March 28, 2011

By Allan 　

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all got time over the break to relax and reenergize yourselves. I certainly enjoyed my time off, but I could have used another week.

Eight items of note for this week:

• Monday, March 28th, Planning Day – This Monday, when most staff return to work, was originally a PD/Planning Day, but it is now entirely a planning day, so the day is yours for planning and preparing for the remainder of the school year.
• Large School Funds and 0.5 School Counselor – The Large School Funds that we have received in the past and which have traditionally gone towards about an hour IA time at each school is being changed for next school year. Next year, the five largest elementary schools schools, of which we are the largest, will receive a 0.5 certified counselor. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this new position and how you would like to see it work. I envision our counselor helping create and support behavior support plans for challenging students, meeting with individual student, running social skills and friendship groups, and other duties as we think of them.
• April Math Professional Development – The final math workshops of the school year for classroom and SPED teachers will be held this April. All workshops are located at Bailey Hill Instructional Center at 2295 Four Oaks Grange Road. Dates and times for the workshops are in the attached flyer. It will probably be a good idea to get your subs early before the good ones are all snatched up. Select “Math Articulation” as the absence reason.
• Em-azing Reading Incentive Program Assembly This Thursday – Earlier in the year some teachers expressed interest in participating in a reading incentive program put on by the Eugene Ems and their new mascot Sluggo. We tentatively had the assembly scheduled for this Thursday, March 31st 12:20 (Corridor) and 1:00 (YG). These dates have now been confirmed with the Ems. This is an optional assembly, but everyone is welcome to attend and it is perfectly fine to come if you didn’t RSVP the first time around. To participate in the program, all teachers need to do is decide what goals you would like your students to achieve and collect the bookmarks that track the number of books they read. The Ems players and their mascot, Sluggo, will come to our school for the kick-off assembly. Students may receive free Ems tickets for their family, a chance to run the bases during a game and possibly have their principal throw out the opening pitch. Should be a fun program!
• March Fire Drill – Tuesday, March 29th at 1:00 will be our March Fire Drill. Rain is being predicted for most all of next week, so if this time gets rained out, I will hold the fire drill during the break in the weather.
• 4J Schools Energy Upgrades – UO Students Analysis – The UO Department of Architecture is collaborating with the 4J School District to develop energy retrofits designs for Elementary Schools in Eugene. This will give the district good information for the physical conditions of classrooms for future upgrades when federal/state funding is available for these retrofits. The UO is hoping to send architecture students to our school and want to take some photos and measurements of one sample classroom three times over the course of Spring term. The work should not take more than 30‐45 minutes. Please let me know if any of you are willing to volunteer your classroom during a non-student time between April 1-6.
• OEA’s Working Wonder’s Contest – OEA is putting on a great contest that I believe will help shine a positive light on Oregon schools. Here’s how it works: Every day, you transform our public schools from good to great. Through innovation, creativity, and a passion for educating kids – you see examples of those who work wonders in and out of the classroom. Too often, these stories go unnoticed. This is your chance to put a spotlight on the great work done in our schools. Submit your Working Wonders Story using our online form. Tell then what’s working right in our public schools. A blue ribbon panel of experts and education leaders will select three winning written entries for a cash prize. Winning stories will be used in a public video, produced by the OEA, to highlight the great work happening in Oregon’s public schools. Contest entries will be accepted through 5:00 p.m. PST April 11, 2011.

FIRST PRIZE – Educator(s) in the story: $500
School/organization in the story: $3,000
SECOND PRIZE – 
Educator(s) in the story: $250
School/organization in the story: $2,000
THIRD PRIZE – 
Educator(s) in the story: $100
School/organization in the story: $1,000

More details can be found on the OEA Working Wonders webpage.

• April is Earthquake Awareness Month – April is earthquake awareness month in Oregon – a time for all of us to focus on the importance of earthquake preparedness and seismic safety. For many of us, this issue has taken on a new level urgency in light of the recent events in Japan. There are many excellent activities you can do with students, but one interesting link ODE sent out was a link to the “seismic scores” for each school building at ODEs “Quake-Safe Schools” webpage. Scores can be found under the heading “How Does Your School Rank Regarding Seismic Safety?” Our building actually scored well compared to many buildings in the school district.

Have a great week everyone!

Allan

This entry was written by Allan, posted on March 25, 2011 at 8:42 pm, filed under Announcements. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.