http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=1344
Hi Everyone,
It was great getting to see everyone last week and I hope you were all able to enjoy your labor day weekend without having to do too much school work.
Eleven items of note for this week.
• Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff – Attached is the updated Back to School Memo. All staff must review the district policies under section 1 of the memo and return the acknowledgment form to me no later than Friday, September 28th. Please note that that downtown has revised the district complaint form in anticipation of the board approving the new bullying and harassment policy (which is in this memo in draft form). In addition, there is new information for district spending controls, and volunteers. I’ll leave a paper copy of the acknowledgement form in mailboxes for staff to sign and return to me once you have reviewed the policies.
• New Night Custodian – Please welcome our new night custodian Mike Knight. Mike is coming to us from Adams and before that from Spring Creek. Staff from both of his previous schools gave him fabulous recommendations, so I think we should count ourselves lucky to have him. Mike will start this Tuesday and will be here during the day with Randy to get to know our building. Please make Mike feel welcome as he joins the Howard community!
• Counselor Schedule – Lee, Stella and I have worked out a schedule for which days Lee will be at Howard and at Willagillespie. For this year, it will be:
Monday – Howard
Tuesday – Willagillespie
Wednesday – Every other week
Thursday – Howard
Friday – WillagillespieThis schedule will mean fewer days in the building, but it will mean more time in the building due to no lost travel time and it will also allow for Lee to see students during lunchtime, which is a good non-disruptive time to work with students.
• Read with the Principal – If you haven’t done so already, please let me know a time that I can come into your classroom for 15-20 minutes to read a story to your class and introduce myself to your students.
• Educator Goal Plans for Teachers – Set a Date for Goals Conference – This announcement is for teachers NOT participating in the district teacher evaluation pilot. Teachers in the pilot will have their goals conference set through the TalentEd calendar once that system goes live. Teachers not in the pilot should complete the attached 4J Educator Goal Plan. I always want to encourage teachers to think of goals that stretch or push yourself. However, keeping workload in mind, make it something realistic and something you genuinely are working on improving in yourself or your professional practice. All non-itinerant teachers should contact me by Friday, September 14th to set up a goals conference meeting to take place sometime in September or early October. Please let me know if you have any questions.
• Student Network Passwords – In light of the security breach last school year, the district is wisely looking at tightening up network security. Partially at issue with the breach was that the person involved figured out the username and password pattern involving first & last names and lunch codes, and was able to access the system through multiple network identities. No changes are happening at this point, but I did want staff to know there will be changes coming, which will involve students being prompted to change their passwords after a certain amount of days, with K-2 students using passwords with 4 characters (e.g. 1235 or cat5 or clam) and grades 3-5 using 4×4 character passwords (e.g. 1234-abcd or fred-9999 or 4567-0001). See the attached email from Peter Tromba if you’d like to read further details.
• Employee Training – Safeschools – As a result of recent Oregon law, all school employees are now required to have specific trainings on “Child Abuse: Identification and Intervention” and “Sexual Conduct: Staff to Student (Oregon-specific version in Full course or refresher).” In order to comply with the law, Human Resources has utilized the services of Safeschools.com. All employees should already have received an email from HR notifying them of the assigned courses, and simple instruction on how to log-in. The deadline for completion is the last day in December.
• Back-to-School Kickoff Survey – People asked at Friday’s meeting about providing feedback on the Back-to-School Event, but the district beat me to the punch and created a Survey Monkey of their own. However, if there is something in particular you would like me to share with district staff, feel free email me and I can pass it along at a Superintendent’s Staff meeting.
• iChat – If there are any staff member who use IM, I’m often on iChat if you ever need to get ahold of me for a quick question or anything else. I have a few IM accounts you can reach me by. My AIM is allanchinn@mac.com. My Jabber account is chinn@chat.4j.lane.edu and also allanchinn@gmail.com. I know in the age of texting, this is something of an old technology, but I still like and use it.
• Back-to-School Prezi – If for some reason you’d like to see the staff meeting Prezi presentation again, you can find it at this link. There’s also an iPad Prezi app if you want to play with that.
• Why teachers should use mobile learning in the classroom – According to the writer of this article, teachers should consider using mobile learning in the classroom and presents four reasons for doing so. These include accessibility — primarily because of the prevalence of smartphones — the ability to customize content and track student progress, and the ability to infuse variety into lessons through options such as educational videos, online quizzes and discussion forums.
Let’s get ready to have a great school year!
Allan