Week of April 3, 2017
Welcome Back, Shining Stars!
I hope you all took time for yourselves over the break and had time to recharge for the last part of the school year! Always remember to take good care of yourself so you’ll be in a good place to take care of others.
Some items of note for this week:
• SSD Staffing Update – I’ve already let SPED staff know, but we received our SPED staffing from SSD for licensed and for most classified staff. Michelle and Katie will return will to their same positions and hours next year. For classified staff, we received allocations and job assignments for everyone. Unfortunately, we will have a loss in hours and will lose one EA next year.
• Job Expo Updates – el Camino will have two positions going to the Job Expo next week, so please tell me if you know of awesome teachers who want to come to our school.The positions will be at 1st grade and 2nd grade. Please feel free to talk to any teacher friends and colleagues of yours and tell them that el Camino del Río is an awesome place to work!
• Erin’s Law Child Abuse Prevention Teaching Requirement – 4J is continuing to get into compliance with state and federal laws and one is the child abuse prevention law, Erin’s Law. Linked here is an Erin’s Law Info Sheet that we’ll be sending home soon to families. This requires that all classroom teachers annually teach students child abuse prevention strategies, including this school year. In the future, we should plan to add this to our annual Safety Week. The goals at the elementary level are to teach students:
• How to judge between safe and unsafe touch • How to protect themselves
• Who to go to for help
Here are links to lessons :Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, and 5th Grade. These lessons do require a video from the curriculum, so if no one at your grade level has the DVD to share, let me know and I can get one for you from downtown. Let me know if you have any questions on this.
• Playground Rules: No Balls/Toys From Home – We’ve started to see balls, and other items from home make their way out to recesses. Please remind students that balls, games, and toys need to stay home and are definitely not be taken out onto the playground, which too often leads to problems when they get lost, stolen, damaged, or end up on the roof.
• Monday, April 3rd PD Info – A quick repeat of previously shared information. All licensed staff who teach math (gen ed, Title, SPED) are required to attend the LearnZillion math training. All classified staff who teacher and/or support math instruction should also attend. K-2 will meet at Holt and 3-5 will meet at Howard from 8:00-12:00.
• Instructional Minutes & Start/End Times Update – I mentioned in prior announcements that as a result of downtown discovering that elementary schools were not meeting required instructional minutes, there was talk of aligning recess, lunch, and start & end times across the district. Discussion on this is not over, but there will be no changes to El Camino or other schools’ start and end times for this coming school year. This means we can plan on classes the same start and end times here at El Camino for next year.
• School Choice Changes Next Year – The application window for school choice will change next year to just the month of January. This means we’ll have only one month of school choice tours instead of two, so fewer interruptions, and also more solid of school choice numbers before staffing allocations given out. Out-of-district applications would still be the same because those dates are part of the state laws governing inter-district transfers.
• District Admin Updates – Longtime Kennedy Middle School principal Charlie Smith is retiring at the end of this school year, as is Kennedy assistant principal Mark Bennett. Stepping into the Kennedy principal role will be Morgan Christensen. Morgan taught at Roosevelt Middle School and is currently assistant principal at Churchill High School. Casandra Kamens, current North Eugene High School principal, will move to Churchill to fill Morgan’s position. This leaves vacancies for a principal at North and assistant principal positions at Kennedy and ATA.
• First Friday Communities of Color Networking Event – The First Friday CCN Event that happens the first Friday of each month. The next one is April 7th, 5:30-7:00 at the Lane ESD. CCN is a safe space to relax, network, catch up, and meet new people of color and allies. All are welcome! See the linked flyer for details.
• Eugene 4J 6K AVID Strides for Education Run/Walk – The 1st Annual Eugene 4J 6K Strides for Education run/walk to celebrate AVID and fundraise for the program will be on April 9th. This will be a professionally managed 6 kilometer run/walk on the bike path along the banks of the Willamette River. The proceeds will support having college tutors at our school, sending students on college visit field trips, and more. Online registration ($20 for adults; $10 for 4J students) is now available at the above link.
Many 4J middle and high schools are AVID sites (it’s being piloted at the elementary level this year at Awbrey Park and Spring Creek), a college and career readiness system that stands for “Advancement Via Individual Determination.” Hundreds of 4J teachers have been trained to utilize AVID strategies to improve instructional practice. You can learn more about AVID at avid.org
Teaching and Learning Emerging Bilingual Students
| Do healthy lunches improve student test scores? |
From: The Atlantic
For more than a decade, standardized-test scores have been the dominant metric for measuring what public-school students know and are able to do. No Child Left Behind, the sweeping federal education law enacted in 2002, ushered in a new era of student testing and school compliance. And in the years that followed—to meet targets and avoid sanctions — education leaders at the local and state levels have sought a variety of ways to boost students’ performance on tests, including extending the school day and giving bonus pay to teachers based on students’ test scores. Even less conventional methods, such as banning cell phones and offering yoga-like exercises, emerged as school administrators pursued the holy grail of high standardized-test scores. READ MORE
| Teaching text structure improves reading comprehension |
Psychology Today
Many children who do not have trouble learning how to read do have trouble understanding what they read. Yet surprisingly, comprehension instruction did not receive much attention from reading professionals until the 1970s, with the arrival of the cognitive revolution. Having renounced behaviorism, psychology’s new cognitive paradigm defined mental activity in terms of information processing and viewed comprehension as the integration of information from a wide variety of sources. READ MORE
Calendar of Events- Looking Ahead
April 3 (M) No School, PD Day
8:00-12:00, District Math PD ( @ Howard-3-5 and @ Holt -K-2)
Click here for detailed instructions from Maddy Ahern on Math PD.
All Classified Educational Assistants and Special Education Licensed Staff expected to attend.
April 4 (T)
Students Return
8:15-11:30, Joel at Principal’s Meeting
2:45-3:45, Staff Meeting- Undocumented Students, ALICE Training, Erin’s Law are all topics.
3:45-4:45, PLT Meeting
April 5 (W)
Joel in Salem at OLN
1:45-2:45, PLC Meetings Focus on Math Planning and Assessment
1:45-2:45, April PBIS Meeting
April 6 (Th)
10:30, Fire Drill
April 7 (F)
8:15-10:15, Joel at Leadership Attendance Support Meeting
10:30-11:00, Joel in attendance follow up meeting.
6:30-8:30, Movie Night
April 10 (M)
3:30-4:30 PM, Joel at the Immersion Task Force
April 11 (Tu)
5:00-6:00 PM, Site Council
6:00-7:00 PM, Parent Group Meeting
April 12 (W)
1:45-2:45, Wednesday PLC Time- Technology Focus- Primary Intermediate- Math Assessment
April 13 (Th)
2:45-3:45, Mod Squad
April 14 (F)
Regular Day
April 17 (M)
Regular Day
April 18 (Tu)
8:15-11:15, Joel at Principal’s Meeting
2:45-4:50, Two hour staff meeting, focus- Audrey and teaching for biliteracy.
April 19 (W)
9:00-11:00, Joel at Construction Meeting.
1:45-2:45, Wednesday PLC Time- Technology Focus- Primary Intermediate- Math Assessment
2:45-3:45, Teacher Planning Time
April 20 (Th)
8:30-9:30, Cafecito con el Director (FRC)
2:45-3:45, Equity Meeting
April 21 (F)
2:45-3:45, PLT Meeting
2:45-3:45, Teacher Prep Time
April 21 (F)
8:30-9:30- Cafecito con el Director
April 24 (M)
Regular Day
April 25 (Tu)
Regular Day
April 26 (W)
School In-session- There is school on this conference day until 1:40.
There will be planning time for all teachers on this day. No PLC time, just prep for conferences.
4:00 PM – 8:00 PM Parent Conferences
April 27 (Th)
No School- Parent Conferences from 8:00 AM-8:00 PM
April 28 (F) No School- Compensation Day for Teachers-
Regular Work day for Classified Staff
May 1 (M) – Library Closes at old El Camino building. No library use after this date. Packing up books first. Then, used for moving storage. No more staff meetings here.
May 6 (Sa) SATURDAY- Fiesta Community Party 12:00-3:00
June 22 (Th)
The Last Day of School (Dismissal 11:40)
June 23(F)
Last work day for teachers. All employees must be out of the building before 12:00 AM-(Midnight).
June 24 (Sa)
Salvage and Asbestos Abatement begins in the old building. No teachers or classified staff may be present.
That is all for the week.
Joel
Uncategorized | Comment (0)