Week of October 29, 2018
Hi all,
Here are some of the major happenings of the week:
• Charis McGaughy, 4J Assistant Superintendent, Visiting El Camino del Río Wednesday – Charis, 4J’s Assistant Superintendent, is visiting us on Wednesday from 11:45-2:45 (yes, on Halloween). She’s planning to meet with me for a bit and will then wander the school and visit classrooms. Remember that Wednesday is a regular day. We do encourage learning about Fall celebrations, especially celebrations from Latinx and Hispanic countries, but it is not a time for a Halloween Party.
Halloween repeat Reminder:
• HALLOWEEN COSTUME and EDUCATIONAL POLICY: Students may not wear Halloween costumes to school. There will also not be parties on Halloween at the school. The staff made a collaborative decision to change this for the following reasons:
- It is a major distraction from learning in our limited time with students.
- It excludes religious groups that do not celebrate Halloween.
- Teachers cannot be expected to devote time to plan activities for Halloween on top of academics.
- We want to avoid students making the mistake of dressing up as another person’s culture.
- Students feel left out when their family cannot afford a costume while others have costumes.
- Teachers may educate students about all holidays that occur in October and September. This should fit in your social studies time or literacy time. You could also include it in science time if you are discussing fall changes to the biology of plants and animals in our community. Please make sure that you are mindful to be INCLUSIVE of holidays that you educate about to the students. El Día de Los Muertos is one such holiday to educate about. There are other holidays to include. However, we are a dual language school with a priority of learning about Latinx and Hispanic traditions. Please prioritize those traditions in your cultural learning activities.
We will have a dress up day as a favorite book character in April for our literacy week to celebrate reading. Teachers will be mindful of attire so all students can participate in this dress up day in April.
• Formal observations on the horizon: I will be contacting teachers about formal observations this week. We will need to set up our pre, obs, and post sessions all at once. This year I have 13 teachers to run formals on. That is 39 meetings and observation sessions to set up. Let’s get yours on the calendar soon. My goal is to complete all formals by late January.
• Second Step: Nov. is Bully Prevention Month – I’m a believer in explicitly teaching kids about social emotional topics in order to make them kinder humans. Make time for SEL lesson please. If you’ve been able to keep up with the Second Step Pacing Guide, classes should be moving into the Bully Prevention Units this month. If you haven’t gotten though all the prior units, I’d encourage teachers to skip ahead and teach these important lessons.
Family /Teacher Conferences Updates:
• Specialists & Classified Staff – The district expectation for licensed specialists (Title, SPED, ELD, Music, PE, etc.) during conferences is they need to be working during conferences in some capacity and are to be available to families if they would like to meet. For classifieds staff, Nov. 8th and 9th are regular work days unless you have trade time saved up. Let me know if you have any questions on this.
• Joel Available for Conferences – If teachers have any conferences they want me to be present at, just let me know and I’ll put it on my calendar.
• Title 1 Compacts – Teachers will get class sets of Title 1 compacts before conferences. Please remember the following:
• PLEASE DO NOT SEND COMPACTS HOME TO GET THEM SIGNED
• If we can only get you and the student to sign, then make a photocopy for Title 1, and THEN the original will be sent home to be signed. If it comes back, great! If it doesn’t, no biggie. We’ll have the copy showing we tried.
• PLEASE have families sign these at conferences.
• Once you have signed compacts, please return them to Aline
• Family Report Update – Instruction Department data folks let us know we will have parent reports in time for conferences on Monday, November 5th. They said the reports may be missing SBAC scores, but should include the other information from last year. I’ll put these in teacher mailboxes as soon as I get them.
• Parent Group To Provide Dinners – Our awesome Parent Group is again providing dinner for staff working late during parent teacher conferences. There will be some kind of pot luck one night and a burrito bar the second night. I will be supporting them with some office funds as well.
• State Report Cards Released– ODE unexpectedly released the new state report cards (now rebranded “at-a-glance school profiles”) last Wednesday. They were originally delayed until November until ODE had plans in place for selecting comprehensive and targeted schools for improvement and how they wanted districts to address improvement. Generally speaking, our scores are about the same as similar 4J schools. See the district Oregon Publishes 2017–18 School Reportswebpage to view report cards for all 4J schools.
Build relationships and great things will happen!
Schedule of Upcoming Events
October 29 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
8:00-12:00, Apple Training Kick off event for Technology Leaders, 3 leaders attend PD. Kalil Kantara, Ana Diaz Hansen, Arturo Hernandez are leaders.
PLC Session 1
October 30 (Tu)
PLC Session 2
October 31 (W)
No costumes for staff or students
3:15-3:45, PLT Meeting (Conference Room)
November 1 (Th)
3:15-4:00 PM, GOTG Session #1 of the month
6:00-8:00 PM, El Día de Los Muertos Event- Come and learn with us about this important holiday to the Latinx community.
November 2 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de la escuela- Plan on presenting Virtudes.
2:00-3:00 PM, Behavior Framework Session #5
Fire Drill mystery time but not the same as the last time we had it.
(Sunday, Nov. 4 -Daylight Saving Time Ends “Fall Back”)
November 5 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
4:00-5:30, Joel at k-12 immersion principals meeting.
November 6 (Tu)
ELECTION DAY
3:15-4:00, Staff Meeting, Must vote on leadership plan
4:15-6:00, Jennifer and Joel to the District Equity PD session
7:00-8:30, EL Camino del Rio Know Your Rights sessions being held at ECDR.
November 7 (W)
NO PLT Meeting
Family / Teacher Conferences, 4:00-8:00 PM
Dinner provided at 5:30.
November 8 (Th)
Family / Teacher Conferences, 8:00 AM-8:00 PM
Dinner provided at 5:30, Lunch on provided by Horace Mann!
November 9 (F)
Regular Work Day for Classified Staff
No School, Teacher Compensation Day for Family Teacher Conferences
November 12 (M)
No School, Veteran’s Day
November 13 (Tu)
Joel at La Cosecha- Tom Maloney guest principal.
3:15-4:00, Equity Meeting A, Zelene leads.
November 14 (W)
No PLT Meeting
Joel at La Cosecha
November 15 (Th)
Joel at La Cosecha
3:15-4:00, Guardians of the Galaxy Meeting
November 16 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de la escuela- Virtudes presented.
Joel at La Cosecha
PLC Session- cancelled
November 19 (M)
Regular Day
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
November 20 (T)
11:00-12:00, Special Thanks Lunch Session in Cafeteria
5:00-6:00, Site Council- Indistar Indicator Questions
6:00-7:15, Parent Group Meeting- Focus:Understanding Math Lessons at El Camino del Rio.
November 21 (W)
3:15-3:45, PLT Meeting (Conference Room)
November 22 (Th)
No School, Thanksgiving
November 23 (F)
No School, Thanksgiving
November 26 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
November 27 (Tu)
8:00-12:00, Joel at Elementary Principal Meeting
November 28 (W)
3:15-4:00- PLT Meeting
November 29 (Th)
Health Screening
Picture Retakes
November 30 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de la escuela
December 3 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
2:00 PM, Fire Drill Tentative
December 4 (Tu)
3:15-4:00, Staff Meeting
December 5 (W)
3:15-4:00, PLT
December 6 (Th)
Joel out all day to do Dual Language Observation at Kelly and North
December 7 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de Escuela
2:00-3:00, Behavior Framework PD for all staff #6
3:00-4:00, Teacher Prep Time
6:30-8:30, Family Movie Night
December 10 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
Regular Day
December 11 (Tu)
8:30-12:00, Joel at the All Admin Meeting
4:45-5:45, Site Council
6:00-7:15, Parent Group
December 12 (W)
3:15-4:00, PLT
December 13 (Th)
Regular Day
December 14 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de Escuela
2:00-4:00, Double Prep Day
December 17 (M)
7:30-7:50, Weekly Office Meeting- Office
December 18 (Tu)
8:00-12:00, Elementary Admin Meeting
3:15-4:00, PBIS- Whole Staff Meeting
December 19 (W)
3:15-4:00, PLT
December 21 (Th)
Regular Day
December 22 (F)
8:30-9:00, Junta de Escuela
2:00-3:00, Spanish Language Development Discussion Time
4:00, Winter break begins!
That is all for the week.
Joel
