http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=6651
Hi Everyone,
I hope you all had a good three-day weekend to get ready for the final four weeks of the school year.
Fifteen items of note for this week:
• Staffing Updates – Longtime Howard Title 1 EA Debbie Miller has decided to retire this year. This will leave a vacancy for a Title 1 EA position next year that I’ll be submitting a job posting for very soon, so feel free to recruit anyone good who you might know and tell them to apply.
And speaking of job postings, AJ Hruby has been hired permanently into her assistant principal position at ATA, so I have submitted a job posting for a full-time 1st grade position. That posting will hopefully go up this week, so I’ve tentatively schedule interviews to happen Wednesday, June 14th at 1:00. Jessy and Justine can both make that date, but we’d love to have additional staff, both licensed and classified, on the interview committee. Let me know if you’re able to volunteer your time to help fill this vacancy.
• Summer Classified Position – One last job related item, Tami Walkup is partnering with United Way to offer a summer reading program for students and has a small classified position happening over the summer. The program involves passing out free books to families and encouraging reading. This will happen at Emerald Park three times a week from 1:00-2:00 (with a little extra time for set-up and clean-up) for 10 weeks, along with a training on June 2nd. The 1:00-2:00 is timed to happen right after the Food for Lane County free meals for kids happening at the park weekdays 12:00-1:00. If any classified staff are interested in this position, let me know ASAP and the job is yours.
• Artist Thank-You Notes – LaneArts, who helped us secure grant funds for our artist this year, is asking if any classes could write thank you letter to the financial donors for the residency. If you think this is something you might be able to do with your class, please let me know (and gold star for you!).
• End-of-Year Checklist – Linked here is the End-of-Year Checklist for staff who are in charge of a classroom or other area. This form needs to completed before you go off to your summer. We’ve scaled down a few items, but most of it is the same as in the past. Changes include teachers no longer taking a “Tech Box” of equipment to the library to be secured (instead just lock it all up in one of your cabinets), no more having students clean their devices (though you’re welcome to do it if you’d like), no more moving tables and chairs off the carpet (leaving them as-is is fine), and no more clearing off desktops and counters (just make sure knickknacks are in boxes or containers that can be moved by the cleaning crew). A sign-up sheet for checkout dates and times will be in the Staff Room and if you need any boxes, just let Crystal know.
• Class Lists Due Friday June 16th – Although I very much liked last year’s process of developing class lists at Data Team, we don’t have the time or money to do that again, so we’ll be going back to our prior process of teams meeting to create balanced classes. Linked here is a copy of the form we used last year (Pages and PDF). I’ll run off copies on card stock and will leave a stack by teacher mailboxes. If receiving grade levels would like to meet with sending grade levels, teachers should plan a mutually agreed upon time to meet to discuss students and class lists.
• Building Sumer Access – There will be a number of facilities related projects going on this summer around the building, which is why we’re not hosting any summer school programs this year, but I was told by our project manager than none of them will restrict access to the building over the summer. Most of the work will start around July 5th and the parking lot will be off-limits at some point in July, but staff will be able to access the building all summer long should you have the need, even though you should all be enjoying a well deserved summer.
• Morning Attendance Reminder – Teachers should be sure to enter attendance no later than 8:15 each morning. Teachers should also record any student tardy who comes in the room after 7:55, but after 8:00, students entering the building will be given a tardy slip from the office and Lori will record the tardy in Synergy. The autodialer begins calling parents at 8:30, so it’s important to have attendance done well before then.
• Student Name Tags for Next Year – Please let Lori know by the end of this week if you would like her to order any of the Zaner-Bloser student name tags for next year. Here’s a link to the PreK-1 Name Plate, the 2-3 Name Plate, and the 3-5 Name Plate.
• PBIS Focus: Celebrating Your Success – The June PBIS monthly focus is Celebrating Your Success, so remember the PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet, which matches our monthly themes with Caring for Kids class meeting lessons. It’s an easy way to tie the two activities together.
• PRIDE Awards Assembly – Excellence, Friday, June 9th – Not this week, but a week from Friday is our final PRIDE Awards Assembly of the year for Excellence (“Do your personal best.”). Teachers, please choose 2-3 students who’ve demonstrated this trait and complete the PRIDE Awards before Friday next week. See the linked assembly map and directions for details.
• Reminder: Classified Self-Evaluations Due – I have 25 Classified Employee Self-Assessment assessment forms (PDF or DOC) turned in out of our 40-something classified staff. If you haven’t done your self-assessment yet, please get the completed form to me this week. I’ve finished my evaluation form for the staff who’ve turned their self-assessment forms, so please find me sometime this week and we can do a quick check-in meeting to sign-off on that eval form.
• Reminder: Licensed End-of-Year TalentEd Tasks Due – Quite a few teachers completed their End-of-Cycle Goals Reflection form in TalentEd last Friday, which is great, though there were some folks finishing up easyCBM assessments before filling out their final reflection. Please complete this form as soon as you can.
• Integrating Movement into Academic Classrooms – “Intuitively, many teachers have always known that physical activity plays an important role in student learning,” say researchers Suzanne Lindt and Stacia Miller. Now the research is confirming those intuitions, showing how dance, gesture, and other forms of movement can improve motivation, engagement, and learning. In classroom experiments, Lindt and Miller have found that students in classrooms that integrated movement were “significantly more excited by, engaged in, and focused on the lessons” than they were with conventional teaching methods. The authors suggest five strategies with examples of each:
• Dancing to memorize information – Doing a dance skip-counting numbers (5, 10, 15, 20…) to the “Macarena.”
• Applying movement to assessments – To test knowledge of synonyms and antonyms, pairs of students jump straight up and down three times, then choose to land on either their right or left foot; if both land on the same foot, they must come up with synonyms for a word on the board; if they land on opposite feet, they must name antonyms.
• Moving among stations – The teacher gives each group of students sets of fraction cards and they take turns moving to another group in search of equivalent fractions, bringing possible matches back to their group to see if they’re correct.
• Forming lines, rows, or other groupings – Each student gets a card with a punctuation mark or a word and students silently arrange themselves to form a complete sentence.
• Representing terms or ideas with actions – After reading a book about emotions, students stand and act out furious, satisfied, courageous, and other words.
• Do Schools Teach the Full Range of Skills Needed for Adult Success? – In this Kappan article, the authors share a synthesis of the skills they believe adults need for successful lives, ranging from cognitive, to interpersonal, to intrapersonal skills. Some regard these as “21st-century skills,” but the authors here believe these have been the keys to life success well before the current century.
• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the rest of the year:
May 29 (M)
No School – Memorial DayMay 30 (T)
Book Fair Set-Up
Last week of Counselor Classroom Lessons
8:00-12:00, Dental Clinic with Robin Wellwood (LCC)
9:00, Kelly students visit with Howard 5th graders
12:30, Tech Trot Limo and Ice Cream Reward
2:15, Kelly Staff Meet w/Howard Staff for Transition MeetingMay 31 (W)
BOGO Book Fair
9:00, 5th Grader Tour Kelly
10:30-12:30, Tech Trot Pizza w/the Principal
1:15-1:45, 1:1 EA Training from Nurse Robin (Community Room)June 1 (H)
BOGO Book Fair
PBIS Monthly Theme – Celebrating Your Success
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, B204)June 2 (F)
BOGO Book FairJune 5 (M)
Library Book Return Week (All books due back by June 9th)June 6 (T)
easyCBM Testing Ends
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)June 7 (W)
8:30-10:00, K – 2 Field Day (Kelly Track)
10:15-11:30, 3 – 5 Field Day (Kelly Track)
12:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)June 8 (H)
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)June 9 (F)
Last Day for BEST
10:30-12:30, BBQ Lunch – Parent are Invited
11:15-12:15, NEHS Graduates’ “Senior Stroll”
12:30-12:55, K-2 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)
1:00-11:25, 3-5 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)June 12 (M)
Deadline for Report Card TranslationsJune 13 (T)
9:30-12:30, Rock/Callihan to Science FactoryJune 14 (W)
1:00-4:00, 1st Grade Teacher Interviews (Conference Room)
6:30-7:30, YMCA Art Show (Cafeteria)June 15 (H)
Last Day for Title 1 Groups
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)June 16 (F)
No School – Grading Day
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
5:00-8:00, PTO Howard School CarnivalJune 18 (SU)
Father’s DayJune 19 (M)
9:15-1:00, SPLASH Field Trip for Grades 3/4/5
10:15, Fire Drill
4:00-5:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)June 20 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)
8:30, 4th Grade Play (Gym)
1:15-1:45, PBIS Waterballoon Launch Tailfeather Reward (Softball Field)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)June 21 (W)
12:00-12:45, 5th Grade Graduation (Gym)
12:50-1:05, Clap Out for 5th Grade (Library Hall, Est Courtyard, to Bus Loop)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ MeetingJune 22 (H)
Last Day of School, 11:05 Dismissal
10:10, Grab & Go Sack Lunches
11:30, Staff Last Day of School Ice Cream Celebration (Cafeteria)“Grab & Go” Sack Lunch Schedule
10:00 Kindergarten
10:10 1st grade
10:20 2nd grade
10:30 3rd grade
10:40 4th grade
10:50 5th gradeJune 23 (F)
No School Day — Grading Day
Last Day for Licensed StaffJune 26 (M)
Last Day for Classified Staff
Have a fabulous 4-day week!
Allan
Make sure you’re keeping up your positive to corrective feedback ratio of 5:1 (i.e. five positive comments for every corrective comment). It does make a difference!
