http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=3824
Hello Fabulous Howard Staff,
That was an interesting Friday for me last week, unexpectedly teaching 4th grade. I’ve taught a few times this year when subs haven’t picked up a job, but a sub has usually come in after a few hours. I told a few people that the teaching part isn’t all that hard to get back into again, but I forget how tiring it is to be “on” all day (not to mention the lack of bathroom breaks). This is probably a good thing for principals to have to do every so often.
Thirteen items of note this week:
• School Choice Visitation Week – Just a reminder that this week is School Choice Visitation Week #1. We have a few families already signed up for tours (mostly at the younger grades), so don’t be surprised if you see me walking visitors around the building and into classrooms this week. We managed to sign up a few more tours at Saturday’s School Showcase, so maybe Lori and my time there this weekend was worth it.
• January 30 Grading Day Staff Expectations – Taking classified staff first, this is a regular work day for most classified folks, so remember there are many workshops available this same day at the EA Extravaganza, but if you have any comp time coming, this would also be a good day to pay back extra time that’s owed to you. For licensed staff, HR has gone back to being more flexible about grading day expectations. The following rules were sent out to principals, which now allow teachers to request to work from home on grading days:
Unlike a planning or PD day, where the District has a firm expectation that all teachers report and be physically present throughout the work day, we have exercised greater flexibility for grading days in recognition of teachers’ professional status. On grading/ report days, principals have discretion to require that all teachers report and work on their grades at the building, or alternatively, to allow teachers to request permission to work from home, and report to the building when grades are completed. In exercising this discretion, please consider the following:
(1) Would allowing a teacher to work from home on this day interfere with work that needs to be done? For example, do you have teachers who need to collaborate with each other in order to prepare reports? — if so, it does not make sense to allow them to work in isolation;
(2) Grading day is a work day. It costs the district about $480,000, and it is not intended to be a vacation day.
(3) Teachers are highly visible members of the community, and part of our expectation of them as professionals is to be good stewards of public resources. If you do allow teachers to work off site this day, please remind them public perception issues and work to protect them. This means that if we grant flexibility to work off-site, it is critical that they work during work time. We grant flexibility to principals to allow teachers to work off-site on grading day, but if it is abused, we will not be able to continue to do so.
(4) The flexibility to work off-site is a privilege, and not an entitlement. Whether you allow any teacher to work off-site is within your discretion. I believe the best practice is to communicate to teachers is that you expect them to work in the building on this day, unless they have requested and received your advance permission to work from home.
So in short, if teachers would like to work from home this day, let me me know, but be sure to make plans ahead of time if you need to collaborate with colleagues for grading. Also, be sure to use this time for grading and not use it to run errands around town.
• Synergy Attendance Reminder from CIS – I’ll do a quick review of this at our next staff meeting, but we received an email from CIS asking us to support teachers as they mark student attendance every day for both AM and PM sessions. If you are using the “Take Attendance by List” option in Synergy instead of the seating chart option, you are most likely correctly marking both the AM and PM absences. Please see the above directions if you are not using the list view option to begin using this attendance screen. Lori will adjust attendance for those students who arrive late after 8:00 and for students who leave early. For student who arrive tardy before 8:00, teachers should only mark the tardy for AM and not PM. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like any help with this.
• Mid Year Check-In Meetings & Observations – This is the time of year principals are supposed to begin conducting our mid-year check meetings with licensed staff regarding educator goals. This week and next I’m planning to start conducting some formal and informal observations and will combine the post-conference meeting with the check-in meeting, which will make things easier for both myself and staff. Fewer meetings are usually a good thing.
• PRIDE Awards Wednesday – This Wednesday is the January PRIDE Awards. If teachers haven’t already, be sure to pick a letter fill out the PRIDE certificates located in the office. Invitations to families are also in the office. And remember, as you turn in your PRIDE nominations, be sure that you let Lori know who and why each student is being recognized so she can put their name up on the board.
• Construction Updates – Attached are the minutes from the last Construction Progress Meeting along with the minutes from the previous two meetings (1/7 and 1/14). Here are the highlights from last week’s meeting:
• Arrival/Dismissal Plan for Spring 2016 – Todd Construction and PiVOT independently came up with plans for how to access the new school while the old one is being demolished and I helped them come up with a hybrid plan, which will still need to be approved by the city and fire department, but I think should work. It will, however, require some extra supervision staff at arrival/dismissal and extra walking for students who don’t ride the bus, but I’m going to make the case for extra EA staffing to help with this. Attached is a rough map I put together, but basically the new bus loop (located at the construction site entrance) will have a temporary road put in that will allow for bus drop off right by the new building and will also give staff access to a gravel parking area by the new building at well. Construction folks estimate there would be space for about 30 cars in the gravel parking area, so that would cover most regular staff. The temporary road would not be wide enough for all families to do pick-up and drop-off, so non bus riding students would be dropped off in the current parking lot areas and would walk to the new building on a walkway along the temporary bus entrance. Staff and students would also have access to the new building coming from the track, either walking from the north or south sides of the track. Also, the community path connecting Howard Ave. and Emerald Park would be open to walkers. One other idea that was considered was to create a walkway through the current breezeway with a cattle chute of sorts to protect pedestrians from the demolition, but I’d be concerned with how safe walking through a demolition zone would be and I’m a bit skeptical that Risk Management would approve it. And please note on the above map that it shows a older parking lot configuration, but I used this map because it had an outline of the old building over the new one. Please let me know if you have questions, concerns, or other ideas on this.
• Design Team Meetings Reconvening – The design team will me meeting soon, likely within the next two weeks, to begin discussing furniture for the new school. If you’ve been following ideas on the Howard Pinterest page, there’s one Steelcase desk/chair combo that have gotten a fair amount of interest from teachers. They’re probably not for younger grades, but would allow for very flexible classroom use at the older grades. Besides selecting classroom furniture (students desks & chairs, staff desks & chairs, mobile storage, mobile book cases, etc.) we’ll also discuss decisions around uniformity. At Holt, all classrooms have the same style of desks and chairs, which makes things easier when classes need to moving furniture between classrooms, but it does for everyone to use the same furniture which may not suit everyone’s teaching style. Chavez allowed for a few different types of classroom furniture, which allowed staff to have the furniture to suit their preferred teaching style, though it might not suit future teaching staff and it could lead to an odd hodgepodge of furniture types in a classrooms. There are pros and cons to both of these, but a decision will be made around this. I do plan to discuss this and a number of other new school topics at the Feb. 13 PD/Planning Day.
• Track Signage – Facilities is going to be putting up signs on the track soon. Dog messes have been a real problem. Signs like this one posted at ATA’s new track will be going up soon, which includes “No Pets.” There will also be signs restricting public use of the field during school hours, like this one at Spencer Butte MS, and there will be another one along the south fence telling what to do if a ball goes into a neighbor’s yard.
• Site Visits, almost but not quite yet – Hard hats are here now, but the vests that Todd Construction ordered for us haven’t arrived yet. I’ll let staff know as soon as they are here because there are definitely interesting things happening out on the construction site now. And I haven’t asked about this, but I bet some of the PiVOT architects might be willing to come talk to a class if we asked or maybe even tour the site if they have time.
• Additional Vestibule – The city was trying to make all exterior doors in the new building have a vestibule, which the district and architects felt was excessive. They negotiated a compromise, to just do one additional vestibule in the gym, besides the one at the front main entrance, which was they agreed was the only other major exit/entrance.• Horsetail and Soils – This is a new one to me and doesn’t really affect staff, but I found it interesting. 4J wants Todd Construction to make sure any soils brought into planter beds not contain horsetail plants, which grow rapidly and are difficult to eradicate, especially with 4Js limited groundskeeping staff. If there is just one segment of the plan left behind, it will grow a whole new plant.
• Feb. 13 Howard PD/Planning Day – Mentioned above, I’m planning to use some of this PD time to begin doing some nuts and bolts logistical planning for moving into the new school next year. Some of the topics I’d like to cover would be classroom/grade level locations, furniture discussions/preferences, and also begin having a general conversation about updating our PBIS rules/expectations for teaching, which I think is more than enough to tackle at one meeting.
• Concussion Policy – Attached is the final district concussion policy. This document represents the collaboration of 4J Athletic Trainers, Nurses, and the Regional Traumatic Brain Injury Liaison. It has also been reviewed and approved by our Insurer. School nurses have offered to present the document at staff meetings, which we will likely do at a future staff meeting, but I thought I’d share the policy now if staff wanted to get a preview.
• Full-Day Kindergarten Updates – Attached is an informational flyer about full-day kindergarten that was shared with families at the School Showcase by district staff. Also, Sara Green shared with principals this week in her newsletter, though nothing is definite at this point, that she’s proposing a 23:1 ratio for full-day Kinder. Keep in mind that it is a proposal and where we end up may be somewhat different, but this would be significantly better than the current district elementary average of 28:1. Sara’s been advocating for less than 23, but there are a number of competing interests and it’s challenging to put all the budget eggs in one basket.
• Motivational Speech at No Cost – I’m not familiar with this speaker, but it sounds like he’s gone to some other local schools. Ron Heagy is a motivational speaker from Albany, Oregon. His materials state, “I was paralyzed from the neck down at age 18, following a surfing accident and have lived my life working to inspire others for the past thirty years. My life calling has been to encourage people who are hurting, feel invisible, or who need some direction to overcome their hardships. I feel my presentation is pertinent to the struggles faced by young people and my topics usually include: finding the ability to overcome adversity or disability, embracing individual uniqueness, the benefits of accepting others, and how to make the ‘dream work through teamwork.’” Attached is the email I received and also a link to his website. If teachers think this would be an assembly they’d like their class to attend, let me know and I’ll see about arranging for it.
• Key multimedia skills all educators should have – Educators provided input about multimedia skills that help in the classroom as part of a recent national survey conducted by T.H.E. Journal. The following are the top five skills that teachers should master, according to the results: troubleshooting technology, embracing curiosity, incorporating video, using multiple display devices and using technology to create presentations.
• How Integrating Arts Into Other Subjects Makes Learning Come Alive – Here’s a good article from Mind/Shift on the value of including the arts in core instruction and not viewing it as an elective or add-on. The main crux of the article is viewing art not as an extra, but as integral to learning.
• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
January 26 (M)
Reading Progress Monitoring 7
School Visitation Week #1
10:00-11:00, Allan Conducting School Choice Tours
10:25-10:40, OBOB Battle – Troopers vs J.J.B.R.S. (Library)
10:40-11:40, 5th Grade Guest Speaker (Music Room)
11:15, Allan Meeting with Pacific University (Office)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Site Council Meeting (Staff Room ) CANCELLEDJanuary 27 (T)
10:25-10:40, OBOB Battle – Ice Otters vs The Bookworm Brats (Library)
10:55-12:20, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Room 11)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Staff Room)January 28 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to Construction Progress Meeting (Construction Trailer)
10:55-12:30, PRIDE Awards at Lunch (Cafeteria)January 29 (H)
Last Day of Referral Free Window
8:00-12:00, Allison and Allan to Learning About Learning Meeting (Chavez)
10:25-10:40, OBOB Battle – Pie G.E.E.K.K. vs The Flaming Donut Shower (Library)
10:30-11:30, Allan Conducting School Choice Tours
12:00-3:40, Robin and Allan to Smarter Balanced Test Administration Training (Ed Center)
1:00-2:00, Classroom/Grade Level Referral Free Parties
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)January 30 (F)
Grading Day – No School
8:30-9:00, Allan to 504 Plan Meeting
9:30-10:00, Allan to Mid Year Check-In Meeting
10:00-10:30, Allan to Mid Year Check-In MeetingFebruary 2 (M)
Second Semester Begins
National School Counseling Week
12:30-2:00, OBOB Preliminary BattlesFebruary 3 (T)
Music Starts
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 7)February 4 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Movie/Book Character Day
7:30-11:30, Data Team Meetings (Staff Room)
9:00-11:00, Allan to Construction Progress Meeting (Construction Trailer)
4:00-6:00, Digital Learning Day (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)February 5 (H)
Regular DayFebruary 6 (F)
11:00-1:00, Title 1 Walk Through with Tasha
12:30-2:00, OBOB Preliminary Battles
Enjoy your four day student week!
Allan