August 10, 2020

By Allan  

Hi Everyone,

I’m sending my Back-to-School Email a lot earlier than I usually do, but if you’re like my wife, a longtime 4J kindergarten teacher who recently switched over to ELL at Gilham, you’re wanting to know what the fall will look like. If you read Cydney’s Email or attended the Staff Zoom Info Session, you already know that K-12 students will be learning online first trimester, so December 7th is the earliest any grades will potentially return to some form of in-person learning. There are still a loads of logistics to figure out for fall comprehensive distance learning, such as student materials distribution (supply lists or district purchased?), meal distribution, how instruction will work, specialist and classified duties, staff working from home or working at school, etc. but I figured I’d share what we do know at this point.

Before I get to the good stuff, I wanted to say linked here is my weekly staff announcements, Allan’s Announcements. My intention with these is to send just one email to all staff per week during the school year, so as not to clutter up your inboxes. My hope is that staff read the announcements by the end of the day Tuesday each week (once school starts, that is). These sometimes get long, but I like to err on the side of over-communicating rather than under-communicating. I’d advise staff to read the bold heading for each bulleted item and you can decide from there if it applies to you or not.

Alright, here we go…

Thirteen items of note for this week’s announcements:

• Staffing Updates – With Andrea, Carrie, Kim, Leah, and Sarah leaving Holt last year, we have several new staff members joining us this fall:

• Katie Gulewich (Kindergarten) – Katie most recently taught 2nd grade in Eureka, California, but did her student teaching here in 4J at Camus Ridge. She’s also worked in the health care industry and also for United Way of Lane County.

• Maya Otsuki (Kindergarten) – Maya student taught this past school year at McCornack in a 2nd grade classroom. Maya has also worked as map and aerial photography and was also an Ultimate Frisbee coach!

• Elizabeth Cobb (1st Grade) – Elizabeth did her student teaching here at Holt with Ashley and has also worked as a swim coach and as a Title 1 Educational Assistant in the Bend Lapine School District.

• Caitlin Benavides (3rd Grade) – Caitlin comes to us from Corridor, where she taught 2nd and 5th grade the past three years. Before that she taught 6th grade at Oak Hill for several years and prior to that taught 2nd grade in Southern California.

• Allan Chinn (Principal) – I’m new here too. Here’s my earlier Introduction Email. My offer still stands if any of you would like to chat with your new principal about Holt, I’m available to meet for coffee, at school, by phone, text, or otherwise (NPR did a story recently about some businesses breaking the monotony of Zoom by meeting in Minecraft, Animal Crossing, or Grand Theft Auto). Just let me know!

We also have a few positions we’re hiring for:

• Student Success Coordinator (SSC) – As a replacement for Holt’s part-time assistant principal, downtown has created a new full-time licensed position for three of 4J’s largest and highest needs schools (Chavez, Holt, and Howard), which will focus on behavior support, PBIS & IPBS, as well as day-to-day student discipline and classroom support. If I’d gotten my choice, I’d have included Holt staff on this hiring committee, but downtown made this a pool hiring process where all three schools are hiring at the same time with downtown admin having the final say. Interviews finished up last week and I’m waiting for them to make their final decision.

• Essential Skills Coordinator (ESC) – Holt received 0.45 FTE for an ESC, which supports Data Teams, progress monitoring, state assessments, and other student supports and interventions. I wanted to supplemented this with 0.05 FTE from Title 1 funds in hopes that a half-time position would attract a better pool of candidates since that’s the cut point for receiving benefits, but HR said that’s not allowable because it had previously posted at 0.45 FTE at the Job Expo, but that we could supplement it later.

• Title 1 EAs – We’re also hiring for two Title 1 EA positions, a 4-hour Title 1 EA Position and a 3-hour Title 1 EA position to replace Tanelle Azzato, who resigned over the summer in order to take care of her family. Dan originally staffed two 3.75-hour Title 1 EA position, but that’s not allowable since it’s too close to the cut point for benefits, so I posted for one 4-hour position instead and hope to add the different to round up the ESC position to half-time. 

If you know of anyone who’s an excellent candidate and a good fit for Holt, please reach out and encourage them to apply!

Below is a list of the gen ed classroom teaching assignments and linked here is the updated Holt Staff Directory. Let me know if I missed any classified or licensed staff and I’ll get them added.

KG: Katie Gulewich, Lesli Harmon, Maya Otsuki, Jeff Stimler
1st: Jacque Barton, Elizabeth Cobb, Heidi Gori, Lisa Zluticky
2nd: Candace Lovato, Sarah Jane Moore, Jenna Norton
3rd: Caitlin Benavides, James Longoria, Desiree Taley
4th: Lindsey Daggett, Ashley Reich, Mandy Robinson, Ashley Wolf
5th: Liz Ayres, Debbi Heinrich, Geoff Parks

• Interview Committee Volunteers? – I’m planning to conduct interviews for the Title 1 EA and ESC positions the week of August 24th. I’m leaning towards doing these interviews in-person at school, socially distanced outside the building, if there are any staff members, both classified and licensed, would like to volunteer their time to help hire our newest staff members. Just let me know if you’re interested!

• Oregon Student Investment Account (SIA) Funds – As part of the Student Success Act, Holt was originally slated to receive 0.5 FTE for a K/1 Facilitating teacher through SIA funding from the state, but the state has indicated that school districts will receive a reduced amount, so these positions are on hold across the district until the state makes a final decision.

• Building Access – Downtown is asking all staff to hold off on accessing buildings until Monday, August 17th and have established COVID-19 protocols that are in compliance with state guidelines. When staff return to work (whether that’s in-person or virtually), I will review the linked Return To Work Presentation with all staff, which may undergo revisions between now and then (an update from the state is due to come out Tuesday).

In the meantime, here is a summary of the current health and safety procedures the district asked principals to share with staff. It’s important you are familiar with these before you come to school to do any on-site work.

• Front Entrance Only – There will be a single point of entry to the building. All staff must enter through the main entrance, and may not come and go through other exterior doors. Badge access will not work on other perimeter doors.
• Sign-In/Out – You will be required to sign in and sign out at the main entrance every time you come to work at the building. This supports the requirement to contact trace if we have any COVID cases in the district.
• No Visitors – Buildings are closed to the public. Visitors will be required to schedule appointments or meetings with staff.
• Physical Distancing – All staff will be expected to practice physical distancing (6’) from others in the workplace.
• Face Coverings – Face coverings are required when moving about the building and if physical distancing cannot be adhered to.
• Hand washing – Staff will be expected to follow good hand hygiene (frequent washing with soap and water or using hand sanitizer).
• Cleaning – Staff will be expected to assist with disinfecting commonly touched surfaces after use.
• Stay Home if You’re Sick! – You must not report to work if you are experiencing any symptoms related to COVID-19.

Let me know if you have any questions on any of this.

• Eugene Online Academy – 4J asked families to complete an interest form if they were considering the 4J Eugene Online Academy (EOA). Holt had 91 students on the list, which is on parr with other schools percentage-wise, but I do suspect that number will go down with 4J’s announcement that the first term will be all online. My wife actually filled out the form to just cover our bases, but aren’t planning to do it now.

• Class Lists Revisit – Related to the above, we’ll likely need to revisit class lists in the fall to rebalance classrooms. I’m also guessing the state of the economy will have caused more families than normal to move over the summer, both more-ins and move-outs.

• Facilities Hybrid Planning – December 7th is the earliest we might return to any form of in-person instruction, but downtown is already planning for what that might look like in a hybrid model. Linked here are the Building COVID Documents sent to principals to review last week. I like to be transparent and figured staff would also like to see these. The doc includes the email sent to principals, the list of the maximum number of students per room at Holt, and a potential classroom set-up for gen ed Holt classrooms. You all know Holt facilities better than I do, so please let me know if you spot anything amiss that I should share with Facilities.

• Report Back Dates– Most staff report back the first week of September. Here are the report back dates:

• Elem Secretaries – Wednesday, August 12
• Licensed Staff – Tuesday, September 1
• Classified Staff – Wednesday, September 2 (196-day on 8/27)

Linked here are the complete 4J Employee Work Year Calendars.

• In-Service Week Schedule – Details are still being worked out by various planning committees, but the general plan is that students will start three days later than normal on Monday, September 14th so that staff have additional time for trainings, planning, and prep related to how Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL) will work for the first trimester. At our first back-to-school staff meeting, depending what gets negotiated between EEA and downtown, since we won’t be able to fit everyone in the library or cafeteria and socially distance, I’m thinking about holding the meeting in the gym or under the covered area and making it optional if staff want to attend in-person or over Zoom. I’m expecting that much of the meeting will be district required info and trainings regarding safety protocols and CDL. I generally like to give staff as much prep time as possible at the start of the year. 

• Device Distribution Plan – A plan is in the works, but hasn’t been shared with principals yet. I do know that additional TSS hires have been made to support online learning and newer full-sized iPads have peen purchased for K-2 students to use instead of the iPad Minis, which had a number of compatibility issues last spring.

• District Admin Updates – If you’re interested, Misael Flores Gutierrez, assistant principal at Churchill HS, is the new Equity, Instruction & Partnerships Administrator, taking the place of Karen Pérez-Da Silva. Erin Gaston, assistant principal at Madison Middle School, is the new principal at Howard, taking my place. Holt’s own Lavinia Page is the new principal of Gilham, taking the place of Gina Wilde, who is taking Erin’s place as the assistant principal at Madison. Charlemagne principal Courtney Leonard is the new principal at Roosevelt MS, taking the place of Eric Anderson, who is replacing Sue Wilson as the 4J Director of Instruction. Courtney’s replacement at Charlemagne is Garrett Bridgens, who was most recently an assistant principal at SEHS. Kelly Middle School principal Juan Cuadros has accepted a position as director of curriculum and instruction in Bend-La Pine, so Kelly’s assistant principal, John Wayland, has been appointed interim principal. And finally, Stephanie Randall is the new elementary assistant principal split between Gilham and Willagillespie, who most recently taught ELD at Bohemia Elementary School in Cottage Grove.

• Learning Acceleration Guide – Not at all required reading, but a guiding principle of this year’s distance learning is acceleration versus remediation. Knowing that kids will have missed a lot of content from the closure in the spring, research shows that we can better serve students by focusing on grade level standards and filling gaps as we go instead of trying to go back to teach content that was missed. I was asked to facilitate a K/1 Curriculum Content group to help with this year’s school reopening plan (Lisa joined us too) and one article we looked at was this Learning Acceleration Guide, which explains the logic behind this idea.

• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Holt Staff Calendar for future events, but here are a few events of note for the next few weeks:

August 11 (T)
State Guidelines for School Reopening Update Released

August 12 (W)
Elementary Secretaries Report Back

August 24 (M)
ESC and Title 1 EA Interviews (tentative)
8:30-12:30, New Teacher Induction (Zoom)

August 25 (T)
ESC and Title 1 EA Interviews (tentative)
8:30-12:30, New Teacher Induction (Zoom)

August 26 (W)
ESC and Title 1 EA Interviews (tentative)
8:30-12:30, New Teacher Induction (Zoom)

August 27 (H)
ESC and Title 1 EA Interviews (tentative)

September 1 (T)
Licensed Staff Report Back

September 2 (W)
Classified Employees Report
8:00-12:00, Back-to-School Staff Meeting

September 14 (M)
Tentative First Day of School

I’m officially back to work now, so please feel free to reach out if you have any question or if there’s anything I can do for you, but try to enjoy your remaining days of summer.

Take care and we’ll see you soon (even if it’s over Zoom)!

Allan