Welcome to April!!

What You Are Doing Matters! I recently attended a symposium on working together to break the cycle of poverty. Some staggering state-wide statistics were shared that further validated my belief that work you are doing in our Title I schools MATTERS – thank you!

• For the 12-14 SY, more than half of Oregon students qualified for F/R lunch
• In Oregon, nearly 1 out of 4 children live in poverty
• Nearly 8% of Oregon’s students, under the age of 18, are homeless
• 33% of entering Oregon Kindergarteners could name five, or fewer, letters and 14% couldn’t name a single letter
• Students reading proficiently by 3rd grade are four times more likely to graduate high school
• 85-90% of poor readers receiving intervention before 3rd grade can increase reading skills to average levels; 75% of those receiving intervention post nine years old will continue to have difficulties throughout their life
• As of 2012, there were 58,580 ELLs in Oregon. 19% of currently enrolled Kindergarteners have limited language proficiency

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!

Out of the Office: As a reminder, I will be out of the office the week of March 31-April 4. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but I have complete faith that our outstanding Title Team (Linda, Bee and Penny) will be able to address any questions/concerns you may have during my absence.

Parent Survey: Each year, Title I is required to issue a parent survey.  The survey will soon be open and will remain open for a few weeks, closing on May 5. Specific survey dates, and the survey monkey link, are coming soon; we are currently working on translations! We modified the survey to reflect the feedback you provided during February’s Coordinator/Principal meeting. We have also incorporated some questions related to Indistar and the CAP, under Family and Community Involvement. This way, schools can utilize this feedback during the school’s self-assessment and CAP planning processes! Please encourage families to complete the survey – the more feedback you receive, the better for your/our continuous growth and planning.

Should you provide some paper copies, here is a condensed (2 page) survey for your convenience:
Title I Parent Involve Survey 13-14 (2pg)
Title I Parent Survey SPAN 13-14 (2pg)

Sample letter to give to parents – feel free to customize:
Parent Invol Survey Ltr ENGL_SPAN

Survey Monkey Links:
Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/76Z6RLJ
English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/76P5HCN

Summer School: The program will be held from June 30-July 24 at Chavez! Below, please find information regarding the Summer School referral process. I have provided a general timeline and some deadlines to put on your calendar, as we get the student selection and registration processes underway.

April:
Schools will receive their summer school allotments
Forms will be distributed to Coordinators (incoming data, registration and parent letters)
Schools identify students who will benefit from summer school and contact families
Schools will receive a list of students whose winter easyCBM scores fall w/in referral guidelines
May:
Registration forms are due and confirmation letters sent to families

Summer School Specific DEADLINES:
4/18: Send information letters and registration forms to families by April 18
5/16: Summer school registration forms to Linda by May 16
5/23: Confirmation letters sent to families by May 23
TBD: Summer school incoming data forms, for each attending student, to Linda

Summer School DOCUMENTS for Elementary:
Please note that both the location and administrator for middle school Summer School is yet to be determined (the location was Madison and a possible change of location is currently under review). Once a decision has been made, Linda will email you the below documents for middle school (your 5th graders).

• General Referral Process and School Allotments: Referral_Process_Allotments 2014
• More detailed referral process: 4j Elementary Summer School 2014 Referral Guidelines
• Registration forms (English/Spanish): Elem English SS Registration 2014 and Elem Spanish SS Registration 2014
• Middle School registration forms (English/Spanish): MS English SS Registration 2014 and MS Spanish SS Registration 2014
• Parent Letter (English/Spanish): 4J_Elem_SS_Parent Letter 2014 and 4J_Elem_SS_Parent Letter_SPAN 2014
• Middle School Parent Letter (English/Spanish): MS_Parent Letter_2014 and MS_SS_Parent Letter_SPAN_13-14
• Incoming Data Form: Incoming Data Form 2014

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure teachers follow the referral guidelines for student selection as this has a significant impact on the success of the overall program. This may require some individual conversations with teachers, on the part of you and/or the principal. In addition, you will be receiving winter benchmarking data that aligns with Summer School referral guidelines as a start place for considering student invitations. Please look for this email in the days ahead.

Summer School Administrator: I am pleased to announce that we have hired Karen Ramirez-Gutierrez as our 2014 Summer School Administrator! She currently teaches at River Road/El Camino del Rio Elementary and brings with her practical leadership experiences, along with unparalleled enthusiasm; I know you will find her both organized and supportive as plans for Summer School get underway!

Summer School Classified/Certified Positions: We will begin the process of filling both classified and certified staffing positions soon after spring break. In recent years, the teaching positions have been especially difficult to fill. If you, or someone you know, is interested in teaching summer school please make them aware of this upcoming opportunity; they will need to apply through NeoGov once a posting is on line. In addition, please ask them to email Karen (ramirezgutierrez_k@4j.lane.edu) so that she has a sense of who (and how many) is interested! Finally, because we focus on reading support, the teacher must hold a reading endorsement. In the event we are unable to locate enough interested teachers, who hold an endorsement, we may need to shift the primary focus of summer school to mathematics  interventions. We really need your help in seeking teachers for summer school! Anything you can do will be greatly appreciated!

SMART Goals: How are your goals coming along? Please let me know how I can be of support as you work on both your student achievement and professional practice goals.

2014-2015 Title I Budget: Budget allocations will be provided on Friday, April 4 and will be included in HR packets for each, individual school. Included in the packet will be your (1) regular Title allocation (2) parent involvement allocation (3) guidelines for developing your Title budget and (4) a copy of the excel spreadsheet you will use to develop your budget. In addition, some schools will receive allocations for extended learning that coincides with the BEST program and/or Priority/Focus funds. As a reminder, Title I budgets must be reviewed and approved prior to the submission of staffing plans to HR. I have set aside the following dates/times to meet with principals (coordinators are welcome, if you like). In addition, I have reserved 1:30-2:30 (just prior to the elementary principals meeting), in the Mozart room, to answer any individual questions you may have regarding your budget. There will be a sign up sheet for budget meetings available at this time. PRINCIPALS, PLEASE NOTE: an electronic version of the budget template will be emailed to each of you by the close of the business day, if not sooner, on 4/4.

Available times for Title I Budget Meetings with Suzy (sign up sheet will be available at 4/7’s Q & A or call Bee):
4/9: 7:30-2:00
4/11: 7:30-5:00
4/14: 7:30-11:00

RESOURCES

Parent Resources (Books/Websites): I put together the attached list of resources for you to use as a reference as we partner with  parents in the education of our students. Please know that I do not necessarily endorse the resources on this list as “the answer”, but rather my goal was to simply generate a set of resources schools could use as a starting point ~ one resource may meet the needs of a particular parent, while this same resource may not work for another family. I would love to add to this list, so please share with me resources you have stumbled across and I will continue to build our set of resources! Resources for Parents

Attacking Summer Slide in Math: “In this School Library Journal article, New York youth services coordinator Lisa Kropp cites a Duke University study showing that students’ summer learning losses are greater for math than for reading – all students, wealthy and poor, lose about 2.6 months in their grade-level equivalency in computational ability over the summer months.

One way of countering this is Bedtime Math www.bedtimemath.org, a program that e-mails parents a daily math problem with three levels of questions: wee ones, little ones, and big ones. The questions all refer to the same story and get progressively more challenging. Last summer, Bedtime Math teamed up with the Collaborative Summer Library Program to offer a math tie-in called “Summer of Numbers” http://www.cslpreads.org. Families can use math reading logs to track when children answer a math riddle, and these can be turned in for an incentive prize at participating libraries.”

Children’s Books That Turbocharge the Math Curriculum
“Integrating children’s literature into math makes learning more engaging and less intimidating,” says South Carolina educator Candice Brucke in this helpful article in AMLE Magazine. She believes her use of well-chosen books was a major reason for very high achievement in her classes. Here are some of her suggestions, including one she wrote herself:

• The Grapes of Math (Tang, 2004) and The Important Book (Brown, 1999) to teach number properties;
• A Giraffe to France (Hillard, 2000) for measurement and writing and solving equations;
• The Missing Piece (Silverstein, 2006) for missing-angle measures and sectors of a circle;
• How I Became a Pirate (Long, 2003) to assess students’ prior knowledge on the coordinate plane;
• Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi (Neuschwander, 1999) for circumference and π.
• Skippyjon Jones Lost in Spice (Schachner, 2005) for combinations and permutations
• Wrappers Wanted: A Mathematical Adventure in Surface Area (Brucke, 2009) for surface area;
• Chasing Vermeer (Balliett, 2005) to introduce manipulatives such as pentominoes
• My Full Moon Is Square (Pinczes, 2002) for the concept of square numbers;
• The Lion King (Disney, 1994) for the concept of slope – students can graph the good/ill fate points for a particular character;
• What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? (Ellis, 2004) for the Pythagorean Theorem applied to everyday situations;
• One Grain of Rice (Demi, 1997) for exponential growth;
• Cinder Edna (Jackson, 1998) for box/scatter plots;
• Multiplying Menace: The Revenge of Rumplestiltskin (Calvert, 2006) to review fractions.

FLOCABULARY: Perhaps you have heard of FLOCABULARY. This tool uses short rap-type music videos to teach vocabulary, while introducing and reinforcing a variety of skills. Both students and teachers have given positive reviews and should support your efforts to increase student engagement. Currently there is a 90 day FREE TRIAL for individual and/or school site licenses.

Calendar Items

April
Week of March 31: Suzy out of the office
4/17: Staffing plans due to HR; Title budgets must be approved prior to submission to HR
4/18: Summer school letters and registration forms sent to families, by this date
4/25: Parent survey CLOSES
4/28: Coordinator PD; 11:00-11:30 lunch/11:30-2:20 PD (Mozart)/2:30-3:45 Principal & Coord mtg (auditorium)
4/28: Beyond the Bake Sale reading due
May
5/16: Summer School registrations to Linda, by this date
5/23: Confirmation letters to families, by this date
5/19: CIP annual meeting (parents to attend)

Compliance Deadlines:

Program Review: Here is a suggested timeline for completing sections of the Program Review:
Sections 1-5 should be done
Sections 6-7 by the end of March
Sections 8-10 by the end of April
Sections 11-16 by the end of May

April: Compliance documents DUE at the 4/28 PD for submission to Penny:
1) Budget allocation for the 2013-2014 school year (you should have a copy of your current year’s budget in your notebook. Bee will make a copy for our book, at the Ed Center)

2) Budget allocation for the 2014-2015 school year (this should be completed and approved prior to 4/28)

May: Compliance documents DUE at the 5/19 CIP meeting for submission to Penny:
1) Professional Development Questions for the 2013-2014 school year
PD Questions SWP 2013-2014
PD Questions TAS 2013-2014PD

2) Professional Development School and Title I Plan for the 2013-2014 school year
In Title IA schools, professional development activities should align with the building’s School Improvement Plan. As such, what activities were planned for the staff during the 2013-2014 SY? These activities would have taken place during scheduled professional development days and/or other meetings that occur throughout the school year. This is not a list of individual teacher PD, but PD that was provided to a larger group of staff members, or the staff at large. There are two examples provided in the chart below; examples can be deleted and replaced with your school’s PD activities.

PD Activities for the School (TAS_SWP) 2013-2014

 3) Parent Involvement Questions and copies of 4j’s district Parent Involvement Policy
Title I Parent Involvement Q’s 13-14
PI _Board Policy (Spanish)
PI_Board Policy (no invite)
PI_Board Policy (Parent Invite)

June:
Program Review Document: Completion of this document has been broken down into two parts in an attempt to make the work a bit more manageable. Be sure and include your Site Council (parents) in this process; you will want to speak to your administrator about getting on the SC agenda in the months ahead. Due to the enormity of the document, you may want to consider dividing the work over two SC meetings. Please find the documents below:

Annual Title I SWP Program Review 2014
Annual Title I TAS Program Review 2014

As a reminder, here is a SAMPLE Program Review with notes and sample paragraphs you can reference as you work to complete your own review. Title IA Program Review SAMPLE

Beyond the Bake Sale Book Study Chapter 5: Here is the assignment, due by our April 28 Coordinator/Principal Meeting. Coordinators, please share the book with your principals!
1) Read pages 81-84
2) In addition to reading pages 81-84, please read and come prepared to share a summary of your section:

Pages 84-91, starting with Helping Families to Understand What’s Happening in the Classroom:
Willa-g, Awbrey Park, Kelly, Chavez and McCornack
Pages 92-101, starting with Putting Student Work Front and Center:
River Road, Twin Oaks, Holt, Family and O’Hara
Pages 102-107, starting with Using Student Achievement Data to Design Programs for Families:
Spring Creek, Eugene Waldorf, Howard, Village and ATA