Diario Camino del Río

Week of March 14

Here are some items for the week:

• Tech Sharing from our 1st grade Literacy Meeting – Here are links to some tech tools that  Erin  Gaston shared with us in our 1st grade meeting.

• Quizizz – Similar to Kahoot! in that it’s a allows you to create and play multiplayer quiz games in class, but Quizizz does have several parts that are an improvement over Kahoot!.
• Quiver – Quiver is the augmented reality app that brings your coloring pages to life in this educational entertainment app, though they are now beginning to focus more on education than entertainment.

• District Title 1 Newsletter – Here is the latest district level Title 1 Newsletter that went out to Title 1 Coordinators and principals. As usual, this month’s newsletter is mostly coordinator specific information and tasks, but one item that may effect teachers next year is how the district will meet the School District Continuous Improvement Plan requirements. In the past this has been done with a meeting downtown, but parent participation in these meeting has been declining and they are not meeting this requirement, so the plan for next year is for schools to show some short videos at family nights (ie. Curriculum Nights, Literacy Nights, etc.). I’m sure more will be coming on this next year. In addition to that, there is also a good article and video on privilege from the Washington Post and also an infographic on the graduation gap.

• Student STEAM Showcase, STEM Festival at the Fair, plus STEM Teacher Professional Development Opportunities & Resources –  Kim Finch shared these opportunities with us on several STEM and STEAM related events and resources.

• Content in Context SuperLessons Student STEAM Showcase – On June 4th at Cal Young Middle School, the STEAM Showcase will celebrate innovative teaching and learning through engaging students in Science Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. They are looking for student presenters K-12 to show the community how STEAM Projects are making a difference in their learning environment. Teachers can reserve a presentation space by signing up using this link.

• Content in Context SuperLessons, Cohort 3 – This PD series happening next school is year for 3rd through 8th grade teaches who are interested in improving your math and/or science teaching, leading your students in project-based learning, joining a network of teachers, content experts, and STEM industry professionals, mastering the new Math or NGSS Science standards, receiving classroom support to implement lessons, incorporating more technology into your teaching or learning 2 graduate level credits through the University of Oregon. See the linked flyer for details and for links to the application materials.

• Lane County STEM Teaching Resource Library – The Content in Context Resources Library is set up through the Springfield Public Schools online library system. Lane County educators can get access to the library by filling out this linked form so they can set up an account for you. Materials are delivered from the SPS Administration warehouse via the Lane ESD courier and are returned to Dara Brennan at SPS.

• Interested in presenting at Oregon Math Leaders this Year? – August 5-7 at Willamette University: While the overarching theme is “Engaging Students Through STEM” they do hope to have a mix of both STEM and non-STEM related sessions. The applicaiton form is linked here.

• STEM Festival at Lane County Fair – July 22-24 – They are now accepting applications for the 2016 Lane County Fair STEM Festival. The STEM Festival is part of Discovery Park located next to the main gate at the Lane County Fair. STEM Festival is a place to share your Science-Tech-Engineering-Math (STEM) related programs alongside schools, community members and organizations impacting our community and world with their work. The 3rd annual STEM festival at the Fair is Fri. through Sun., July 22-24 between the hours of 11 am and 8 pm with lots of flexible options for participants. Follow this link for details and application materials.

• Staff Meeting Agenda on March 15, 2:45-4:45

Please arrive on time and come with your laptop or iPad. Classified: Please plan on attending if you have not been SBAC Testing Trained.  You will be compensated.

1. Connections: 2:45-3:00.
2. Letisha and Wendy share about the library.- 3:00-3:10.
3. Kelley Wilson shares on Spanish and Google, Some great new technology tools for our emerging bilinguals. 3:10-3:40.
4. Required SBAC Testing Training with Karen Ramirez Gutierrez 3:40-4:20
5. Joel finalizes the staffing plan.  4:20-4:45

What I read this Week:

• Educating “Those Kids” – From the latest issue of Teaching Tolerance; when a colleague told Jozette Martinez, “I’m not effective like you,” Martinez reflected on what exactly makes her an effective anti-bias educator. For one thing, she doesn’t view her students as “those kids.” Find out from this article the other principles that guide her practice.

• Data show gender bias in some textbooks Books – Textbooks may not include enough female characters or too often may portray women in submissive gender roles, according to data released by UNESCO. The data, released to celebrate International Women’s Day, revealed that women are underrepresented in textbooks and curricula, researchers noted.

• Some Thoughts on “Coding” and “Technical Ghettos” http://www.aud.life/2016/some-thoughts-on-coding-and-technical-ghettos

• Nancy Hanks on School Discipline -OUR contribution to the school to prison pipeline. – www.kellywickham.com

What is coming up?

March 13 (SU)
Daylight Savings Time (Spring Forward)

March 14 (M)

2:30-5:00, Joel at Elementary Principal’s Meeting (Parr Room)

March 15 (T)

9:00-10:30, Joel at Immersion Principals Task Force Meeting (Mozart Room)
11:00-12:00- Joel at LTD Community Outreach Meeting (Downtown LTD Atrium Building)
2:55-4:45, Staff Meeting, Professional Development- Staffing Decision Day, and Technology PD

March 16 (W)

1:45-2:45, Teacher Collaboration Hour- Math PLC Time

Joel submits staffing by 4:00 PM.

March 17 (Th)

3:45-5:15, Kindergarten Teacher Monthly Meeting@Camas Ridge

March 18 (F)

8:30-11:30, ALICE Training at Willagillespie Elementary

March 19-27 Spring Break

March 28 (M)

8:00-1:30, Academy Day AIMS4S3 Training
2:30-5:00, Joel at Elementary Principals’ Meeting: Parr Room

March 29 (T)

School Resumes

7:30-8:00, Joel in Summative Meeting
8:45-9:45, Cafecito in FRC Focus is on:
Increasing bilingual parent leadership, community outreach.

12:00-1:00, Joel, Kay and Liza in furniture meeting
3:00-4:00, Site Council Meeting (Conference Room)

March 30 (W)

River Road Peer Observations – Kinder  /1st – Get a sub today, Full Day Title 2 A is the funding source.

March 31 (Th)

River Road Peer Observations – 4th w/ Nancy, 5th w/ Aline,  Get a sub today, Full Day Title 2 A is the funding source.

April 1 (F)

River Road Peer Observations– 2nd and 3rd w/Nancy, Get a sub today, Full Day Title 2 A is the funding source.

Summer Opportunities for Students:

Annual 2016 Migrant Education Summer School- Lane County, June 27 to July 21, 2016

Have a good week, everyone!

Joel

Week of March 7

May 19, 1921 – June 1, 2014) was a Japanese American human rights activist. Women’s History Month.

Hello El Camino del Río Staff,

This week is Classified Employees’ Week and I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge all of the hard work our classified folks do to help keep our school running. There are actually more classified staff on staff than licensed staff here at El Camino del Río, so it’s pretty clear that our school would grind to a halt without all of your work and efforts supporting students and staff. You all are the best and as a thank you, look for some fun things to happen in our building this week. Surprises ahead!

Here are some items of note:

• Classified Staffing Update – ESS department let principals know they will have individual hours and job assignments for SPED staff later this week. They tolds us the FTE but did not match the staff to the numbers. We received 0.6 FTE certified and 4.5 hours classified. I’ll let SPED folks know as soon as I have that information. For Title 1 and building funded Educational Assistants , I wanted to let you know I don’t expect to reduce anyone’s hours, but I’m still working out some Educational Assistant scenarios that will vary depending on the licensed staffing plan. At this point, I just wanted Title 1 and building funded Educational Assistants to know that no one will be losing hours. For kitchen and custodial staff there are no updates for next year at this point.  Come to the optional staffing meeting on Tuesday if you would like to discuss further.

• UO Doctoral Student Teacher Survey – If there are teachers who’d like to be entered into a drawing to win an Amazon gift card, a UO doctoral student sent principals a link to a 15 minute survey to forward to teachers about improving classroom practices. They said email addresses (for the drawing) and survey responses will be kept separate. Prizes range from $20.00 to $100.00 and forty-one people will be randomly selected to win. March 15th is the deadline if you’d like to participate.

• Carrying it Forward (formerly Taking it Up) Seminar Opportunity – I wanted to remind everyone about this opportunity and also make sure everyone knows this is open to both classified and licensed staff. Subs are provided. 4J’s Carrying it Forward seminar will be Thursday & Friday April 7th & 8th. The intention of the seminar is to build a greater understanding of issues of race, racism, and dominant culture and give us a common language and experience from which to build capacity for deeper, more authentic conversations about race across the district. Several staff are already planning to attend. I see this as a school wide expectation so if you do not get trained this year, I will ask you to get trained next year. See the linked email for more details. The deadline to register is Wednesday, March 30th.

• FAMILY RESOURCE: Family Check-Up – I’ve shared this before, but I received an email with an updated flyer for the UO’s Family Check-Up program. This program was developed by the UO to provide brief, family-centered interventions that identify strengths and weaknesses in family functioning and help participants become motivated to make positive changes. The program is for members of Trillium Community Health Plan (AKA Oregon Health Plan). Families can earn $150 (provided in gift cards) by attending three appointments, which take place over a four- to five-week period. Feel free to share this resource with any families who you think might benefit.

• FAMILY RESOURCE: Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) Program – This is a program that DHS shared in the Student Care Team Meeting. This is a paid on-the-job program where people can become a CNA1 or CNA2. Feel free to share the linked flyer.

• Care Team Referrals – Related to the above, the Student Care Team will be meeting the week after spring break, which means referrals to the team are due Friday next week. The Care Team can help with a wide variety of stations. DHS can also provide us with updates for any reports we’ve made. Linked here is the 4J Release Form (PDF or DOC) if you can obtain a parent or guardian signature, but you can also refer “hypothetical” student or family situations. Let me know if you have any questions about potential referrals, but if it’s a situation that’s on your mind, it’s probably a worth referring to the team.

• District Admin Updates – Brooke Wagner has been selected as the new Director of Elementary, replacing Sara Green when she retires at the end of the school year. Brooke taught at South and Churchill and was at Kelly as the assistant principal from 2002–2007. Since 2007, Brooke has been a principal in Springfield, first at Briggs Middle School and more recently Thurston Elementary School.

BJ Blake has accepted the position of secondary education director, replacing Randy Bernstein when he retires at the end of the school year. The was appointed to this position. BJ started her education career as an elementary teacher, then as a Churchill assistant principal in 2000, to six years as principal of Meadowlark/Buena Vista Elementary School, to five years as principal of Spencer Butte Middle School, to her return to Churchill as principal in 2014.

One other district level vacancy that has yet to be filled is the Director of Technology. The first round of interviews were not successful and they are re-posting the position. Kim Ketterer is currently the interim Director of Technology, though she too is retiring at the end of this school year.

BJ Blake- New Secondary Director

• Teaching Women’s History With Perspectives – March may be officially designated as Women’s History Month, but you can celebrate the contributions of women all year round with readings, tasks and strategies from Perspectives for Diverse America. This webinar will explore texts and activities that allow you to go beyond “famous firsts” and teach about women from a variety of disciplines, cultures and backgrounds. You will also learn how these tools can help students connect the past to the present and even the future. Registration on the site is required.

• LEL This Friday, March 11:

This Friday there will be school wide observations in our school. This program is called LAL. (Learning about Learning in Elementary.- (LEL) It is a district wide observation protocol started in 2009.  The elementary schools have their own Learning about Learning Network called LEL. The focus of LEL is to study the learner. Observers are teachers and principals from 4 elementary schools, Cesar Chavez, Buena Vista, McCornack, and us!  The observers will have a specific learning focus in the classrooms. They will be looking for student engagement behaviors in math and language behaviors.  They will look to see what kind of sheltering strategies are used in the classroom to lower the affective filter. The schedule is in draft form right now but will be communicated to teachers this week for feedback. Here is the draft we have so far:

Because of the learning focus, you may have to modify your schedule to teach math at a different time of day but I tried to plan it around our master schedule where I believe our math times are in the day.

• Friday, March 18th is ALICE Training  –ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) This training will be happening at Willagillespie Elementary,1125 Willagillespie Rd, Eugene, OR 97401 on March 18th. We will begin at 8:30. It will be about 5 hours of training with a half hour lunch. Alice is a district required training that all 4J schools must complete.  It helps get schools well prepared for circumstances that many schools have faced and uses a proactive approach. If you are squeamish about doing emergency simulations please contact me.  I have been working closely with Randi Bowers-Payne to ensure that all staff feel safe in this training. ALL STAFF need to attend CLASSIFIED and CERTIFIED: EA’s, custodians, cooks, secretaries included. Real emergencies require a team response from everyone.

• Monday, March 28 Academy Day-  Monday, March 28th is an academy day with our last follow up from Lisa Meyers on AIMS4S3.  We will be intensely focused on the AIMS4S3 compendium and teachers are expected to bring a complete S3 Compendium to share with the staff. All licensed staff should plan on attending. Classified EA’s are also required to attend this session. Reflection on compendium work will also be a big part of this session. The Session will begin at 8:00 AM and end at 1:30. Lunch will be around 12:00.

•AIMS4S3 Planning  time is available!- Please remember that all classroom teachers have planning time available to design and plan S3 units and create compendiums  Teachers asked for these hours.  I can provide up to 4 hours extended contract to teachers to do this professional development.  Please email me with specific times you plan to do it.  Some teams have decided to work on a weekend and get paid for their time.  This IS an option.  ATTENTION 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teams: Please send me a date you plan to do this by Friday, March 11.

A Calendar of Some Upcoming Events

CLASSIFIED APPRECIATION WEEK

March 7 (M)
Classified Employees Week
Women in History Week
9:00- Joel in Informal Observation
10:15- Joel accompanies student in Artist in Residence
11:40- Joel in informal observation.

March 8 (T)
International Women’s Day
7:30-  Joel in mid term goal meeting.
2:55-3:40,  Optional Staff Meeting- Staffing discussion. (Library)
PLT Cancelled
6:00-7:00, Parent Group Meeting

March 9 (W)

1:45-2:45, Teacher Collaboration Hour- Math PLC Time
4:00-5:00, North Region Principals’ Meeting (Kelly MS)

March 10 (H)

2:45-3:45, Mod Squad
3:00-4:00, Furniture Meeting (Library)

March 11 (F)

8:30-3:30,- LEL at El Camino del Río!  Observations  and teacher learning in classrooms throughout the day. (See the proposed schedule in the blog.)

March 12 (S)
9:00, Regional OBOB Competition (North Eugene HS)

March 13 (SU)
Daylight Savings Time (Spring Forward)

March 14 (M)

2:30-5:00, Joel at Elementary Principal’s Meeting (Parr Room)

March 15 (T)

9:00-10:30, Joel at Immersion Principals Task Force Meeting (Mozart Room)
11:00-12:00- Joel at LTD Community Outreach Meeting (Downtown LTD Atrium Building)
2:55-4:45, Staff Meeting, Professional Development- Staffing Decision Day, and Technology PD

March 16 (W)

1:45-2:45, Teacher Collaboration Hour- Math PLC Time

Joel submits staffing by 4:00 PM.

March 17 (Th)

3:45-5:15, Kindergarten Teacher Monthly Meeting@Camas Ridge

March 18 (F)

8:30-1:00, ALICE Training at Willagillespie Elementary

March 19-27 Spring Break

March 28 (M)

8:00-1:30, Academy Day AIMS4S3 Training
2:30-5:00, Joel at Elementary Principals’ Meeting: Parr Room

March 29 (T)

School Resumes
8:45-9:45, Cafecito in FRC Focus is on:
Increasing bilingual parent leadership, community outreach.
3:00-4:00, Site Council Meeting (Conference Room)

Have a good week, everyone!

Joel