Caring for Kids

November 27, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/11/22 21:45 Posted in Announcements, Caring for Kids, Equity, P.D., Technology, Video  |  Comments Off on November 27, 2017

 

Howdy Roadrunners,

I hope everyone had a refreshing extended weekend and is ready for the three weeks leading up to winter break. With last week so short, there’s not too many announcements this time around.

Seven items of note for this week:

• December PBIS Focus: Generosity – The December PBIS monthly focus is Generosity. The PBIS team created a PBIS/Caring School Community Cheat Sheet that matches our monthly PBIS themes with corresponding Caring School Community class meeting lessons, which is a nice way to tie the two activities together.

• PRIDE Awards, Respect, Dec. 6 – Not this week, but next week on Wednesday, December 6th during lunchtime in the cafeteria will be our PRIDE Awards for Respect. Teachers should remind students about PRIDE and the meaning of Respect (Honor Yourself and Others), and then pick 2-4 students who have been demonstrating Respect. Be sure to get the Respect Certificate to me before the 6th so I can sign them and get them organized.

And if you’d like ideas on how you might discuss RESPECT with your class, below are a few videos teachers could use during a morning meeting or other class meeting time.

• TEDEd: Showing RESPECT in the Classroom – From TEDEd, here’s a lesson titled Showing RESPECT in the Classroom – Kid President. Watch the video and then have your class answer the discussion questions that follow.

• Sesame Street: Respect (Word on the Street) – For younger students, here’s a Sesame Street video where the word on the street is respect: treating people the way you want to be treated.

• Respect Rap – We showed this one at a PRIDE Assembly couple years ago, but it’s a fun video about respect made by another elementary school. The song is also a bit of an earworm.

• Hour of Code Next Week – The Hour of Code is happening next week, December 4-8, during Computer Science Education Week, if teachers can squeeze in an hour of coding. One other resource, besides Code.org, HourofCode.org, and Edutopia shared earlier, there’s also some good resources at Khan Academy. I’ve added a link to Code.org on Howard’s Links for Learners webpages, but let me know if you’d like any other links added.

• Instructional Technology Winter Workshops – Available to all 4J K-12 staff are FREE instructional technology workshops now through January. Workshops being offered include:

• Google Classroom for K-5 Teachers
• Creativity & Digital Storytelling
• Foundations of Google Apps Part 1 & 2
• Digital Portfolios with Seesaw
• Edpuzzle – Engage students with videos
• Create, Update, and Maintain a classroom website
• Introd uiten to SMART Notebook
• Advanced SMART Notebook & CCSS/NGSS Standards

Detailed information for all workshops being offered and online registration can be found at: http://www-old.4j.lane.edu/workshops

• Public Safety Event for Spanish Speaking Families – The 4J Office of Equity, Instruction, and Partnerships is working with the the city and several community entities on a public safety event geared specifically to our Spanish speaking community in the 4J school District. The idea is to provide families a time to interact with our local public safety officers that work and live in our community. There will be dinner, activities for students and a space for the community to ask questions. This event will be at River Road on Wednesday, December 6th from 6:00–8:00 p.m. Flyers will be sent to schools soon for teachers to send home to Spanish speaking families. An autodialer is also going out.

• 3 Tips to Make Any Lesson More Culturally Responsive – Culturally responsive teaching is less about using racial pride as a motivator and more about mimicking students’ cultural learning styles and tools. In this Cult of Pedagogy post, educator and author Zaretta Hammond shares three specific practices she encourages teachers to use in classrooms; to Gamify It, to Make it Social, and to Storify It.

• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

November 27 (M)
2:30-3:30, Site Council (Conference Room)

November 28 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting – Number Talks Part 3 (Ashley’s Room)

November 29 (W)
Picture Retakes (Community Room)
7:50-10:40, Data Team Meetings 5/1/2 (Conference Room)
1:15, Allan to Parent/Teacher Conference
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting – CANCELLED

November 30 (H)
7:50-10:40, Data Team Meetings 3/4/K (Conference Room)
12:00-3:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)

December 1 (F)
PBIS Monthly Theme – Generosity
11:00-1:50, November Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)

December 2 (SA)
9:00-2:00, PTO Holiday Bazaar (Cafeteria/Gym)

December 4 (M)
Regular Day

December 5 (T)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Mariah’s Room)
4:00, Allan to LCC Grant Meeting
5:30-7:30, North Region Visioning Community Engagement Event (Kelly MS)

December 6 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
11:00-12:50, PRIDE Awards at Lunch – Respect (Cafeteria)

December 7 (H)
1:40, Fire Drill

December 8 (F)
Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day

Have an excellent week, everyone!

Allan

Bonus film nerd points if anyone can name this 1970s film.

October 2, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/09/30 08:09 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Caring for Kids, Literacy, P.D., Technology  |  Comments Off on October 2, 2017

Hello Awesome Howard Staff!

Monday is National Custodial Workers Recognition Day, so I’d like to take a moment to recognize the work of Crystal, Nigel, and Auburn for keeping our building running smoothly. You’re the best!

Eighteen items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates – Susan Schueller, a new Life Skills EA, is taking a leave, so SSD is working to fill the position. For now we’ll have subs, but I’ll let folks know once we have someone more permanent in place. Also, our new BEST Coordinator, Joshua Wrolstad, has left his position for another opportunity. The position will be posted this week if you know someone good, but do know there is a possibility the start date of BEST may be delayed.

• Monthly PBIS Focus: Bully-Proofing – The Howard October PBIS monthly focus is Bully-Proofing, so remember the PBIS/Caring School Community Cheat Sheet, which matches our PBIS monthly themes with Caring School Community class meeting lessons. This is a nice way to tie the PBIS and CSC together

• Walk + Roll to School Day, Oct 4th – Ronny sent a couple emails earlier, but remind your students that this Wednesday is Walk + Roll to School Day, where students are encouraged to walk, skateboard, bike, scooter, or use another non-motorized mode of transportation to get to school this day. There will be stickers and tattoos for all students who participate as well as a raffle for two helmets, two sets of skate-pads, and a scooter! I’ll announce the winners at the end of the day.

• Open House (formerly Curriculum Night), Wednesday, Oct. 11th– Linked here is a flyer for the 2017 Howard Open House, formerly known as Curriculum Night. Office staff will put class sets, back-to-back in English and Spanish, in teacher mailboxes to go home in Friday Folders. The start and end times will stay the same as what we’ve already advertised, with classrooms and specialist areas open 5:45-6:45, pizza being served in the cafeteria 6:00-7:00, and a Title 1 Presentation in the library at 6:00. Let me know if you have any questions.

• Howard PD Day, Thursday, Oct 12th – Our first Howard PD day of the year will focus on Google Classroom. I’m waiting on the final agenda from the Tech Department, but we’ll start at 8:00 in the cafeteria and will go until 12:00. Classified staff are invited to attend, but not required.

• State In-Service Day, Friday, Oct 13th – Friday, October 13th is State In-Service day. This is a regular work day for administrators and 192 & 196-day classified staff. For classified staff, you are required to attend an ALICE training (see item below) if you have not already been trained. If you’ve already attended a training, this would be a good day to take any accumulated comp time (which officially is not supposed to be accumulated without giving me prior notice). For licensed staff, this is a non-contract day. If you are ever wondering about work year dates, most all of your questions can be answered on the 4J Employee Work Year Calendars webpage.

• District ALICE Training for New Staff – 4J is holding an ALICE training October 13th, 8:30- 11:30 at Churchill High School for staff new to the district who have not previously received ALICE training. This is a required training for any untrained classified staff, but this is a non-contract day for licensed staff, so it is an optional training for licensed staff members. Registration is required, which you can do by clicking this ALICE Training Registration link.

For staff unfamiliar with ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate), it is a response protocol to emergency situations, such as an active shooter, which 4J and many other Oregon school districts have adopted and are now teaching students. This is a difficult and emotional matter for adults, but for students who don’t have the perspective we have as adults, this is simply another emergency dill.

• Student ALICE Training & Staff Refresher – With Safety Week coming up at the end of the month, I wanted teachers to note on the calendar that on Wednesday, November 1st, all classrooms are to teach the ALICE Drill Protocols before we conduct the drill on Thursday, November 2nd. I’ll hold an optional refresher training for staff on Thursday, October 26th at 2:30 in the Conference Room for new staff and anyone who wants to review how to teach the ALICE Protocol Student Lesson.

Linked here is the PowerPoint presentation (and a PDF version with notes) that classroom teachers will use to teach the safety drills to students on Wednesday, Nov. 1st. After going through the PowerPoint, teachers will read the book I’m Not Scared, I’m Prepared (let me know if you do not have a copy of the book) with the linked guiding questions. The following day on Thursday, Nov. 2nd at 9:00, we’ll practice the Lockdown: Evacuation Drill. For that drill I will press the office lockdown button (dropping curtains, locking exterior doors, and closing [not locking] doors to each wing) and will announce the following:

Attention students, staff and visitors: This is a LOCKDOWN: EVACUATE DRILL, this is a LOCKDOWN: EVACUATE DRILL. Repeat, this is a NOT A REAL EMERGENCY. THIS IS A DRILL. We are pretending there is a dangerous person (or intruder) in the building on the other side of the building from your classroom. We are pretending there is a dangerous person (or intruder) in the building on the other side of the building from your classroom. WE ARE IN A LOCKDOWN: EVACUATE DRILL.

Teachers will then direct students to evacuate the building to the nearest location on the perimeter of the school grounds. Classes will stop at the edge of the property and wait for my all-clear announcement. In a real emergency, students and staff would evacuate well past the edge of the property, getting much further away. I’ll share more details at the refresher training, but those are the basics. Please let me know if you have any questions.

• 17-18 Leadership Plan Proposals – Linked here are three Proposed 2017-2018 Leadership Plans for distributing 22 sub days among no more than 7 licensed staff members. Plan A is the same as last year except it eliminated the Science Leader and moved those days to the Math Leaders. Plan B is the same as Plan A except it moves two additional days from the Tech Leader to the Math Leaders. Plan C is the same as Plan A except it instead moves two additional days from the PBIS Leader to the Math Leaders. If anyone has other proposals for new positions or different sub day allocations, let me know soon so I can send it out to everyone before the October Staff Meeting where we’ll vote on a final plan.

Plan A:
PBIS Leader: 3 days
IPBS Co-Leaders: 10 days
Technology Leader: 4 days
Literacy Leader: 2 days
Math Co-Leaders: 3 days

Plan B:
PBIS Leader: 3 days
IPBS Co-Leaders: 10 days
Technology Leader: 2 days
Literacy Leader: 2 days
Math Co-Leaders: 5 days

Plan C:
PBIS Leader: 1 days
IPBS Co-Leaders: 10 days
Technology Leader: 4 days
Literacy Leader: 2 days
Math Co-Leaders: 5 days

• ThinkCentral Teacher Log-In – A few teachers (and tech savvy ones at that) contacted me last week having problems with the teacher log-in for ThinkCentral. Username and passwords are:

USERNAME: your full email address (i.e. chinn@4j.lane.edu)
PASSWORD: Capital first and last initials, followed by _t, followed by your 6-digit employee ID number (i.e. AC_t654321)

If you continue to have trouble logging in, you can also reset your password (though it may revert back to the above password after the nightly sync with Synergy). To get a new password, select your state, district, and school from the pull-down menus on the login page, enter your full email address for the username (chinn@4j.lane.edu), and click Reset Password. You will receive an email with instructions on resetting your password.

If you do not get an email or get a message that it can’t find an account, send an email to 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu that includes the school name so Tech Department staff know where to give your access. Also, I still have admin access to ThinkCentral from when Howard piloted Journeys a few years ago and can reset your password.

• Track Closed a Few Days – Facilities staff are going to add some rubber to the synthetic turf field this week. This will put the field out of commission for at least a day or two while it’s being prepared and installed. I haven’t gotten firm dates when this will happen, but I’m sure it’ll be obvious when they’re working and I’ve asked them to post signs or tape for when it’s closed.

• Instructional Technology Fall Workshops – A few staff members have asked where go to register for any of the Instructional Technology workshops this fall. Just go the the 4J Workshops webpage. There is an Introduction to SMART Notebook workshop here at Howard on October 16th, which I’d encourage anyone to attend who is not familiar with the applicaiton. All workshops have PDUs for attending. If you need help registering, just call or email Misty Jackson (x7567 or jackson_misty@4j.lane.edu) for help.

• Oregon College Savings Plan – Be College Ready brings the Oregon College Savings Plan directly into elementary schools, providing school supplies promoting the college savings to families. I’ve placed an order for the free homework folders, pencils, and bookmarks for every student, along with brochures, which teachers can send home. Also, 20 families from each of the five congressional districts will be eligible to win a $100 Oregon College Savings Plan account.

• School Choice Calendar Changes – As an FYI, there will be some changes to how the school choice process works this year. Linked here is the complete email sent to principals and secretaries, but she Reader’s Digest version is that the visitation and application period will be only in January and not February, with an application deadline of January 31st. The School Showcase will still happen, but will be earlier in the year and only 2 hours.

• NEHS Run to Stay Warm! – North Eugene High School staff are organizing a North Region presence at EWEB’s Run to Stay Warm, a race that benefits EWEB customers who are having difficulties paying their utility bills. The race has a 5k, 10k, and Half-Marathon. The NEHS community is offered a $5 discount code for the race. You can register online at their website or in person at EWEB’s office at 500 E. 4th, and use the discount code HSRTSW17. Feel free to use the discount code and share it with families and students.

• Talk Time: Conversational English – Feel free to share this Eugene Public Library event with families as you see appropriate. “Learning English? Come meet other learners and practice together! Drop in for ‘Talk Time,’ a casual, conversational gathering at the Downtown Eugene Public Library on Thursday, October 5, 4:00 p.m. Everyone’s welcome and admission is free. For more information, contact Eugene Public Library at 541-682-5450 or http://www.eugene-or.gov/library.”

• What’s Rigor Anyway? – In this Edutopia article, New York teacher Brian Sztabnik notes how often the word “rigor” crops up in faculty meetings, educational conferences, and worried chats with colleagues (“Is this book rigorous enough?”). But what does rigor mean?

• Making students’ work more difficult?
• Giving them more homework and classwork?
• Assigning work further up Bloom’s taxonomy or deeper on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge?

Hold on, says Sztabnik. “Rigor is a result, not a cause… Rigor is not defined by the text – it comes from what students do. It is not standard across a curriculum – it is individual to each student’s needs. It is not quantified by how much gets crammed into a school day – it is measured in depth of understanding.”

Sztabnik describes how novelist David Foster Wallace taught his literary analysis course at Illinois State University. Wallace used seemingly middlebrow works like Lonesome Dove, Carrie, and Silence of the Lambs and said to his students, “Don’t let any lightweightish-looking qualities of the texts delude you into thinking this will be a blow-off-type class. These ‘popular’ texts will end up being harder than more conventionally ‘literary’ works to unpack and read critically.”

That’s the point, says Sztabnik: “Rigor is the result of work that challenges students’ thinking in new and interesting ways. It occurs when they are encouraged toward a sophisticated understanding of fundamental ideas and are driven by curiosity to discover what they don’t know… Let us aspire to something greater than making difficult work for our students. Let’s take them to that intersection of encouragement and engagement, where they confront ideas and problems that are meaningful. Let’s stretch their thinking. Let’s unleash their sophistication. And let’s foster a love of deep knowledge.”

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

October 2 (M)
PBIS Monthly Theme – Bully-Proofing
National Custodial Workers Recognition Day
easyCBM Testing Closes

October 3 (T)
Vision Screening
9:00-11:30, Allan Meeting with SRO Supervisor (Office)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)

October 4 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Walk + Roll to School Day
2:30-3:30, Teacher Team Time – Number Talks Session 1 (Volunteer’s Classroom)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center) SKIPPING
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)

October 5 (H)
9:00, Monthly Book Winners (Conference Room)
12:35, Safety Patrol Training (Community Room)

October 6 (F)
Kindergarten Hearing Screening (Room 1)

October 9 (M)
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)

October 10 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30 IPBS Meeting (Mellissa’s Room, Room 23)
4:00-8:00, District First Aid/CPR Class (Library)

October 11 (W)
2:30-3:30 PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, Room 1)
5:45-7:00, Open House

• 5:45 Classrooms Open
• 6:00 Title 1 Presentation (Library)
• 6:00 Pizza Served in Cafeteria
• 6:45 Classrooms Close
• 7:00 Pizza Dinner in Cafeteria Closes

October 12 (H)
No School – Howard PD Day
8:00-12:00, Howard PD w/Kelly MS Staff (Cafeteria)
12:00-3:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)

October 13 (F)
No School — State In-Service Day
Regular Workday for Classified Staff
Non-Contract Day for Licensed Staff
8:30-11:30, ALICE Training for New Staff (Churchill HS)

We made it through the first month of school, everyone!

Allan

August 28, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/08/26 17:22 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Arts, Caring for Kids, P.D., Science, Technology, Video  |  Comments Off on August 28, 2017

 

Welcome Back Howard Roadrunners!

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone this week! Here’s the first edition of my weekly staff announcements. For new staff and as a reminder to Howard veterans, it’s my intent with these announcements to share informational and business items here rather than taking up Staff Meeting time. It’s also my intention to avoid cluttering up your inboxes throughout the week and to instead send only one email per week to all staff (though I don’t always achieve that goal). Typically I send these out Sunday morning and my hope is for staff read them by Tuesday evening.

A whopping thirty-one items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates – Michelynah Anderegg is our new part-time Speech Teacher who will be working to help our full-time SLP, Shelley, with her growing caseload. Michelynah will also work part-time at Willagillespie. Over in Life Skills, SSD has hired Susan Schueller as a 1:1 EA, and has also hired Alison Stewart and Cindy Winkle as general Life Skills EAs, filling vacancies left by Rachel and Rebecca. In the CLC, SSD has hired Melva Smith as a 4-hour CLC EA, which is a new position to support our additional 0.5 licensed CLC time, and has also hired Melissa Lake as a 1:1 CLC EA, filling Cass’ vacancy. Linked here is the complete 2017-2018 Howard Staff List of all the folks working in our building this year, all 93 of them. We’re still waiting on HR to hear who our new BEST Coordinator and new Title 1 EA will be, but please welcome these fine new folks to the Howard Team!

• Updated 2017-2018 Master Schedule – Linked here is a slightly updated 2017-2018 Master Schedule (PDF and Excel). At the request of Kindergarten and 5th grade, some of their core times shifted around and one PE class changed times, but everything else is the same.

• Library Times Sign-Up – If teachers would like to set a time for your class to visit the library each week, please contact our stellar librarian, Julie Hopkins, in person or by email at hopkins_j@4j.lane.edu

• Classroom Schedules to Lori – Speaking of classroom schedules, as teachers finish up your daily schedules, remember to give Lori a copy. The master schedule has most of this information, but it doesn’t always reflect Classroom Buddy times, Library times, or other regularly scheduled activities outside of the classroom.

• Class Lists Posted Friday, Sept. 1 – Like we did last year, class lists will be posted on Friday, September 1st at 12:00. This year I learned a trick from another school to stay in compliance with district privacy rules, while making it easier for families to see the lists, which is to post the lists on an exterior window, but only list first name and last initial.

• Meet Your Teacher Plan – During Meet Your Teacher on Tuesday next week, September 5th at 1:00, I’d like to repeat what we did last year, having all non-classroom staff available to direct families, passing out school maps with highlighters to help guide families, and also passing out a flyer about parking lot procedures. We’ll also arm people with a complete set of class lists to be used this day and also on the first day of school.

And since we got too busy with opening the new building to do this last year, this year I’m planning to copy this very cool viral video of What is your hope? and will be out front during Meet Your Teacher with a white board doing this.

• First Day of School Plan – Last year we had a fairly involved plan for the first day of school since we were opening a brand new building, but this year we can scale things back since kids and families are now more familiar with the new building. However, the morning of the first two days of school I would still like to have all-hand-on-deck. At 7:25, when the doors first open, all available staff should to be on hand help guide students to the cafeteria, help supervise on the playground, and then when the first bell rings at 7:50, help students find their classrooms. Staff helping in front of the building should again hold onto their class lists and maps from the day before to help guide families. In my announcements next week, I’ll have a map of where everyone will be stationed.

On a related note, at our Back-to-School Staff Meeting, I’d like to know if teachers would like to to some sort of all-school kick-off assembly the first day of school. It might be a good time to kick-off PBIS, PIRDE, the Roadrunner Pledge, or just a fun Let’s-Make-this-a-Great-Year type of assembly to launch the year. Feel free to let me know your thoughts or ideas on this before our Staff Meeting Wednesday.

• Classroom AMX Refresher/Into Training – The Technology Department is offering an optional training/refresher on how to use the classroom AMX System (cord set-up, connecting laptops for video/sound, whiteboard interactivity, voice amplification, ENZO, etc.) this Wednesday at 3:15. Any staff unfamiliar with these systems should attend and anyone wanting a refresher is also invited to come. The Tech Department wants to get an idea of how many people will be there, so let me know if you are planning to attend.

• New Room Number Plates Coming Late – We’re having trouble with the company making the name plates for our new room numbers, so it’s possible we won’t have them installed by the first day of school. In any case, we’re sticking with our simplified Classroom Re-Numbering and for now teachers should put a room number in your “Slide-In” name plate outside your classrooms.

• Preschool Promise Update – I think most people assumed our preschool program was continuing this year, but we actually were waiting with baited breath over the summer for the legislature to reauthorize the Preschool Promise Grant that’s funding our program. The legislature did reauthorize the grant and actually funded it for two years, so that is fabulous news!

• Artist in Residence – More good news! I don’t have to scramble to secure grant funds for an artist in residence this year and instead the Eugene Rotary is working with downtown to bring Artists in Residence to the ten schools in 4J with the highest poverty and to offer matching funds for the remaining schools. The only thing they ask for in return is that schools (or at least some classes) make a larger project instead of individual ones that the Rotary Club can auction off at a future Art Spark fundraiser to continue supporting artists in schools. I’ll get more information on this later, but in the meantime, feel free to browse the Lane Arts Artist in Residence website for artists we might want to select and also think about when you might want them to come. In the past we’ve scheduled artists toward the end of the school year. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.

• Classified & Licensed Goals and Self Assessment – All staff, both classified and licensed, need to complete a self assessment before the end of September. Licensed staff need to complete their self assessment in TalentEd. Classified staff need to complete the Classified Employee Self Assessment form. However, a welcome change for classified staff is that if you completed an end-of-year self assessment last school year, you do not need to do another self assessment this fall. I know all classified folks who were at Howard last year completed this form, but if you’re new to Howard, please complete the self assessment and return it to me or let me know if you completed the form at a prior school and I will contact that administrator.

• Building Google Calendar – For new staff, at the bottom of my weekly announcements is a two week calendar and also a link to the Howard Building Google Calendar for the entire school year. If you use Google Calendars yourself, you can add the Howard Building Calendar to your list of Google Calendars by clicking one of the calendar links in my blog and then clicking the +Google Calendar icon located at the bottom right of the calendar webpage. This will add the building calendar to your list of Google Calendars if you’re logged onto your Google account (whether that’s your personal account or your 4J Google account). You can also add this calendar to most any calendar app you might use. Let me or our TSS, Peggy, know if you would like any help with this.

• Friday Folders/School-Home Communication – Also for staff new to the building, we made an agreement last year that all classrooms will send home information the same day (Fridays) in the cleverly named Friday Folders. This makes communication easier for families and for people needing to send home school wide information.

• LearnZillion Resources – This may get reviewed at Friday’s math training, but linked here are the LearnZillion Handouts and LearnZillion Presentation from the introduction training we had last spring. One item to highest is the LearnZillion website for teachers at http://eugene4j.learnzillion.com. Just go to that address on any device and click “Log in with Clever.” Then enter your 4J email username (no @4j.lane.edu) and password. From there you will be able to access all of the units, lesson, and a variety of video, links, and other resources.

• Science Reminders – Last year, the district adopted the FOSS Science curriculum. You can access all teacher guides and student information through their website – FOSSweb.com. You will first need to register for an account using your 4J email and password that you will create. Once you have registered, send Allison an email at kreider_a@4j.lane.edu with the grade that you will be teaching and she will send you a code that will allow you to view all of the “kits” that you will be teaching this year.

You can also access many valuable resources through the 4J Elementary Science Blog. One nice resource is the Questions/Answers page. These are all questions and answers that teachers had the first year of teaching science and hopefully will help you in your first year.

• PBIS Team Leaders – I accidentally left it off my final announcements last school year, but Rae and Jill will be the PBIS Team leaders this year.

• Monthly PBIS Focus: Safety – The September PBIS monthly focus is Safety, which all classroom teachers should take time review with students. Remember that you can use the PBIS/CSC Cheat Sheet, which matches our PBIS monthly themes with Caring School Community class meeting lessons. This is a nice way to tie the PBIS and CSC together!

• Relationships Matter More Than Rules – Related to the above, here’s an article from Edutopia on the importance of building positive relationships and creating positive community within the classroom at the start of the school year. Meaningful relationships matter for learning. The rules and policies you enforce are important for keeping a well-managed class, but rather than emphasizing control over your students, developing community and connection is a surefire ingredient for a good school year for all. Try the strategies in the linked article to begin forging strong relationships.

• Free Meals for All Students – Just as we did last year, all Howard students, along with Chavez, River Road, and McCornack, will receive free lunch and breakfast without their families having to complete any paperwork. This was a four year grant and does not need to be renewed until the 2020-2021 school year.

Frank sent me this photo from his summer travels of a principal at a Masai elementary school showing their free meal program of beans and maize, which certainly gives perspective.

• How to Hang Things on Walls – If you want to hang anything on the walls or other surfaces, be sure to use either tape (but not duct tape, which leaves sticky residue), sticky tack, command hooks, or most anything that doesn’t poke a hole in the wall or will leave behind imperfections when they’re removed. If you have something heavy you want to hang, like a picture frame, let our lead custodian, Crystal, know and she’ll install a district approved wall-hanger.

• Display Case Keys – We finally have extra keys for the glass display cases in the commons area of each wing. I’d like each wing to have a designated “Key Master” who will be the keeper of the display case keys, so let me know once folks in your wing have decided who that will be.

• Building Facilities Updates – Here are several facilities related items that are simply for your information:

• Window Tinting – An ongoing issue with the new building is too much light shining onto boards when when trying to use the projectors (and in the faces of students in classrooms with east or west facing windows). Facilities and PiVOT Architecture have been working on a solution over the summer and are now getting pricing. I’m still trying to get a clear answer from our project manager if this means dark curtains or window tinting or both (he’s pretty busy right now trying to get River Road to open on time). The timeline for this is also up in the air.

• Playground Numbers & Lines – Facilities is supposed to extend our number line around the playground to 100. Once they finish this I’ll make a new map of where each classroom will line-up, which will now allow us to space lines apart more easily.

• Playground Benches – Benches are going to be installed soon around the playground perimeter, which will be a nice improvement for recess and also for community use.

• New Fencing – Additional fences are being installed to enclose the playground area. There is one fence behind the school to limit traffic from the park entrance, one fence limiting access from in front of the school, and one small fence connecting the track fence and a neighbor’s fence. These should be completed this week.

• Playground Rubber Mats – Rubber mats are being installed under the swings, slide and the large spinner. This should be finished early this week. I’m waiting to hear when the wheelchair swing will be installed.

• Rain Swales – This is the fancy name for the ditches in the parking lot. They are going to get fresh soil and get seeded this week, so hopefully it will look nicer out front soon.

• Bongos on the Playground – The new Beat Club piece of playground equipment was installed over the summer where the rainbow ball piece of equipment was originally installed last year before it had to be removed for safety reasons.

 

• Putting in Tickets for Technology Help – As a reminder to staff, if you ever need assistance with anything technology related, you should send an email to 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu or call x7777, but not emailing Peggy directly. The reasons staff staff are asked to put in tickets are numerous, including but are not limited to:

• To get an accurate accounting of the workload for your schools
• To obtain statistics on the overall workload for all TSS
• To justify the existence of site-based TSS
• To get statistics on the type of requests coming in, so they can target training and other resources.
• To see historical data for devices and problems
• Because TSS assignments can change at any time
• To better allocate TSS staffing.

This is important because a low number of tickets could indicate that a school doesn’t need as much tech support time as it is currently getting. In looking at current data, they believe this is because the staff at some schools may be emailing or talking directly to the TSS instead of putting in a ticket.

• REPEAT: Inservice Week Calendar – A repeat from last week, but below is a summary of Inservice week activities. Take special note of the district sponsored event on Thursday and Friday, as there are a number of required trainings for both licensed and classified staff:

August 29 (T) – Teachers report back and this is a protected planning day. I’ll have some breakfast goodies, coffee, and drinks in the Staff Room at 8:00 to welcome folks back and meet new staff members.

August 30 (W) – Classified staff report back this day, and all staff will be attending a PD session on Trauma Informed Practices, co-led by former Howard teacher Kim Reinhardt. We’ll be joined by Awbrey Park staff (Madison had to drop out but SSD may allow another school to join) and will meet from 8:00-10:00 in the cafeteria. Following that PD, we’ll hold a short Howard Staff Meeting, 10:00-12:00, for some nuts-and-bolts items. Later in the day at 3:15, the Technology Department is offering an optional training/refresher on how to use the classroom AMX System (cord set-up, connecting laptops for video/sound, whiteboard interactivity, voice amplification, ENZO, etc.). Any staff unfamiliar with these systems should attend. The Tech Department wants to get an idea of how many people will be there, so let me know if you are planning to attend.

August 31 (H) – The district Back-to-School Event at South Eugene High School is this morning, 8:30-10:30. Following that, there will be multiple trainings for licensed and classified staff (primarily specialists) this day. Linked here is the updated Back-to-School In-Service Schedule.

September 1 (F) – All licensed classroom, Title 1, and SPED staff will attend the the all-day Math/LearnZillion Training, 8:00-3:00. Grades K-2 will meet at Holt and grades 3-5 will meet at Howard. All Classified SSD (SPED) staff will attend a training this same morning 8:00-12:00 led by the Student Services Department staff. Location is TBA. Also, at 12:00 this day, class lists will be posted.

September 4 (M) – Labor Day, No School

September 5 (T) – I have a placeholder Staff Meeting from 8:00-10:00 scheduled this day if anything comes up that can’t wait for our first regular staff meeting. At 10:00, I’ve scheduled a Q&A Session for New Staff Members to meet with me in the office to answer any questions you might have. I can get busy durning in-service week and may not always be easy to find, so I’ve set this time aside to be available for new folks. Also, “Meet Your Teacher” will be from 1:00-2:00, when families can come see their classrooms, drop off supplies, and meet with staff.

• REPEAT: Breakfast Burrito Orders Due 8/27 – If you haven’t already, the deadline to order a breakfast burrito is today (Sunday, August 27th). On Wednesday we’ll have yummy burritos in the Staff Room from 7:30-8:00 before the Trauma Informed Practices PD. If you’d like a burrito, complete linked Burrito Order Google Form ASAP. If you’re having trouble getting access to the Google form, make sure you’re logged onto your 4J Google account using your 4J email address and password.

• FREE Architects in Schools Program – For over 40 years, the Architecture Foundation of Oregon’s Architects in Schools program has matched professional architects and engineers with 3rd through 5th grade teachers for a FREE 6-week classroom residency. The curriculum uses architecture and engineering concepts to teach math, science, social studies, language arts and other disciplines, includes sustainable design concepts and can incorporate the engineering and design standards. Follow this link for Additional Information and follow this link to the Teacher Application. Deadline to apply is October 6, 2017.

• Health and Safety Reminders – Downtown asked principals to remind staff of some health and safety reminders as we start another school year. See Risk Management’s email for the complete Safety Reminder List, but here some highlights:

• Rugs/Carpet/Mats – All throw rugs not on carpet should be adhered to the floor with custodial department approved tape.
• Linens: pillows, animals, blankets, etc. – Create a housekeeping plan to ensure proper hygiene (i.e. bed bugs, mites, and other allergens).
• Food/Storage – All food must be kept in an identified sealable plastic container. Alternatively, closed bags may be stored in drawers or other pest preventable areas.
• Clutter – Electrical panels need to have direct access and at least 36 inches of clear space in front of them. To prevent fire, power cords should not be “daisy chained.”

• District Admin Updates – Several admin changes happend around the district over the summer. Peter Barsotti is the new principal at Madison Middle School, as Scott Marsh moves to Edison. Peter was previously a middle school principal in Fern Ridge. Jim Moore is the new principal at Edgewood Elementary School, as Larry Williams moves to ATA. Jim was previously the assistant principal at Thurston Middle School in Springfield. I don’t usually share assistant principal changes, but since it’s North Region, Trinity Welch-Radabaugh is the new AP at North Eugene High School, as Tracy Ross is moving to Sheldon. Trinity was previously an assistant principal at Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis. At the Ed Center, Susan Lorow is a new SSD administrator, taking the place of KC Clark as the HS SPED administrator. Susan comes from Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland where she was a principal, school psychologist, and most recently in a similar student services position. Sue Wilson will is joining the Instruction Department as a K–12 curriculum administrator, replacing Maddy Ahearn, focusing on math, science, health, and PE. Sue is had been working at ODE as the applied math/STEM education program specialist.

• Classrooms That Close the Digital Divide – “Overall, students who are black, Hispanic, or low-income are more likely to use computers for drill and practice, whereas students who are white or high-income are more likely to use computers for simulations or authentic applications,” says Molly Zielezinski in this article from American Educator. Her suggestions for more equitable outcomes:

• Use technology to engage students. Authentic tasks grounded in relevant, ongoing work with a real purpose. A few high-quality tools:

– Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) – An open-source platform for concept mapping and visual representations: http://vue.tufts.edu

– Canva – A content-creation tool that allows users to design presentations, social media graphics, posters, book covers, and business cards: http://www.canva.com

– Declara – An educator’s tool to curate collections of learning resources and collaborate within collections by sharing insights and posing and responding to questions: https://declara.com

These types of applications are preferable to those that have students memorizing facts, applying rules, and drilling basic skills.

• Let students create original digital content. This might include crafting multi-media stories, filming and producing documentaries, designing posters, leveraging social media as a tool for teaching and learning, and publishing wikis, blogs, or websites.

• Pick digital tools that promote interactivity. Zielezinski recommends that teachers and administrators “engage with the digital tool – get your hands dirty with the technology and use it the way students will… Does the app or program allow students to construct their own understanding of complex phenomena? Does it encourage students to represent thinking in multiple forms (text, pictures, videos, digital interactions, or some combination of these)? Will students engage with data or true-to-life simulations? Will they use sensors to measure real-life phenomena? These are some of the markers of digital tools that support learning.”

• Let students share their expertise with an authentic audience. Students do better work when they are communicating with people outside the classroom, locally or globally, who have shared interests, questions, and goals.

• Find the right blend of teaching and technology. Teachers “must play a crucial role in supporting the content students get through digital learning,” says Zielezinski. This includes real-time feedback and orchestrating productive peer interaction.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

August 29 (T)
Teachers Return – Planning Day
8:00-8:30, Welcome Back Breakfast Goody Gathering

August 30 (W)
Classified Staff Return
7:30-8:00, Welcome Back Breakfast Burrito Gathering (Staff Room)
8:00-10:00, Howard/Awbrey Park Trauma Informed Practices PD (Cafeteria)
10:00-12:00, Howard Staff Meeting (Cafeteria)
3:15-3:45, Optional AMX Training/Refresher (TBA)

August 31 (H)
7:30-8:30, District Staff Back-to-School Breakfast & Social (SEHS)
8:30-10:30, District Staff Back-to-School Event & Speeches (SEHS)
10:30, Specialist Staff In-Services (Various Locations)

September 1 (F)
8:00-3:00, K-5 Math Professional Development (K-2 Holt, 3-5 Howard)
8:00-12:00, All Classified SSD (SPED) Staff Training (TBA)
12:00, Class Lists Posted

September 4 (M)
Labor Day – No School

September 5 (T)
8:00-10:00, Potential Staff Meeting (Volunteer’s Room)
10:00, Q&A Session for New Staff – Optional (Conference Room)
1:00-2:00, Meet Your Teacher

September 6 (W)
Classes Begin
PBIS Monthly Theme – Safety
7:15-8:00, Cup of Joe with the PTO (Front of School)

September 7 (H)
Regular Day

September 8 (F)
Regular Day

Enjoy your final Monday of the summer!

Allan

May 29, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/05/27 22:21 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Arts, Caring for Kids  |  Comments Off on May 29, 2017

 

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a good three-day weekend to get ready for the final four weeks of the school year.

Fifteen items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates – Longtime Howard Title 1 EA Debbie Miller has decided to retire this year. This will leave a vacancy for a Title 1 EA position next year that I’ll be submitting a job posting for very soon, so feel free to recruit anyone good who you might know and tell them to apply.

And speaking of job postings, AJ Hruby has been hired permanently into her assistant principal position at ATA, so I have submitted a job posting for a full-time 1st grade position. That posting will hopefully go up this week, so I’ve tentatively schedule interviews to happen Wednesday, June 14th at 1:00. Jessy and Justine can both make that date, but we’d love to have additional staff, both licensed and classified, on the interview committee. Let me know if you’re able to volunteer your time to help fill this vacancy.

• Summer Classified Position – One last job related item, Tami Walkup is partnering with United Way to offer a summer reading program for students and has a small classified position happening over the summer. The program involves passing out free books to families and encouraging reading. This will happen at Emerald Park three times a week from 1:00-2:00 (with a little extra time for set-up and clean-up) for 10 weeks, along with a training on June 2nd. The 1:00-2:00 is timed to happen right after the Food for Lane County free meals for kids happening at the park weekdays 12:00-1:00. If any classified staff are interested in this position, let me know ASAP and the job is yours.

• Artist Thank-You Notes – LaneArts, who helped us secure grant funds for our artist this year, is asking if any classes could write thank you letter to the financial donors for the residency. If you think this is something you might be able to do with your class, please let me know (and gold star for you!).

• End-of-Year Checklist – Linked here is the End-of-Year Checklist for staff who are in charge of a classroom or other area. This form needs to completed before you go off to your summer. We’ve scaled down a few items, but most of it is the same as in the past. Changes include teachers no longer taking a “Tech Box” of equipment to the library to be secured (instead just lock it all up in one of your cabinets), no more having students clean their devices (though you’re welcome to do it if you’d like), no more moving tables and chairs off the carpet (leaving them as-is is fine), and no more clearing off desktops and counters (just make sure knickknacks are in boxes or containers that can be moved by the cleaning crew). A sign-up sheet for checkout dates and times will be in the Staff Room and if you need any boxes, just let Crystal know.

• Class Lists Due Friday June 16th – Although I very much liked last year’s process of developing class lists at Data Team, we don’t have the time or money to do that again, so we’ll be going back to our prior process of teams meeting to create balanced classes. Linked here is a copy of the form we used last year (Pages and PDF). I’ll run off copies on card stock and will leave a stack by teacher mailboxes. If receiving grade levels would like to meet with sending grade levels, teachers should plan a mutually agreed upon time to meet to discuss students and class lists.

• Building Sumer Access – There will be a number of facilities related projects going on this summer around the building, which is why we’re not hosting any summer school programs this year, but I was told by our project manager than none of them will restrict access to the building over the summer. Most of the work will start around July 5th and the parking lot will be off-limits at some point in July, but staff will be able to access the building all summer long should you have the need, even though you should all be enjoying a well deserved summer.

• Morning Attendance Reminder – Teachers should be sure to enter attendance no later than 8:15 each morning. Teachers should also record any student tardy who comes in the room after 7:55, but after 8:00, students entering the building will be given a tardy slip from the office and Lori will record the tardy in Synergy. The autodialer begins calling parents at 8:30, so it’s important to have attendance done well before then.

• Student Name Tags for Next Year – Please let Lori know by the end of this week if you would like her to order any of the Zaner-Bloser student name tags for next year. Here’s a link to the PreK-1 Name Plate, the 2-3 Name Plate, and the 3-5 Name Plate.

• PBIS Focus: Celebrating Your Success – The June PBIS monthly focus is Celebrating Your Success, so remember the PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet, which matches our monthly themes with Caring for Kids class meeting lessons. It’s an easy way to tie the two activities together.

• PRIDE Awards Assembly – Excellence, Friday, June 9th – Not this week, but a week from Friday is our final PRIDE Awards Assembly of the year for Excellence (“Do your personal best.”). Teachers, please choose 2-3 students who’ve demonstrated this trait and complete the PRIDE Awards before Friday next week. See the linked assembly map and directions for details.

• Reminder: Classified Self-Evaluations Due – I have 25 Classified Employee Self-Assessment assessment forms (PDF or DOC) turned in out of our 40-something classified staff. If you haven’t done your self-assessment yet, please get the completed form to me this week. I’ve finished my evaluation form for the staff who’ve turned their self-assessment forms, so please find me sometime this week and we can do a quick check-in meeting to sign-off on that eval form.

• Reminder: Licensed End-of-Year TalentEd Tasks Due – Quite a few teachers completed their End-of-Cycle Goals Reflection form in TalentEd last Friday, which is great, though there were some folks finishing up easyCBM assessments before filling out their final reflection. Please complete this form as soon as you can.

• Integrating Movement into Academic Classrooms – “Intuitively, many teachers have always known that physical activity plays an important role in student learning,” say researchers Suzanne Lindt and Stacia Miller. Now the research is confirming those intuitions, showing how dance, gesture, and other forms of movement can improve motivation, engagement, and learning. In classroom experiments, Lindt and Miller have found that students in classrooms that integrated movement were “significantly more excited by, engaged in, and focused on the lessons” than they were with conventional teaching methods. The authors suggest five strategies with examples of each:

• Dancing to memorize information – Doing a dance skip-counting numbers (5, 10, 15, 20…) to the “Macarena.”

• Applying movement to assessments – To test knowledge of synonyms and antonyms, pairs of students jump straight up and down three times, then choose to land on either their right or left foot; if both land on the same foot, they must come up with synonyms for a word on the board; if they land on opposite feet, they must name antonyms.

• Moving among stations – The teacher gives each group of students sets of fraction cards and they take turns moving to another group in search of equivalent fractions, bringing possible matches back to their group to see if they’re correct.

• Forming lines, rows, or other groupings – Each student gets a card with a punctuation mark or a word and students silently arrange themselves to form a complete sentence.

• Representing terms or ideas with actions – After reading a book about emotions, students stand and act out furious, satisfied, courageous, and other words.

• Do Schools Teach the Full Range of Skills Needed for Adult Success? – In this Kappan article, the authors share a synthesis of the skills they believe adults need for successful lives, ranging from cognitive, to interpersonal, to intrapersonal skills. Some regard these as “21st-century skills,” but the authors here believe these have been the keys to life success well before the current century.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the rest of the year:

May 29 (M)
No School – Memorial Day

May 30 (T)
Book Fair Set-Up
Last week of Counselor Classroom Lessons
8:00-12:00, Dental Clinic with Robin Wellwood (LCC)
9:00, Kelly students visit with Howard 5th graders
12:30, Tech Trot Limo and Ice Cream Reward
2:15, Kelly Staff Meet w/Howard Staff for Transition Meeting

May 31 (W)
BOGO Book Fair
9:00, 5th Grader Tour Kelly
10:30-12:30, Tech Trot Pizza w/the Principal
1:15-1:45, 1:1 EA Training from Nurse Robin (Community Room)

June 1 (H)
BOGO Book Fair
PBIS Monthly Theme – Celebrating Your Success
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, B204)

June 2 (F)
BOGO Book Fair

June 5 (M)
Library Book Return Week (All books due back by June 9th)

June 6 (T)
easyCBM Testing Ends
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)

June 7 (W)
8:30-10:00, K – 2 Field Day (Kelly Track)
10:15-11:30, 3 – 5 Field Day (Kelly Track)
12:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)

June 8 (H)
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)

June 9 (F)
Last Day for BEST
10:30-12:30, BBQ Lunch – Parent are Invited
11:15-12:15, NEHS Graduates’ “Senior Stroll”
12:30-12:55, K-2 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)
1:00-11:25, 3-5 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)

June 12 (M)
Deadline for Report Card Translations

June 13 (T)
9:30-12:30, Rock/Callihan to Science Factory

June 14 (W)
1:00-4:00, 1st Grade Teacher Interviews (Conference Room)
6:30-7:30, YMCA Art Show (Cafeteria)

June 15 (H)
Last Day for Title 1 Groups
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)

June 16 (F)
No School – Grading Day
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
5:00-8:00, PTO Howard School Carnival

June 18 (SU)
Father’s Day

June 19 (M)
9:15-1:00, SPLASH Field Trip for Grades 3/4/5
10:15, Fire Drill
4:00-5:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)

June 20 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)
8:30, 4th Grade Play (Gym)
1:15-1:45, PBIS Waterballoon Launch Tailfeather Reward (Softball Field)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)

June 21 (W)
12:00-12:45, 5th Grade Graduation (Gym)
12:50-1:05, Clap Out for 5th Grade (Library Hall, Est Courtyard, to Bus Loop)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting

June 22 (H)
Last Day of School, 11:05 Dismissal
10:10, Grab & Go Sack Lunches
11:30, Staff Last Day of School Ice Cream Celebration (Cafeteria)

“Grab & Go” Sack Lunch Schedule
10:00 Kindergarten
10:10 1st grade
10:20 2nd grade
10:30 3rd grade
10:40 4th grade
10:50 5th grade

June 23 (F)
No School Day — Grading Day
Last Day for Licensed Staff

June 26 (M)
Last Day for Classified Staff

Have a fabulous 4-day week!

Allan

 

Make sure you’re keeping up your positive to corrective feedback ratio of 5:1 (i.e. five positive comments for every corrective comment). It does make a difference!

May 1, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/04/29 20:59 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Arts, Assessment, Caring for Kids, Math  |  Comments Off on May 1, 2017

 

Hi Everyone,

Between starting OAKS testing, the Tech Trot, the Native American Storytelling Assembly, guest speakers, Volunteer Appreciation, ALICE training, Administrative Professionals’ Day, Birthday Lunches, ACE Awards, the all-school photo (see below), and any number of other happenings last week, I think we’re all luck to have survived! With the exception of continuing OAKS testing, this week thankfully looks to be a more typical of week.

Twenty-one items of note for this week:

• Safety Training Follow-Up – A quick reminder to staff that on Wednesday, May 10th, classroom teachers are to teach students the ALCIE classroom training using the ALICE Elementary PPT Presentation and book I’m Not Scared, I’m Prepared. We will then hold a Lockdown: Evacuation Drill the next day on Thursday, May 11th at 9:00. See my earlier email for more details. 

•Classified & Licensed End-of-Year Evaluation Tasks Due this Month – As the end of the year approaches we do need to wrap up required evaluation cycle tasks by the end of this month. I’ll be trying to finish up my observations over the next couple weeks. Licensed staff and classified staff need to complete the following:

• Licensed Staff Contract Year-1 and Probationary/Temporary: You need to complete the End-of-Cycle Goals Reflection form in TalentEd and I will need to complete your observations, which I’m unfortunately behind on this year. After those are completed, we will meet and then I will complete the Supervisor Goal Rating form and the Summative Evaluation form.

• Licensed Staff Contract Year-2: You need to complete the End-of-Cycle Goals Reflection form in TalentEd. After you’ve completed the reflection form we will meet and then I will complete the Supervisor Goal Rating form.

• Classified Staff: You need to complete the Classified Employee Self-Assessment assessment form (PDF or DOC) and give me a copy (email or hardcopy) and we need to meet briefly before the end of the month, where I will complete a Classified Employee Evaluation form.

• 2017-2018 School Leadership Positions – We will decide leadership positions for next year at the May Staff Meeting. All position will be considered vacant and anyone can sign up for one, with the exception of Math (which downtown wants reps to stay the same) and Science (which I’m guessing downtown also wants to keep consistent). The current list of leadership/rep positions are; IPBS, PBIS, Technology, Literacy, Site Council, Garden Team, Social Committee, and I added Taking it Up, which I’ve led, but am willing to turn over to another building leader if someone is interested. For Site Council I’m also looking to add one more teacher, classifeid, and parent rep since we’re now a much larger school. If you would like to sign up for a leadership or rep position, follow this link to the 2017-2018 Leadership/Building Rep. Positions Google Sheet. I made this a public document, so you don’t need to do any kind of log-on to access or edit the document. UPDATE: I fixed the document so now it is editable.

• Counselor Time – Similar to my Five-Bs reminder for only sending students to the office when they really need to go, please keep the equivalent in mind for when you’re deciding whether or not to send a student to Mr. Matt. When a student asks to talk to see the counselor, please stop to decide if this is something that needs immediate attention or if it is something that can wait to be scheduled. Some situations should absolutely go to Matt right away, but in most situations tell your students, “I’ll set up a time for you to talk with Mr. Matt.” and connect with Matt to schedule a time for the student to be pulled.

• Watch Your Copy Counts – We’re on course to go over budget on our overall school budget this year, primarily due to our copy counts being very high. Copies are running a little over $1,000 a month, so I’m asking folks to be judicious in what you are running off. Please continue to make copies for the essentials, but don’t run off a bunch of coloring sheets or extra sheets just to have on-hand. Especially don’t run off copies for next year at this point.

• Fidgets Stay in Class – We’re seeing a lot of the new spinner fidgets making their way out to the playground and cafeteria where they’re more of a toy than an ADHD accommodation. Please let your students know, and I’ll also make an announcement on Monday, that fidgets will be confiscated if they are seen outside of the classroom, if they are being used as toys, or if they are a distraction (the very opposite of their intended purpose).

• Field Trips and Nurse Notification – We have entered the season of field trips and if you have students with health concerns, please give Nurse Robin as early of notice as possible of any questions, concerns, or coverage concerns you might have. Also remember that Robin covers many schools so anytime she need to train staff on protocols, create safety plans, communicate with families, she needs ample lead-up time, or if she needs to join a trip, she must seek back up support for her other schools.

• Don’t Touch the OAKS Testing Snacks! – There is a new batch of snacks int the staff room for 3/4/5 classrooms taking OAKS this week, but please remember to leave these for students. I think we ended up some some staff or other adults getting into the snacks last week. 3/4/5 teachers, please take what you need.

• Artist in Residence Schedule – I’ve worked with Lane Arts and we’ll have Cartooning with Teri Robertson May 15th – June 2nd. Linked here is a Proposed Artist in Residence Schedule that’s pretty similar to the one we did last year. I tried to work around recesses and specialist times, but let me know if you see any conflicts. I’m sure I missed something.

• Purchase Orders Deadline, May 31 – If anyone needs to create any more purchase orders for this school year, the last day Lori can create one is Wednesday, May 31st.

• Field Day – Working with Rachel, we’ve set our Field Day date for Wednesday, June 7th, 8:30-10:00 (K-2) and 10:15-11:30 (3 – 5). We’ll plan to run Field Day the same as in the past, although Rachel has some fun new stations. Filed Day will happen out on the Kelly Track where teacher will rotate around nine different station with their class, with volunteers running each of the stations. Other available staff should also come out to help and/or join in on the fun. 

• May PBIS Focus: Positive Attitude – The May PBIS monthly focus is Positive Attitude. The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet that matches our monthly themes with corresponding Caring for Kids (Caring Schools Curriculum) class meeting lessons, which is an easy way to tie the two activities together.

• Care Team Resources – We’ve learned about a few new resources you can feel free to share with families:

• NAACP Free Tutoring, Back-to-School/Success in School – BTS/SIS is a K-12 tutoring and academic support program. It involves regularly scheduled individual and group tutoring with college volunteers and local professionals. This builds positive identity reinforcement through community interactions with peers in the African American community.

• Self Sufficiency Program Resources – The Self Sufficiency Program is our primary DHS contact for the Student Care Team and linked here is a list of Self Sufficiency Resources they can offer families, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), JOBS Program and Support Services, Needy and Non-Needy Caretaker Relative Grant (NNCR), TANF Grant for parents on Social Security (SSI), Domestic Violence Assistance, Employment Related Day Care (ERDC), Family Support and Connections, Vocational Rehabilitation, Child Welfare, Senior & People with Disabilities, and the Oregon Health Plan (OHP).

• Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP) – Grandparents or relatives raising a child under 18 and are at least 55 years of age, may be eligible for support (school supplies, health supplies, paying for camps, etc.) through the Family Caregiver Respite Program. See the linked flyer for details.

• Museums for All – The Science Factory here in town has joined more than 100 museums in ensuring that every child and family has access to high-quality museum experiences by participating in the Museums for All program. Individuals and families who show an Oregon Trail Card (EBT card) and a valid ID will receive the following admission benefits:

• Exhibit Hall Admission for only $1 per person up to 6 family members total
• Stargazing Planetarium Admission for only $1 per person up to 6 family members total

• AMX Staff Onsite May 8 & 9 – The AMX people will be working at Howard and Roosevelt May 8th and 9th. They should not be interrupting anyone during the school day and will primarily be in the BEST and YMCA rooms during the day.

• North Region Visioning Survey Update – The staff survey closed and the consultant is in the process of creating an analysis of the responses for the district. A total of 220 staff members from the North Region responded, representing a very significant 51% response rate. Among licensed employees, the participation rate was 59% while among classified employees it was 39%. Next week parents of students living in or attending school in the North Region will receive invitations to participate in the parent version of the survey. The week after that schools will receive copies of and/or links to the student version of the survey, which was postponed to avoid overlap with the Oregon Healthy Teens survey being administered at all secondary schools. Finally, after all the targeted versions of the survey are completed, the consultant will open the community version of the survey to all 4J community members.

• OEBB Mandatory Open Enrollment, Aug. 15-Sept. 15, 2017 – OEBB members who wish to have medical, vision, and dental coverage for the October 1, 2017–September 30, 2018, plan year will be required to log into the MyOEBB system during open enrollment in order to register for that coverage. The mandatory OEBB open enrollment period will be August 15 – September 15, 2017. OEBB will send information about plan designs and offerings, but rate information and other details specific to 4J employees will come from 4J. Watch for updates in the 4J Benefits and Wellness Newsletters, on the 4J website, in your e-mail inbox, and via US Mail over the summer.

• IEP Meeting Compensation From Due June 9th – A quick reminder that the EEA contract allows for licensed staff to be compensated for up to four hours of additional pay for attending IEP meetings. Track your IEP meeting times on the Non-ESS Licensed IEP Time Log, which needs to be turned in to HR by June 9th. The form can also be found on the HR Forms section of the 4J website.

• Movie Licensing – Not that teachers are showing movies all that often, but I did mention to a few people that downtown was recently checking whether the district was in compliance with movie licensing when films are shown in classrooms or at movie nights. Downtown has purchased a district-wide license so school staff and parent groups can show films as long as we don’t charge admission, advertise to the general public, change or alter the films when shown, or show it off campus.

• District Admin Update – Downtown has hired Dr. Karen Pérez-Da Silva as the new Equity, Instruction & Partnerships Manager, a reworked position most recently held by Carmen Urbina. Dr. Pérez-Da Silva will coordinate the district’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives. A major change to this position is that it will be more instrunctionally focused, with the primary goals being to support the use of effective and culturally responsive instructional practices that ensure all students are successful, and to cultivate partnerships and resources that address the achievement and opportunity gaps facing historically underserved students.

Dr. Pérez-Da Silva spent more than 16 years teaching in diverse classrooms, conducting action research, and working with teams of general education and special education teachers, students and their families to analyze problems of practice at the classroom and school levels to bring about change. She obtained her doctorate in educational leadership from Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling. She has taught culturally responsive teaching courses, led courageous conversations groups at the district office for teachers on special assignment, and mentored dual language teachers. She has also spent the past year as a community networker in the Human Resources Department and a mentor/coach in the Multilingual Department in the Beaverton School District.

• How to Get the Most Out of Small-Group Math Conversations – Here’s a timely article given our new math curriculum adoption and next year’s focus on Number Talks. The authors address the challenge of getting elementary students to have good math discussions when they’re working in small groups, which includes details on how to model good collaboration, providing opportunities for guided mathematical talk, and providing resources that support mathematical talk.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

May 1 (M)
Children’s Book WeekPBIS Monthly Theme – Positive Attitude
1:30-4:00, Allan to Testify at DHS Hearing (Lane County Youth Services)

May 2 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
3:00, Allan to Taking It Up Training (Ed Center)

May 3 (W)
1:30, Allan to Parent Meeting (Office)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Pre-referral SPED Meeting (Conference Room)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (River Road)

May 4 (H)
No BEST
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)

May 5 (F)
No BEST

May 8 (M)
Teacher Appreciation Week
Human Growth and Development, 5th Grade
AMX Staff Working in Building
7:00, Allan, Natalie, & Allison to River Road Community Meeting

May 9 (T)
Human Growth and Development, 5th Grade
AMX Staff Working in Building
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)
9:00-1:30, 1st Grade Science Factory Field Trip
11:50:12:20, Allan Covering Classroom
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Sarah’s Room, B203)

May 10 (W)
All Classrooms Teach Safety Training Lesson
Human Growth and Development, 5th Grade
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Wacky Wednesday – Crazy Sock Day
9:00-12:30, KG Grade Science Factory Field Trip
2:00-3:00, Allan to Coding RoboKind Meeting (Sup. Office)
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)

May 11 (H)
9:00, Lockdown: Evacuation Drill Practice

May 12 (F)
7:45-5:30, 5th Grade OMSI Field Trip
12:30, Fire Drill

May 14 (SU)
Mother’s Day

And see below for our all-school photo from last week! I scrutinized the picture and didn’t find any stray middle fingers, although I did catch a couple faces and dabs (such an annoying dance move, but maybe I’m just a cranky old man for blurring them out). Below are also a few picture from the Tech Trot.

Enjoy!

Allan

 

April 3, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/03/26 20:09 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Arts, Caring for Kids, Literacy, Math, P.D., Science, Video  |  Comments Off on April 3, 2017

 

Welcome Back, Roadrunners!

I hope you all took time for yourselves over the break and had time to recharge for the last part of the school year! Always remember to take good care of yourself so you’ll be in a good place to take care of others. “You can’t pour from an empty cup” (yes, I read that on a meme).

Twenty items of note for this week:

• SSD Staffing Update – I’ve already let SPED staff know, but we received our SPED staffing from SSD for licensed and for most classified staff. Bryan, Katie, Linda, and Rae will all be returning to their same positions and hours next year. For classified staff, we received allocations and job assignments for everyone except for one-on-one EAs, but all non-one-on-one SPED EAs will also be returning next year to their same positions and hours.

• Night Custodian Update – The Friday before the break we officially hired our new 10-month night custodian, Nigel Cottrell, who will start this week, but will be in and out with some required Facilities trainings. Nigel has been working as a custodial substitute and is also going to school right now to become a speech-language pathologist. Please welcome Nigel to the Howard Team!

• Job Expo Updates – Howard will have three positions going to the Job Expo next week, so please tell me if you know of awesome teachers who want to come to Howard. One position is a Carla’s 3rd grade job, now that she’ll be moving into ESC and job-sharing with Amber. We also have a half-time facilitating teacher position that we’re adding for next year. It will likely be to support 4th or 1st grade, but that could change. Lastly, and sadly, Kealy is taking a leave next year, so we’ll also have a vacancy at kindergarten and will be looking for someone to join Robin and Shelly. Please feel free to talk to any teacher friends and colleagues of yours and tell them that Howard is an awesome place to work!

• Erin’s Law Child Abuse Prevention Teaching Requirement – 4J is continuing to get into compliance with state and federal laws and one is the child abuse prevention law, Erin’s Law. Linked here is an Erin’s Law Info Sheet that we’ll be sending home soon to families. This requires that all classroom teachers annually teach students child abuse prevention strategies, including this school year. In the future, we should plan to add this to our annual Safety Week. The goals at the elementary level are to teach students:

• How to judge between safe and unsafe touch
• How to protect themselves
• Who to go to for help

To meet this teaching requirement, all classrooms teachers should should teach their grade level’s Michigan Model Health lesson on this topic. If you don’t have the Michigan Model curriculum, which is very likely between our recent move and our recent growth the past few years, linked here are the lessons for Kindergarten, 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, and 5th Grade. These lessons do require a video from the curriculum, so if no one at your grade level has the DVD to share, let me know and I can get one for you from downtown. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

• PTO Updates – Here’s the latest from the March PTO Meeting:

• Penny War Results – You probably already heard that Jessy’s class won for the most point and Kreider/Shadwick’s class won for the most pennies. The fundraiser as a whole brought in about $1,449! If you’re interested, linked here are the classroom totals.

• Artist in Residence – Thanks for grants secured through LaneArts and $1,000 from PTO, we’re again able to provide local professional artists to work with Howard students. I’m working the the Blues in the Schools folks now on dates and a schedule.

• DreamBox Funding – The PTO said they can fund the $1,200 needed to license DreamBox for the rest of the school year once our two-month free demo is up. However, the funds would come out of next year’s PTO Teacher Funds, meaning instead of $17 per student, it would likely be around $14-15 per student for classrooms and specialists. We’ll plan to discuss this at a future staff meeting, although there is a possibility PTO will raise more funds than they are projecting, which is what’s happened for all of our fundraisers so far this year.

• 17/18 Staffing Shared – As an FYI, I shared the licensed staffing plan at the PTO meeting, so it’s officially public knowledge who will be teaching what next year. I’ll plan to put this in the school newsletter once vacancies get filled at the Job Expo.

• Tech Trot April 26th – Our Tech Trot fundraiser to support building technology (subscriptions, hardware, software, etc.) is April 26th. The collection envelopes and instructions will go home two weeks before the event. Free shirts will be available to all students, and if you’d like to have some say in what color of shirt is selected, classes can vote between LIME, RED, ORANGE SHERBET, ASH, or LIGHT PINK. Staff can also cast your vote on the PTO Facebook Poll. Go red!

• Ems Emazing Readers Incentive Kick-Off Assembly, 4/13 – Not this week, but Thursday next week is the kickoff for the Eugene Emeralds’ Reading Incentive program. The program will run the same as last year, which is classroom teachers set a reading goal for students and if students meet that goal they get two free tickets to attend an Ems baseball game this summer. For the assembly, the 3-5 assembly will be 9:00-9:25 and the K-2 assembly will be 10:00-10:25, where Sluggo will motivate kids to meet their reading goals (or at least get them wound up). See the linked assembly map and directions for details.

• Playground Rules: No Balls/Toys From Home – We’ve stated to see balls, hacky sacks, and other items from home make their way out to recesses. Please remind students that balls, games, and toys need to stay home and are definitely not be taken out onto the playground, which too often leads to problems when they get lost, stolen, damaged, or end up on the roof.

• March PBIS Focus: Safe Bodies – The March PBIS monthly focus is Safe Bodies. The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet that matches our PBIS monthly themes with corresponding Caring for Kids (CFK) class meeting lessons. This is an easy way to tie the two activities together.

• White Water Fix Coming – An update on the classroom faucets causing “white water.” Replacement faucet parts are coming that are standard aerator style flow restrictors. Later this summer when Facilities Department staff replace these in the classrooms, the water will show air in the stream, but will clear immediately in a glass. The existing stream was clear flow, but had very fine air entrained bubbles when in a glass. There are no water quality issues, but this will fix the visual issue. I think we we got Facilities to fix this in part because the manufacturer offered to chip in on the cost.

• Monday, April 3rd PD Info – A quick repeat of previously shared information. All licensed staff who teach math (gen ed, Title, SPED) are required to attend the LearnZillion math training. All classified staff who teacher and/or support math instruction should also attend. K-2 will meet at Holt and 3-5 will meet at Howard from 8:00-12:00. See the linked Math PD Flyer for details.

• Instructional Minutes & Start/End Times Update – I mentioned in prior announcements that as a result of downtown discovering that elementary schools were not meeting required instructional minutes, there was talk of aligning recess, lunch, and start & end times across the district. Discussion on this is not over, but there will be no changes to Howard or other schools’ start and end times for this coming school year. This means we can plan on classes the same start and end times here at Howard for next year.

• School Choice Changes Next Year – The application window for school choice will change next year to just the month of January. This means we’ll have only one month of school choice tours instead of two, so fewer interruptions, and also more solid of school choice numbers before staffing allocations given out. Out-of-district applications would still be the same because those dates are part of the state laws governing inter-district transfers.

• District Admin Updates – Longtime Kennedy Middle School principal Charlie Smith is retiring at the end of this school year, as is Kennedy assistant principal Mark Bennett. Stepping into the Kennedy principal role will be Morgan Christensen. Morgan taught at Roosevelt Middle School and is currently assistant principal at Churchill High School. Casandra Kamens, current North Eugene High School principal, will move to Churchill to fill Morgan’s position. This leaves vacancies for a principal at North and assistant principal positions at Kennedy and ATA.

• First Friday Communities of Color Networking Event – Jill reminded me about the First Friday CCN Event that happens the first Friday of each month. The next one is April 7th, 5:30-7:00 at the Lane ESD. CCN is a safe space to relax, network, catch up, and meet new people of color and allies. All are welcome! See the linked flyer for details.

• Levi Strauss Community Day – Levi’s Strauss reached out to us about their 17th Annual Community Day on Thursday, May 4th. Their employees are looking for volunteer opportunities in the community this day, so if you could use a volunteer or volunteers this day, let me know before Tuesday.

• Eugene 4J 6K AVID Strides for Education Run/Walk – The 1st Annual Eugene 4J 6K Strides for Education run/walk to celebrate AVID and fundraise for the program will be on April 9th. This will be a professionally managed 6 kilometer run/walk on the bike path along the banks of the Willamette River. The proceeds will support having college tutors at our school, sending students on college visit field trips, and more. Online registration ($20 for adults; $10 for 4J students) is now available at the above link.

Many 4J middle and high schools are AVID sites (it’s being piloted at the elementary level this year at Awbrey Park and Spring Creek), a college and career readiness system that stands for “Advancement Via Individual Determination.” Hundreds of 4J teachers have been trained to utilize AVID strategies to improve instructional practice. You can learn more about AVID at avid.org

• 15 Resources on Sparking Student Creativity – Albert Einstein once said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” Here is a curated list of resources just released on ASCD myTeachSource that offer different ways to promote student creativity using practical applications and classroom assessments.

• Integrating Literacy into STEAM Lessons – Although written by a middle school teacher, much of this article still applies at the elementary level. Both Common Core and NGSS emphasize the importance of speaking, listening and communicating about mathematical and scientific concepts. Integrating literacy tools into STEAM subjects does more than help students and teachers fulfill objectives. Better literacy helps students identify and more thoroughly understand key concepts.

• Growth Mindset Is Not Enough – The author of this Edutopia article asserts that to help students face life’s challenges, teachers should seek to help them develop a broad set of skills.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

April 3 (M)
No School — Professional Development/Planning Day
PBIS Monthly Theme – Encouragement
8:00-12:00, District Math PD (K-2 Holt, 3-5 Howard)

April 4 (T)
Students Return
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

April 5 (W)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (YG/Corridor)

April 6 (H)
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
12:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)

April 7 (F)
9:00, March Book Winners (Conference Rooms)

April 8 (SA)
10:00-2:00, PTO LulaRoe Multi-Consultant Pop Up

April 10 (M)
Regular Day

April 11 (T)
Lori Possibly Out for Jury Duty
8:00-1:00, LCC Dental Clinic with Robin Wellwood
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa’s Room, B203)

April 12 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Mismatch Day
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
ODE Family Survey’s Due
1:30, Allan to Review Diastat Training
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)
6:00-7:00, Howard Kindergarten Round-Up (Library)

April 13 (H)
9:00-9:30, 3-5 Ems Emazing Reading Assembly (Gym)
10:00-10:30, K-2 Ems Emazing Reading Assembly (Gym)
4:00-6:00, Allan to Elem. Job Expo (Ed Center)

April 14 (F)
2:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)

And to get you all in the mood to return to work, below are some pictures from the PBIS Tail Feather Reward Assembly that show Howard staff know how to have fun!

See you soon!

Allan

 

And we almost got to see a RipStik Riding Roadrunner at the assembly, but we’ll have to figure out this giant mascot costume head first.

March 13, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/03/11 21:34 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Arts, Caring for Kids, Equity, P.D.  |  Comments Off on March 13, 2017

 

Hello Roadrunners,

Along with the improved weather last Friday, student behavior seemed to improve as well. Hopefully both of those things will continue, but as we go into the last two weeks of school before spring break, keep in mind that student behaviors tend to ramp up. Staff should take time to do extra pre-teaching of school rules and expectations these next two weeks to help students be successful, rather than assuming “they should know this by now.” Give yourself permission to slow down to take those few extra moments for pre-teaching with the entire group and/or with certain individuals, which can make a world of difference for the better.

Twenty items of note for this week:

• 2017-2018 Staffing Updates – See the separate email for details on next year’s staffing plan that I’m planning to submit to HR.

• Staff Meeting Wednesday at 1:30 – On the calendar this Wednesday it was originally Grade Level Team Meeting time at 2:30, but I’m cancelling that to instead hold an All-Staff Meeting for both licensed and classified staff who are still on the clock at 1:30 in the cafeteria to go over a required district training on supporting undocumented students. I was originally hoping to do this at our April Staff Meeting, but that meeting will now be dominated by the district student safety drill training rollout. For teachers, your hour of uninterrupted prep will be from 2:30-3:30 this week and we’ll resume our regular Grade Level Team Meetings on Learning Targets in April.

• Taking It Up Seminar Returns – What is Taking It Up? It’s a 2-day seminar (May 1st and 2nd) focused on supporting educators deepen their understanding of institutionalized racism and bring to light the barriers that continue to exist for many of our students, fellow colleagues, and community members. See the linked email for additional details, but downtown is paying registration fees and for subs for two staff members (classified and/or licensed) to attend, though we may be able to send additional staff. The objectives of this seminar are to:

• Develop a deeper personal awareness about how “who you are impacts” your work in schools and with students.
• Deepen your understanding of Oregon’s history and context around race, racism and racial achievement disparities.
• Become more aware of your own attitudes, values and beliefs about race.
• Develop a stronger awareness of racism and its impact on yourself and others.
• Learn skills for talking to other staff, parents, and students about race and addressing issues you encounter.

If you’d like to attend, please let me know by the end of the week. If you have questions about the seminar, we have quite a few Howard staff who’ve attended and can share the experiences.

• Social Emotional Curriculum Inventory (Due Wednesday) – Downtown is gathering an inventory list of curriculum across the district for social emotional learning. Teachers, email me by Wednesday what social emotional curriculum materials you have and also email me if you have nothing. Examples would be Caring School Community, Second Step, Stop/Walk/Talk, Zones of Regulation, Steps to Respect, Bucket Filling, or any similar programs. Also, downtown is asking if there’s any specific curriculum you would like to have that you do not currently have.

• Caring School Community Materials – Related to the above, I’d asked downtown to order additional Caring School Community (Caring for Kids) kits earlier this year for classes who did not have them. They finally arrived last week, but I’ve now forgotten who needed them, so let me know if you need of a K-2 or a 3-5 kit. On a related note, I still have a couple copies of Closing Circles: 50 Activities for Ending the Day in a Positive Way to help with closing meeting ideas if anyone would like a free copy of this handy little guide.

• Night Custodian Interviews 3/17 2:15-3:45 – Crystal, myself, and the Lead Custodian from Kelly MS will be holding interviews for our 10-month night custodian position this Friday, 2:15-3:45 in the Conference Room. We don’t require additional staff for interviews, but the committee is open if anyone is interested in joining. Just let me know.

• 2017-2018 Preschool Applications – Although our preschool has not yet officially gotten funding from the state for next year, United Way and 4J are moving forward with enrolling students for next school year since we’re getting every indication that the Preschool Promise program will be part of the state budget. If you know of any families who are 200% below the poverty level with kids who will be 3-4 years old by September 1st, please encourage them to complete and return the linked Preschool Promise 2017-2018 Interest Cards (English and Spanish), which can also be found on the Howard Preschool webpage. Our goal is for most of the preschool students to live in our attendance area so that it will be serving families already planning to attend Howard K-5.

• Student Care Team Referrals – The March Student Care Team is meeting in next week, which means referrals are due to me by this Friday. Referrals can be for families seeking help for food assistance, incarcerated parents, counseling/mental health needs, parenting resources, transportation assistance, clothing needs, financial assistance, or most any other situation where a family is looking for help but does not know where to turn. Try to get a parent/guardian signature on the release form (editable PDF and non-editable PDF), but know that you can also refer “hypothetical” situations.

• 2017-2018 Supply Lists – Yes, we’re actually getting ready for this. If teams want to start looking at their supply lists for next school year, we’re going to ask for updates to be completed by early next month. One thing I’m trying out this year is an option for families to order all school supplies online and have them delivered as a package to their homes. The prices seem pretty reasonable and it doesn’t cost the school anything, so we’ll see if it’s something worth continuing in the future. Linked here is the 2016-2017 Supply List if teams have updates to send to Lori.

• UO Opera Assembly About Bullying – I received an email from the University of Oregon about a free assembly put on by professional opera singers in April and May focused on bullying. Their goal is to create awareness about opera and social issues. Teachers, let me know if you’d be interested in your class attending such a performance and if I hear from enough people I’ll set it up.

• Unsupervised Kids in Community Room – We’ve had a few different instances of kids being given permission by staff to eat lunch in the Community Room and then left unsupervised. Along the lines of what Risk Management had principals share in last week’s announcements, students may not be in any unsupervised rooms/spaces in the building. It’s perfectly fine for staff to eat lunch with students in the Community Room, but staff must remain with students so they are supervised.

• Artist in Residence Update – The Rainy Day Blues will be our artist in residence this year. Our first choice, Laura Jackson (wire sculpture) is having a baby and is taking time off for the remainder of the year. Our second choice, Kelly Thibodeaux (fiddle music), was only available for a two week period, which would not have been enough time to get to all classrooms. That left us with our third choice, The Rain Day Blues in Schools, who I am currently working with to hammer out dates and a schedule. More to come.

• Building Out of Warranty – Our building is now officially out of warranty as far as Todd Construction’s responsibility, but please continue to let me know of any and all problems you encounter. Even though different parts of the building may not be under warranty, some parts are and there is still bond money Facilities can access to fix various issues that are not. On a related note, there are still quite a few punch list items that are waiting to be fixed later this school year and over the summer.

• BEST Communication – As a follow-up to Shawn’s email last week, if anyone has any areas of concern or suggestions for improvement regarding BEST, please email that to Shawn. Also CC me on your communications to keep me in the loop.

• Social Media Reminder – Principals were asked to share the following: In the age of social media the lines and norms of what is appropriate and what is not appropriate have been changing. This is a gentle reminder to pay attention to what you post and with whom you share your posts. Nothing is private in the social media world. It is important to never post photos, names of, or conversations about our students, on social media. We cannot, with absolute certainty, predict how photos and conversations will be used once they are posted. Thanks – in the words of Bob Dylan…. “The Times They Are A-Changin”.

I’ll add one additional piece advice. Never put anything in an email, text, or social media that you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing on the cover of The Register Guard.

• OEA Students in the Lead: Culturally Responsive Teaching – March 18 (registration deadline March 13) – Principals were also asked to share that on Saturday, March 18, the 7th Annual OEA Symposium, “Students in the Lead: Culturally Responsive Teaching” will be held at OSU. This year, they welcome educator and author Zaretta Hammond for a day of provocative dialogue, discussion, and learning. The event takes place from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 18 at the CH2M Hill Alumni Center on the Oregon State University Campus. See the linked flyer for additional information. Visit their website to register and if you have questions about registration, contact Penny Hildreth at penny.hildreth@oregoned.org or (503) 495-2135.

• Free VR Headset – A potential reward for folks who diligently read my announcements, if any of you would like to be entered into a drawing for a Virtual Reality Glasses Headset that I’ll donate for use here at school (it can even just be a reward for kids to play with), reply to this email by Tuesday saying you’d like to be entered. The winner will get their prize Wednesday. A semi-interesting side note, I wrote a **1/2 star review on Amazon for this headset, mainly saying how I thought my View-Master VR headset was better, so the company contacted me and offered to refund my money and let me keep the headset if I deleted my review (which I did).

• The Racist History of Dr. Seuss & What it Means in Today’s Social, Political & Educational Context – David shared with me an article about clearly racist cartoons by Dr. Seuss done early in his career, which brings up questions about how we celebrate Suess on his birthday during Read Across America. If you read down past the article into the comments section there’s a pretty interesting debate that in many ways reminds me of the recent debate at the University of Oregon over the whether to keep the name on Deady Hall, with someone being honored who clearly held racist views at one time and who later changed their views. 

• Relationship Refresh – “Relationships are the 13-letter F-word in education,” says student voice advocate Russell Quaglia. He argues that education policies don’t do enough to elevate human connections, even though educators on the ground know this work is central. In this issue of ASCD Express, they revisit their popular “Relationships First” theme with even more strategies and success stories from educators living the adage, “They don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” Follow the link above for articles including Helping Defiant Students Make a Plan for Better Behavior, Relationships Bloom When Students Are Seen and Heard, and Why Being a Teacher Is Like Being a Stand-Up Comedian.

And speaking of stand-up comedians, one Howard parent, Alex Elkin, who recently won a major stand-up competition in San Francisco who’s past winners include Louis C.K., Robin Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and Dana Carvey, is filming a Netflix stand-up special here in Eugene on April 1st!

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

March 13 (M)
PTO Penny War Begins
8:40, Allan Observing Classroom
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)

March 14 (T)
9:30-11:30, Vaughan’s class at Museum of Natural History
3:15, Allan to Dentist
3:30, 4J Technology Dept. Input Session (Madison)
4:00-6:00, EEA Outdoor Classroom Management Seminar Part 2 (A205)

March 15 (W)
Staffing Plans Due to HR
9:30-11:30, Zimmerman’s class at Museum of Natural History
1:30-2:30, Staff Meeting on Supporting Undocumented Students and Families (Cafeteria)
2:30-3:30, Teacher 1-Hour of Uninterrupted Prep
2:30-4:30, 4J PE Workshop (Gym)
3:30-4:30, 4J Technology Dept. Input Session (Madison)

March 16 (H)
8:30-2:00, Kreider/Shadwick to Museum of Natural and Cultural History
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Taking it Up/Carrying it Forward Meeting (Conference Room)

March 17 (F)
St. Patrick’s Day
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
2:15-3:45, Night Custodian Interviews (Conference Room)

March 18 (SA)
9:00-11:00, OBOB Regional Competition (NEHS)

March 20 (M)
1:10, Earthquake/Fire Drill
4:00-5:30, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)

March 21 (T)
7:15-11:45, Data Team Meeting (Conference Room)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa’s Room, B203)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Community Room)

March 22 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)
6:00-7:00, Howard Kindergarten Round-Up (Library)

March 23 (H)
1:00-1:45, Tail Feather Reward
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, B204)
2:30-3:30, Allan to Eval Planning Meeting (Conference Room)

March 24 (F)
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)

March 27-31
Spring Break – No School

April 3 (M)
No School — Professional Development/Planning Day
PBIS Monthly Theme – Encouragement
8:00-3:30, Elementary EA Extravaganza
8:00-12:00, District Math PD (Howard)

April 4 (T)
Students Return

Just two more weeks until spring break!

Allan

March 6, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/03/04 10:27 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Caring for Kids, P.D., Technology  |  Comments Off on March 6, 2017

 

Howdy Everyone,

This week is Classified Employee Appreciation Week, celebrated each year to honor our classified employees. If you never realized it, there are far more classified staff in our building than any other employee group, which means our school could not function without these awesome folks. Thank you for your dedication and tireless work here at Howard! We have a rockin’ classified staff who are the best around! Look for some goodies in your mailboxes this week as a small thank-you.

Fourteen items of note for this week:

• 2017-2018 Staffing Updates – Still no word on our ESC or Classified SPED staffing, which are kind of holding up finalizing our staffing plan for next school year. The licensed classroom plan is fairly straightforward with three classes at each grade level, but the classified staffing plan is what’s up in the air until we get the rest of our allocations from downtown.

And I changed the time for meeting with Title 1 EAs to the end of the day on Wednesday at 1:10. I also added other classified staff and licensed specialists to this optional 1:10 meeting who’d like to weigh in on potential staffing scenarios

• District Safety Drill Trainings – At last week’s All Admin Meeting, principals were given information about a rollout plan for safety drill trainings for students. Principals will be trained and will then train teachers on how to teach evacuation and lockdown drills to students, incorporating ALICE tenants, although the student training will be nothing like what staff went through (it’ll be more like a tabletop discussion for students). I’ll have more details later, but in April there will be district communication going home with families about the safety drills. In May, teachers will do tabletop discussion exercises on these safety drills with students (not actually practicing the drills).

On a related note, principals also received a Care Team supply package (this is the district team who responds with on-site counselors if there is a tragedy, not our Student Care Team). The package is stored in the nurses office, though hopefully we’ll never need to use it.

• Buses and Student Dismissal – Several of the bus drivers have asked that teachers to please be timely with student dismissal. There have been a few instances lately of classes not being released until close to or after 2:10, which causes some of our buses who later have to pick up students at other schools.

• 10-Day Notification for Bus Requests – If teachers need to request a bus for field trips, the Transportation Department requires at least 10 business days prior to  the field trip in order to schedule a bus.

• DreamBox and SBAC Practice Test Links – From our PD Day on Friday, there is now a link to DreamBox on all the Links for Learners webpages on the Howard website. Also, Peggy pushed out the K-2 and 3-5 DreamBox Apps to all student iPads. She is going to check on Monday to make sure it finished installing. And related to the SBAC Test Security Training, remember there is a link to the New OAKS SBAC Practice Test on the 2-3 and 4-5 Links for Learning.

• Student Care Team Referrals – The March Student Care Team is meeting in a couple weeks, which means referrals are due to me by Friday next week. Referrals can be for families seeking help or community resources in most any area. Food assistance, incarcerated parents, counseling/mental health needs, parenting resources, transportation assistance, clothing needs, financial assistance, and any other situation where a family is looking for help. Try to get a parent/guardian signature on the release form (editable PDF and non-editable PDF, but know that you can also refer “hypothetical” situations.

• Care Team Resources – Related to the above item, below are a few new resources we learned about at the February Student Care Team Meeting if you know of any families who can use these:

• Family Preparedness Plan for Undocumented Families – Linked here is a Family Preparedness Plan for Undocumented Families created by the Oregon Law Center and LatinoNetwork.

• SNAP Training & Employment Partnership (STEP) – STEP is for people receiving SNAP (food stamps) who need assistance with employment and/or training. DHS has contracted partners who can help with supports such as work related transportation, interview clothing, career advancement, training, budgeting, etc. The individual can contact any of the partners listed on the flyer. The back shows which partners may be able to help with what supports.

• Collaborative Parenting Series – The Collaborative Parenting Series is a weekly group for parents and caregivers of children with challenging behaviors and/or mental health concerns.

• March PBIS Focus: Safe Bodies – The March PBIS monthly focus is Safe Bodies. The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet that matches our PBIS monthly themes with corresponding Caring for Kids (CFK) class meeting lessons. This is an easy way to tie the two activities together.

• ACE Awards Nominations – In case you missed the Ace Awards nominations email, they are now accepting nominations for this school year. If you’d like to nominate any of your colleagues, either licensed, classified, or volunteers, follow this link to the Ace Awards website. Nominations are due the day before spring break, Friday, March 24th.

• New Building Updates – Here are the items of note regarding our new building:

• Furniture Timeline – I keep getting silence from Facilities when I keep asking for an update on our furniture requests. I’ll keep you posted.

• Summer School Reprieve – I got word that Howard will not be the home of Summer School or KITS this year due to different repairs happening over the summer to the playground (adding rubber matting under swings & slides, and adding a wheelchair swing), and grounds work to the bus loop and parking lot areas (digging up the slews and also repairing the crooked lamp posts). I’m pretty sure we’ll be hosting summer programs in the future, but at least for this summer you won’t have to hide all of your valuables.

• 6 tips for better communication with parents – Empathy can help enrich communication with parents, educator Terri Eichholz writes in this blog post. She shares communication lessons for new teachers based on her 26 years of experience in the classroom, including being proactive, don’t take it personally, asking parents for advice, getting involved in the community, choosing your battles, and admitting when you’re wrong.

• People With ADHD Have Different Brains – Linda Kirk shared with me an article about the largest-ever brain imaging study on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that led scientists to say the condition should be considered a neurological disorder, not just a behavioral one. The research notes that certain brain structures related to emotion and reward are smaller in people with the disorder.

• Reading, play replace homework at one school – Howard tried this one year and it’s since faded, but this article notes that research shows homework in elementary school may not boost academic achievement. Educators at a Vermont elementary school are testing a “no homework” policy that instead encourages reading, play, and a good night’s sleep.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

March 6 (M)
Classified Employees Appreciation Week
2:30-3:00, Allan meeting with KG Team (KG Wing)
3:00-3:30, Allan meeting with 1st Grade Team (1st Grade Wing)

March 7 (T)
2:30-3:00, Allan meeting with 2nd Grade Team (2nd Grade Wing)
3:00-3:30, Allan meeting with 3rd Grade Team (3rd Grade Wing)
4:00-6:00, EEA Outdoor Classroom Management Seminar (School Garden)

March 8 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Crazy Hair Day
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
School Choice Lottery Results Emailed to Parents
1:00-1:30, Allan meeting with Title 1, SPED, and Building Classified & Licensed Specialists Staff (Title 1 Room)
1:30-2:00, Allan meeting with 4th Grade Team (4th Grade Wing)
2:00-2:30, Allan meeting with 5th Grade Team (5th Grad Wing)
2:30-3:30, Alan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)

March 9 (H)
8:00-4:00, Allan to LEL Meeting (Willagillespie)

March 10 (F)
Regular Day

March 12 (SU)
Daylight Savings Time – Spring Forward

March 13 (M)
PTO Penny War Begins
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)

March 14 (T)
9:30-11:30, Vaughan’s class at Museum of Natural History

March 15 (W)
Staffing Plans Due to HR
9:30-11:30, Zimmerman’s class at Museum of Natural History
2:30-3:30, Grade Level Meeting Time (Jenny’s Room, C203)
2:30-4:30, 4J PE Workshop (Gym)
3:30-4:30, 4J Technology Dept. Input Session (Madison)

March 16 (H)
8:30-2:00, Kreider/Shadwick to Museum of Natural and Cultural History
9:00-11:30, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Taking it Up/Carrying it Forward Meeting (Conference Room)

March 17 (F)
St. Patrick’s Day
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting

March 18 (SA)
9:00-11:00, OBOB Regional Competition (NEHS)

 

Over the weekend Julie emailed me the results from our Book Fair. Total sales were $9,060.00 and approximately 500 books sold. Record sales and a record turn out! Thursday night sales alone were $4,700.00.

Thank you everyone who came out to help at Literacy Night! It was an amazing turnout of families and I think the night was a huge success. Thank you, everyone!

Allan

 

January 30, 2017

By Allan  |  2017/01/28 20:16 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Caring for Kids, Equity, Literacy  |  Comments Off on January 30, 2017

 

Hello Excellent Staff,

Sorry for being MIA so much last week, but thank you to everyone who helped step-up in my absence. It’s much appreciated!

Fifteen items of note for this week:

• 2017-2018 Staffing Timeline – Staffing allocations for next school year will be distributed to principals at a meeting on Wednesday, February 22nd at 4:00. Principals will also receive SSD and Title 1 allocations at this same meeting. I’ll email allocations to staff this same evening. Staffing plans will be due three weeks later on Wednesday, March 15th.

I’m planning to follow last year’s process for finalizing the 17/18 staffing plan. After receiving our allocations I will draw up potential staffing scenarios and will email those to staff for input. I’ll hold an optional staff meeting for people to discuss as a group the draft plans. I’ll also plan to stick with the change in process we did last year of not holding a second staff meeting to vote on a plan, which many staff felt was divisive, and instead I will make the final decision (so people can be mad at me instead of each other). I’ll still plan to meet with grade level teams for input before my final decision. Let me know if you have questions on any of this. 

• 2017-2018 Enrollment Projections – Last week principals received enrollment projections for next year and for the first time in my five years at Howard I’m agreeing with our projection. Our current total enrollment is 467 students (though that number fluctuates weekly) and for next year we are projected for 478 students. This means that as long as the staffing ratio stays relatively the same, we should be able to maintain our current level of staffing, both licensed and classified, and we may even see some increases. However, the needs index (poverty, mobility, ELL, etc.) can change and the district is looking at some budget reductions, though not as drastic as in the past, so we won’t officially know where we stand on staffing until Feb. 22nd. The projections by grade level are 73 (KG), 81 (1st), 92 (2nd), 73 (3rd), 85 (4th), 74 (5th). The district Title 1 budget sounds like it’s going to be reduced for next school year, but Howard’s Title 1 budget for this year was calculated based upon our original 413 student projection, so I’m thinking we’ll at least stay close to our current Title 1 budget levels.

• 2017-2018 Staffing Survey – With staffing allocations coming out in three weeks, I’d like staff to complete a short survey, either on this linked Google Form or on the linked Word file. I’d like to know staff members’ individual plans and preferences for the future as well as your thoughts on next year’s staffing plan and general ideas for the master schedule. Please complete the survey by Wednesday, February 15th so I can get input before drawing up potential staffing scenarios. All answers will be kept confidential and please let me know if you have any questions.

• Wacky Wednesday – Favorite Character Day – Not this Wednesday, but Wednesday next week is “Favorite Character Day” if you’d like to start planning your costume now!

• Free Book Set Loans from Eugene Public Library – The Eugene Public Library has provided picture book collections to kindergarten classrooms at Howard and Spanish language collections at River Road, and they are now ready to expand this service, providing picture book collections for primary grades and fiction and nonfiction collections for older grades (typically 50 books per classroom). They want to make it easy for you and can deliver boxes of books to the office. Teachers can use them this year and have the option of keeping them another year. If you’re interested, let me know by the end of the week and I’ll sign you up.

• Thursday Music Classes in Gym – I’ll be paying for a sub for Music classes this Thursday so teachers will get their prep time this during this transition day (actually, downtown told principals we had to, so don’t give me too much credit for being generous). Siera will be working in her classroom this day, so music classes will be held in the gym on Thursday. And I haven’t mentioned this since November, but David Adee will be teaching Music Mondays & Tuesdays and Matt Taylor (who’s new to 4J, but who has been teaching at Holt this past semester) will be teaching Music on Wednesdays. 

• Safety Inspection this Friday – For whatever reason, Facilities staff no-showed at our last scheduled safety inspection date, but our rescheduled time is this Friday at 9:00 10:00 (UPDATE, changed to 10:00). Please check your areas for any potential violations.

• Friday’s EA Extravaganza and Grading Day – A repeat from last week, but this Friday EAs are supposed to attend the annual EA Extravaganza at the Ed Center, 7:45-2:30. Teachers, HR did email grading day expectations this past week to principals, which is the same as in the past (Notify me if you’re working from home, make plans if you need to collaborate with colleagues, and do make sure you are working and not running errands around town, in which case we’ll lose this flexibility in the future.). Report cards will go home Friday, Feb. 17th, so specialists should give classroom teachers your reports by Feb. 14th, so they will have adequate time to stuff report card envelopes.

• February PBIS Focus: Cooperation – The February PBIS monthly focus is Cooperation. The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet that matches our monthly themes with corresponding Caring for Kids class meeting lessons. This is an easy way to tie the two activities together.

• Free Atlas Class Sets – A parent in Linda Kirk’s classroom who works for AAA contacted her about free 2016 Atlases. He thought he may have enough to give a class set to almost every classroom. Let me know by Friday if you’d like a set. First come, first serve!

• Perfect Attendance Awards – Lupe asked me last week about recognizing some of her students who had perfect attendance first semester (no tardies or absences). I wanted to extended the same opportunity to other classrooms if you’d like me to give a 30-second award presentation to perfect attenders in your classroom (or even ones who you know are close to perfect). Attached in my email is a list of all the students with perfect attendance just four days shy of the semester break (Sorry Natalie, Kealy, and Justine. You didn’t have any qualifying students.). I’ll run the final list on grading day, but if you’d like me to recognize students in your class, just give me a date and time to come in next week and I can make a big deal about regular attendance.

• New Building Updates – Here are the items of note regarding our new building:

• Speaker Sound Levels – The AMX folks did a firmware update last week that fixed some of our sound issues, but it also reset the individual audio levels in classrooms and different areas around the building, making most of them very loud. They are working on it over the weekend, but please let me know if the audio in your classroom is too loud or too quite after this weekend.

• Water Issues – I don’t have much of an update from Facilities, but they are working on figuring out what’s happening with the tap water from classroom faucets. They’ve had plumbers come out last week and they suspect it’s white water, which is where water comes out of the tap looking cloudy or milky and then clears up in a minute or so. According the above link, it’s completely harmless and is just bubbles, but in the long run it is something Facilities will need to fix. More to come on this. 

• Early Intervention Open House/Parent Night – If you’re wondering what this event on the calendar is, SSD is holding a district wide open house for families of preschool age students in SPED programs who will be entering kindergarten next year. The idea behind the open house is to give incoming families an idea of what SPED services look like at the elementary level, which are quite different from early intervention programs like EC Cares and Head Start, before these families go into their IFSP to IEP transition meetings. SPED teachers and primary grade teachers already know this, but families at these meetings often come with unrealistic expectations of what SPED services will look like and are available. 

• Study: Gender stereotypes start early – Gender stereotypes about intelligence form around the first grade, according to a study published in Science (see articles here from The Atlantic and NPR). The study of hundreds of children in Illinois ages 5 to 7 found that 6-year-old girls were less likely to play games for “really, really smart” people and to label other girls as “really, really smart.”

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

January 30 (M)
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)

January 31 (T)
Regular Day

February 1 (W)
No Title 1 Wednesday
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)

February 2 (H)
Science Kits Due Back
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)

February 3 (F)
No School — Semester Grading Day
7:45-2:30, Elementary EA Extravaganza (Ed Center)

February 6 (M)
National School Counseling Week
Second Semester Begins
1:00-2:00, OBOB Games – All Teams (Library)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee Meeting (Ed Center)

February 7 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

February 8 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Favorite Character Day
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)
6:00-7:30, Allan and SPED Teachers to Early Intervention Open House/Parent Night (Cafeteria, Gym, Community Room)

February 9 (H)
Regular Day

February 9 (F)
Deadline for Report Card Translations
1:00-2:00, OBOB Games (Library)

Have a good four-day week, everyone!

Allan

 

January 2, 2017

By Allan  |  2016/12/31 22:37 Posted in Announcements, Articles, Caring for Kids, P.D., Science  |  Comments Off on January 2, 2017

Happy New Year!

Well that was an unexpected way to start our winter break. The Chinn household never lost power or have any damage, so I can’t complain much, but we did lose a bunch of tree large limbs that are still piles next to my house and had a cherry tree split in half from the weight of all the ice.

I hope you all had a restful and rejuvenating winter break and didn’t have to deal with too many weather related issues during your vacation. 

Thirteen items of note for this week:

• Science PD, Tuesday, Jan. 3rd, 8:00-1:45 – All K-5 classroom teachers are required to attend, even if you don’t teach science this year. Grades K-2 will meet at Holt and grades 3-5 will meet here at Howard. See the linked science PD emails and updated agenda that were sent out to cert_all earlier.

SSD, Title 1, and PE/Music specialists have received direction from their supervisors regarding PD and expectations for this day. For all other staff, this is additional planning and prep time.

• Ice/Hazardous Weather Days & Rescheduled Events – With the three days of no-school due to hazardous weather, those days will be added onto the end of the school year, making Wednesday, June 21st the last day with students unless we have more snow or hazardous weather days. We also need to reschedule a few events we missed. Here are the updated dates:

• Roadrunner Tail Feather Reward, Friday, Jan. 9th – Same plan as before. If classes met their tail feather goal, teachers can hold their movie day reward this Friday at a time if that works for you, though your also welcome to hold it any day this week that works for you.

• Birthday Lunches, Friday, Jan. 9th – December Birthday Lunches with the Principal will be this Friday as well. Same plan as usual in the Community Room. Not linked here but attached in my email is a list of the December student birthdays.

• Monthly Book Winners – We also missed the November Monthly Book winners, so the new plan will be to do the November and December Book Winners on the same date, which is next week on Wednesday, Jan. 11th at 9:00. We’ll put out the book winner sheet out later this week for teachers to write down your December winners.

• Fire Drill Reschedule, Jan. 18th – Since we had three evacuations in November I’m not worrying about missing our December fire drill, but our January drill will be Wednesday, Jan. 18th at 8:20. Hopefully it’ll warm up some before then.

• SMART Notebook Training, Tuesday, Jan 10th – When Misty went around the last few week to make sure everyone’s interactive white board was working properly (let me know if you’re still having issues) she received quite a few requests for a SMART Notebook training – beginning and advanced. Kellyclare Gardner is going to offer an optional training for teachers here at Howard on Tuesday, January 10th at 2:30 to review how to use SMART Notebook software, which is far superior to the built-in Epson software. We don’t have a room for the training yet, so let me know if anyone would be willing to volunteer their space. 

• Annual Safety Inspection, Tuesday, Jan. 10th – Not this week, but next week will be Howard’s annual safety inspection that was originally supposed to happen last month. The inspection will be on Tuesday, January 10th at 9:00. Please check your areas for the most common safety violations:

• Unlabeled spray bottles.
• 3-foot pathway to your exit doors.
• Cord covers for all power cords in walk ways.
• Power strips plugged into another power strip.
• Use of any extension cords (long power strips are okay, just not extension cords)
• Items hanging from lights or the ceiling.

Let me or Crystal know if you have any questions on any of this.

• January PBIS Focus: Be Your Best – The January PBIS monthly focus is “Be Your Best.” The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK cheat sheet that matches our monthly PBIS themes with corresponding Caring for Kids class meeting lessons, which is a nice way to tie the two activities together.

• Lost and Found Clean Out – Let students know that at the end of the week we’re going to donate anything left in the lost and found. We’ll send an email to families and also make announcements this week.

• Don’t Let in After School Groups – I know staff are just trying to be helpful, but don’t let any Kidsports or other outside user groups into the building after hours. We’ve had problems with coaches and players coming into the building before their scheduled times and then getting into things they shouldn’t.

• 2017 TaeKwonDo Demonstration Team Assembly – I think I’ve shared this before, but I received an email from a local TaeKwonDo group who’ve offered a free assembly. See the linked flyer for details, but they offer a motivational assembly for students with a traditional demonstration of TaeKwonDo. If I hear from enough teachers who’d like to attend this assembly, I’ll go ahead and schedule them to come.

• Translation Coordinator/Latino Family Liaison – Vanessa Vasquez has joined the instruction department as the district Translation Coordinator/Latino Family Liaison. She has spent many years working in 4J as a BEST Coordinator, a high school career coordinator and at Chavez Elementary as a bilingual office assistant. Vanessa will be coordinating all aspects of translation services throughout the district, but staff are still being encouraged to use the Language Link telephone translation service. See the linked Language Link Directions for how to access this service. They offer translation for over 240 languages and/or dialects. 

• Sign Up for School Closure Text-Message Alerts – There’s unbelievably more snow in the forecast, so if you’d like to receive text message alerts regarding school closers, send a text to 40404, saying “FOLLOW 4Jweather” (no quotes). To unsubscribe, send “UNFOLLOW 4Jweather” to 40404.

• Snow Days: Resources to Share With Students & Families – Winter 2017 is here and this Edutopia article has some engaging science, reading, and writing resources to share with families.

• Parent Early Learning Resources – ODE’s Early Learning Division is promoting a new website that started last month. The Brain Building Oregon website features 12 resources that are meant to serve as helpful examples for parents and caregivers who are preparing children for kindergarten. Brain building is important in early childhood because the first five years of life show the most significant rate of growth for the human brain. During these early years, the groundwork is being laid for skills in literacy, language, math, and more.

• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:

January 3 (M)
Last Day of Winter Break

January 3 (T)
No School – Professional Development/Planning Day
School Choice Opens
8:00-1:45, Science PD (K-2 @Holt, 3-5 @Howard)

January 4 (W)
Classes Resume
No Wednesday Popcorn
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)

January 5 (H)
2:30, Allan to IEP Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)

January 6 (F)
10:30-12:30, December Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)

January 9 (M)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)

January 10 (T)
9:00, Annual Safety Inspection
2:30-3:30, Optional SMART Notebook Training w/Kellyclare Gardner (Location TBA)

January 11 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Pajama Day
Wednesday Popcorn Resumes
9:00, November & December Book Winners (Conference Room)
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)
3:30, Allan meeting with Federal Programs Coordinator (Office)

January 12 (H)
8:30-2:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)

January 13 (F)
9:05, K-3 Assembly – Adventures of the Tartar Patrol

January 15 (M)
No School – Martin Luther King Jr. Day

See you all soon!

Allan