Allan's Announcements

By Allan 　http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=4736

Hello Roadrunners,

I hope you all had a refreshing five days off and are ready for the busy next few weeks leading up to winter break. Kim and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary by being busy parents and doing nothing special, though we did arrange for some childcare for next weekend.

Sixteen items of note this week:

• The Hour of Code – This week [Correction] Next week is Computer Science Education Week, which is celebrated with the International Hour of Code. If you’d like to participate, many self guided student tutorials can be found on the Hour of Code website (where you can also register your class), including a Star Wars activity, a Minecraft one and a Frozen one. There are a variety of fun, hour-long tutorials for students of all ages. There are Student-guided Hour of Code tutorials, requiring minimal prep-time for teachers and allowing students to work at their own pace and skill-level. There are also Teacher-guided Hour of Code tutorials, which do require some prep, though they are categorized by grade level and subject area.

Also, if you are planning coding activities with your students this week, please let me know when you’ll be doing it so I can see if we can get some media coverage for our unique one-to-one technology immersion program.

• Optional 2nd Semester Schedule Meeting, Tuesday at 2:30 – Attached is a slightly updated version of the draft second semester master schedule (the previous draft left off Bryan’s LC groups). This draft fills in the holes left by removing Tier II workshop groups, but leaves the rest of the schedule the same. At the meeting on Tuesday, my main goal will be to get a sense from staff if this schedule looks like it will work or if we want to do tweaks or if we want to start the schedule over from scratch. If it looks like it’s workable or we’re just doing tweaks, we’ll take a draft to the December staff meeting for approval. After that, we can focus will be on getting ready for the change in workshop instruction. Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions on this you’d like to share before the meeting.

• Staffing Update – Some of you may already know, but Erin interviewed and was hired for the half-time “Temporary Staff Development Specialist – Journey’s Digital” position. She’ll be training elementary staff around the district on the digital components of Journeys, since none of the SDSs have ever used it. Erin will start her new job once we’ve hired her job-share partner for the remainder of the year. I’ve submitted a posting for the position and it should go up on the 4J Jobs webpage this Wednesday. I know of at least one strong candidate, Sarah Singleton, Erin’s current student teacher, who HR told me would be able to apply for the position, so that’s reassuring for our candidate pool.

• Howard Pinterest Page – During the design phase of our new school, I’d created a Howard Pinterest account for staff to share their ideas for the new building. Since we have a fair number of Pinterest users on staff, I thought I might keep the Pinterest page alive and add some curricular Pinterest boards (ELA, Math, Science, Arts, Specialists) staff can add to if you ever have a good find you’d like to share. To pin to these boards, just follow the Howard boards and then I will “invite” you to be a “collaborator” on the boards. Let me know if you’d like access!

• 2015 Conferences Feedback – I’m curious to know what teachers thought of conferences this year, so I made a three question SurveyMonkey asking if you liked conferences later in the year than normal, if you liked having conferences the week of Thanksgiving and also a comment box for any other thoughts. I’ll share the results in next week’s announcements.

• United Way Pledge Forms Due Thursday – The United Way of Lane County pledge drive kicked two weeks ago and forms are due to the envelope in my mailbox by this Thursday. Please consider donating a small amount this year. You can even donate directly to your own school, grade level or classroom through EEF on the form, which may be a good thing to do since the “Educator Expenses Tax Deduction” was eliminated two years ago and donations through the United Way and EEF are still tax deductible.

• KidSports Interns at Dismissal Monday – KidSports asked if they could advertises their scholarship opportunities to students for the upcoming basketball season and have interns pass out flyers. I told them they could do this after school on Monday, so if you see people handing out papers after school, it’s all good. The registration deadline for this season is December 4th.

• New Building Updates – Attached are the minutes from the last Owner/Architect/General Contractor (OAC) Meeting and below are a few items of note:

• Visual Communication Infographic Owner Meeting – There was a follow-up meeting to the earlier meeting on signage and visual displays around the building. The designer shared some mock-ups of four main areas. The text in the linked scan is kind of hard to read, but there is a hardcopy of the attachment in my office [EDIT: I just got a clean PDF version that is now linked]. The first of the four areas is a historical display that would go in the main entry area. There are two version here, but they both start with geological history, to native people, to the history of the Howard family (our school’s namesake) and then the school itself. One idea for displaying the timeline was to use a cut of the tree in front of the current building (since it’s unfortunately going to be cut down) and use the rings to indicate the different years. However, there is some concern with how to preserve the tree and to prevent it from degrading. The second area looked at was the glass in the hallways west of the media center (looking out onto the courtyard). The idea presented was to take pictures of the tiles in our current cafeteria and creating a vinyl monochrome colored band along the wall. You’ll want to look at the attached document to get a better picture what I’m describing, but it’s a nice way to preserve these tiles and also add to some visual flair to this area. This band along the glass is also for safety, so people don’t try to walk into the glass thinking it’s a door. The third area is one I didn’t really care for, which was having some kind of vinyl lettering or numbering on the classroom glass on the hallway side. The ideas presented wouldn’t necessarily help with instruction and would most likely be partly covered by mobile storage rolled in front of the windows. It was discussed doing something more age appropriate on the glass for different wings, but we may not always have those grades in those particular wings. This idea may be dropped. The fourth design presented, which I liked quite a lot, highlights the different energy saving features of the new building. In each of the three stairwells there is one large wall, and the idea is to highlight a different energy saving features of the building in each wing. The yellow wing has a graphic and text explaining how the solar panels on the building turn sunlight into energy. The blue wing highlights how we conserve water, collecting rainwater for use in irrigation and toilet flushing (though they didn’t actually put a toilet graphic). The green wing highlights the utilization of sunlight to illuminate classrooms, showing the difference in summer and winter. If you have thoughts on any of these that you’d like me to pass along, please let me know.

• Tours of the New Building Resume – Construction is not as hectic (or unsafe for students) now, so tours of the construction site can now resume. Drywall is mostly up in classrooms, glass is now being installed on the interior, the polished concrete is finished in some classrooms and the district is going to begin installing the first of our new short throw projectors. If you want to take your class out for a tour, just let me know a date and time and I’ll check with David Haggard, the Site Superintendent.

• 1959 Annual Report of Eugene Public Schools – Not really an update, but if you’re interested in a 1959 Report to the School District 4 (not 4J) School Board, this is a report the Facilities Department found which has quite a bit of historical information about Howard. I found it interesting and thought it was worth sharing.

• Youth Tobacco Elimination Grant Opportunity – See the attached grant opportunity for your students get involved with the Youth Tobacco Elimination Project. The project goals are to raise awareness about the threat tobacco use poses to youth, advocate to improve tobacco related policies in our community, and make student voices heard. Grant recipients will be awarded up to $750 to conduct activism and advocacy projects against tobacco use in their communities.

• Roofing Seasonal Workers Needed – Dan Temple at Facilities asked principals to forward information regarding his looking to fill a position on his seasonal roofing crew. The crew works during winter break, spring break, and summer vacation and he’s hoping to find a 4J employee who is interested in joining the crew for all three breaks. He said it’s worked well in the past for EAs, campus supervisors, custodians, bus drivers, and other 9 and 10 month employees. If you’re interested, the posting is going up Wednesday and will be posted as a General Laborer (internal only) for one week.

• Oregon Department of Education Survey – Teachers, if you haven’t filed it out already, please complete the two question SurveyMonkey that 4J sent out to collect information for ODE. See Cydney Vandercar’s email for more information about the survey, but the two questions are “What is the first language or native language spoken in your home in early childhood?” and your 4J email.

• Parent Communication Coming Soon: State School Report Cards & State Testing Information – In mid-December, the district will send information to families about state testing, the new state opt-out form, and state report cards for schools. This is a state-mandated parent notification. See Kerry Delf’s email she sent to secretaries and principals if you’d like more details. If you’d like to review the materials before they’re sent to families, they are available here:

• State school report cards – Under District Selection, find the drop-down menu and select Eugene SD 4J. You’ll see the district card first, then the school cards. The report cards are available in English and Spanish.

• State testing notice and opt-out form – These materials also are available in multiple languages.

• PTO Holiday Bazaar Special Staff Offer – This is a repeat from last month, but the PTO Holiday Bazaar is this Saturday, December 5th, 9-4 in the gym, the same day as several other Holiday Bazaars in the area. The PTO is selling table space for $20 a table to vendors, but they also said if any staff members want to fundraise for your classroom or program, they’ll give you free table space. Just fill out the Bazaar Application Form (DOCX or PDF) and email it to the PTO at howardelemenatrypto@gmail.com

• Report: Computer-based reading helps close gender gap – Boys are better are computer-based reading — potentially because they play more video games — according to a recent analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The analysis of 46 countries finds that the gender gap in reading was wider in print than when students used digital material.

• NCLB rewrite bill is in the works – Here’s the latest from congress on federal education changes. States — not the federal government — would be charged with identifying failing schools under a draft revision of No Child Left Behind. The bill, which has agreement from a bipartisan panel of congressional negotiators, would maintain testing in third through eighth grades and at least once in high school. Test results would be required to be reported by income, race and special need. See this article from NPR for more details.

• 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:

November 30 (M)
8:30-9:00, Allan Meeting w/Paul Bodine – The Howard teacher behind the macrame tapestry in the library (Office)
2:30-3:30, Site Council Meeting (Staff Room)

December 1 (T)
8:30-9:30, Allan Meeting w/Gretta Sagolla (Office)
2:30-3:30, Optional 2nd Semester Schedule Meeting (Library)

December 2 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Crazy Sock Day!
Picture Retake Day
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:05-2:05, Allan to IEP Meeting (Room 10)
2:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Staff Room)

December 3 (H)
United Way Pledge Forms Due to Office
2:30-3:30, Taking It Up Meeting (Staff Room)

December 4 (F)
1:00-2:30, Allan to Super Boundary Meeting with Sara and Joel (Office)

December 5 (S)
9:00-4:00, PTO Holiday Bazaar (Gym)

December 7 (M)
Progress Monitoring Week 5
Week of “The Hour of Code”
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee Meeting (Ed Center)

December 8 (T)
Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day
Sara Green Visiting North Region Schools
12:00-1:20, 3rd Grade Salmon Release Field Trip
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 1)

December 9 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals Meeting

December 10 (H)
Regular Day

December 11 (F)
Regular Day

Have a fabulous week, everyone!

Allan