Week of September 4th
Hi Staff,
It was great getting to see everyone last week and I hope you were all able to enjoy your labor day weekend without having to do too much school work.
There are several items to cover in this blog entry, the most important is at the top.
• Enrollment Status and Staffing Issues:
Dearest Staff,
As of Friday we had 423 students enrolled at Awbrey Park. We are especially low in kindergarten and 3rd grade. The District office has taken some of our staffing back from us. At this time we have lost .5 FTE from kindergarten. We are currently rebuilding our kinder classes to become 2 classes of 28 with Sarah Grace. Kim Chinn will work in the building as a facilitator for kinder during the upcoming work week. I will keep staff informed about any changes in kindergarten as they happen.
Our 2nd and 3rd grade teacher placements will change as well. Beth Shershun has joined the 2nd grade team. We will not be running blended 2/3 classrooms this year. We will have 3 2nd Grade classes and 2 3rd grade classes. There will be class size of 31 each in 3rd grade and 21/20/19 in 2nd grade. This will provide our 2nd grade class with better support in academics.
• Open House (Welcome Hour)
This year we have organized the open house to handle all of the different items families need to complete at the start of the year. This plan is listed in the PDF below. We will need some teachers to help out with this. I have put some suggested schedules in the this document.
• Office Procedures Meeting-
There is an optional staff meeting to find out about changes in the office, office roles, changes in PO procedures, ordering, etc. This meeting will occur on Wednesday at 3:35 in Room 13.
• Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff –
Attached is the updated Back to School Memo. All staff must review the district policies under section 1 of the memo and return the acknowledgment form to me no later than Friday, September 28th. Please note that that downtown has revised the district complaint form in anticipation of the board approving the new bullying and harassment policy (which is in this memo in draft form). In addition, there is new information for district spending controls, and volunteers. I’ll leave a paper copy of the acknowledgement form in mailboxes for staff to sign and return to me once you have reviewed the policies.
• New Staff in CLCB-
Please welcome our new EA in the CLCB- Jill Carpenter. Jill will be working with us in the behavior classroom and will also support some students in a Title Math group this year.
• Back-to-School Kickoff Survey –
If you would like to give feedback on the Back-to-School Event please use the following Survey Monkey survey.
• Employee Training – Safeschools –
As a result of recent Oregon law, all school employees are now required to have specific trainings on “Child Abuse: Identification and Intervention” and “Sexual Conduct: Staff to Student (Oregon-specific version in Full course or refresher).” In order to comply with the law, Human Resources has utilized the services of Safeschools.com. All employees should already have received an email from HR notifying them of the assigned courses, and simple instruction on how to log-in. The deadline for completion is the last day in December.
• Student Network Passwords –
In light of the security last school year, the district is increasing network security. Partially at issue with the breach was that the person involved figured out the username and password pattern involving first & last names and lunch codes, and was able to access the system through multiple network identities. No changes are happening at this point, but I did want staff to know there will be changes coming, which will involve students being prompted to change their passwords after a certain amount of days, with K-2 students using passwords with 4 characters (e.g. 1235 or cat5 or clam) and grades 3-5 using 4×4 character passwords (e.g. 1234-abcd or fred-9999 or 4567-0001). Peter Tromba, the new director of technology, will be implementing these changes.
• Educator Goal Plans for Teachers –
Set a Date for Goals Conference – Teachers should complete the attached 4J Educator Goal Plan. I always want to encourage teachers to think of goals that stretch or push yourself. However, keeping workload in mind, make it something realistic and something you genuinely are working on improving in yourself or your professional practice. All non-itinerant teachers should contact me by Friday, September 14th to set up a goals conference meeting to take place sometime in September or early October. Please let me know if you have any questions.
• PBIS Slide Show Pictures and the Keynote Presentations
Please submit a picture of yourself doing something you enjoy or with a prop of something you enjoy (ie: camping, card making, quilting, etc.) This is replacing the slide show of staff members reading that we presented the last couple of years. This could be a picture you already have or one that you have someone take of you here. Whatever is easiest for you! When you send it please put a small caption of your interest etc. Please send this to Tami by Tuesday, September 4!
Contact Kristen or Tami to get updated keynotes for your PBIS lessons.
Our State OAKS report: Here is a link to the report ODE created about our OAKS Scores: 4J Achievement Compact Report
We will discuss this further in the September 18th staff meeting.
• Site Council Minutes –
Here are the minutes from our Site Council Retreat.
• Teachers Collecting Parent Emails- Please create a process in your classroom to survey your parents about emails and online access. Send the updated information to me in an email and we will use this to update our communication lists with parents. I will use this for building an accurate list
• Back-to-School Prezi –
If for some reason you’d like to see the staff meeting Prezi presentation again, you can find it here.