Ms. Anderson's Epic Class

It’s that time again! Please get re-enrolled for next year ASAP!

GO AHEAD AND RE-ENROLL EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT SURE YOU’RE COMING BACK NEXT YEAR. Enrolling with us does NOT mean that you can’t go anywhere else. It just means that you’re saving your spot just in case you decide to stay or can’t get in to where you want to go.

If you re-enroll before the end of February, you get an extra $50 credit to your Learning Funds next year—per student! Also, it guarantees your spot on my roster. We are preparing for another big bump in enrollment this year, so it’s super important to secure your spot now. If you wait too long to enroll, there is a very good chance you will not get to stay with me (although, there is an option for you to request a new teacher for next year if you do not want to stay with me).

The other huge thing about re-enrolling NOW is that it keeps your account active over the summer. If you do not re-enroll before the end of school, then all of your Epic stuff (Chromebook, Mi-Fi, learning fund activities, etc.) will get turned off on May 27th, and there will be no way to turn it back on until school starts again in September. So…make sure you get that taken care of now!

Click here to enroll for next year!

Greetings, all!

We have been asked to make sure that everyone’s picture in Epicenter is updated. This is especially useful for testing, but it is something that needs to be updated each year anyway. ACT people: you cannot take the ACT if you don’t have a picture uploaded, so this is required for you.

Please take a fabulous picture of your student (or a selfie, if you are the student) and email/text it to me. DO NOT USE ANY FILTERS. This just needs to be a regular, boring picture of your smiling face. I will upload it to Epicenter for you.

Also, here is some updated information about testing:

Do I have to test? Can I opt out of it?

Normally, the answer is NO. However, this year, because of all the Covid stuff, families have been given the opportunity to opt out.  You can read the email sent out by Epic administrators here.

Important things to understand about testing this year (info taken from the email linked above):

Grades 03–08: If you don’t sit for a State test, then you sit for a Spring benchmark (which will probably be more difficult than the actual State test). Grade 03, your reading score on your Benchmark/State test will determine if you promote to the 4th grade.

Grade 11: You must take your HS tests in order to graduate. If you don’t take them this year, you must take them next year. No substitutions. My recommendation is to just show up this year and get it over with.

Grade 12: If you weren’t a junior at a public high school last year and given the medical exemption for testing, then you have to take the tests this year before you can graduate. Check with me if you’re not sure.

PLEASE go to State testing if you can. We are doing everything we can to make sure the environment is safe and as free of germs as possible.

You can find more information about testing on the 2021 State Testing FAQs page.

Well, ClassTag is not being nearly as helpful as I’d hoped it would be. I’m switching us back to Remind.

Remind is another program (that I’ve used and loved in the past) that helps me send out announcements.

I will be entering everyone’s information for you. You will be signed up with both your email and your phone number (students, I will be using your school email). Look for invitations via text and in your email (you may have to check your Spam).

It also has an app that I highly recommend you download (Android/Apple). The push notifications are less cluttered than the text-only notifications.

I’ll be archiving the ClassTag stuff in a few days.

We’re finally going to be able to settle into a routine. I’m so happy about that because I’m a routine-driven person. All this wishy-washy schedule stuff is stressing me out!

Everyone should have gotten an email reminder with the invitation to your recurring meeting attached to it. If it hasn’t shown up in your inbox, please check your Spam folder. Sometimes, oddly, Google Calendar stuff will get put in there.

It’s very important that everyone go ahead and accept your meeting, even if we need to change the day/time. If there’s any possible way we can keep the pre-scheduled time, then that would be super helpful. There are a lot of you, and trying to give everyone individual time makes balancing the calendar difficult. Recurring meetings are required and checked by our principal, so it’s super important that we get things going.

IMPORTANT: Everyone needs to get familiar with their Google Calendar. You can set reminders for events so that you don’t forget. Here’s how:

1. Open your Calendar and click on your meeting event with me
2. Click on the little pencil icon that shows up on the left of the trash can icon
3. Underneath “Join Zoom Meeting,” there should be an option to add notifications
4. I like to add a reminder for one hour and another reminder for 10 minutes (I get distracted).
5. Press “Save“

Ta-da! Now you won’t ever forget that we’re having a meeting!

Another thing that is super helpful is to share your school calendar with your personal Google calendar (like the one for your phone). That way, when you pull up your calendar on your phone, you will see everything that is scheduled on your personal account AND what’s on your school account. No more double-booking. PARENTS: You can share all of your students’ school calendars with your own personal calendar. I highly recommend you do this so you always know who’s doing what when.

Here’s how to share:

1. Open your school Calendar from your Chromebook (or whatever you use)
2. Look for “My Calendars” in the left sidebar (if your sidebar is closed, you can open it by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the top-left corner)
3. Hover over your school calendar name so the little three dots appear next to it.
4. Click on the three dots and select “Settings and sharing“
5. On the left sidebar of the page that comes up, select “Share with specific people“
6. Click on the “+Add people” button
7. Enter your personal Google email (you won’t be able to change the permission settings)
8. Press “Send“
9. Check your email and accept the invite.

Now you can go to your personal account and share it with your school account (recommended only for students who have their own personal calendar/phone). If you link accounts, I encourage you set permissions to make changes to events when you go to enter your school email (step number 7). That way, you can edit both calendars when you have your school account open. Now both calendars will show all events, no matter what account you have open!

Take time to really get to know Google Calendar. It will make your life so much easier!

I hope everyone had a great holiday break! School starts back up tomorrow, January 04!

We only have about 3 months to finish the year since testing starts in mid-April (early April for grade 11). I have everyone (even non-testers) on this pace because I will not be available during testing. I will be spending my days proctoring at the test site. Don’t be surprised if I end up pushing your pace a little, especially if you ended last semester behind. We absolutely have to get serious about doing all our daily activities every day. You know, since they’re called daily activities…

Covid has really messed things up for me. Although I only had the virus about a week, I’m stuck with long-term Covid recovery (and there’s no telling when it will end). The fatigue and brain fog are UNREAL. I have spent the majority of the break on the couch because even washing dishes is exhausting. I’m not exactly sure what the next few weeks will look like, but I’m going to do my best. Please be patient with me as I work with my doctor to get better. I’ve never been this out of it, so it will definitely be an adventure.

We still need to complete benchmarking. We’re going to be taking these tests during your regular appointment time (if you’ve already done your benchmarks, then we’ll just have our regular appointment). I actually have all of you already scheduled for your recurring appointments. To see when your appointments are on your calendar, make sure that you’re logged in with your Epic account and go to calendar.google.com. You should see an appointment with me either this week or next week. Some of you will meet with me every other week, some of you will meet with me weekly. It’s already set up. You may still need to accept it, though. EDIT: 11th graders, we will schedule a separate ACT testing time. We will just have our regular meeting during your recurring appointment.

Everyone’s curriculum should be working except Pathblazer. They were supposed to have figured out during break why everyone’s stuff disappeared, but nothing has been done, so y’all will be doing some alternate activities for your second semester work. I’m working on your pacing guides as fast as I can, but since my energy is limited, I’m not able to do as much at one time as I used to. I’ll be sending them out to you this week (or at least that’s the goal).

This semester is going to be another weird one. I ask that you keep your expectations flexible and just go with the flow. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone!

Pathblazer peeps: 

It turns out that the Science and Social Studies courses that were auto-loaded for us at the beginning of the year are just ridiculous. I’ve spent the last week going over what’s in them and comparing them to what you’re supposed to be learning and there are SO MANY GAPS. Many of the Semester B courses only have ONE ACTIVITY. Like, who made these??? I’ve removed them from your assignments and you will never see them again.

To make sure you still get credit for what you’ve done, I’m combining the Semester A and B courses into only the Semester A course in your actual, Epic gradebook. I’ve been putting together new courses for everyone that look like this: Grade Subject PLP—Anderson (example: 05 Science PLP—Anderson). You have the rest of the year to complete these assignments for both your Science and your Social Studies. Assignment them is slow going because I’m having to touch every activity in every level, but they should all be ready to go by the end of the day today.

Many of you have also finished your Math and ELA assignments, but your grades are very low. Make sure you are going over every activity in your Pathblazer gradebook and redoing anything that is below an 80 at least. Please look through this help document so that you know how to work your program.

Don’t just click through your activities! You have to read your lessons. I know, crazy, right? Hang in there!

Y’all. Covid is NO JOKE. I think I’ve coughed more in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life.

However, I can mute myself when I test y’all, so now that I can sit up for longer than a few minutes, I’d like to try to get some benchmarks crossed off my list! I’ve opened up the first 3 days of next week as well to try and catch up a little bit. If you’re not sure if you already have testing appointments made, make sure you’re logged into your Epic account and check your calendar. Please visit the signup link and get some slots claimed: https://bit.ly/apptanderson

The only thing that could put a wrench into the schedule is if I’m able to get into my doctor’s office. I’m trying to make an appointment to get my lungs x-rayed because they aren’t getting better. So, if you make an appointment for the next few days, just be aware that it could get superseded by a trip to the doctor or ER.

Thank you for being flexible and patient as I try to get better! Y’all stay safe out there and wash your hands!

Thank you for completing your Quarter 1 benchmarks last month! It’s now time for…Quarter 2 benchmarks!

I know, I know, they are close together. Our testing schedule for this year ended up a mess because of all the tech issues we had at the beginning of the year. So, that means that we ended up squishing the Quarter 2 and the Winter Benchmarks together into one window to allow for the Fall window to be extended. The tests for Q2/Winter are full benchmark tests, so they will be our normal, full-length tests (like we took at the beginning of the year). You can see the full, updated testing schedule here.

This is also frustrating because I just finished putting together a beautiful regular meeting schedule with everyone, and now I have to take it down for the rest of the month so that I can do more benchmarking. But…it is what it is, and that’s okay. Y’all email me if you need a meeting.

MasteryConnect is being funky right now (surprise, surprise), so we’re only doing STAR tests at the moment (grades PK–03). However, I am opening up the schedule for grades PK–08 starting December 08 (next Tuesday) since they have promised us that MC should be good by then. Make sure that you’re clicking on the right appointment slot when you’re signing up. Grades 09–11, you will take your Q2 ACT exam after Christmas (the week of Jan 04) so you’re good for the moment.

Here are the tests you’ll be taking for Q2 (remember to make a separate appointment for each test):

• PK–01: STAR Early Literacy
• 02: STAR Reading, MC Math
• 03: STAR Reading, MC Math, MC ELA
• 04: MC Math, MC ELA
• 05: MC Math, MC ELA, MC Science
• 06: MC Math, MC ELA
• 07: MC Math, MC ELA
• 08: MC Math, MC ELA, MC Science
• 09–11: Q2 ACT (will be given in January)

Q2 Benchmark Signup Link (access also at bit.ly/apptanderson)

Thank you for your flexibility! Keep working and I’ll see you soon for testing!

As we took our benchmarks this last week, I realized that many of my students were unaware that they had access to their own Google Calendar. Being familiar with this calendar will make your life SO much easier!

To access it, go to calendar.google.com on your Chromebook or whatever device you use (just make sure you’re signed in with your Epic email address). You can also access it from that little waffle thing next to your profile picture from a Google page or a new tab.

Once you’ve pulled this up on your Chromebook, add it to your bookmarks bar and drag it to the far left so you can see and access it easily.

All the meetings that you’ve scheduled with me will end up on this calendar. If you click on an event, you will see the Zoom link and any other information the body of the event.

There is SO much stuff that you can do with Google Calendar that will help make your life easier. My Google Calendar is my life. If it doesn’t get put on my calendar, then it doesn’t exist. Like, I even schedule in lunch during the week. I also color code events so that I can easily see what’s going on when I look at the week. For example, I like to make all benchmarks orange, all student meetings green, and all staff meetings yellow. I highly encourage you to color code your activities!

Another thing that will be very helpful to you is the Tasks feature. You can access it by clicking on the little blue circle with a pen in it.

You can enter all the activities you need to do and even put in due dates so that you are reminded when it comes up. Then you can just check it off as done!

To see all the awesome things you can do with Google Calendar, check out Google’s Calendar Help page. PLEASE take some time to familiarize yourself with this fabulous program and make checking it regularly a priority. As always, I’m happy to help if you need it!

Exciting news! Everyone gets their own meetings now!

My roster count is down to 40, which makes scheduling recurring, individual meetings much easier. I have already removed all the group meetings from the calendar and am drafting up possible iterations of a calendar for individual meetings.

In order to help me put this together, I need to know what your preferences are. I may not be able to be 100% accommodating, but I want to do as much as I can! Please fill out the following form so that I can draft a calendar that works for everyone. For the moment, pretend that you will be meeting with me every week. Many of you will be scheduled for every other week, but I’m still not exactly sure who that will be yet. Each student will need this form. If you have multiple children, please fill out a separate form for each child.

Individual Meeting Preferences

Keep an eye on your email (both students and parents) for a calendar invitation! Sometimes they end up in Spam, so check that folder regularly.