Week of September 29
Calendar of the Week’s Events
September 29 (M)
8:00-8:40, Joel in 504 meeting.
8:00-11:30, Being a Writer Training for all teachers.
12:00-3:00, Joel at Being a Writer Meeting (Ed Center)
2:45-3:45, September Site Council (Conference Room)
3:45-4:45, Meeting with Kerry Delph about our Camino Facebook page.
September 30 (T)
Kathy Larson Visit
Life Touch Picture Day (Gym All Day)
8:00-8:45- Joel visiting morning meetings.
9:00-9:45, Joel meets with new Chief of Staff, Charis McGaughy
2:40-3:00, Joel Meeting with Risk about Hilliard Traffic
October 1st (W)
8:00-8:45- Joel visiting morning meetings
1:40-2:40,Collaborative Planning Time
2:45-3:15, Dia de Los Muertos Planning Meeting in Room 9.
6:00-8:00, Curriculum Night- Plan de Estudios de Noche
October 2 (H)
Joel in Portland at Coaches and Principal’s Meeting
3:00-5:00, Design Committee
October 3 (F)
Academy Day- No School
8:00-12:00, Maravillas Training with a McGraw Hill PD Consultant
12:00-4:00, Teacher Planning Time in relation to Maravillas.
This week on duty:
Inside lobby: Olivia
Front of school: Erin Reckers
Bus area #1: Marcy
Bus area #2: Erin Piper
Bus area #3: Nancy
Please remember to take your class a few minutes early if you are on duty.
Here are 16 items of note for the week:
• Design Update– On the evening of September 25th we had a turn out of about 30 people. The majority of people attending were neighbors from the surrounding community. We presented an East option and a West option. The discussion was heated and clearly, specific neighbors feel they will be adversely effected by the West option. We will be debriefing again Monday by phone to land on an East or West siting option. The East option has benefits of providing more open space. Unfortunately, it will cost money to tear down classrooms to make an east option work. This will cost 750K and means less money put into the building itself. The West option is also attractive and can be built with a slightly larger budget since there will not be tear downs. The West option also will mean less disruption and no loss of capacity as we need more kinder classrooms in 2015-2016. Most likely, the team will move forward with a site decision in the next week either way. The cons of the west plan are related to the outside play options and clear separation of traffic and play. The team is working on other options this week to share more ideas about the West option to come up with ways to solve these problems. Here is the latest presentation provided by our architect team. There are also plans in my office on poster board which I will put up in the staff lounge this week.
• PBIS Assembly on October 9th- Get a small skit prepared with your grade level team or specialist team. The skit should be fun and short. Each piece should be 10-30 seconds.
• Next Parent Group Meeting is October 14th- Consider coming to the next parent group meeting. Our new parent group president wants to help families to hear from teachers about what is happening in classrooms. Drea wants to see if teachers want to do a short sharing of a particular grade level. It makes sense for us to start with kindergarten this month. Maestra Bucklew and Maestra Fleming, can you come to this event?
Copy Counts and conserving copies- I know many staff have been feeling the pressure of limiting copies in the IMC. Please understand that I am working hard to conserve our general supply funds. Last year, our school overspent these funds by over 8,000 dollars and we had to cover these costs with reserves from fleet funds. This is why Edna and I are watching the counts closely. It may be that we need to up the quota for all staff sooner than December. Also, please use Instaprint as much as possible. A little thinking ahead can make a big difference in reducing costs. Also, there is currently no limit on Instaprint orders. In addition, we are looking into limiting the office copying by using a hybrid online/paper system to cut costs there. At open house next week, please ask parents for their latest email address so we can make sure that system is as accurate as possible. Edna will provide a sign up sheet for you next week. If we could deliver our newsletter to a quarter or even half of our families via email, it would drastically reduce our copy costs in the office.
• Northwest Conference on Social Justice October 18th– Jill Torres is helping to organize staff who are interested in going to the Northwest Social Justice Conference. There will be a bus provided to 4j employees who want to go. It will be in Portland this year. It is 8-4:30 on October 18th, 2014 at Madison High School 2735 NE 82nd Ave. Portland, Oregon 97220
• Operation School Bell – Alicia wanted to inform you that tthere are Operation School Bell envelopes in your boxes. If you got some, please make sure to send them home with the student on Monday, September 29. The envelope contains time sensitive information. Please let Alicia know if you have any questions. Thank your for your assistance.
• Safety Week Continues – This week is Safety Week, where we’ll practice all of the most common safety drills. The schedule for the week is below. Of course, if it rains, we will have to adjust the schedule. Staff did an excellent job getting students outside for last week’s fire drill. I have included a link here if you want to read more about earthquake safety and preparedness.
• Monday, Sept. 29– No Drills.
• Tuesday, Sept. 30– Room Clear, time decided by teachers
• Wednesday, Oct. 1 – Earthquake/Fire Drill
• Thursday, Oct. 2– Lock Down (Code Blue and Code Red)
All of these drills are listed in the “Emergency Procedures Manual” which is the rainbow tabbed notebook that should be hanging in every classroom (let me know if you don’t have one). I won’t be making any announcement before the drills, so it’s okay for staff to prep your students before these drills take place. For the Lock Down drill, please review the Code Blue and Code Red procedures, which include steps that are specific to River Road and are more detailed than the general ones in the Emergency Procedures Manual. I will probably have Karen or Edna run this drill since I will be out of town that day. Please let me know if you have any questions.
• Sub Folders to Edna – If you haven’t already, be sure to give your completed sub folders to Edna. For licensed staff, EAST, the substitute teachers union, provided a list of what information is most useful for them when they go into a classroom, which teachers may want to take a look at before completing your sub folders.
• Eugene/Springfield NAACP Resource Center – The Eugene/Springfield chapter of the NAACP just had their Resource Center Kick-Off Event and I wanted to highlight some resources staff may want to recommend to students and families. There are a couple programs aimed more at secondary students, which are the Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) and the Youth Council, but the program that would most benefit our students and families is the Back to School/Stay in School (BTS) program, which offers free tutoring, computer lab and academic/Parental assistance and counseling every Saturday (beginning Oct. 4) from 10:00-12:00 at the LCC Downtown Campus.
• Language Link Interpretation Services – For individual parent meetings and phone calls requiring translation services (including Parent/Teacher Conferences), the ELD Office is highly recommending that staff use the Language Link phone service (see attached document for details). This is a company the district contracts with who are well versed in education jargon, can translate multiple languages and are quite experienced in translating for schools. The ELD office will still try to schedule an in-district translator for conferences, but just know that this is also an option and in some ways might be better for connecting with families since you’d be able to better avoid having everyone talking to the translator instead of talking to each other. Of course, during our conferences, most classroom teachers will conference in the language of the parent since we have bilingual teachers.
• Ed Center Artwork Display – The Ed Center has two glass display cases begging for student artwork. It needs to be either 8×11 flat or three dimensional no larger than 8 inches on any side. If you are interested in participating, please let me know. This is a great way to help kids fell empowered and proud of their artistic skills.
• Papa’s Pizza Student Incentive Award – Papa’s Pizza is offering achievement awards that can be given to students for good behavior or reaching other teacher set goals as an incentive. The students receiving the awards can redeem them at Papa’s Pizza for a free mini pizza. If you you’d like some of these for your class, please let me know by end of the week how many you’d like. Papa’s said they can provide them all school year long. I already received 25 last week to begin this program.
• City of EugeneTeaching Resources – The City of Eugene offers a wide range of K-12 resources that teachers can use to add interest and local content to lesson plans. This brochure offers some examples of these great opportunities for students, including RiverPlay/Discovery Village Field Trip, Hunting for History, Snow Plow Art, the annual Public Works Day and many others.
• UO International Cultural Presentations for Classrooms – The International Cultural Services Program is once again making their student ambassadors from across the globe available for the 2014-2015 school year. Since the program’s inception almost 30 years ago, ICPS participants have brought cultural diversity to our community through group presentations, panel discussions, and demonstrations of regional dance, music, food and many other forms of cultural expressions. This program is K-12 and is offered free of charge. If you would like to invite an international student to speak to your class, you can submit a request by filling out this online request form. If at any time you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the ICSP Coordinator, Lindsay Pepper, by email icsp@uoregon.edu or phone (541) 346-7429.
• VIDEO: “Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by Ferguson Kids” – A radio station from Ferguson, MO made a pretty smart and snappy video highlighting common detours to discussing and addressing racism in America, our local community and even in ourselves.
• Hispanic Heritage Month- Check out the UO Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration organized in part by Jessica Zapata
Ten un buen semana de escuela!
Director Joel
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