Week of April 13

Guanajuato, Mexico

What is coming up?

April 13 (M)

1:30-2:30, Title Coordinator & Principal Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Joel to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
7:00-8:30, Joel to River Road Community Organization Meeting (River Road Annex)

April 14 (T)

10:15-11:15, Joel and Sara Green meet about the super-boundary (Joel’s Office)
2:50-4:50, Staff Meeting (Library)

Agenda: A Conversation about Race in Dual Language Program

6:00-7:00, Parent Group Meeting in (Room 9)

April 15 (W)

8:45-2:45, Visitors from Guanajuato, Mexico (In classrooms)

1:45-2:45, PLC Collaboration Time

April 16 (H)
Joel out of the building- at the COSA Workshop “All Means All” with Anthony Muhammad

2:45-3:45, PBIS Meeting

April 17 (F)

Joel out of the building -at the COSA Workshop “All Means All” with Anthony Muhammad
12:00-3:00, BAW Teacher Leaders to Being a Writer Meeting (We need someone to go to this.)

12:00-3:00, 504  Training Meeting- Jaime  Jones attends.

6:00-8:00, Peace Jam Conference  with Rigoberta Menchu Tum- Camino del Rio Marimba Band Plays!

April 20 (M)
8:00-2:30, Fluoride Varnish Clinic at River Road

April 21 (T)

3:45-5:15, Joel to Full-Day Kindergarten Meeting (Ed Center)

April 22 (W)
Admin Professional’s Day (formerly Secretary’s Day)

Earth Day

1:45-2:45, PLC Collaboration Time

April 23 (H)
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day

2:45-3:45, (IPBS) Mod Squad Meeting

April 24 (F)

4:00, Meet up at Hop Valley

What is going on?

• Spanish Spelling Bee A Success–  This last Friday was a very exciting day for the Spanish Spelling Bee team. Those students who participated went to Forest Grove and began the competition around 10:00 AM. Leslie and Aiden represented El Camino del Rio and 4j in the competition. In addition, we had 5 other students attend. Aiden’s father, George, and Megan Murphy brought the students all the way to and from Forest Grove. Leslie was able to place in the final 12 students of the 60 or so who competed. I am so proud that our students made it to this event.  This event is good for  our students, our program, and providing opportunities for students to have their language skills be seen as assets in the public eye.  A big thank you goes out to Hannah Golden, the Spelling Bee Coach, Megan Murphy, and the Birns family for their support.  Here is an article with pictures of our team included!

 Summer School Update –  It is a priority for parents to hear from you about Summer School. The office needs all teachers to communicate the need for Summer School directly from you.  When they hear from you it makes a huge impact on the importance of the program.  Please make those calls for your students so they can take advantage of this valuable resource.

• Expo Process Update–  I am proud to announce that we have made a permanent hire for our 1.0 ELL Position. Nancy Schaal McHarry will continue in her position for the next year.  Nancy has done a great job in her ELL classroom and has jumped at the chance to help us integrate technology in ELD lessons, create an inclusion model in kinder, design a FLOSOM oral language proficiency model for our building, and participate in our PLT.  Her team player attitude  and hard work fits nicely with the changes our dual language program has made.  Please congratulate her if you see her on Monday on staying with the Camino del Río team.

The 1.0 and 0.5 FTE positions in 1st and 5th grade are still open. We did not find a viable candidate on Thursday last week. If there are candidates who apply, I my attend the 2nd round of EXPO. At this time, I am actively seeking external applicants.

• Attendance Pilot is in Full Swing- This last week we sent out our second set of attendance letters.  We sent 23 letters for the month of March.  For this last week the attendance letter list dropped to 10 students. That is good.  Parents are responding to the letters and we have seen a drop in unexcused attendance in the last couple of weeks. Soon, I will be making referrals to Mark Barr, the truancy officer.  This practice will continue on a weekly basis now that the office is trained and the system is set up.  We will also use this system in the Fall as well. Thank you to Yasmin for her persistence and hard work on this project.

• Guanajuato, Mexico Visit –  Armando Morales will be guiding the Guanajuato students to visit our school this Wednesday.  There will be 19 students and 3 teachers. They are very interested in how the United States education system works, and will be especially interested in the dual language program. Several are used to visiting a high school environment so the age level will also be new to many of them. Expect to have 2-3 guests in your classroom visiting and observing. They are all very excited to visit our school. I will begin the day with a presentation to them about how our program works.

• Staff Meeting PD Session with John Lockhart – On Friday, John and I met for a couple of hours to plan and discuss the professional development we will be having at our next staff meeting. The topic ties closely to the conversations we have had in our Taking It Up Equity meetings. We will discuss the dynamic between Anglos, Latinos, and other racial groups in the context of our dual language program. A precursory question to think about is:

“In your role, how does your cultural sense of self and others both allow you to and inhibit you from helping students of color and white students develop healthy racial identities?”

We will reflect, share observations, and formulate ideas together. The meeting will run from 2:50-4:50. You will be paid an extra hour for attendance.  Carmen Urbina  and Jennifer Harris will follow up with us on May 1st in the morning to help us continue the conversation.

• Lane County Family Mediation Family Check-Up – Lane County Family Mediation are offering a “Family Check-Up” program 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 services are available to parents and their children, ages 2-17, who are members of Trillium Community Health Plan. They will conduct assessments of family interactions, encourage self-reflection, promote positive family management skills, and provide referrals to community services. Families can earn $150 (provided in gift cards) by attending three appointments, which take place over a four to five week period.

Please feel free to share this information with any interested families. I will also be sending the attached flyer to families. I did check to see if this is available for Spanish speaking families and they said it unfortunately is not at this time.

• Earth Day, April 22nd – Schools across the country will be celebrating Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22. Teach your students how to care about their world — and how they can make it better! — throughout the year with these resources from Edutopia.

• Federal lawmakers may be close to draft NCLB bill – With state testing right around the corner, I thought people might be interested to know that federal lawmakers reportedly may be getting close to a new draft bill for the rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This article offers a glimpse at some of the potential changes, including giving states more flexibility on testing requirements and expunging the language inserting “portability” of Title 1 funds (which would have been a devastating to Title 1 schools like us). The education committee is expected to mark up a bill this week.

• Downtown Admin Updates – HR Director Sarah Brown has accepted a position in Florida, her home state, as the Chief of Human Resources for Manatee County Schools. She will be leaving April 24. There has not yet been an announcement regarding who will be the interim Director of HR.

Have an good week, everyone! 39 more days!

Joel

Week of December 8

Hi Everyone,

We are moving into a very exciting week during the day and the night.  Put on your seat belts and jump into the fun and learning.

Some items of note this week:

• More Housing in the Super-boundary  Area – The City of Eugene announced that they have conditionally approved a tentative subdivision located between Maxwell and North Park Ave. (the field across North Park from Kelly), which will be 40 residential lots and one commercial lot. This is within the Howard Elementary catchment area and could effect us down the road.

On a related note, the apartment complex on River Road, named the Ecco Apartments, is now accepting applications. Looking at their website, they’re marketing themselves as having “resort-style community amenities” and are renting 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments. Allan Chinn, the principal from Howard contacted them and said they plan for tenants to begin moving in around mid-January and plan on opening their final building in March.

• Pride Assembly in last week of December –  The Pride award or “Virtudes” Award is to reward students who show the many areas of PRIDE which are exemplified by perseverance, integrity, diversity, and excellence.  I hope to present students from EACH class with awards in the assembly on Thursday the 18th. So far, I have only received 1 award this school year, and I know we have some awesome kids!

In the next week, take time to write 2-5 pride awards for your class. These awards, found in the IMC, are for students who day in day out are working hard and doing the right thing. Sometimes, they even step up to commit a really caring positive act which you feel you need to recognize. Kindergarteners through fifth graders deserve these awards. We will be presenting them with their certificate, taking their photo, and displaying their photo near the front of school. Please write these PRIDE awards this week and return them to my box near  my door in the office.  Any staff can write these awards, but please check in with the classroom teacher to make sure you don’t duplicate. Also, a student with a level 3 cannot earn a pride award this time around, but they can if they are referral free in January, February, and March.

• Technology Integration Update: Apple ID access reminder and newer tech purchases.  Here are the instructions for doing Apple Purchases.    Some of you might have lost your apple id or password.  If you have, come see me and I can help jog your memory.  Misty Jackson sent me all the teacher info last week. Also,  I have authorized Peggy to install Reflector on all teacher computers in the next week or so.  Peggy and Edna will work together to purchase and install it on all your laptops.  This will allow you to use your iPad for many more instructional purposes as I mentioned in my email last week. Do you have any app requests?  Please contact Erin Skuobo about your app interests if they are paid apps. In our meeting with Kim Ketterer last week, she also mentioned that we could demo apps to try. If you are an “early adopter” type, let me know and we can work more closely with Kim to try out new technologies.

• “Taking it Up” in mid- January – There will be an opportunity next month for any staff member, licensed or classified, interested in attending “Taking it Up” who have not already attended. The two-day seminar will be offered January 13th and 14th. Downtown is paying all of the registration fees and our building will pay for substitutes. We are sending 7 staff to Taking it Up!  Way to step up team!

For those not familiar with “Taking it Up”, it is a provocative seminar focused on helping educators, school board leaders, and community members deepen their understanding of the institutionalized racist barriers that hinder elimination of Oregon’s racial achievement gap. This focus on working from the inside out will challenge participants to step out of their comfort zone and create new entry points for becoming aware of, understanding, and interrupting inequitable policies and practices in our schools. There will be a couple more opportunities for staff to attend Taking it Up or the full week CFEE experience.  It is a priority for us to have 100% attendance in this program.

In addition, we are mobilizing a Camino del Rio Equity and Inclusion Team.  Our next meeting is this Monday at 7:30 AM. We will have another meeting in January.

• Smarter Balanced Updates – Downtown has scheduled the site test coordinator training for Smarter Balanced for the end of January, so we’ll have more information to share after that. In the meantime, attached are some item you may want to read over now and will probably answer a lot of the questions you may have:

• The Test Administration Manual, which is required reading for access to TIDE and the Smarter Balanced/OAKS Assessments
• The Accessibility Manual, which covers the Universal Tools, Designated Supports, and Accommodations for the SB/OAKS Assessments
• Test Administrator checklists to aid in your planning

• Houghton Mifflin CCSS Upgrade – The School Board did approve the HM CCSS update for Camino del Río and all of the other six HM schools (Howard, YG/Corridor, Buena Vista, Edgewood and Edison) who’s staffs were also interested in getting the updated materials. I did get answers to a couple questions that came up at our meeting on Monday. One, we will be getting both hard copies of the updated program and also digital versions that will work on laptops and iPads. And two, the timeline is up to us in terms of when to begin using the updated materials. I’ll share more once we get more information about trainings and planning time.

• Superintendent Search Updates & Online Survey – The school board is seeking input on what you’d like for a new superintendent. This online survey will be up Monday, December 8th through Dec. 19th to solicit input. There will also be a parent forum December 16th, 7:00-8:00 PM and a public input session at the December 17th School Board meeting. Final candidates will be in Eugene for community meetings March 4-6..

• 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’s a good video on how to use a Socratic Circle (also known as a Socratic Seminar) as a dialog approach to understand information in a text. The video features a 2nd grade classroom from San Bernardino, CA.

• Learning Palace Coupon – Learning Palace sent me a 15% off coupon that can be used at any of their store locations. The coupon is valid from Dec. 8th – Dec. 15th.

• Study: Active learning helps black students with STEM subjects – This study was done with older students, but it can easily apply to younger students. Using active learning, rather than lectures, to teach science, technology, engineering and math may help to close the diversity gap in STEM fields, according to recent research on how black students learn best.

• Madison Loves Books– Take a look at how enthusiastic this child is about books. Personally, when I saw this video, it gave me a lot of hope.  This video would be GREAT to share with kids.  I believe students need to see that reading is an act that is desirable and something that other peers think is valuable.  Check it out and smile!

 

 

Calendar of Events

December 8 (M)

7:30-8:10, Equity Team Meeting (Joel, Karen, Jill, Jennifer, and anyone else!) (ESC Office)

10:20, Fire Drill and Lock Down Practice- Lock Down occurs sometime between the fire drill and 10:50.

2:00-5:00, Joel at Principal’s Meeting Parr Room- Ed Center

December 9 (T)

7:30-8:15, Behaviorial Support Meeting for student. Joel, Brie, Jennifer, Debbie, and Tracy attend.

8:30-10:30, CAP Taskforce meets, Karen, Aline, Joel, Kathy

2:45-4:45, Staff Meeting (Remember to finish your Chapter 2 from Dual Language A-Z)

1.  2:45-2:55, Nancy and Karen present on CCSS Argumentation within the new  ELD standards.

2.  2:55-4:55, Hour Staff Meeting with Edward Olivos and Audrey Lucero on Dual Language Instructional Delivery Practices

6:00-7:30, Parent Group Meeting Visioning- You are encouraged to attend! (Library)

December 10 (W)

7:30-9:30, Joel to Latino Breakfast at Ed Center (Parr Room)

2:45-3:45, PLT in the Conference Room

6:30, International Human Rights Presentation at the Ed Center (Our students are reading the rights!)

December 11 (H)

8:00-3:00, Being a Writer Meeting all day at the Ed Center  (Joel and Jaime Jones attend)

6:30-7:30, River Road New Building Design Open House to Public in the Cafeteria

6:30 p.m. Presentation
7:00 p.m. Questions
7:30 p.m. Wrap up

December 12 (F)

1:00-2:45, Joel at the Late Entry Policy Meeting at Corridor

6:00-8:00, Camino del Rio Movie Night!- Kids, parents, and staff are invited!

December 15 (M)

8:00-3:00, Data Team Meeting

December 16 (T)

SST Meeting, 8:00-11:00

4:00-8:00, Joel to First Aid Training

December 17 (W)

2:45-3:45, IPBS Meeting

December 18 (H)

1:00-1:35, Pride Assembly Rescheduled from December 4 (AM kinders parents can come visit to see students get awards too.)

3:00-5:00, Design Committee Meeting

December 19 (F)

Last day of school before Winter Break!

Week of December 1

Calendar of Events for December

(No Site Council in December)

December 1 (M)

8:00-2:00, PD 5.5 hours with Rosa Molina (Library) 2 hours prep time.

10:30-11:00, Joel, Bryan,and Jennifer at IEP Meeting in Conference Room

3:45- 4:45, PLT Meeting- PLC Proposal and Debrief of Rosa Molina visit.

December 2 (T)

2:45-3:45, TLT Meeting (Conference Room)

December 3 (W)

2:45-3:45, PBIS Meeting (Piper’s Room)

4:00-5:00, North Eugene Principal Meeting at NEHS

December 4 (H)

1:00-2:00, Teatro Assembly  -Pride Assembly Rescheduled  for Thursday December 11.

3:00-5:00, Design Committee (Library)- Focus Groups attend.

5:30-6:00, 5th Grade Outdoor School Meeting

6:30-8:00, David Adee 4/5 Teatro Espectaculo in the Gym

December 5 (F)

5:30-6:00, 5th Grade Outdoor School Meeting

6:30-8:00, David Adee 4/5 Teatro Espectaculo in the Gym

December 8 (M)

10:00, Fire Drill and Lock Down Practice

2:00-5:00, Joel at Principal’s Meeting Parr Room- Ed Center

December 9 (T)

2:45-4:45, 2 Hour Staff Meeting with Edward Olivos and Audrey Lucero on Dual Language Instructional Delivery Practices

6:00-7:30, Parent Group Meeting- You are encouraged to attend! (Library)

December 10 (W)

7:30-9:30, Joel to Latino Breakfast at Ed Center (Parr Room)

9:30-11:00, Joel at Corridor for Skillful Teacher Co-observations. (Corridor)

2:45-3:45, PLT in the Conference Room

December 11 (H)

8:00-3:00, Being a Writer Meeting all day at the Ed Center  (Joel and Jaime Jones attend)

Design Committee- Cancelled

6:30-7:30, River Road New Building Design Open House to Public in the Cafeteria

December 12 (F)

1:00-2:45, Joel at the Late Entry Policy Meeting at Corridor

December 15 (M)

8:00-3:00, Data Team Meeting

December 16 (T)

SST Meeting, 8:00-11:00

4:00-8:00, Joel to First Aid Training

December 17 (W)

2:45-3:45, IPBS Meeting

December 18 (H)

1:00-1:35, Pride Assembly Rescheduled from December 4

3:00-5:00, Design Committee Meeting

December 19 (F)

Last day of school before Winter Break!

A list of some items of note for the week:

Reading Assignment for December 9th– Please read Chapter 2 from Dual Language A-Z for the meeting with Edward Olivos and Audrey Lucero on December 9th. I also encourage you to skim Chapter 3 again since it is very closely related to our work with these consultants on that day.

December 1 PD Outline– Here is a rough schedule of our day together. (If there is a snow/weather day, this could be cancelled or delayed.)

Professional development and mapping will all occur in the library. Please bring all materials you need (Maravillas/HM) to the space in the morning including iPads and computers. The focus of this work is SLA and ELA curriculum mapping for vertical and horizontal articulation. The main outcome is to become more familiar with this process, align materials to the CCSS, to map curriculum for the last 3 months (possibly + future months), and to establish common objectives and themes for each grade level.

Coffee and snacks will be available.
We will begin promptly at 8:00. Please be on time.

8:00-8:30- Coffee and Introductions
8:30-9:00- Rosa and Kathy explain the use of the map.
9:00-10:15- Staff work on using materials to begin the process of looking back at previous months.
10:15-10:30- A break
10:30-12:00 More work on mapping
12:00-12:30- Lunch- (on your own)
12:30-2:00 – Work on mapping more.
2:00-4:00 PM Teacher protected planning time
4:00-5:00- PLT Meets to debrief the visit and discuss professional learning communities proposal. (compensated with CAP funds for extra duty beyond the work day.

Here are some helpful links for Monday. Also, see the email from Wednesday with the documents for curriculum mapping and depth of knowledge chart.

SLD WIDA Standards

Oregon ELA CCSS

California Spanish Literacy CCSS Standards

•One iPad? No problem!- Here is a great way to use the iPad in the classroom for instruction that increases student collaboration in mathematics, or any subject.

•December Holidays – Here is a list of the major religious holidays of December 2014. If you are planning on describing or discussing winter holidays in your curriculum, please include a wide variety of cultures in your winter holidays unit.

December 1 is World AIDS Day, which was created to commemorate those who have died of AIDS, and to acknowledge the need for a continued commitment to all those affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

December 8 is Bodhi Day, a holiday observed by Buddhists to commemorate Gautama’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, India.

December 10 is International Human Rights Day, established by the United Nations in 1948 to commemorate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

December 12 is Feast Day at Our Lady of Guadalupe. This day commemorates the appearance of the Virgin Mary near Mexico City in 1531.

December 16-24 is Las Posadas, a nine-day celebration in Mexico commemorating the trials Mary and Joseph endured during their journey to Bethlehem.

December 16 (sunset) – December 24 (sunset) is Hanukkah (Chanukah). Also known as the Festival of Lights, it is an eight-day Jewish holiday recognizing the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. It is observed by lighting candles on a Menorah—one for each day of the festival.

December 25 is Christmas, the day that Christians associate with Jesus’ birth.

December 26 – January 1 is Kwanzaa, an African-American holiday started by Maulana Karenga in 1966 to celebrate universal African-American heritage. It is observed by lighting candles to represent each of the holiday’s seven principles, libations, feasting, and gift giving.

• Furlough Days? – The School Board has not made a decision about the two furlough days, but the word on the street is that downtown expects there two be hazardous weather days between now and Spring Break. Those snow days will become the furlough days, but if we don’t have any hazardous weather days this year, one of the furlough dates is likely going to be the March 13th PD/Planning Day. Who knows, as of writing this, there’s a chance of snow and ice being predicted for Sunday night and Monday morning.

• Teatro Espectáculo Assembly this Thursday, Dec. 4 – This Thursday is the Music Assembly by David Adee. The students are  extremely excited to share their musical talents with the whole school. Please review assembly expectations with your students.

• Design Focus Groups Meeting this Thursday, Dec. 4 – We will have enlarged plans for each area.  An architect will be assigned to help facilitate the individual session.  Staff members who have expertise and interest in a particular area will provide input.  The following are the Focus Group Areas and a schedule for Thursday, December 4^th.  Many of you signed up already but some have not. We have plenty of representation in Pr-k and general classroom.  If you cannot come to this meeting but have an area to look at, please send me an email with the ideal time for you. I might be able to arrange a “go to” online meeting with the architects at that time.

• General Classroom  3-3:45pm
• Pre K Classroom        3-3:45pm
• Admin Area                 3-4pm
• Gym/Music                  3-3:45pm
• Library/Media             3:45-4:30pm
• Cafeteria                       3:45-4:30pm
• Community Room/Family Resource Room   3:45-4:30pm

• Preparing for Full Day Kindergarten in 15-16 – It was exciting to hear from the superintendent that we will be able to move forward on a full day kindergarten next year and that the board is gong to fund it.  I asked HR to begin working hard on Spanish language elementary pool openings and they have created that  now! In the next week, I will post a requisition for Dual Language Elementary Teacher. Please let me know if you have interest in remaining a kinder teacher or becoming the 3rd (maybe even 4th) kinder teacher.

• Rethinking Schools Articles on White Teachers in Spanish and English-

Dear White Teachers….  by Chrysanthius Lathan

Queridos maestros blancos… Por Chrysanthius Lathan, Traducido por Nicholas Yurchenco

Here is a great article written by a black teacher in Portland that describes her experiences in the middle school classroom and how she navigates issues of race in the classroom/ school setting every day. It is a powerful passage that I highly recommend you read in order to think deeper about your role as a change-maker in our school system.

Have a great school week!  I believe in you and the kids do too.

Saludos cordiales,

Joel

Week of November 17

Weekly Calendar of Events

November 17 (M) –

9:00-9:30, PSS Meeting to discuss progress in implementation of Green School curriculum.

9:30-1:00, Joel doing walk through observations through out the building.

(Focus: Objectives and Student Awareness of Objectives)

Fire Drill at 1:00- Pending Weather

1:45-5:00 Joel at Principal’s Meeting

November 18 (T)

More walk through observations through out the day.

2:45-4:45, Staff Meeting-

1. Anne doing general medical information awareness and nursing supports.

2. PBIS Climate Update- Cafeteria Plan

3. United Way Update

4. CAP Update for Staff

5. Dual Language A-Z Book Discussion- Please come prepared to discuss dual language a-z Chapter 1.

6:00-8:00, Parent Group Meeting

November 19 (W) 

10:00-3:30, Joel at Principal Network Meeting ( Lane ESD)

2:45-3:45, IPBS Meeting (Recker’s Classroom)

November 20 (H)

8:30-11:30, OIEB Tour and Visit of our School- Tour of classrooms and conversations about our work.

3:00-5:00, Design Committee (Library)

4:30-6:30, Joel to Equity Committee (Ed Center)

November 21 (F)

Regular Day

November 24 (M)

Fluoride Rinse Day

2:45-3:45, Site Council Meeting

November 25 (T)

Staff Meeting- PD with Reid Sheppard and Maddy Ahearn

1. 8 Mathematical Practices  Professional Development (Continued) 2:45-3:45

2.  Parent Involvement and Early Learning Vision 3:45-4:05

3.  New Building Design Update for Teachers and Time for Input, 4:05-4:45.

November 26 (W)

2:45-3:45, PLT Meeting- Shorter Meeting due to the holiday.

November 27 (H)

Thanksgiving Holiday- No School

November 28 (F)

No School

December 1 (M)

8:00-2:00, PD 5.5 hours with Rosa Molina (Library)

December 2 (T)

2:45-3:45, TLT Meeting (Conference Room)

December 3 (W)

2:45-3:45, PBIS Meeting (Piper’s Room)

December 4 (H)

1:00-1:35, PRIDE Assembly- (Gym)- Tentative

3:00-5:00, Design Committee (Library)

6:30-8:00, David Adee 4/5 Teatro Espectaculo

December 5 (F)

6:30-8:00, David Adee 4/5 Teatro Espectaculo

Hi staff,

Here are several items of note for the week.  Please know that you are appreciated by so many young people.  Perhaps this video from Kid President will remind you of the HUGE impact you have on on all of us. Thank you teachers and all of you for your amazing work!

• Action required of Teachers:

First assignment for Dual Language Instruction from A to Z, due November 18th.

Read Chapter 1, pages 1-42.

Do a review of the checklist  in the last part of the chapter. Make your own self assessment of our program based on the checklist and be ready to converse with a partner about it.

Write a short reflection on “how we are doing” according to the standards laid out by Hamayan, Gennessee and Cloud. ( 1 page or 1/2 page) Be prepared to share it with a partner at the November 18th staff meeting.

• Action required of Teachers

Math Survey:

To guide our work with Reid Sheppard and Maddy Ahearn in math professional development this year Karen helped us by creating a survey.  In SST, it was decided that this was a task that needs to be completed before we move into doing more in depth PD.  Please complete the survey by our staff meeting on November 18th.

PLEASE COMPLETE BY TUESDAY!

• Fire Drill, Monday 17th at 1:00 – Weather dependent, we’ll plan to hold our November Fire Drill on Monday, November 17th at 1:00. If we’re rained out, we’ll try Tuesday morning at 9:10. It is our third try. I hope this time is a charm!

• PTO Meeting, Tuesday at 6:00 – The November PTO meeting will be this Tuesday, 6:00-7:00 PM in the library if any staff are able to attend. We had a big turnout at the last meeting, which was a great show of support for the PTO’s work. Hope to see you there!

• 3-5 Being A Writer Teacher Leader Rep – Last call for a 3-5 Being a Writer rep. The Developmental Studies Center staff will be here in December to meet with Being a Writer (BAW) Teacher Leaders by region. This is chance to see Being A Writer taught by a master teacher and ask all the questions you might have. The North Region meeting will be Thursday, December 11th, 8:00-3:00. See the attached document for details and let me know if anyone is willing to be the 3-5 BAW Teacher Rep.

• Rosa Molina returns on December 1 PD Day – Rosa will be back to help us with SLA/ELA curriculum mapping on December 1st.  The schedule will include time to collect all your lesson plans and reading instruction materials in order to lay out what has been covered in your classroom thus far.  She will work with us to help write out curriculum maps for each grade level for the last three months. She will also give us some ideas for how to forcast what remains in the year and how to capture those lessons. This will have a very strong bent towards aligning our SLA/ELA time to Common Core Standards. Rosa’s session will run from 8:00-12:00, Lunch, then 13:30-2:00. 2:00-4:00 will be teacher’s designated prep time.

• Request From Guest Teachers – HR meets once a month the the substitute teacher union, EAST, and EAST leadership asked HR to communicate the following to licensed staff regarding the best way to communicate sub plans to guest teachers:

Dear Building Administrators:

Every month I have the opportunity to meet with the leadership team from E.A.S.T., our licensed guest teacher union. At our recent meeting, they requested that we communicate with licensed staff about the best ways to electronically communicate lesson plans and sub notes so that our guest teachers are well prepared and most effective.

Could you please share with your staff that if they want to send plans electronically, the best way to do so would be to attach it to the absence request in AESOP? This will ensure that the teacher accepting the assignment has access to the plans. The other sure fire strategy would be to email them to someone in the school office, and share so that they can be printed and given to the Guest Teacher.

Some teachers are being very cleaver and emailing them to the Guest Teacher directly. Sometimes the timeline is so tight that the Guest Teacher doesn’t have the chance to check their district email and print the plans before arriving for the position.

I so appreciate any conversation or communication you can have about this request from E.A.S.T.

Let me know if you have any questions.

~ Karen Hardin

• Thanksgiving Classroom Reminder – Keep in mind that student conceptions of Native Americans often come from classroom activities around the First Thanksgiving. The conception of Native Americans gained from such early exposure is often both inaccurate and potentially damaging. When planning activities, be aware that what most of us learned in school about the “Pilgrims” and “Squanto” and the “First Thanksgiving” is a mixture of both history and myth. Thanksgiving activities should avoid reinforcing historical myths and should avoid stereotypes (ie. NO warbonnets). It’s best to shift the focus away from the “First Thanksgiving” and instead focus on items children can be thankful for in their own lives and on their families’ celebrations of Thanksgiving. Some resources on what to avoid and what to teach can be found at Teaching Tolerance and Education World. Here is a good article with a Native American perspective on Thanksgiving. Also, the 4J Natives Program is a resource that is available for classroom presentations and can offer an accurate picture of Native American culture.

Winter looks like it’s come early. Stay warm this week!

Joel

Week of October 6

Hello Camino Staff,

Last week was a very busy week. This weekend was a great cool down for me I and I feel recuperated. I hope staff found the Maravillas training helpful. There was a lot of information in the training and it will take some time to digest it all.  I am so happy to settle in and see more classrooms and learning this week.  I will continue to visit your morning meetings to get a feel to how classes have adjusted to that routine and structure. Teachers, it is time to focus on your goals. Please contact me to set up a time to meet and discuss them.

October 6 (M)

Joel visits morning meetings.

4:00-8:00, Joel at Equity Committee Retreat

October 7 (T)

Joel visits morning meetings.

2:45-3:45, PLT Meeting

October 8 (W)

Joel visits morning meetings.

1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaboration Time

2:45- 3:45, IPBS Meeting

October 9 (TH)

Joel visits morning meetings.

1:45, School PBIS Assembly

2:45-3:45, Design Committee

October 10 (F)

No School, Statewide In-service Day- non-contract day for teachers and EA’s

October 13(M)

Joel available all day to do goals meetings.

October 14 (T)

2:45, Staff Meeting

October 15 (W)

1:40, Collaboration Time- Please meet in library.

2:45- 3:45, PBIS Meeting, Classified encouraged to come in exchange for an hour of comp time.

October 16 (TH)

3:00, Design Meeting

October 17 (F)

Joel available all day to do goals meetings.

• Rosa Molina visit October 20th All Day– Rosa Molina is confirmed to visit on October 20th.  By October 16th, I will need every teacher to complete their weekly schedule that was given to you by Sarah Knudsen.  If you can get it to me next week, I can give you advice or tips on how to improve it before the visit occurs. You will be meeting with Rosa and your grade level team for 40 minutes to consult about the fidelity of the program you are delivering.  Please, be prepared for this tremendous opportunity! We will also be spending time with Rosa on December 1st to do Curriculum Mapping as a staff. This will help us prepare to do the mapping on December 1st.

• Being A Writer Materials – If you are short any Being A Writer materials, let me know by Wednesday. Downtown is providing additional materials for classrooms or SPED teachers who are short or missing any items. SPED teachers should have materials for grades 2, 3 and 4 only. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

• TalentEd Update – TalentEd has now been updated for the 2014-2015 school year. This page provides a link to the TalentEd for login and Quick Start Guide. This link can be found on our 4J web site under Human Resources Teacher Effectiveness and Growth Systems.  I’ll set October 31st as the due date for the self-assessment and goals. Goals Meetings- Octboer 13th and October 17th are set aside for me to work on goals for you. Please have an idea of how you would like to set  your SLGOs for these meetings or write some up. In PLT this week, we will be discussing school wide SMART Goals for your convenience and to align with many of our CAP goals.

• Office Hours: The office will now be open from 7:45- 3:45. Being that our classes start at 8:20, 7:45 feels like ample time to get students to school and class. Yasmin or Edna will be there every day at 7:45. Yasmin will supervise from the office. Craig will begin opening the doors a little later each day as well.

• New Library Resource for Teachers from Eugene Public Library Youth Services – The Eugene Public Library website has a new Teacher Resources K-6 website, which includes:
  

  • Library’s online resources, targeted by subject
  • Links to books in the collection on teaching those subjects
  • Links and search tips for finding books and media in the collection to check out for the classroom
  • Lists of curated websites by subject
  • How to contact the library for assignment support and tour requests

  If staff have any questions, they should feel free to contact Michele Green, the Eugene Public Library Youth Librarian, by email (michele.e.green@ci.eugene.or.us) or by phone at 541-682-8480 (Sun – Thurs).

• Book Room Materials Organizing and Clean Up– We need to clear out many of the materials in the book room or at least begin to store some of them.  This is to make space for Maravillas resource materials.  If you have materials that you want to use, please come by and pick out what you need. Piper, Megan and I are going to remove materials that are considered out of date or unnecessary by October 31.

• PBIS Assembly 1:45 Thursday– Do not forget to work with your grade level or specialist team to make up a short 10-30 second skit for the PBIS assembly. We will be presenting ourselves to the school in a fun-hearted fashion on October 9th.

• El Día de los Muertos Planning Meetings– Are you wondering how the El Dia de Los Muertos Night is going? Last week, many staff members planned out some fun stations for the event and I heard that we will be having some serious fun!  Please check in with Alicia about this event that happens on October 29th from 8-6.

• BEST  begins soon: Jessica Zapata has been working hard to hire candidates for the EA positions in BEST and has been working to set up a great program for the year. With Aline and Bryan’s help, this will be an amazing support for best. Attached are the details that Jessica wanted to share with you about our program this year.

BEST-Information for Principal’s blog 10_14

• No School Friday October 10 for State In-service Day– Here are some opportunities across the state.

2014-Inservice-Bulletin

fall-flyer-2014

Supporting English Language Learners under New Standards — Open Oregon State | Oregon State Ecampus | OSU Degrees Online

• “Talking and Books” presentation on October 22 and 23 for Kinders- Mr. Lavin and Ms. Ramirez will read to your children while they demonstrate simple and effective ways to enjoy books with your children and get them talking!

Book talk They will talk about popular and age-appropriate books that a child may read independently and high-interest books that parents can read aloud to their children.

Time to Read Parents and their children will have time to read together.

All Families will take home a beautiful new picture book. All are invited to wear their jammies! Children may want to bring their favorite stuffed animals.   Childcare will be provided for all preschool children.

• SBAC Preparation: Marlee Litten posted several links for Smarter Balanced last week.  Here is one on the tools: It is under ESC>State Assessments on the Teacher Resource page)  The video of a PLC team is still not working on YouTube so I am trying to get a copy sent to us.  http://www.curriculum.4j.lane.edu/esc/elementary-state-assessments/

• Lock Down Review, Karen Ramirez had some great tips from last weeks lock-down drill.

Lockdown Drill was a success! Here are a some reminders for all of us.

Week of September 29

Calendar of the Week’s Events

September 29 (M)

8:00-8:40, Joel in 504 meeting.
8:00-11:30, Being a Writer Training for all teachers.
12:00-3:00, Joel at Being a Writer Meeting (Ed Center)
2:45-3:45, September Site Council (Conference Room)
3:45-4:45, Meeting with Kerry Delph about our Camino Facebook page.

September 30 (T)

Kathy Larson Visit
Life Touch Picture Day (Gym All Day)
8:00-8:45- Joel visiting morning meetings.
9:00-9:45, Joel meets with new Chief of Staff, Charis McGaughy
2:40-3:00, Joel Meeting with Risk about Hilliard Traffic

October 1st (W)

8:00-8:45- Joel visiting morning meetings
1:40-2:40,Collaborative Planning Time
2:45-3:15, Dia de Los Muertos Planning Meeting in Room 9.
6:00-8:00, Curriculum Night- Plan de Estudios de Noche

October 2 (H)
Joel in Portland at Coaches and Principal’s Meeting
3:00-5:00, Design Committee

October 3 (F)
Academy Day- No School
8:00-12:00, Maravillas Training with a McGraw Hill PD Consultant
12:00-4:00, Teacher Planning Time in relation to Maravillas.

This week on duty:

Inside lobby: Olivia
Front of school: Erin Reckers
Bus area #1: Marcy
Bus area #2: Erin Piper
Bus area #3: Nancy
Please remember to take your class a few minutes early if you are on duty.

Here are 16 items of note for the week:

• Design Update– On the evening of September 25th we had a turn out of about 30 people.  The majority of people attending were neighbors from the surrounding community.  We presented an East option and a West option. The discussion was heated and clearly, specific neighbors feel they will be adversely effected by the West option.  We will be debriefing again Monday by phone to land on an East or West siting option. The East option has benefits of providing more open space. Unfortunately, it will cost money to tear down classrooms to make an east option work. This will cost 750K and means less money put into the building itself. The West option is also attractive and can be built with a slightly larger budget since there will not be tear downs. The West option also will mean less disruption and no loss of capacity as we need more kinder classrooms in 2015-2016. Most likely, the team will move forward with a site decision in the next week either way. The cons of the west plan are related to the outside play options and clear separation of traffic and play. The team is working on other options this week to share more ideas about the West option to come up with ways to solve these problems. Here is the latest  presentation provided by our architect team. There are also plans in my office on poster board which I will put up in the staff lounge this week.

• PBIS Assembly on October 9th- Get a small skit prepared with your grade level team or specialist team. The skit should be fun and short. Each piece should be 10-30 seconds.

• Next Parent Group Meeting is October 14th- Consider coming to the next parent group meeting. Our new parent group president wants to help families to hear from teachers about what is happening in classrooms. Drea wants to see if teachers want to do a short sharing of a particular grade level.  It makes sense for us to start with kindergarten this month.  Maestra Bucklew and Maestra Fleming, can you come to this event?

Copy Counts and conserving copies- I know many staff have been feeling the pressure of limiting copies in the IMC.  Please understand that I am working hard to conserve our general supply funds. Last year, our school overspent these funds by over 8,000 dollars and we had to cover these costs with reserves from fleet funds. This is why Edna and I are watching the counts closely. It may be that we need to up the quota for all staff sooner than December.  Also, please use Instaprint as much as possible. A little thinking ahead can make a big difference in reducing costs. Also, there is currently no limit on Instaprint orders. In addition, we are looking into limiting the office copying by using a hybrid online/paper system to cut costs there.  At open house next week, please ask parents for their latest email address so we can make sure that system is as accurate as possible.  Edna will provide a sign up sheet for you next week. If we could deliver our newsletter to a quarter or even half of our families via email, it would drastically reduce our copy costs in the office.

• Northwest Conference on Social Justice October 18th– Jill Torres is helping to organize staff who are interested in going to the Northwest Social Justice Conference.  There will be a bus provided to 4j employees who want to go. It will be in Portland this year. It is 8-4:30 on October 18th, 2014 at Madison High School 2735 NE 82nd Ave. Portland, Oregon 97220

• Operation School Bell – Alicia wanted to inform you that tthere are Operation School Bell envelopes in your boxes. If you got some, please make sure to send them home with the student on Monday, September 29. The envelope contains time sensitive information. Please let Alicia know if you have any questions. Thank your for your assistance.

• Safety Week Continues – This week is Safety Week, where we’ll practice all of the most common safety drills. The schedule for the week is below. Of course, if it rains, we will have to adjust the schedule.  Staff did an excellent job getting students outside for last week’s fire drill.  I have included a link here if you want to read more about earthquake safety and preparedness.

• Monday, Sept. 29– No Drills.
• Tuesday, Sept. 30– Room Clear, time decided by teachers
• Wednesday, Oct. 1 – Earthquake/Fire Drill
• Thursday, Oct. 2–   Lock Down (Code Blue and Code Red)

All of these drills are listed in the “Emergency Procedures Manual” which is the rainbow tabbed notebook that should be hanging in every classroom (let me know if you don’t have one). I won’t be making any announcement before the drills, so it’s okay for staff to prep your students before these drills take place. For the Lock Down drill, please review the Code Blue and Code Red procedures, which include steps that are specific to River Road and are more detailed than the general ones in the Emergency Procedures Manual. I will probably have Karen or Edna run this drill since I will be out of town that day. Please let me know if you have any questions.

• Sub Folders to Edna – If you haven’t already, be sure to give your completed sub folders to Edna. For licensed staff, EAST, the substitute teachers union, provided a list of what information is most useful for them when they go into a classroom, which teachers may want to take a look at before completing your sub folders.

• Eugene/Springfield NAACP Resource Center – The Eugene/Springfield chapter of the NAACP just had their Resource Center Kick-Off Event and I wanted to highlight some resources staff may want to recommend to students and families. There are a couple programs aimed more at secondary students, which are the Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) and the Youth Council, but the program that would most benefit our students and families is the Back to School/Stay in School (BTS) program, which offers free tutoring, computer lab and academic/Parental assistance and counseling every Saturday (beginning Oct. 4) from 10:00-12:00 at the LCC Downtown Campus.

• Language Link Interpretation Services – For individual parent meetings and phone calls requiring translation services (including Parent/Teacher Conferences), the ELD Office is highly recommending that staff use the Language Link phone service (see attached document for details). This is a company the district contracts with who are well versed in education jargon, can translate multiple languages and are quite experienced in translating for schools. The ELD office will still try to schedule an in-district translator for conferences, but just know that this is also an option and in some ways might be better for connecting with families since you’d be able to better avoid having everyone talking to the translator instead of talking to each other. Of course, during our conferences, most classroom teachers will conference in the language of the parent since we have bilingual teachers.

• Ed Center Artwork Display – The Ed Center has two glass display cases begging for student artwork. It needs to be either 8×11 flat or three dimensional no larger than 8 inches on any side. If you are interested in participating, please let me know. This is a great way to help kids fell empowered and proud of their artistic skills.

• Papa’s Pizza Student Incentive Award – Papa’s Pizza is offering achievement awards that can be given to students for good behavior or reaching other teacher set goals as an incentive. The students receiving the awards can redeem them at Papa’s Pizza for a free mini pizza. If you you’d like some of these for your class, please let me know by end of the week how many you’d like. Papa’s said they can provide them all school year long. I already received 25 last week to begin this program.

• City of EugeneTeaching Resources – The City of Eugene offers a wide range of K-12 resources that teachers can use to add interest and local content to lesson plans. This brochure offers some examples of these great opportunities for students, including RiverPlay/Discovery Village Field Trip, Hunting for History, Snow Plow Art, the annual Public Works Day and many others.

• UO International Cultural Presentations for Classrooms – The International Cultural Services Program is once again making their student ambassadors from across the globe available for the 2014-2015 school year. Since the program’s inception almost 30 years ago, ICPS participants have brought cultural diversity to our community through group presentations, panel discussions, and demonstrations of regional dance, music, food and many other forms of cultural expressions. This program is K-12 and is offered free of charge. If you would like to invite an international student to speak to your class, you can submit a request by filling out this online request form. If at any time you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the ICSP Coordinator, Lindsay Pepper, by email icsp@uoregon.edu or phone (541) 346-7429.

• VIDEO: “Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by Ferguson Kids” – A radio station from Ferguson, MO made a pretty smart and snappy video highlighting common detours to discussing and addressing racism in America, our local community and even in ourselves.

• Hispanic Heritage Month- Check out the UO Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration organized in part by Jessica Zapata

Ten un buen semana de escuela!

Director Joel

Week of September 22

Calendar of the Week Plus

“An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.” Diego Rivera

September 22 (M)
8:00-11:00, Joel to Skillful Teacher Co-Observation (Ed Center)
1:30-2:30, Title Coordinator & Principal Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Joel to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

September 23 (T)
Kathy Larson visit. (All day)
9:00-10:00, Data Meeting Analysis of General Trends before Data Consult Day
2:45- 4:45, Staff Meeting with PD on Effective PLC Practices
4:30-6:30, Joel to 4J Equity Committee

September 24 (W)
1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaborative Planning Time (Library with support from Sarah, Aline, Karen and Joel)

September 25 (H)
12:30-2:30, Joel to Skillful Principal Being A Writer Training (Ed Center)
4:30-5:30 Design Committee (Library)
5:30-7:30, New School Design Public Meeting- Camino del Rio (Library)

September 26 (F)
Regular Day

September 29 (M)

8:00-11:30, Being a Writer Training for all teachers.
12:00-3:00, Principal Being a Writer Meeting (Ed Center)
2:45-3:45, September Site Council (Conference Room)

September 30 (T)
Kathy Larson Visit
Life Touch Picture Day (Gym All Day)

October 1st (W)
1:40-2:40,Collaborative Planning Time
6:00-8:00, Curriculum Night- Plan de Estudios de Noche

October 2 (H)
Joel in Portland at Coaches and Principal’s Meeting
2:45-4:45, Design Committee

October 3 (F)
Academy Day- No School
8:00-12:00, Maravillas Training with a McGraw Hill PD Consultant
12:00-4:00, Teacher Planning Time in relation to Maravillas.

October 6 (M)

2:45- 3:45, PBIS Meeting, Classified encouraged to come in exchange for an hour of comp time.

October 7 (T)

2:45-3:45, PLT Meeting

October 8 (W)

1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaboration Time

2:45- 3:45, IPBS Meeting

October 9 (Th.)

2:45-3:45, Design Committee

October 10 (F)

No School, Statewide In-service Day- non-contract day for teachers and EA’s

This week on duty:

Inside lobby: Alexis

•  Fire Drill Practice and Details: Later this week, you will find a daily instruction packet in your box about Safety Week.  Craig and I spent some time redoing the classroom order outside.  The numbers will be repainted on Monday. This year, due to classroom changes, there will be  new order along the track lines. Please rehearse and practice lining up on the fire drill lines once or twice this week so you are familiar with the location of your line.   Inserted here is the updated fire drill map including the classroom line placements.

•  Design Committee Update: This week, there will be an evening event on Thursday, September 25th from 5:30- 7:30. You are invited to attend to see the proposals that will be posted for viewing.  We will be presenting 2 main concepts. One on the East of the Site and one on the West of the site. In general, what we are discovering is that overall costs before construction will be less if we build on the west.  There are some proposals that have been put up for us to discern that describe demolition of classroom wings or the gym before building. Our design team has discouraged these because of the costs that could be incurred.  Avoiding demolition saves funding to be put into the final building and saves disruption to our classrooms and learning.  After this week’s open meeting, the team will process the public’s feedback and we will make a final decision on the site of the new building. Here is the presentation from last Thursday’s session.

October 3rd PD on Maravillas: I have spoken to the McGraw Hill Representatives to plan our October 3rd PD.  They are bringing in a professional development expert to help us get a good overview of the Maravillas Program.  The professional development will run from 8:00-12:00 on October 3rd. The main topics planned will be:

• How to use these materials in a Dual Language Program.
• How to integrate English Language Materials into the ELA block that relate to the themes, concepts and objectives  in the Maravillas materials.
• How to structure Tier 2 instruction using Maravillas Materials.
• The use of the online features of Maravillas.

Your afternoon will be planning time. The Maravillas team will provide you with some tasks to become more familiar with the materials that afternoon that you can work on with your grade level team.  I expect that the EA staff, SPED Staff, and ELL staff to attend the AM session as it will directly benefit our students if you understand this program.

• Change in the date for Rosa: October 20th is the new date that Rosa Molina will be coming to Oregon.  She had other engagements on the 13th of October so we have pushed it back a week.  I will update you on the topics and use of that day after further conversation with her next week.

•  Good Behavior Game Free Training – Trillium Community Health Plan & Lane County Public Health is offering free trainings for the “PAX Good Behavior Game.” You can read more about The PAX Good Behavior Game here and here. Subs will be provided and and trainings will be held at the Lane ESD Oct. 8th for teachers new to the program and Oct 9th for a booster training for teachers who have been previously trained.

•   SELCO Educator Mini-Grants – SELCO Community Credit Union accepts Mini-Grant requests each fall from K-12 educators in the 26 counties they serve. Mini-Grants of up to $500 are awarded to educators to implement creative education projects and to help fill in the gaps left by school budget shortfalls. The SELCO Mini-Grant application process is simple – please carefully read the funding criteria to be sure your project is eligible for a SELCO Mini-Grant and use the online application form to tell us about your classroom project. The deadline for applications is October 3rd and recipients are announced November 19th.

•   Facilities Use: Use of 4J Schools – Annual Reminder –   Facilities sent their annual reminder that as public employees, no person may use district property for personal financial gain or offer it free to the community, or for use that is inconsistent with districts public purpose, or in a manner that will discredit the district. It occasionally comes to their attention that 4J employees are using the school buildings for, music lessons, sports, exercise and many other types of classes/meeting. Please see the attached 4J School Board Policy on the use of district property.

All 4J schools are public property and are subject to public scrutiny.  The District has established Board Policies to address staff and outside groups wanting to use 4J facilities.  In order to establish fairness to all groups, including 4J staff, Administrative Rules have been written to address these issues.

If employees wish to use 4J Facilities and/or equipment for private instruction or for non-school community group meetings, or any other reason, they will need to (1) get approval from the Superintendent or his designee (i.e. Facility Scheduler: Natalie Medina) and (2) they will need to complete the online Facilities Request Form and Online Scheduler

•    TalentEd Update – TalentEd has now been updated for the 2014-2015 school year. This link provides the “home” page for you to click on TalentEd for login and Quick Start Guide. This link can be found on our 4J web site under Human Resources Teacher Effectiveness and Growth Systems. We will discuss school-wide goals and expectations at the staff meeting this week.

•  Latino Heritage Month:  Yes, it is Latino Heritage Month! I do not have a bunch of materials to share with you at this point, but I will point you towards one of my favorite bloggers, Larry Ferlazzo. Larry makes lots of great resource links to support ELLs and they are good for all learners! This set of links  is focused on one of my favorite Mexican artists, Diego Rivera.

•  Math Teaching Methods- Great example of a strong math discourse:

Reasoning in Multiplication and Division  Take a look at this excellent video of a teacher using number talks and math discourse.

Have an excellent week!

Joel

Week of September 15

Where will we fly to? Only our student’s imagination can say!

Calendar of the Week Plus

September 15 (M)
Tier 2 Groups begin
10:00-11:00, Joel conducting walk through observations for general dual language characteristics.

September 16 (T)
8:15-11:30, Joel to CICO Training (Lane ESD)
12:00-12:30 , Joel in meeting in office to discuss bible group program.
1:00-2:00, Joel in meeting with  Julie Heffernan on Transgender Resources in the Community
2:45-3:45 TLT Meeting to approve Technology Plan (Library)
6:00-8:00 Latino Advisory Committee at NEHS

September 17 (W)
Tier 3 Title Interventions commence.
1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaboration –  1st through 5th grades, please meet with your team in the library and plan amongst peers. Karen and Sarah, and Aline will provide support for your planning.
Kinder and ELL will meet in Room 6 with Lavin, Fleming, Bucklew, Lauer, and Schaal.
2:45-3:45, PBIS Meeting Conference Room- need one or two classified representatives.

September 18 (H)
2:45-5:00, Design Committee Meeting

September 19 (F)
Regular Day
September 22 (M)
8:00-11:00, Joel to Skillful Teacher Co-Observation (Ed Center)
1:30-2:30, Title Coordinator & Principal Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Joel to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

September 23 (T)
Kathy Larson visit. (All day)
9:00-10:00, Data Meeting Analysis of General Trends before Data Consult Day
2:45- 4:45, Staff Meeting with PD on Effective PLC Practices
4:30-6:30, Joel to 4J Equity Committee

September 24 (W)
1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaborative Planning Time (Library with support from Sarah, Aline, Karen and Joel)

September 25 (H)
12:30-2:30, Joel to Skillful Principal Being A Writer Training (Ed Center)
4:30-5:30 Design Committee (Library)
5:30-7:30, New School Design Public Meeting- Camino del Rio (Library)

September 26 (F)
Regular Day

September 29 (M)
2:45-3:45, September Site Council (Conference Room)

September 30 (T)
Kathy Larson Visit
Life Touch Picture Day (Gym All Day)

October 1st (W)
1:40-2:40,Collaborative Planning Time
6:00-8:00,Curriculum Night- Plan de Estudios de Noche

October 2 (H)
Joel in Portland at Coaches and Principal’s Meeting
2:45-4:45, Design Committee

October 3 (F)
Academy Day- No School
8:00-12:00, Maravillas Training with a Maravillas PD Consultant
12:00-4:00, Teacher Planning Time

This week on duty:

• Safety Week-ish, Sept. 26 – Oct. 2 – Safety Week changes due to Being a Writer. Craig, Edna and I are still working on new maps. We will get those to you soon along with updated procedures.

• Friday, Sept. 26– Fire Drill, 9:00

• Monday, Sept. 29– No Drills Many Staff out due to Being a Writer

• Tuesday, Sept. 30– Room Clear, time decided by teachers

• Wednesday, Oct. 1 –  9:00, Earthquake/Fire Drill

• Thursday, Oct. 2–  8:30 Lock Down (Code Blue and Code Red)

• Shiniest Stars of the Week- There are so many!

Cathy- Thanks so much for your amazing efforts to get Maravillas up and running. This was a great help to many teachers and to the office.

Aline- Thank you for working on so many schedules and documents for the start of the year. Your organization, leadership and vision for data team and IIPM support for our kids is greatly appreciated.

Karen- Your work on data team, easy CBM testing, and overall positive upbeat mindset have been so helpful in the last thee weeks.  It is truly amazing that we have finished KRA, Easy Cbm and are now moving into a new era of Spanish Summative assessment with your support.

Sara and Nancy-   Wow! ELL Powerhouse. It is so fun to watch how quickly and efficiently you both work together to help our English Language Learners. Your flexibility and innovative approach are so supportive of our whole program.

Sarah- Puzzle master and visionary.  I am so impressed with your great thinking and clear vision for SLD supports, Dual Language Fidelity and Programmatic Support. Thanks for helping to redesign so many schedules so that everything we do fits together so well.

Edna- Our school is just humming along, thanks to you.  Our families react so positively to your support.  It is such a pleasure to know that our kids and staff can rely on you to help us in so many ways. You rock!

 • All Meeting Minutes will now be on Zimbra Briefcase and on this Blog-

You will be able to access all minutes and structural documents via my blog and the the briefcase on Zimbra. Peggy can support you to access the briefcase if you need support in that area.

 • Website Updating and Media Request-

I need your help to update the website.  Please pass on ideas of content you’d like parents and students to see on there. Share photos with me that we can put on there.  Also, look for errors  that you see on there.

• EEF Grant Applications – The timeline is a bit later than in the past, but the EEF grant application process is now posted on their website. EEF aims to award $5000 to each school, but every year the amount available in their grants fund varies so they cannot guarantee award amounts. Schools can submit two $2,000 and two $500 grants, or they can combine grants to create one $5,000 grant. This year, we are submitting an entire $5000 grant  proposal towards getting high quality authentic Spanish language books. This will include fiction and non-fiction.  Grants are due to EEF by November 13th. This was approved in June.

• Technology Skills Practice for Smarter Balanced (and practice test) – Here is a nice  site that demonstrates tech skills for SBAC from Vacaville School District in California. They have created a site for teachers to support students becoming proficient in using the keyboard and mouse/trackpad/touchscreen for the tasks they will be asked of by the Smarter Balanced assessment (highlighting, clicking and dragging, etc.). It’s organized by grade level and has direct links activities for each of the skill areas.

• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Resource – Here is a link to the official Smarter Balanced practice tests. This website also has FAQ’s, teacher information and other resources with options to download. Here is how to try out the practice tests. They are not run of the mill and I must admit that the one I tried did give me pause:

• Click on the box near the bottom of the page labeled, “Take The Practice and Training Tests”
• Once there, click on the green box labeled, “Student interface….”
• Then, click on “Sign in” leave all of the boxes blank
• Finally, select a grade level and click “yes” under “Guest School”

Now go forth and show your math and reading prowess!

Color Printing:  Remember, color printing is very expensive.  Please be mindful that if you need to do color printing to be prudent how much you need.  We can make copies in the main office in a pinch during off hours but not during the busiest portions of the day. Also, consider using Insta Print and plan ahead as this saves a significant amount of supply funds and precious time for office staff.
Food Reminder-

Bring the student’s number cards EVERY time they go to lunch.  Hand them their cards and pick them up at the end. There is no need to hang around with the students in line. Rene and the cooking staff will appreciate it.  This seems to work very well for 1st grade right now and they are trying to learn their numbers quickly.  Please do this at all grades.   Kinder will continue to use their method of pick up of grab and go lunches.

• Synergy New Student Reminder – A quick reminder that if you have had new students added to your class, teachers will need to move them over from the column on the left of the main Teacher VUE screen into where the pictures of all your students are located. There is a red alert triangle at the top of your Synergy screen that will notify you when you have new students added to your class, but be aware you need to move them onto your roster before you will be able to see them for attendance and other Synergy purposes.

• Teacher Effectiveness & Growth Update – HR has let principals know that they have almost transferred all of the necessary information over for teachers to begin using TalentEd for the 2014-2015 school year. I’ll let teachers know once it’s ready to go and will schedule goals meetings at that point, as well as sending out the building goals if you’d like to use them. Also, here’s a link to the district Teacher Effectiveness and Growth Systems website, which can likely answer any questions you may have about the system.

• Camino del Río Staff Handbook Review – Attached is the updated Staff Handbook for 2014-2015. All staff must review the handbook and sign & return the  acknowledgement form  to Edna by Friday, September 26th.

• New Teaching Tolerance Curriculum for Teachers – Three years, 300 texts and 20 anchor standards in the making, Teaching Tolerance’s K-12, literacy-based, anti-bias curriculum is finally here! Start exploring Perspectives for a Diverse America today.

• 2013–14 OAKS results: District-wide analysis & key points – You may have seen the recent article in the Register Guard, but OAKS were released last week by ODE. In terms of measuring growth, Howard held pretty steady, though our overall scores dropped, as did most of the district and state, particularly in math. Attached is a district summary of scores, some of it broken out by school, along with an email that was sent to principals with an analysis of the results.

• Curriculum Night will be October 1st – Aline, Karen, Alicia, and I have been working on a plan to create a passport style curriculum night.  More details to come.  The ad will be sent home on Monday with our first mailer.

Here are some ideas  for sharing on curriculum Night (October 1st from 6:00-8:00)

• Parents want to know what their students are expected to learn this year and how they can help them succeed. Think about creating a handout or packet that gives an overview of your year’s scope and sequence. Bonus points for including information about how parents can help with each big topic/project.

• Explain the standards. If you’re teaching the Common Core, the PTA has put out a great collection of parent guides. These guides are a great way to teach parents about the CCSS.

• Include examples of student work. If you have copies of projects that students have done in the past, show these as examples of the kind of work students will be expected to do this year. Alternatively, show a few (nameless) examples of student work from the beginning of the year. Talk about the work students have been doing and where you will go from there.

• Take a few minutes to preview areas where kids might struggle and how parents can help. For example, your students might use a different strategy to solve math problems than their parents and that might make homework challenging. Or, talk about how the rhythms of a classroom have highs and lows — say, how you’ve noticed that every December your students start to get antsy for the holidays and are easily distracted.

Explaining the Common Core in Spanish to families. Need help explaining the CCSS to families?  Here is a nice video.

Have a good week, everyone!

Joel

Week of September 8

Weekly Schedule

September 8 (M)
Fall Benchmark Testing  and KRA Continues

8:30, Reading to Piper’s Class

9:15, Reading to Nikita’s Class

10:30, Reading to all of first grade.

1:30-1:45, Website Design meeting with Peggy (Principal’s Office)

1:45-2:30, Joel to BEST Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

2:45-3:45, IPBS Meeting (Conference Room)

2:30-5:00, Joel to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

September 9 (T)
Fall Math Benchmark Testing and KRA

9:00-9:30, Family Night Planning Meeting (FRC Rm. 9)

10:15, Joel reads to Recker’s Class

12:00-1:00, Meeting with Federal Programs Director, Tasha Katsuda (Principal Office)

2:30-3:30, PLT (Conference Room)

4:00- 5:00, Joel meets with Kerry Delph to set up Facebook Page.

6:00-8:00, Parent Group Meeting (Library)

September 10 (W)

8:30-9:00, Family Resource Center Meeting (FRC Rm. 9)

1:40-2:40, Grade Level Collaboration  Meeting (Objective and Unit Planning in classrooms together)

4:30, Joel to United Way Meeting (Ed Center)

2:45-4:45, First Design Committee Meeting with Staff (Library)

September 11 (H)

Joel begins walk through observations in classrooms.- Personal notes taken on iPad. No notes will be added to the Teacher Effectiveness and Growth System.

2:45-3:45, Staff Meeting (Library)

September 12 (F)

Joel begins walk through observations in classrooms.- Personal notes taken on iPad. No notes will be added to the Teacher Effectiveness and Growth System.

 

September 16 (T)
8:15-11:30, Joel and IPBS Team to CICO Training (Lane ESD)

September 30 (T) Life Touch Photo Day

Hi Everyone,

We did so well our first week back and the school year seems to be off on a great start thanks to everyone’s hard work!

Some items of note this week:

• Skillful Teacher (Cohort 3) Camino Rep – 4J is starting a third Skillful Teacher cohort and is reserving a spot for each school to send a rep. Speak with Karen and Megan can let you know their experience with it, but the first session for Cohort 3 will be Friday, September 26th. Attached is a calendar of Skillful Teacher Trainings for the year. There is a possibility of multiple teachers from our school being able to attend if other schools do not fill their spots. If you are interested in being part of Cohort 3, let me know by the end of the week.

• Safety Week, Sept. 29 – Oct. 2 – I’d like to again hold a Safety Week this year and schedule it for the end of this month so we can practice all of the most common safety drills (and also take care of the September and October fire drill requirements all in the same week). Craig and I will be reviewing the previous year’s drills and will update manuals in the next week or so. We are also working with Matt Cornwall from downtown in order to ensure that our evacuation routes are clear. This is a good way to bring awareness to staff, students and families about the various safety procedures right at the start of the year. The schedule for Safety Week will be:

• Monday, Sept. 29– Fire Drill, 9:00
• Tuesday, Sept. 30– Room Clear, time decided by teachers
• Wednesday, Oct. 1 – Lock Down (Code Blue and Code Red), 9:00
• Thursday, Oct. 2– Earthquake/Fire Drill, 8:30

It’s not for another three weeks, but I wanted to let staff know now to help with planning. All of these drills are listed in the “Emergency Procedures Manual” which is the rainbow tabbed notebook that should be hanging in every classroom. I won’t be making any announcement before the drills, so it’s okay for staff to prep your students before these drills take place. For the Lock Down drill, please review the Code Blue and Code Red procedures. These steps are more detailed about our lockdown procedure than the more general ones in the Emergency Procedures Manual. Please let me know if you do not have a manual or if you have any questions.

• Principal Visits to Classrooms – If you haven’t already set up a time for me to come read to your class, let me know a good 15-20 minute block for me to come in this week or next. I’ll read a favorite story to your class and chat with the kids a bit. Thank you!

• Being a Writer Training for Teachers – On September 29th, representatives from the Developmental Studies Center will be conducting a Being A Writer Training for principals from 8:00-11:30 here at the Ed Center in the Auditorium.

• News Crew Starts This Week – Megan will be training some 4th graders in News Crew this week, which means we’ll be starting morning announcements this week! We will make the bilingual announcements short and they will begin at 8:30 so we do not disrupt morning meeting.

• Copier Codes  – The copy code for teachers is the last 4 digits of the teacher employee number in case you need that.

• Please take attendance early. –It is very important that you input attendance IN SYNERGY before 9:00 AM.  This is a safety issue and parent communication issue.  All classroom teachers should have Synergy up and ready to input attendance before class begins. Please make this part of your regular routine.

• Confidentiality of Free and Reduced Lunch Information.– The district expects that the Food Service Coordinator will not share any private information with staff.  The only person who is authorized by the Superintendent’s office to use this information would be the administrator. Please do not request this information of Rene as it puts her in a difficult situation.

• District Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff – Attached and linked here is the District Back-to-School Memo, which ALL staff must review and sign & return the acknowledgement form to Edna no later than Friday, September 26th.

• Title 1 Newsletter – If you’d like to know what’s happening in Title 1 from the district perspective, here is the September Title 1 Newsletter that went out to all Title 1 Coordinators and principals. This month’s issue is mostly a lot of coordinator business, but here it is if you’re curious.

• Supporting ELL Students Under New Standards (Free Online Course) – This eight-week online course is designed to help teachers support English Language Learners in meeting new, rigorous standards. Specifically, the course will focus on a key practice within both the Common Core State Standards and new English Language Proficiency Standards: constructing claims supported by evidence. Endorsed by the Oregon Department of Education for Oregon K-12 teachers, the content is also open to teachers outside of Oregon. I signed up. Won’t you join me?

• Oct 10 Statewide In service & Professional Learning Opportunities – This is a non-paid day, so staff are under no obligation to work or attend any of these trainings, but if you are interested in knowing what is being offered this day, attached is the 2014 Oregon Inservice Bulletin and also a flyer from Educational Explorations, which had paid classes offering credit through PSU.

• Visitors and Volunteers  –  We have many families who have been wandering the halls  during pick up. We need to be very careful about this.
Please follow this procedure:
a.If a parent or adult is helping volunteer in the classroom, they should go through the volunteer criminal background check process before helping in class.
b. If you have a visitor in your class, they need to sign in daily.  If they are visiting, they need to state their purpose, to observe, to share a skill, or to communicate with a teacher. Please ask your visitor if they have signed in each day and make sure they have a visitor sticker.
c. If you have a regular volunteer in your class please communicate with staff what their regular schedule is. Sometimes, there are custody conflicts which you may or may not be aware of.  We can help you work through these if both parents want to volunteer in the same classroom.

Some resources for Morning Meeting – Below are some great resources on Morning Meeting if you are looking for ideas on how to integrate language skills in the meetings.  I was really impressed with Ms. Noonan’s class.  Using sentence frames and a word wall can be great strategies to support our students in morning meeting.

Developmental Studies Center You Tube Channel for your Caring For Kids Ideas

http://youtu.be/PH3vTEKiSTs?list=UUibvNgcTZQ02PucorqcTvLg

Article on Engagement – This article explores the several factors to help teachers know they are actually increasing engagement amongst students in the their classroom.  I really liked it because it does not sugar coat engagement.  Many times, having fun or seeing students working are described as engagement. This article dispels much of that perspective.

Effective Engagement in the Classroom- “the 7X Effect”