Bear Cub Digest #9

Posted Date: 10/05/26 (07:47 AM)

View Original Post

Bear Cub Digest

Parent & Community Newsletter

October 5, 2026

Picture that says "End of First Quarter"

End of the Quarter

Welcome back to another busy week of school! Friday marks the end of the first quarter, and we have accomplished so much. Our first quarter report cards will be coming out soon and we will be having our first Parent Resource Night next Tuesday evening for grades K-2. Parents, please take advantage of this time to learn about what your children are learning and how you may be able to support their learning. Please see what else we have been up to below.

October Events

Oct 6- Instructional Coaches Day

Oct 7- Cross Country Meet @ Osceola High

School

Oct 9- End of Quarter 1

Oct 12- Teacher Workday- No students

Oct 13- Begin Quarter 2/ Parent Resource Night (K-2)

Oct 13- Cross Country Meet @ Voyager K-8

Oct 15- Dress Down Day

Oct 15- Cross Country Meet @ Kissimmee Middle School

Oct 20- SAC/PTO Meeting @ 7am

Oct 21- DEAL Buddies

Oct. 22- Parent Resource Night (3-5)

Oct 23- Quarter 1 Report Cards Go Home

Oct 23- Student Club Day

Oct 30- Leadership Parade

A pennant with the word college and a briefcase with the word career.

College and Career Week

We had an amazing College and Career week! Thank you to all staff, students, and families for participating and showing support for this amazing week! See a few pictures below from last week's fun!

Winston with student in University of Florida shirts

Picture with the words classroom walkthrough to improve teaching and learning.

Impact Walk

Last week we had the opportunity to showcase our classrooms and instructional practices to members of our school district leadership team, district resource staff, and the principal from Kissimmee Elementary School. This practice is known as an Impact Walk. During this time, school instructional leaders walk with our district teams to examine the learning taking place throughout the campus. We were able to walk to 22 classrooms, and we received excellent feedback. We are so proud of the excellent instruction and work taking place at NCES! Please see some pictures from our walks below.

Principal of Kissimmee Elementary School looking at learning

Impact walk and assistant superintendents

Assistant superintended asking student question during impact walk

Monitoring for Learning

Monitoring learning is the continuous process of observing, measuring, and evaluating student progress to guide instructional decisions and improve understanding. Some strategies used to monitor for learning include the following"

Checks for understanding: Ask frequent, targeted questions during a lesson rather than waiting until the end.
Formative assessments: Use quick tools like exit slips, mini whiteboards, or peer checks to gauge mastery in real time.
Active circulation: Walk around the room while students work independently to provide immediate feedback and catch misconceptions.
Data-driven reflection: Review ongoing results to quick checks and assessments.

Quick check for understanding example with three color cards

Student with cards for check for understanding

Students lifting signs for checking for understanding

A picture of books and the words Academic corner.

Active Learning

Our schoolwide focus area this week continues to be strengthening instructional practice. As mentioned last week, the expectation for all classrooms is that explicit instruction is being implemented by the teacher. Explicit teaching is a structured, systematic teaching method where the teacher clearly explains concepts, models skills step by step, and guides student practice before independent work. The teacher uses unambiguous, direct, and concise explanations. The teacher then breaks complex skills into manageable chunks to prevent cognitive overload. The lesson is gradually released, which means the teacher moves from "I do" (teacher models), to "We do" (guided practice), to "You do" (independent practice). Throughout the lesson, the teacher continuously checks for understanding and provides immediate feedback. See some examples of this in the pictures of Mrs. Dugger (2nd grade teacher) and Mrs. Waters (1st grade teacher) below.