October 14, 2013

By Allan  

Hello Howard Staff,

Eight items of note for this week:

• Social Committee Dues – If you’re like me and forgot to pay your social dues last week. Pease remember to get your dues to Lori. Classified pay $15 and licensed pay $25.

• PTO Meeting, Tuesday at 6:00 – This Tuesday is the October PTO meeting. It will start at 6:00 PM in the library. It’s always nice to have a staff rep there besides myself, especially since I’m double booked with the Technology Bond Crossroads Committee Meeting, where I’m making the cast for higher poverty schools to receive more support that higher SES schools. Gotta fight to bridge the digital divide!

• School Design Committee Update – The Howard Design Committee visited three school last week; Rosa Parks Elementary (map), Woodburn Elementary (map) and Trillium Creek Elementary (map). We were originally going to tour Earl Boyles Elementary, but something came up and we toured Woodburn instead, which was fortuitous because I think I’m safe in saying this building was the favorite among our design committee (though there were quite a few elements we also liked from the other two). Rosa Parks was a school with 100% students on F/R meals and had amazing wraparound services, including a Family Resource Center right next to the front office and also shared part of their building with the Boys & Girls Club. Trillium Creek had very nice amphitheater style seating in their library that could easily host a couple classrooms for a storyteller or other presentation. They also had a very clean and organic separation of their classroom and gym areas that was very different from how Holt and Chavez are laid out. Trillium also had a slide from the second floor down to the first floor library, though I think I’d need some convincing this wouldn’t be a source of behavior problems. Woodburn had a a very nice layout for student movement and I think we were all struck by the very warm and also calming feel of the building, which I think may have been a result of the color scheme and decor (also very different from the bright colors at Chavez and Holt). All three buildings had lots of open glass windows in their classroom pods, like Holt and Chavez, but Woodburn was the only one that had the glass raised above student eye-level, which we thought would be good for lessening student distractions. This building also had the biggest WOW factor when you first pulled up to the building. Check out the video tour below if you want to get a sense of what we saw at Woodburn Elementary. As nice as all three of these schools were, none of them seemed all that innovative in their use of technology (they all still had computer labs and hardly any even had SMART Boards), so I think we’ll need to be trailblazers in this respect, though Erin found an interesting blog post about Georgia’s DOE’s “Classroom of the Future” which is centered on small group learning with a focus on technology, if we want to start considering some real our-of-the-box rethinking of our classroom design. There will be opportunities in the future for staff to have direct input and interactions with the architects, but please feel free to talk to me or your reps if you have thoughts, questions or ideas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqw00fOyiy4[/youtube]

• Optional CLC Update Meeting – I’ve talked to a few people who had questions about the current BSPs for our CLC high fliers, so I’d like to hold an optional short stand-up meeting on Monday in the library at 2:30 to update anyone interested in the recent changes and the steps we’re taking.

State Report Cards – Although I’m not a huge fan of school report cards and standardized testing, I thought I’d share a link to the latest state report cards. Howard improved in reading last year by about 1% and math dipped by about 5%.

• Enrollment Data
– I thought I’d share something I always find interesting, the district-wide enrollment report that principals and secretaries get each month. I think I have a competitive streak, because I always want to compare our school to others, and here are some trends I noticed that look quite positive for Howard:

• Howard was projected and staffed for 288.75 students but has 310.5 students (counting kindergartners has half a student). We’re one of only two North Region elementary schools over projection.
• Howard has more total kindergartners than any other North Region elementary school, which puts us in a good position for the future.
• Howard is now larger than River Road. We are also larger than Charlemange, Corridor, Family, Twin Oaks, YG and are five students away from being the same size as McCornack.

• BRING Education Program in your Classroom – BRING Recycling works under contract with Lane County to provide free educational outreach to all Lane County schools. They have a licensed science teacher who will come to your classroom to show students how the stuff we use shapes the planet we share. If you’re interested, see the attached letter for details and then contact Brett Jacobs at brettj@bringrecycling.org

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for this week:

October 14 (M)
easyCBM Reading and Math Progress Monitoring 2
2:05, Cookie Dough Distributed to Students (Room 11)
2:30-3:30, Optional CLC BSP Informational Meeting (Library)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 6)

October 15 (T)
8:00-4:00, Allan at Jon Saphier Principal Training
11:00-1:30, Allan to EEF Annual Kick-Off
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 4)
5:30-7:30, Allan to Technology Bond Crossroads Committee Meeting
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting

October 16 (W)
5:15-6:30, BEST Open House

October 17 (H)
2:30-3:30, Collaboration Time
3:00-5:00, Joint Howard & River Road Design Committee Program Meeting

October 18 (F)
School Picture Day

Have a good one!

Allan