[Simtrainer-l] 'Tis the season

[Schumaker, Jean]

Hi All! I hope your new year is going well. As they say, “’Tis the season,” and our season is upon us. We all need to work together to help schools in any way that we can to prepare for the coming school year. The schools have millions of dollars available to them (if their states have made them available) to provide services to students who have fallen behind. Those dollars need to be spent before 2024. We know that thousands of students have fallen behind during the pandemic, and many were already behind their age-peers. SIM offers many programs that the schools can use to “close the gap.”
    Xtreme Reading (XR) is one of them. To learn more about XR, the CRL is hosting an XR Informational Webinar on Feb. 16 from 3:30-4:30 pm CST. The purpose of the informational webinar is to provide an overview of Xtreme Reading and discuss critical preparations for effective implementation (e.g., teacher selection, student selection, master schedule, PD needed). The link to register for the XR Overview webinar is: https://tinyurl.com/XRinfowebinar<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2FXRinfowebinar&data=04%7C01%7Cjschumak%40ku.edu%7C674cf5ceea4c4e9e545508d9e0fd0b58%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637788199685604446%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=t3Q%2FKOu%2BAyUB2fC8Jo5IT5QBf4DEJBOXH7u6jtWz31o%3D&reserved=0>. Please consider attending the XR Overview webinar, and invite your colleagues to join you!
    All of this preparation work for XR takes months, and the teachers will need to participate in PD this spring or summer. Here is a link to the Virtual XR Institute for Teachers, to be held June 27-29, 2022 with coaching throughout next academic year: https://sim.ku.edu/2022
(Of course, districts can subsidize their own PD for the teachers if they have a large group of teachers.)
    If you aren’t interested in Xtreme Reading as an offering, please consider providing workshops, courses, and online offerings. Numerous PDers have created online offerings that they are willing to share. Just send out an inquiry on this listserv to see if someone has an online module you can use or to offer one you have created.
   As you are thinking about supporting the vitality of small businesses in your area during the pandemic, please consider supporting Edge Enterprises, too. By giving workshops and teaching courses about SIM, you are enabling our SIM distribution arm to stay healthy. We have been fortunate to get two loans from the federal government that have kept us in business the last two years. However, no more loans of this type are available this year. Your support by providing workshops and courses is vital in keeping our distribution process going.
    We know that teachers and administrators are really struggling with the basics, and they are not necessarily thinking about providing new instruction to students. That’s where you come in! They need you to remind them that they have access to monies for that very purpose and that you can help them. Thanks for all you are doing to keep our SIM work in the minds of people around you!  I’m VERY grateful for all that you are doing to help students learn. Jean
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