April 6, 2015

By Allan  

Laughter-is-an-instant-vacation

Hello Howard Roadrunners,

I left it out of my announcements last week, but I wanted to acknowledge our ACE (A Champion in Education) Award Nominations. Howard was among the most nominated schools this year. Amber was nominated in the Teachers & Other Licensed Staff category, Kelly was nominated in the Classified Staff category, and I was nominated in the Administrators, Professionals & Supervisors category. It’s nice to know that people out in the community like Howard enough to nominate staff here. Howard Rocks!

Thirteen items of note this week:

• Staffing Updates – We received our SPED staffing over the break and we are seeing a bit on an increase in some staffing. Learning Center licensed and classified allocations stayed the same. CLC licensed time stayed the same. Linda was unfortunately a temporary hire this past August, but she interviewed for her position last Friday and although nothing is official yet, I can say that she was a VERY strong candidate. Katie and Aiden’s CLC EA time is staying the same. Jolene had a 30 minute increase to her time and Jessi had a 60 minute increase to her time. I’m also please to announce that Maria Eichner will returning to Howard for an additional 6 hours CLC EA position that is being added. Life Skills EA time is still to be determined.

• March Student Care Team Referrals – The next Student Care Team meeting will be in three weeks on Tuesday, April 28th and as of right now we have one hypothetical situation but have a slot for a family in regards to homeless or impending homelessness, if it’s unknown if an open CW case but has concerns that were called in, domestic violence, specific resource needed but unknown where to refer, medical concerns about the child or other family, or other types of help a family may be looking for. Let me know if you have a family or situation you’d like to refer to the team or if you have any questions. Be sure to complete the Student Care Team Referral Form (PDF or DOC) and also be sure to fill out and get a parent signature on the Authorization for Use & Disclosure of Information (PDF or DOC) which will give DHS time to do preliminary work before the meeting.

• Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grant – The grant funds for the Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Snack Program have run out for this school year, but Nutrition Services has some additional grant funds to maintain the program in a scaled back fashion for the remainder of the year. Starring this Monday we’ll be doing snacks three days a week on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through the end of May. Also, the only fresh fruit available right now are apples and pears, but Nutrition Services will continue to seek out other fresh fruit and veggies options (hopefully not cauliflower though).

• Caring for Kids Follow-Up Opportunities – Two separate Caring for Kids training are being offered to teachers, one covering Morning Meeting and the other covering Cross Age Buddy Activities. PD on each of these will be offered twice- once during the school day with sub time provided, and once after school with extended contract offered. The hope is that this will reduce teacher time out of the classroom for those who prefer an after school offering. Attendance is optional, but you may choose to attend a session on one or both topics or none at all. Register on the 4J Workshops webpage and the AESOP sub code is “Caring for Kids.”

• Job EXPO Information – The Job EXPO will be this Thursday. Staff have suggested names of internal applicants for our full-time positions (Kindergarten, 1st Grade and Title 1/ESC) they thought would be good, but feel free to beat the bushes and give me the names of anyone you think would be good for our part-time vacancies (Kindergarten 0.5 Facilitating and 5th grade 0.5 Facilitating). With there being so many vacancies, we may possibly be allowed to consider external applicants if no internal candidates are a good match, though last year Howard was pretty popular and had more applicants than any other elementary school at the EXPO.

• Design Team Updates – The Design Team met last Thursday and here are the highlights:

• Student Chairs and Stand-Up Staff Meeting Wednesday at 2:30 – PiVOT brought samples of several student chair styles and manufacturers. After trying out the chairs the team eliminated the stiffer chairs and a flimsier ones, which left three types for staff to evaluate. All three are the cantilever style, which are currently in the library for staff and students to try out. We’ll have a quick stand-up staff meeting on Wednesday at 2:30 to decide on the chair style we like best. Our top two choices will go into the mock up classroom. All students chairs for classrooms will be the same color which can easily be matched down the road if we ever need to order replacements (so we don’t end up with Holt purple colored furniture that’s no longer in fashion or available). There is also a small student stool you can check out that we could buy for classroom small group tables, the commons area and “knuckle” classrooms. The sample stool is kindergarten size, so it’s pretty small, but you get the idea. There is also a teacher stool that’s a bit odd, but you can check out too, though it’s in the back room of the library (I didn’t want kids playing with it).

• Student Desks – For the mock up classrooms we’ll try out both single and double desks. The size of desks we’ll try out will be single 24″x24″ and double 24″x48″. We do have the option of ordering a mix of single and double desks for the new school. The team was in favor of having dark wood grain tops (not the light maple laminate or bright solid color tops you often see) which will not show pencil marks and other wear as much. PiVOT will bring table top samples to the next meeting. Jenny will be piloting the Node desk/chair combos, which will be delivered Thursday after school this week. PiVOT also shared some samples of different desk chair combos older grades may want to consider. This attachment also contains some options for mobile classroom storage, which is the next item.

• Mobile Classroom Storage – Construction is providing 6 rolling cabinets 36″ tall x 36″ wide x 12″ depth, which are essentially book shelves. The team will look further as to what types of additional mobile storage we’d like to have. Teachers should take a look at what kind of storage you’re using now and what you’ll need in the new building. Be sure to let your reps know you thoughts. The team is thinking we’ll need at least one or two 18″ deep cabinets and two or more book cases 12″ deep. You can see the attached Classroom Interior Elevations to get an idea of what kind of built in storage will be in classrooms. PiVOT said they would sent me a 3D model later this week.

• Teacher Desks – I mentioned last week that teacher’s desk will be two pieces of furniture that can adjust for sitting or standing positions. It wasn’t in my notes, but I believe I heard at the meeting we’ll have a sample delivered to one of the mock up classrooms.

• Cafeteria Furniture – The team approved round cafeteria tables with attached stools instead of the usual rectangular ones, which will allow us to seat 170 students in the cafeteria. You an see the attached cafeteria sketches to compare the amount of seating with round vs. rectangular. You can seat more students will rectangular tables, but my thinking is round tables will give the cafeteria more of a cafe feel and less of an institutional atmosphere.

• Classroom Walkthrough (“Ugly Test”), May 1st – It was requested that Kay Mahas and Pam Wescott from Facilities do a walkthrough to determine what can be moved to the new school and items that will not, so people can have the option of taking things home this summer rather than waiting until next year. May 1st is a PD/Planning day and my current plan is hold a short meeting for business items and to give teaches the remainder of the PD time as planning time for the changeover to Journeys. Once we get closer to that day I’ll schedule times for Kay and Pam to visit classrooms if you’d like them to come.

• Writing Benchmarking Planning Meeting and Leadership Plan Development Update – A reminder that I’ll be holding an optional meeting this Wednesday at 2:45 in the library to discuss how we will do our spring writing benchmarking on May 29th. Originally, it was 2:30, but I shifted the meeting time for the stand-up Staff Meeting to try out some student chairs.

At last week’s Leadership Planning Meeting, we discussed the process for staff to take on leadership positions of our various building committees and district representative positions. We’ll review the process in more detail at the April Staff Meeting, but the short version is that leaders will be decided upon at the end of the school year. All position will be considered vacant and anyone can sign up for one. If there is more than one person interested in a leadership position, they can decide to be co-leaders or staff can vote. There will also be an opportunity to add leadership positions. Once leadership positions are filled, we will begin the process for developing our building Leadership Plan, which involves 20 sub days which can be distributed between up to seven licensed staff members. The current list of leadership/rep positions are; IPBS, PBIS, Technology, Literacy, Math, Science, Site Council, Social Committee, Garden, Being a Writer and Caring for Kids.

• Construction Updates – Attached are the minutes from the last Construction Progress Meeting and here are the highlights:

• Polished Concrete Color – We’re still discussing options for the polished concrete colors in the hallways, seeing if they can potentially do several coats to make some of the previously too light of colors darker. We’re also looking to see if there are other color options. More to come on this.

• Stage Lighting – The current plan has a fairly simple stage lighting set-up that is essentially a set of dimmer switches, but Facilities is currently looking into the cost feasibility of upgrading the stage lighting to something a bit nicer, more like what they’re doing at some of the middle schools.

• Cell Phone Reception – The technology that Facilities and the Technology Department (no longer called CIS) were looking at to boost cell phone reception in the new building ended up not being able to solve the problem. However, they are continuing to look for potential solutions because this is a district wide problem and is not something unique to just the new Howard building.

• Spring Break Move Update – There are some negotiations going on between 4J and Todd Construction about the spring break move in. Both sides want to do a spring break move in, but there are some additional costs related to doing that, which are now a bone of contention. Some of this will depend upon what the city will require, but there will be costs related to temporary safety and ADA compliances features (fire access, parking egress, temporary sidewalks for wheelchairs, etc.) which may be deal killers for the spring break move. 4J is asking for detailed plans of what all is going to be required to be in place in order to occupy the new building for a spring break move and also who will be paying for all this. So there is some dickering over if 4J or Todd will be paying for these costs (I suspect Todd will based on the bid language), but the plan is still for a spring break move at this point.

• Boxing Up Old HM Materials – If you have old HM materials you are done with for the year, let me know and I will have Randy box them up and label them for you. All I ask of teachers is that you group the items you want to discard by the categories listed on the packing label Marlee sent out. And if you didn’t read the email Marlee sent to cert_all too closely about packing up materials, the gist of it was you can keep the parts of the old program you want and to box-up and label the parts you do not want to be shipped downtown. Let me know if you have any parts of the program you’re ready to get rid of. Another a reminder from earlier, let me know if you’d like me to have Randy deliver your grade level’s materials if you’re ready for them. I’m planning to give folks planning time with the new program on our two remaining PD days.

• Student Headphones for Classrooms – Erin wrote an EEF grant for 2nd grade last year which had some money left over from and we ordered additional student headphones for classes using those funds. I’ll put 12 headphones in each classroom teacher’s mailbox on Monday.

• Title 1 Newsletter – Here is the latest district level Title 1 Newsletter that went out to all Title 1 Coordinators and principals. This month’s issue is again mostly coordinator specific information and tasks, but there is a short article from Beyond Heroes and Holidays by Enid Lee titled Looking Through an Anti-Racist Lens that’s worth reading.

• School gardens provide informal setting for learning – Although our school garden is a bit scaled down right now due to construction, we’ll have a deluxe area for the school garden once the new school is finished, which I thought of when I saw this blog post. Students are more likely to try fruits and vegetables they have grown themselves, asserts Julia Parker-Dickerson, director of education programs for KidsGardening.org. In this blog post, she highlights how school gardens can provide an informal setting to teach students about nutrition and engage the mind and body.

• 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:

April 6 (M)
2:00-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)

April 7 (T)
9:00-9:30, Allan at BEST Meeting (Office)
10:30-11:10, Allan Conducting Formal Observation
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 7)
3:45-5:15, Allan to Full-Day Kindergarten Meeting (Ed Center)

April 8 (W)
9:30-11:00, Allan to Construction Progress Meeting (Construction Trailer)
2:30-2:45, Stand-Up Staff Meeting to Evaluate Student Chairs (Library)
2:45-3:30, Writing Benchmark Scoring Meeting (Library)

April 9 (H)
10:00-11:00, Kindergarten Parent Orientation Meeting (Library)
2:30-4:00, Design Team Meeting (Library)
4:00-7:00, Allan to Job EXPO (Ed Center)

April 10 (F)
8:30, Allan to FTS Truancy Hearing (Serbu)

April 13 (M)
1:15-2:15, Allan to IEP Meeting (Room 20)
1:30-2:30, Title Coordinator & Principal Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

April 14 (T)
Allan Conducting Observations – Larry Soberman Covering
8:00-12:00, LCC Dental Trip
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)
4:00-7:00, Allan to Job EXPO (Ed Center)

April 15 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to Construction Progress Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:15-2:15, EA New OAKS Training (Room 8)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)

April 16 (H)
Allan Conducting Observations – Larry Soberman Covering
1:40, Fire Drill
2:30-4:00, Design Team Meeting (Library)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 7)

April 17 (F)
Lori Out of Building
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
12:00-3:00, Allan and BAW Teacher Leaders to Being a Writer Meeting
4:00, Staff Happy Hour at Hop Valley

Have a great week, everyone!

Allan

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