Week of September 10, 2018
Greetings Estrellitas Brilantes,
We had an excellent start to school year last week, thanks to our amazing staff!
Here are several items of note for the week:
• District Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff – Linked here is this year’s District Back-to-School Memo (PDF), which covers a variety of district rules, policies and guidelines. Section 1 is the portion that staff are required to review. all staff must review the memo and sign & return the Check List Acknowledgment Form to signify that you have read and understand the memo. Forms should be returned to me no later than Friday, September 28th. I’ll place hard copies of the acknowledgement form in staff mailboxes this week. Looking over this year’s memo, downtown significantly shortened the Financial & Purchasing Proceduresinformation (the old one had a lot of information that did not apply to school staff), the 4J Nondiscrimination Noticewas updated, the FAQ for Supporting Undocumented Studentswas updated last April, the Student Discipline Procedures Summaryhad some updates (particularly new rules around suspensions), and the section on Harassment, Intimidation, Bullying, Cyberbullying, Hazing, Teen Dating Violence and Domestic Violencewas updated to include information on Domestic Violence as well as the new Student Reporting Form. Let me know if you have questions on any of this. I will review some of these topics briefly with staff in a meeting soon.
• TalentEd Goals, Self Assessment, & Standards Overview Conference– Probationary and Contract Year-1 Licensed staff need to complete the self assessment in TalentEd before the end of September. ALL licensed staff need to meet with me for a Standards Overview Conference, which I can do by meeting with an entire grade level at once, so let me know if there’s a good time for me to meet with your grade level (5-10 minutes max). I’ll connect with non-classroom licensed staff to meet at a separate time.
Regarding SMART Goals, all licensed staff need to have goals entered into TalentEd and signed-off by me by October 15th. The downtown Staff Development Specialist, TOSAS (SDSs) are developing a set of goals around this year’s PLC work, so classroom teachers can wait to input your goals if you’re interested in adopting those goals as your own. Other licensed staff will need to develop your own goals, but please connect with me if you’d like any help or guidance. Please let me if you have any questions about the process.
• Early Release Friday Meeting SLD– This week’s Early Release Friday Meeting is designated as a “Building Goals” meeting. We will be kicking off our Spanish Language Development work as a staff that week. Please report to Room A210 at 2:00 PM on Friday. Lynette Williams will be there and so will Reid Shepard. Our SLD team will tell us about the work done last year and we will discuss older proposals from the earlier in the decade.
• Attendance – AM and PM Reminder– Quite a few teachers are not getting both their AM and PM attendance entered. Please be sure to mark students absent in both columns. I’ll let teachers know this week if these are not get entered properly, so people aren’t left wondering if it’s you we’re referring to, but it’s almost everyone right now. Using the TeacherVUE Synergy app on your phone or tablet (iOSor Android) can be an easier for taking attendance than on your computer. In setting it up, use the URL https://sis.4j.lane.edu/
• Tardies Definition – Just to make sure everyone is on the same page for when to mark a student as tardy, the agreement staff made a few years ago is that any student not inside the double doors before the 8:30 bell rings is considered tardy. If the student is not in your room in their seat at 8:30, they are tardy too. Yasmin starts giving out tardy passes and recording tardies in Synergy as soon as the doors lock. For any students in the building before then who are not yet in class, teachers need to record that as tardy in Synergy. You will have to determine if they are in your room seated or not.
• Grupo de Padres Meeting This Week – Tuesday, September 11th from 6:00-7:15 will be the first Group de Padres Meeting of the year. It’s typically the best attended meeting of the year by families, so it would be great if any staff can volunteer their evening to come show support for parents who are making time to be involved in their child’s school. Mark your calendars and hope to see you there!
•Caminata Fundraiser is coming quickly!– I’ll have more info next week, but the Group de Padres is holding our annual Caminata this fall on Oct. 5th. This year, they also decided to send funds through EEF which will provide us more financial support and will addd an online version. Things we need to do:
1.Set times for our runners.
2. Ensure that no preps are disrupted. (We will do it on Friday.)
3. Order T-Shirts and see if we can find a donation to cover the cost.
4. We need ideas for incentives from staff that are appropriate and not humiliating to staff.
• Fire Drill Info – Our September Fire Drill will be later this month on Wednesday, September 21 at 8:45. The evacuation routes are the same as last year. Go to the covered play and line up by class, youngest to oldest. Evacuation procedures can be found in the Camino Staff Handbook . Let me know if you have any questions.
• 2018-2019 Leadership Plans – HR emailed principals this year’s Elementary Leadership Plan Process, which are due to HR November 9th. The process is similar to how it’s worked in the past. The current contract gives us 20 teacher release days not to exceed 7 teachers. There is more time/money because we have 386 students. Send me your thoughts on how to create the plan. We can go back to a similar plan as last year. That included a Cultural Events Leader, Student Leadership, Two PBIS Leaders, an IPBS Leader, and a Parent Engagement Coordinator. If you have thoughts on this year’s plan, please email me by the end of the week. I’d like to share Leadership Plan proposals at the next Staff Meeting and then vote on a plan at the October Staff Meeting or via online ballot.
• Substitute Folders/information (EA and Guest Teachers)– Principals received and emailfrom HR to give our yearly reminder regarding preparations for guest teachers and classified substitutes. Early planning for substitutes helps everyone when someone is absent. This is important prep work to do BEFORE staff are absent. Linked here is a List of Suggested Sub Information/Itemsthat staff should consider when preparing lesson plans and substitute folders. With the goal being seamless transition and a successful day when regular staff are out, it is essential that our Guest Teachers and EA Substitutes receive the best information possible. To highlight one need, be sure to provide info for substitutes how to have access to a laptop for instruction, research, and management. This laptop SHOULD NOT be the teacher’s profile on the teacher laptop as there may be a great deal of confidential information on that machine. Instead, set up a guest account. Sub folders are located in the office.
The Calendar:
September 10 (M)
easyCBM Benchmark Testing Through Friday
Joel out.
September 11 (T)
7:30-7:55, office meeting
Joel in the building before meeting.
9:00-12:00, Joel to All-Admin/Elem Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
3:15-4:00, Equity Meeting in David Barnes Room
5:00-6:00, Site Council in the Library.
6:00-7:15, Grupo de Padres in the library
September 12 (W)
3:00-4:00, 1st iPad Training in the Library
September 13 (H)
12:00-1:00, Joel and Alicia in Spanish Speaking Leadership Group
September 14 (F)
easyCBM Benchmark Testing Ends
2:00-3:00, Early Release PD (A210) – SLD PD/ Framework
September 17 (M)
Regular Day
September 18 (T)
3:15-4:00, Staff Meeting (A210) PBIS and more. Incuding Standards overview
September 19 (W)
Regular Day
September 20 (H)
3:15-4:00, GOTG Team
September 21 (F)
2:00-3:00, Early Release PD – Behavior Framework Module 4 (A210)
This week is going to be amazing. Jump in and get to know your students well.
Joel
Unless we start to fight and defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism, and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we talk about making people free. –Shirley Chisholm
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