Happy Earth Day from Distinctive Schools! We are committed to helping our students learn about sustainability and protecting our planet. What are some ways you and your family show love to our environment? 🌳❤️
Our partners at Move This World visited our CICS Prairie and CICS West Belden campuses to talk to staff and students about how Social Emotional Learning really works in our classrooms! Take a look at what #SEL looks like in our classrooms – and let us know which of the emogers your family uses. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvXWBH_Jwpc&t=16s
School highlight! Plymouth Educational Center hosted an awesome activity to close out March Reading Month- The Book Parade! Kindergarten marched in their paper bag book vests and first grade marched with their favorite book posters. All students lined the parade route and cheered on their peers. PEC is fostering a life long love of reading!
Today is National Paraprofessional Day! The work our paraprofessionals do is so important – to ensure that students of all abilities have what they need to succeed. We thank you for all you contribute to our learning environments! We celebrate incredible, supportive, thoughtful educators every day – and especially today! We appreciate you, Distinctive Schools Paraprofessionals!
Happy National Assistant Principals Week! Assistant Principals, this week is all about YOU! Thank you for your dedication and leadership, as work to keep our schools running smoothly, every single day. We cannot say it enough – you are all #ALLin, and you mean so much to all of us. From the bottom of our hearts – thank you!
"Holding onto the mantra that we truly are Better Together, we are collaborating with our partners to accelerate learning and provide the kind of support our students and families need and deserve." Learn more in the latest article from Next Generation Learning Challenges – https://bit.ly/22_BetterTogether
We’re proud to partner with @@deanslistschools to support strong, positive relationships with every family. Today, @CICSIrvingPark Dean of Students, Joe Sloan will speak about the way DeansList has supported students through the Puma PRIDE store, and share how CICS Irving Park has leveraged new School Store features to build buy-in and engagement. Will we see you there? This session begins soon – don’t miss “Buying-In” with the School Store: Building Student Engagement – there is still time to register: https://www.deanslistsoftware.com/summit-2022
Are you joining the @deanslistschools Virtual Summit 2022 today? We’d love to see you in an upcoming session, Attendance: Strategies for Reducing Absenteeism! DeansList supports a multi-faceted approach to tackle absenteeism, while taking specific student needs into account. Assistant Director of Culture & Operations @CICSBucktown, Kory Kliebert will share strategies for using DeansList to support attendance interventions.
Happy #SELday everyone! SEL or Social Emotional Learning is extremely important to our mission at Distinctive Schools. When students understand their emotional health, they grow as individuals both in their academics and daily life. Shout out to our partners @Move_ThisWorld for their amazing SEL curriculum and thank you to caresolace24_7 for making the first steps in getting support even easier!
This week is National School Social Work Week and we are celebrating our amazing Social Workers! Thank you for partnering with students, families, and staff to ensure our communities are safe, warm, welcoming environments for all! We appreciate you!
We’re excited to launch the Test to Stay program this March! In partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health, Test to Stay will provide an alternative to quarantine to keep more students learning safely in-person. Read more here: https://bit.ly/DS_COVID19
This CEO Spotlight celebrates a talented instructor, incredible colleague, and passionate leader who has dedicated the majority of her career to serving the students and families of CICS Prairie. Thank you to our Assistant Principal of CICS Prairie, Yvonne Glenn!
Yvonne has a true gift for preparing students for the future. She builds and maintains strong, supportive relationships with students, families, and staff that carry on well beyond their time in the classroom. The generous gift of her time has made an immeasurable impact in the lives of all who are fortunate enough to cross paths with her.
Yvonne, we look forward to the new ways your leadership will grow and thrive as Assistant Principal. We cannot thank you enough for all that you contribute to our community. We’re happy to share that this month, Yvonne, the spotlight is on YOU! We appreciate you and are grateful for you. Thank you for choosing to be Distinctive.
Celebrate – Honor – REFLECT
Today is the final day of Black History Month. We close with a quote from the always inspiring author, novelist, playwright, poet, activist, and brilliant mind of James Baldwin, “History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary…” Let his words serve as a reminder that history is being written now, as we carry it in our hearts, we celebrate, honor, reflect. Black history is everyday.
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is an educator, curriculum designer & author of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. As we reflect on how we as educators can strive to #CultivateGenius, Dr. Muhammad’s texts have been so inspiring! Her work has provided an incredible framework for how we REFLECT on curriculum and analyze texts.
We are so proud to be featured by our partners Move This World as a Success Story! "While elevating academic achievement is the core focus of any school, Distinctive Schools in Chicago and Detroit recognizes the importance of prioritizing the social-emotional needs of all students and staff to build safer, more equitable, and better-connected communities. Their commitment to supporting the social, emotional, and academic development of students has become a central pillar of the Distinctive Way and is integrated into their strategic plan." Check out the full story here: https://bit.ly/MoveThisWorld_DS
Celebrate – HONOR – Reflect
Marva Collins, famous Educator, Chicago native, and education pioneer, is someone whose life and work are held in high HONOR. Marva Collins worked to serve students with a focus on teaching and reaching the whole child. As an educator, including in developing a whole-child model and philosophy, Collins ensured that strong teaching and learning take place every single day – she is an amazing example of passion and dedication; she is a testament to the impact a teacher can have.
There is no one way to be kind, there are infinite ways! Do what you can today to make someone’s day. Being Distinctive means being kind – what can you do today where you are, with what you have to #MakeKindnessTheNorm? #RandomActsofKindness #BeDistinctive
We are proud of to have been featured in a wonderful Move This World webinar! Distinctive Leaders shared how we use data to inform network-wide SEL initiatives. This data-driven approach has enabled us to integrate SEL data into daily instruction in multiple ways to strengthen SEL programs and practices!
Distinctive leaders thinking BIG – planning for the future we create, developing ideas for what school can be – Reimagined. More to come, we're #JustGettingStarted! #WeAreDistinctive
We are honored to be featured in this CRPE report about reinventing education through Social Emotional Learning! Katie O’Connor, Chief Education Officer, shared, “We prioritize resources by way of leadership through what we believe in. One [leader] is all of the academics. And the other is really related to the social-emotional learning student services.” Learn more about SEL at Distinctive Schools here: https://bit.ly/CRPE_DS_SEL
