October 19, 2020

By Allan  

 

Hi Everyone,

The slow rollout is finally coming to and end!

Eleven items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates – We’ve hired Lori Tingue for our 3-hour Title 1 EA position and she is starting this Monday. Lori is a licensed teacher with an ESOL endorsement, who most recently taught PE and 3rd grade at Willamette Christian School this past, following her student teaching at Meadowview. Please welcome Lori to Team Holt!

• Supply Distribution Plans – I shared earlier schools are allowed to distribute supplies the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. We just had math packets deliver late last Friday and the next date we can distribute is Thursday, November 5th. Grade level teams should let me know by the end of the week if you’d like me to organize distribution of the math packets on this date. We’ll also plan to distribute the second round of school supplies on this date if they get delivered on time.

• Conferences Info – Conferences are going to stay mostly that same as in the past with the exception of them being done remotely and the focus being less academic, but here are eight conference items of note:

• Focus of Conferences – At the bottom of this items is an article I’m sharing with families regarding how conferences will be different this year, with more focus on students adjustment to CDL and family needs. In past years, the focus has been on grades, assessments, and class work. This year the focus will be on how students (and adults) are adjusting to the distance learning format and giving time for a conversation about how kids are doing and troubleshooting any issues.

• Teacher Prep for Conference – Knowing that teachers are already putting in more hours than normal, EEA and the district are encouraging teachers to minimizing the amount of prep you’ll do for conferences compared to normal years. This year, focus more on listening to families and problem solving any issues families are having with CDL.

• Length of Conferences (20 minutes) – I checked in with a few principals and most schools are sticking with their typical length of conference, which for Holt is 20 minute conferences (i.e. 15 minutes with a 5 minute buffer). However, since teachers won’t have the physical in and out of families coming and going this year, teachers can schedule 15 minute blocks if you’d like.

• Scheduling – Teachers should schedule conferences in the same as you did in the fall, so things are consistent for families. Send conference sign-up info to families as soon you can.

• Staff Meals & Zoom Costume Dance Party – Teacher may want to block out Wednesday, October 28th 6:30-7:00 for the Holt Costume Dance Party. I’ll be in a nicely ridiculous costume, so turn in if you’d like! If you’re working on-site for conferences, you should block out meal times for PAHS and school provided meal times (Wed. 12:00-1:00, Thurs. 12:00-1:00 & 5:00-6:00).

• Share Finale Schedule w/Office & Specialists – Once your conference schedule is finalized, please share it with SPED and ELD teachers so we can make adjustments if needed. Also share your final conference schedule time with the front office.

• Title 1 Compacts – As with normal conferences, teachers will review the Title 1 Family Compacts with each family. Downtown is working on a plan for how adults and students will sign these. The current thinking is possibly through Seesaw, but do budget time to include this as you’re planning for conferences.

• Allan Available for Conferences – I’m available to join you for any tricky conferences you’d like some back-up on.

• Parent Article – As an FYI, below is an article on conferences going home to families on Monday.

Fall Conferences
Parent – Teacher Conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, October 29 from 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm and Thursday, October 29 from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm. There will be no school on Thursday, the 29th or Friday, the 30th. Teachers will email conference sign-up information soon, which will be similar to how we scheduled conferences at the start of the year.
Meeting with your child’s teacher should help build strong family – teacher partnerships. Partnerships that are needed if you and their teacher are to reach your common goal: helping your child get the best education possible, which is especially important during distance learning.
Conferences will be different this year, and not just because they’ll be on Zoom. In previous years, when we have been in person, the focus has been on grades, assessments, and class work. This year the focus will be on how your child is adjusting to the distance learning format and giving time for a conversation about your child.
Be sure to talk with your child before the conference. Find out what they think of school this year and find out why. What parts do they enjoy? What parts are a challenge? Also, ask your child if there is anything they would like you to talk about with their teacher. Make sure your child doesn’t worry about the meeting. Help them understand that you and their teacher are meeting together in order to help them.

• REPEAT: Crazy Hair Day, THURSDAY! – This Thursday is Crazy Hair Day, so get your kids pumped and plan your whackadoo hair! These are the thinks that will keep kids coming back to virtual learning. :)

• Limited In-Person Instruction Report – Office staff now have to complete a weekly accounting of the weekly in-person instruction we provide. This includes things like meeting students out front to help them access assignments or meeting with parents to help with schoolwork or tech troubleshooting. Basically any in-person meeting that helps students access their education counts, so please let me know if you have any of those types of meetings planned.

• Classroom Sub Items – We had our first classroom sub last week and it went surprisingly well. Here’s what I’d ask teachers to do if you do have a sub:

• Email Allan & Office Staff Sub Plans – Send us your plans and let us know of your absence as soon as possible so we can prepare tech and link info for the sub when they report.

• Make Sub & Allan “Alternate Hosts” – Making us alternate hosts for your Zoom Meeting will allow the sub to run the Zoom and for me to help troubleshoot if they have issues.

• Slide Show and Seesaw Info – If the sub will be teaching off of a Google Slide Show, Seesaw, showing a video, or teaching off of something else, send both the sub and me that info as well.

• Sub Note About Attendance – In your sub notes, tell the sub to take a photo or scan of the written student attendance to send to you, so you’ll be able to enter it the next day.

• District PD Updates – Principals received the linked 2020 District PD Plan, but here are to two main highlights:

• Inservice Days – The plan for Friday, October 23 is for PD focused on Synchronous Instruction and Universal Design for Learning. For the January 4th PD Day, there are two scenarios. If we’re moving into hybrid instruction instead of distance learning, PD will focus on Hybrid Implementation. If we’re continuing distance learning, it will be. PLC reboot. What remains to be determined is who is leading these PD sessions (i.e. me or district staff) and what the delivery model will be.

• Wednesday PD/PLC Plans – Principals were told Wednesdays (here’s the PD/PLC Plan Slide Show) will be on a rotating schedule, which is below. However, we haven’t been told when this rotation will start. This past Wednesday was as much a surprise to principals as it was to teachers, and we have not heard anything regarding this Wednesday. Principals were told to try to limit meetings the week of conferences, so I’d expect there would not be anything Wednesday, Oct. 28th.

Week 1 – PLC
Week 2 – Instructional Tech
Week 3 – PLC
Week 4 – SEL/CRP

• Tech Updates – Five Tech Updates &

• Add Allan as Alternative Zoom Host – Speaking of alternate hosts, the office gets a fair amount of calls from families who get disconnected from class Zooms and then get stuck in the Waiting Room, so rather than us having to call or text teachers while you’re teaching, please just add me as an Alternate Host to your recurring meetings. You can do this by selecting your meeting in the Zoom app, clicking EDIT, then clicking ADVANCED SETTINGS, and then adding my email to the ALTERNATIVE HOSTS text box.

• FREE Tech Subscriptions! – Okay not free, but Tittle 1 funds are available for grade level teams who want SpellingCity and/or a handwriting app subscription to something like Writing Wizard or Letter School. Let me know by the end of the week if your grade level would like these and we’ll get the order going!

• New Students & Seesaw Issues – Justin Huntley just emailed principals know that there’s an issue synching Seesaw from Synergy via Clever. Last week the SIS team made a change in the way data was exported so that Student nicknames are used and displayed in the various online programs and our LMS(s). Unfortunately in Seesaw, since all of these kids already existed, it detected this change as an error, essentially putting a stop to the sync. So until this gets fixed, no new students are being uploaded to Seesaw and schools are not to enter students by hand, which means teachers will

• Zoom Authentication Issues – There is an issue with Synergy and Seesaw not syncing right now and downtown is saying not to manually enter new students, so teachers may in the meantime need to come up with alternate plans for new students if downtown doesn’t have this figured out soon.

• Nearpod is Here! – Teachers should have received an email to activate your licensed Nearpod account. If you did not get this email, let me know and I’ll make sure you get set up. I know learning one more thing is about the last thing anyone wants to do right now, but Nearpod is a pretty useful app and gives you access to a lot of canned, ready to go lessons you can post links to in Seesaw for students. There will be some district provided PD on this in the near future, but in your spare time (ha ha) you can learn about the full suite of Nearpod on their Nearpod Teacher Resources webpage.

• DHS Reporting Form – Sadly, we’ve already had to make a few child welfare calls to DHS this year, but I wanted to remind staff that when you make calls to be sure to notify me and to also complete an Abuse Reporting Form (Word and PDF) so I can track dates, concerns, and how many calls we’ve made for individual student. The form is also available on the Staff Shared Drive. All school employees are mandatory reporters, so if you need to call, the phone number is 855-503-7233 (SAFE), ext 1. Feel free to talk with me if you’re ever unsure about how to handle a particular situation.

• Sharing slides as a Virtual Background – I think this is a pretty great new Beta feature I just learned about. You can make it so you can click through a Slide Show as a Virtual Background, so that kids can see you while you also share content. I tried this myself, exporting a Google Slide Show to a Power Point file and it worked well. I’ll use this the next time I read to someone’s class. Check it out!

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

October 19 (M)
Title 1 Groups Start
1:30-3:30, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Zoom)
4:00-5:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Zoom)

October 20 (T)
3:00-4:00, Staff Meeting (Gym & Zoom)
7:00, All About Pets Zoom! w/Ms. Kim McManus! (Zoom)

October 21 (W)
2:40-4:00, PD/PLC Time (possible)
4:00-8:00, Holt Night Out Fundraiser – Chipotle Mexican Grill
6:30, Drawing w/Ms. Potter! (Zoom)

October 22 (H)
Crazy Hair Day!
1:00-1:30, Classified Staff Meeting (Gym & Zoom)

October 23 (F)
No School — Professional Development/Planning Day (Details Coming Soon)
7:30-8:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Board Meeting (Zoom)

October 26 (M)
Regular Day

October 27 (T)
3:00-4:00, PBIS Meeting (Library & Zoom)

October 28 (W)
8:30-9:00, Student Council (Zoom)
2:40-4:00, PD/PLC Time (possible)
4:00-800, Conferences
5:00-6:00, Staff Dinner (Library)
6:30, Holt Costume Dance Party! (Zoom)

October 29 (H)
8:00-800, Conferences, No School
12:00-1:00, Staff Lunch (Library)
5:00-6:00, Staff Dinner (Library)

October 30 (F)
Teacher Comp Day – No School
Regular Work Day for Classified Staff

If you want to spice up Tuesday’s Staff Meeting, feel free to try out the TikTok Zoom Meeting Challenge below. I’m planning to give this a try at a principal meeting on Monday. ;)

Allan