When the DO more they own the DOING.  When they own the DOING, they see a purpose to why it is important to DO.

This approach is only successful because our staff has ownership in PBIS.   They see the successes in 90% of our students and see purpose for continuing to own the integration of PBIS in their classrooms with fidelity.

What about the remaining 10%?  We have great kids who make poor choices sometimes--not purposefully, but more impulsively.  We are working through PBIS Tiers II and III to provide generalized support for a small group within the 10% of students through a process called Check In-Check Out (CICO).  Our small group of students check in with their learning coach throughout the day.  This process provides us information to better anticipate students' needs and provides students with a set of expectations for them to practice throughout the day.  We are in the initial practices for CICO, but our committed small group of staff members are continuously refining the process to positively impact this small group of students.

Great job to all our adults practicing PBIS--The Janssen Way.

Sincerely,

Mr. N

Extra Extra Read All About It...

Dear Reader:

"Extra, extra...read all about it:  Janssen Elementary is in their 3rd year of implementing PBIS-aka The Janssen Way.  And...we started our year off with such a WOOOOF!!! from our staff and students.  We began our year with an all school assembly that we called our Boarding Ceremony.  Our staff was decked out in a Hawaiian cruise wear theme and cruise music was playing throughout the school.  Each grade level represented a cruise ship ready to embark on fantastic voyage where as a school we revisit/teach our expected community values of honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility.

[Chorus] "...because at Janssen every day...we DO the Janssen Way!"

Two weeks later, our cruise ships returned from their voyages of knowing, making meaning, and practicing our community values and docked themselves in a second all school assembly.  Here, each grade level shared their learning through writing samples about the Janssen Way.

We are four weeks into the school year and you can clearly see our students routinely and purposefully practicing the Janssen Way.  Kudos to our entire staff for facilitating our students learning in citizenship.
At Janssen, we a have a staff that sees the value in PBIS and continually push each other to support our students into practicing the Janssen Way.

To another great start to our school year...thank you all!!!

Bon Voyage
"Captain" Nikolaou :-)

Dear Janssen Readers:

I have added a poem written by one of our third grade students about teachers.  This revealed to me an example the value-laden impact our Janssen Way has on students.

Enjoy:

A Poem about Teachers

Each teacher is unique,

Each one has something in common:

One:  to teach us to stay active,

One:  to teach us to be musicians,

One:  to help us with reading and math, 

One:  to teach us with something truly amazing--The Janssen Bulldog Way.

Also thank you for making this year great!

Thank you,

Mr. Nikolaou