Week of January 12
Queridos maestros e empleados,
Last week was a good week. It was good to see how quickly teachers helped students get back into routines. So many of our students need the structure of school and you provide it! We are quickly approaching school choice season. If you want to help out in any way with the showcase event on Saturday let me know. It is so important to our program that people know how amazing our program is.
On a bittersweet note, I wanted to briefly share how much I will miss having Sarah Lauer on our team. She is an amazing educator and so dedicated to the work we do with all our students. Sarah’s work with kids for the past 13 years and her work within the equity committee will not be forgotten. I hope she comes back to visit us in the future from Minneapolis. She is an example of how we as educators make a huge difference in the lives of children and their families. Thank you for your service Sarah. Best of luck in your new life in the Midwest.
What is coming up?
- January 12 (M)
Wear green and gold!
Reading and Math Winter Benchmark Testing Week, EDL Continues
7:30-9:45, Joel at Latino Community Breakfast (Ed Center)
10:00-10:45, Joel and Monica Olvera discuss Ballet Folklórico practices in the building. Potential access for students after school.
11:30-12:00, Design Debrief in Joel’s office.
3:30-5:30, Joel at the TIU Planning meeting.
- January 13 (T)
Joel and Jennifer out. Kathy Larson will support and call me if discipline needs to be addressed.
8:00-3:30- Taking it Up Training Day 1 (8 staff attend at Auditorium)
2:45-4:45, Staff Meeting- Professional Development with Edward Olivos and Audrey Lucero, Zone of Proximal Development and tying assessment in to the instructional cycle.
6:00-7:00, Grupo de Padres/ Parent Group Meeting (Library)
- January 14 (W)
Joel and Jennifer out. Karen Ramirez Gutierrez will support and call me if discipline needs to be addressed.
8:00-3:30- Taking it Up Training Day 2 (8 staff attend in Auditorium)
1:45-2:45- PLC teams in the library. (Focus is still formative math assessments.) Please fill out the form each week, thanks.
2:45-3:45, PBIS Meeting (Erin Piper’s Room)
- January 15 (H)
1:30-2:15, Hat Speeches in conference room 1:30-2:15, Note the change in day. PBIS team attends if possible.
3:00-5:00, Joel, Karen, Marcy, Alexis to Design Committee (Classroom Focus group session.) Please come if you want to give input.
- January 16 (F)
8:30-9:00, Joel meets with Roscoe Caron
12:00-1:00, Joel in Formal Observation
1:30-3:30, Joel to Super Boundary Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-?, Mystery event.
- January 19 (M)
No School – Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Joel to MLK March at John Serbu Campus. Come join me if you like. There is no official Camino del Rio participation but I’d love to march with any colleagues that want to walk in solidarity.
Parking is available at Serbu Youth Center (2727 MLK Blvd) then we are gathering in front of PK Park. We will start gathering at 9am and then we will start the March at 10am. We will head down MLK Blvd. to the Shedd Institute where there will be a short program of speakers.
- January 20 (T)
8:30-9:45, Joel in Formal Observation
2:45-3:45, PLT Meeting (Conference Room)
- January 21 (W)
8:30-3:30, Joel at Principal’s Network Priority Schools Meeting (Lane ESD)
1:45-2:45- PLC teams in the library. (Focus is still formative math assessments.) Please fill out the form each week, thanks.
2:45-3:45, IPBS in Erin Recker’s Room
- January 22 (H)
8:00-9:00, Joel to Super Boundary Meeting (Ed Center)
3:00-5:00, Design Committee (Library)
4:30-6:30, 4J Equity Committee (Parr Room)
- January 23 (F)
9:00, Lockdown Drill
10:00-11:30, Joel in Pre conference and formal observation
- January 24 (S)
9:00-12:00, Elementary School Showcase (Ed Center)
Some items of note for the week:
• The Reinvention of Bilingual Education in America’s Schools Here is the my article pick of the week. It describes the trends well in dual language programs today.
A New Mexico student at the state Spanish Spelling Bee in April 2011.
• HM Journeys CCSS Updated Materials – The updated Houghton Mifflin reading materials will be delivered sometime this week. For those not on PLT, the district got a highly discounted offer from HM to upgrade our old HM reading materials to their current CCSS aligned version. This also came with a 6 year subscription to the online version of the curriculum, which can be accessed from laptops or iPads and includes the leveled readers. We purchased the English version only to support and better align materials to Common Core. The materials are going to be stored in the Craig’s shed next week and will stay there until the district organizes their the teacher trainings, though teachers can get them earlier if you’d like.
• Schools Showcase Volunteers, Sat. Jan. 24th, 10:00-12:00 – The School Showcase will be held again this year on Saturday Jan. 24th at the Ed Center, 9:00-12:00. It is also an elementary only event this year. Last year there was an informational presentation about the school choice process from 9-10 and then the showcase from 10-12. This event is for interested families to learn about all 4J schools in one place at the same time. Last year they provided breakfast, including a vegetarian option, for staff helping at the event. Let me know if any of you are willing to help me promote Camino del Rio and tell families why they should come to our school. You are the best marketing tool for our school.
• Superintendent Search Updates – We should know who our new superintendent will be by spring break. The school board had a work session last Wednesday to review all of the staff, students, families and public input. They plan to do a first round screening of candidates soon and will then do site visitations. In March, they will have different stakeholder groups conduct interviews with the finalists. That input will then go back to the board who will announce the new superintendent by spring break.
• Process for Requesting District Behavior Support – Camino del Rio staff are already good about going through the building IPBS process for challenging students before calling in ESS behavior consultants for, but ESS has now created a Tiered Intervention Flow Chart of steps that are to be followed before calling in one of the behavior consultants. “The Mod Squad” IPBS Team already follows these steps, but feel free to look at the chart if you’d like.
• Call for Student Presenters on Digital Learning Day! (Feb. 4th, 2015) – Ketterer send something out to cert_all, but Kellyclare Gardner sent a Digital Learning Day flyer to principals specifically calling for student presenters for Digital Learning Day that I thought I would forward. If you have any trouble accessing the link to our online sign up form through the PDF, here you can follow this link if you want to represent Camino del Rio at this event.
• Jan. 30 Educational Assistant (Professional Learning) Extravaganza – Back by popular demand, downtown will be hosting a variety of instructional workshops for all educational assistants who wish to participate. This all day event (8:00-3:30 at the Ed Center) allows for classified staff to choose presentations within your scheduled work day while teachers are working on report cards. They will be presenting multiple workshops at at time, in order to give you choice and flexibility to fit within your daily schedule. A schedule of the workshops and more details will be sent out soon.
• DonorsChoose.org Opportunity – Most of you are probably familiar with DonorsChoose.org, but it’s an on-line charity that connects the public to easily fund grants for public schools. For the College Football National Championship game, all attendees at the game will receive a $25 DonorsChoose.org gift card to use on a classroom project that inspires them. While there’s no way to predict how many recipients will use the funds, there will likely be a bunch of folks from our community looking to support a classroom, so it this may be a good time to put up a low cost grant (headphones, curriculum materials, class supplies, etc.) on their website. Here’s a link to the teacher section of DonorsChoose.org to submit a grant if you’ve never put one up before.
• Title 1 Newsletter – Here is the latest district level Title 1 Newsletter that went out to all Title 1 Coordinators and principals. This month’s issue is again mostly coordinator specific information and tasks, but there is some information about summer school for staff who work there and are wondering when it will be this year.
Have a great 5 day week.
Saludos cordiales,
Joel
Announcements, Equity, Evacuation Drills, Parent Involvement, Staff Meeting Agenda, Teacher Evaluation/ Observations, Title 1, Two Way Immersion, Uncategorized | Comment (0)