This week is Classified Appreciation Week, which is an annual event to recognize the many and varied contributions by Howard’s AMAZING Classified Staff! You all make a difference every day in the lives of our students & families. Teachers often get the glory, but classified staff have the numbers and are the ones who keep our school running. Our classified folks are a truly talented group and we would not be the school we are without you! Thank you, all, so much for your work and dedication, and please look for some treats in your mailboxes each day this week. It’s the lease we can do for you AWESOMENESS!
One other celebration, Literacy Night was a huge success! We had a great turnout and we ordered enough pizza this time (almost 800 slices). Families got to see lots of great literacy projects and see what a great school their kids attend!
Eight items of note for this week:
• Staffing Updates – We’re unfortunately still waiting for classified SPED, ESC, PE, Music, TSS, and BEST allocations, so the update is we do not have any updates. I’ll be meeting with teams this week to discuss classroom configurations, but will let staff know once I get additional information.
• Artist in Residence Schedule – I didn’t get a chance to update the artist schedule over the weekend, but will work on it Monday and Tuesday to better work around workshop times. Also, the artist cannot come in Thursday and Friday this week, so classes scheduled those days will be pushed out. More to come soon…
• Care Team Resources – The Student Care Team met last weekend here are a few resource of note that were shared at the meeting:
• Mentoring Program: A Family for Every Child – They offer a mentoring program and do an excellent job of finding mentors who are a good match for individual kids. They started as a program focused on foster children, but have expanded. They also offer a variety of other programs including a family preservation program and family support groups. They are on W11th and can be reached at 541-343-2856 or https://www.afamilyforeverychild.org/
• The Child Center Collaborative Problem Solving Classes – Free classes and dinner for parents of a children with challenging behaviors, who have tried everything with little to no success, and are frustrated and searching for solutions. The Collaborative Problem Solving Classes are an exciting model that teaches parents and children skills that will reduce meltdowns, increase positive relationships, and improve communication. To sign-up, call 541-726-1465 or visit http://www.collaborativeparent.com/
• Triple P: Positive Parenting Program – Parenting resources and online classes. The free monthly Triple P Newsletter features Triple P Online highlights, upcoming family events in Lane County, and the latest parenting blogs from the Triple P team. Triple P Online (TPOL) is an online learning program made up of sections, designed for parents of children up to 12 years of age and is free for families on the Oregon Health Plan. The newsletter and registration for classes can be done at the following website: http://www.lanekids.org/triplep/
• Success for Children and Families Project – Do you struggle with your child’s disobedience? Aggression? Fighting? Tantrums? Misbehavior in public? Help is at hand! To find out if you qualify and to get more information, call the Success for Children & Families Project at 541-434-1551, email at: success@ori.org, or visit on the web: http://www.ori.org/succes
• Revised STEP Brochure for SNAP clients (formerly SNAP 50/50) – Linked here is a revised listing of the SNAP Training and Employment Partnership (STEP) services and providers. This is for families who say they would like help with training or job search. This revision includes a few changes in the contact information. For DHS staff, primarily BEWS’s and Family Coaches, this document is used to alert SNAP clients about employment and training services available locally through a contract between the DHS central office and our local providers. It’s designed to be given directly to customers, and the customers are free to contact any of the providers based upon their employment and training needs.
• Wacky Wednesday – Crazy Sock Day – Not this week, but Wednesday next week is Crazy Sock Day, so start getting kids excited to show off their wacky and/or mismatched socks next week (as well as planning for your own crazy socks).
• Staff Role in Opt-Out Process – Generally speaking, we do not want students opting out of testing. Any student who opts out automatically counts as a DOES NOT MEET.
If parents/guardian ask about the opt out process, staff can let them know that OAKS scores have no consequences for student grades or advancement to the next grade, although most middle schools do use scores for course placement (i.e. low, middle, or advanced math classes). To graduate with an Oregon Diploma, high school students need to meet graduation requirements in reading, writing, and mathematics through the state tests. If they do not meet the requirements in this way, students have to demonstrate their proficiency through an alternative assessment. The new SAT format also matches the Smarter Balanced testing format, so OAKS is a good practice to get ready for that assessment. OAKS also provides more information about their students’ progress toward being ready for the next school level, college, and careers.
If families have additional questions about OAKS, please encourage them to contact me.
• Building 4J’s Future, Online Survey – If you’d like to share your thoughts on the upcoming bond measure being considered by the school board, linked here is a new 4J Bond Measure Community Survey for community members to share their views on priorities and how to proceed on the potential bond measure for the November 2018 ballot.
• Why Students Forget – and What You Can Do About It – Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick, including peer-to-peer explanation, the spacing effect (revisiting topics), frequent practice tests, interleave concepts (mixing up instead of grouping like problems), and combining text with images. See this Edutopia article for more info!
• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
March 5 (M)
Classified Employees Appreciation Week
1:15, Allan to Formal Observation
2:30, Allan Meeting w/KG Team, Staffing Input (Room 2)
3:00, Allan Meeting w/1st Grade Team, Staffing Input (Room 11)
March 6 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
9:00-12:00, OSEA Site Visit (Staff Room)
10:50-12:05, 5th Grade Human Growth & Development
2:30, Allan Meeting w/2nd Grade Team, Staffing Input (Room 23)
3:00, Allan Meeting w/3rd Grade Team, Staffing Input (Room 18)
March 7 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
9:00, February Book Winners (Conference Room)
10:50-12:05, 5th Grade Human Growth & Development
1:30-2:00, EA Supervisors Meeting/Staffing Input Meeting (Room 26)
2:00-3:30, 4J Elementary EA Behavior Workshop (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
5:00-8:00, University of Oregon Science Class at Howard (Rooms 16 & 20)
March 8 (H)
10:50-12:05, 5th Grade Human Growth & Development
1:00-2:00, Allan to Listening Session with ODE (Ed Center)
2:30, Allan Meeting w/4th Grade Team, Staffing Input (Room 27)
7:00-8:30, School Bond Spanish Family Forum (Library)
March 9 (F)
2:30, Allan Meeting w/Licensed Specialists (SPED, ELD, Title, PE, Music, etc.), Staffing Input (Room 10)
March 10 (SA)
9:00, OBOB Lane County Regional Tournament (Thurston HS)
March 11 (SU)
Daylight Saving Time – Spring Forward!
March 12 (M)
Penny War Begins
Artist in Residence Continues
2:30, Allan Meeting w/5th Grade Team, Staffing Input (Room 9)
4:00-5:30, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)
March 13 (T)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Mariah’s Room, RM23)
3:00, Allan to Title 1 Budget Review Meeting (Ed Center)
March 14 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Crazy Sock Day
2:30-3:30, PBIS Team Meeting (Rae’s Room, RM1)
2:30-3:30, Allan to Wrap Around Meeting (Conference Room)
March 15 (H)
Staffing Plans Due to HR
12:00-3:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
This week is National School Counseling Week, so please take a moment to recognize the hard work of our rockstar school counselor Mr. Matt! School counselors fill a unique and vital role in schools and in the success of all our students. Be sure to give Matt a pat on the back this week for all his skills and hard work!
Fourteen items of note for this week:
• FOSS Science Survey – Linked here is a FOSS Survey for teachers to fill out as to where you are in meeting your goal of teaching the first investigation of your second science kit by March 1st. If teachers need support, Allison and Instruction Department folks are here to help and can arrange for support in anyway teachers need.
• 2018-2019 Staffing Timeline – Principals will receive staffing for next school year on Tuesday, February 20th at 10:00. I’ll send an email to staff later that day with all the details. Howard is currently 20 students above what we were staffed for this year (498 enrolled and projected for 478) so I expect that our projection will be higher for year (although we do have a larger exiting 5th grade class than our current KG class).
• 2018-2019 Staff Survey, Due Feb. 19 – With staffing allocations coming out in two weeks, I’d like staff to complete the linked Google Form Staff Survey 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 master schedule. Please complete the survey by Monday, February 19th. All answers will be kept confidential and please let me know if you have any questions.
• Report Card Items – Four items/reminders regarding report cards:
• Parent Reports Coming – The new parent reports for K-1 were sent to principals late Friday, so I’ll put those to K-1 teachers’ mailboxes Monday. Downtown is having technical issue with the reports for grades 2-5, but said they are working on it over the weekend. There’s a separate explanation sheet (English & Spanish) about the easyCBM and OAKS scores. I’ll run sets of the English version for grades with 2-sided reports and print it on the back of the parent reports for grades with 1-sided reports. I’ll leave copies of the Spanish version under staff mailboxes.
• LZ Parent Support Sheets – I put class sets of these in teacher mailboxes to be sent home with report cards. I realize not everyone may be in the same place with the Learn Zillion pacing guide, but I’d still encourage teachers to send this information home.
• Spanish Translations Due Friday – If you need any report card comments translated, they are due to Bianca by Friday.
• Report Cards Sent Home 2/16 – All report cards will be sent home in Friday Folders on Friday, February 16th
• 4J Policy Reminders for Staff – Principals were asked to review the following items with staff:
• Restraint and Seclusion – Falling under Board Policy JGAB, this linked document covers the procedures regarding Use of Restraint and Seclusion. EEA has shared concerns that staff who are not trained in restraint and seclusion (OIS or MANDT) are not fully aware of the procedures and expectations, so principals have been asked to review the policy and procedures regarding restraint and seclusion before spring break, along with training staff regarding the escalation cycle. We’ll plan to do this at our Howard Academy Day, Friday, March 2nd, along with OAKS Test Security Training.
• Building Visitors – Per Board Policy KK, all visitors and all visiting district staff must sign in with the front office at all times. If you have a large group come, have the leader sign in and provide you a list of all participants attending with them. And if you see a visitor without a sticker, please direct them back to the office to sign in.
• Perfect Attendance Awards – Lupe reminded me about recognizing students who have had perfect attendance first semester (no tardies or absences). If you’d like me to give a 30-second award presentation to perfect attenders in your classroom, just give me a date and time to come in and I can make a big deal about regular attendance. Attached in my email is a list of all the students with perfect attendance first semester. Also, if you know of any kids with “near perfect” attendance who you’d like to recognize, let me know and I can award them as well. I’ll plan to do the same at the end of the school year for perfect second semester attendance and for students with perfect attendance all year.
• New 4J VPN – If you ever need to log onto the 4JNet from home, 4J recently changed their VPN. An email was sent to staff earlier this year who had logged on with the old Cisco VPN recently, but linked here directions on how to install the new FortiClient VPN for Mac. Also, you’ll need to be on the 4JNet (at school) to download the new VPN.
• Library Announcements – Julie has a few items of note from the library:
• Remind kids library is not a shortcut – I have noticed kids are starting to cut through the library in the morning and after school to avoid the crowded hallways. I would prefer nipping this in the bud, if too many kids start doing this it will become very unsafe (my chairs sneak out and trip you) and helps to keep students from messing around where they shouldn’t be. :)
• Open Library Times – Here are open times for staff and students to come to the library to exchange books, special check out, etc…
M, W, Th, Fr 8:00 – 8:10 & 8:40 – 9:10
M-F 11:00 – 11:30
M & Tu 12:15 to 1:15
W 12:30 -1:00
I have hall passes in the works to give to each classroom. On short weeks I may have a class, just let your students know that if there is a class in the library to check back at a later time and I will be happy to help them.
• No Unattended Students in the Library – A gentle reminder that students should only be in the library during school hours if an adult is working in the library. Our library is closed to students after 2:15 in the afternoon.
• New books in the Library – Here are new titles for teachers and EAs:
ADA Twist Scientist (2 copies) Rosie Revere’s Big Project Book for Bold Engineers Iggy Peck Architect The Invisible Boy My Mouth is a Volcano! Don’t Squeal Unless it’s a Big Deal What if Everybody Did That? Do Unto Otters A book about manners Rude Cakes You Get What you Get Crabby A Little Book of Manners The Crayon Box that Talked Too Shy for Show and Tell Lying Up a Storm Jessica’s Box Have Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids
More behavior books on the way!
• OBOB Updates – OBOB games start this week. Monday Morning 8:10 – 8:40 & 12:30 – 2:00. Students participating should come down to the library 5 minutes before their game is scheduled to start. We will be sending them back to class when their game is over. Thank you for all your support and encouragement!
• Dental Kits for K-3 Students – United Way is providing dental kits this year to all Lane County K-3 students. Kits will be delivered to buildings during the week of February 12. United Way’s hope is to get them into students’ hands during February, which is National Children’s Dental Health Month.
• Free Math Apps – Misty Jackson shared with principals the website Free Math Apps from The Math Learning Center. These are web apps as well as iPad apps. She said several schools are already using the Geoboard app, so if you want any of these installed on iPads, send a ticked to 4jdesktop, or if you want a like added to the Howard Links for Learners, let me know and I’ll add it.
• REPEAT: Wacky Wednesday: Favorite Character Day – Remind your students that the February Wacky Wednesday is this Wednesday and the theme is Favorite Character Day, where kids can dress up as a favorite character from books, TV shows, movies, or video games. The office staff plan is for me to dress as a male version of Cruella de Vil (internet Rule 63), with Lori and Bianca dresses as Dalmatians, so feel free join and dress as one of the dogs I’m trying to make a coat out of.
• District Admin Updates – BJ Blake, 4J Director of Secondary Education, will be retiring at the end of the school year. BJ was principal of Buena Vista and Meadowlark (where I was her assistant principal one semester), Spencer Butte Middle School, and Churchill High School, and most recently as the district’s secondary education director. Downtown will post the position and undertake a search process to select the next secondary education director.
• Howard Staff Social: Alvvays Concert! – So heavy metal isn’t your thing. How about indie pop? The excellent band Alvvays (pronounced Always) is playing Sunday, April 8th at 9 PM at the Hi-Fi Music Hall here in downtown Eugene. The lead signer was asked to describe their style and her response was, “If old people ask, I say it sounds like the Cranberries. If young people ask, I call it jangle pop. If a punk asks, I say it’s pop.” The show is general admission, so you can get your tickets anytime. Advance tickets: $15, Day of Show: $18. I’ve already got mine!
• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
February 5 (M)
National School Counseling Week
Second Semester Begins
easyCBM Testing Closes
Allan Out at ODE Tech Cadre Meeting (ESD)
February 6 (T)
Regular Day
February 7 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Wacky Wednesday – Favorite Character Day
1:15-2:00, Classified EA Supervisors Meeting (Room 26)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Admin Meeting (NEHS)
February 8 (H)
7:50-10:40, Data Team Meetings 5/1/2
12:00-3:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
February 9 (F)
Deadline for Report Card Translations
Allan, Angela, Ashley to LEL (Holt)
6:00-7:30, PTO Valentine Family Craft Night (Cafeteria)
February 12 (M)
11:00-12:00, Allan to Eval Planning Meeting (Conference Room)
3:30-5:30, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)
February 13 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elem. Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
8:30-11:00, LCC Dental Clinic
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Mariah’s Room)
3:45-6:30, 4J Staff of Color Affinity Group (Community Room)
February 14 (W)
Valentine’s Day
9:00-9:45, OBOB Final Battle Assembly (Gym)
2:30-1:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room)
February 14 (H)
7:50-10:40, Data Team Meetings 3/4/K
12:00-3:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
February 15 (F)
Report Cards Sent Home
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
• Report Card Grading Day, Classified & Licensed – For classified staff, 4J is planning to put on an Elementary EA Extravaganza on the elementary report card grading day next week on Friday, February 2nd. I haven’t seen any details yet, but it’s been on a district calendar sent to principals, so hold this date and watch for more info.
For licensed staff, report card grading day is a regular work day. HR allows teachers to work from home if you notify your administrator (me) in advance, but be sure to plan ahead if you need to collaborate with any colleagues on grading. Also, be sure to use this time for grading and not use it to run errands around town. Teachers are highly visible members of the community, so keep in mind public perception. HR has said that if working off-site on grading days is abused, we will not be allowed to continue the practice.
• Report Card Notes – A few items of note regarding report cards:
• Send-Home Date, Feb. 16 – All report cards will go home in Friday Folders on Friday, February 16th.
• New Parent Reports – With Quickbase Parent Reports a thing of the past, teachers should instead print and send home the easyCBM Parent Reports, which you can find on the easyCBM website by going to REPORTS > INDIVIDUALS > DOWNLOAD in the Parent Report column for each of the students on your class list.
• No Copies for CUM File – Teachers DO NOT need to make any copies of report cards for cumulative files for this grading period, but we will need to put in copies at the end of the school year.
• Synergy Report Card Help – Tammy Christensen is the Elementary Synergy TOSA, but if you have Synergy/report card related questions, send an email to sis@4j.lane.edu. There are also many Synergy related support materials on the 4J Elementary Synergy TeacherVUE Documentation webpage, including a Synergy Report Cards Manual.
• Fire Drill, Monday at 8:30 – Our January Fire Drill will be Monday, January 22nd at 8:30. I’ve been wanting to do this all month, but rain has consistently been in the forecast, so we’re getting down to the wire and it’s now or never (and never is not an option). If it’s raining at the above time, I’ll wait to see if there’s a break in the weather later in the day.
• School Choice Visitation Week #2 – The second and final School Choice Visitation Week is this week, so be prepared for families to drop by classrooms at different times. I’m also conducting an evening School Choice Event on Tuesday at 6:00 in the library. And FYI, the deadline for families to apply for in-district transfers is Jan. 31st and out-of-district applications will be accepted March 1 – April 1.
• Window Tinting Updates – Staff in classrooms with south facing windows may have noticed that a window film was installed last weekend. However, a number of staff let me know that the film is completely inadequate and natural light continues to blow out images projected onto the whiteboard and still shines brightly in students’ faces. I’ve let Facilities know this is still an issue, but have not yet gotten a response (maybe a can of black paint is the solution!). In the meantime, let Crystal or I know if you’d like butcher paper put back up to make the whiteboard a teachable space again.
Facilities is still working on the skylight shading nearest to the teaching wall, as well as replacing the small window shade fabric on the far East/West facing windows. Installation of these may not take place until spring break due to the difficulty of the install.
• New Tardy Autodialer – Starting Monday parents of students who are late without an acceptable excuse will start receiving calls in the evening alerting them to the fact that their student did not arrive on time. This may temporarily (we hope) increase calls from parents to find out why their student was marked late. Other schools report that about half of these calls end up being made to the classroom teacher, but that the tardies do seem to decrease after implementing this system. If parents contact you, use the opportunity to remind them that students must be in class by 7:55 in order to be considered on time, not just dropped off at the entrance by that time.
• PTO Meeting Updates – Linked here are the January PTO Meeting Minutes, but some particular items of note are:
• Special Project – The $5,000 for a permanent improvement was discussed at the meeting, but a vote was postponed and it was decided to send home a paper ballot instead. The choices being considered are tables for the courtyards, books for the library, a mural for the library, or skateboard/scooter racks. Lockers for the hallway was taken off the list.
• McTeacher Night, Feb. 15 – This year’s McTeacher Night was originally going to be in February, but McDonalds is not doing any fundraisers starting until April, so the McTeacher Night date is TBA.
• Penny War, March 12-16 – The Penny War fundraiser will be March 12-16. It is to-be-determined what the proceeds from this fundraiser will go towards. If you’re new the the Penny War, classroom each have their own jar and students before school put coins or dollars into jars, which either increase or decrease that classroom’s points. Pennies count as one point each, but silver coins and paper money count AGAINST other classroom’s points. These winning classrooms will be rewarded with a class party!
• PTO Spring Bazaar – April 7th from 9:00-3:00 will be a PTO Spring Bazaar in the gym. There will be 55 spaces and each of the spaces cost $25 and $40 for two spaces.
• PTO Board Membership – We will be accepting applications for President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, Parliamentarian, Fundraising Coordinator, Volunteer coordinator, Communication Manager in April. Please encourage parents/guardians to consider signing up for one of these positions. We need at least a President, Treasurer and Secretary for the PTO to maintain their 501c organization status. Current PTO folks are all willing to be worker bees and help help new board members, but are hoping to get a break and not be the ones in charge.
• Laminator Safety (don’t leave it on) – Then laminator was found left on overnight one day last week, so if you are running anything on the laminator, make absolutely sure that it is off when you are finished. This is a significant fire and safety hazard.
• Informal Observations – I don’t have too many meetings this week, so I’m going to try to complete some informal observations for teachers who are Contract Year-1 or Probationary/Temporary. Informal observations typically aren’t scheduled, but if you’d rather do your formal observation, just let me know a date and time that works well for you.
• Christine Nesbit Visit, 1/29 – Christine Nesbit, 4J’s in-house counsel, is wanting to get a better picture of what happens in schools day-to-day, so she’s shadowing a few principals and is going to visit Howard on Monday, January 29th from 10:30 to 12:30.
• Shortened State ELA Assessment – ODE sent superintendents and principals an update on state assessments that said in an effort to be responsive to feedback from stakeholders, ODE’s Assessment Team worked with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to implement customized, shortened test blueprints for all Smarter Balanced assessments this year. The new assessments are estimated to reduce testing time by 1-hour for English language arts (ELA) at all grade levels, and will go into effect when the 2017-18 test window opens.
• Free Clay & Ceramics Courses at Georgie’s – Georgie’s Ceramics and Clay is offering free classes April 7, May 19, and June 2 from 10am-4pm, with a free lunch provided. We have our own kiln here at Howard that staff can use if you’re trained, so if you’re interested in getting trained, see the linked flyer. They offer both basic and advanced classes.
• Free Kids Building Workshops at Home Depot – The free classes at Georgie’s reminded me about the free monthly workshops offered to kids at Home Depot, if you ever want to let your students know about it. I’m sure these are both marketing schemes to get people to buy stuff, but they are both free and fun.
• Seesaw PD in Your PJs – Follow this link for a free Seesaw online training session and learn how to use Seesaw from the comfort of your couch. Hosted by star Seesaw teachers, you’ll leave with teacher-tested tips and ideas to use the next day! Whether you’re a beginner or a total pro, you’ll find a session to pique your interest, across all grade levels and subject areas. And linked here is the Seesaw Resources webpage.
• Tips for giving students more time to respond – The Edutopia article Extending the Silence reminds us that giving students several seconds to think after asking a question—and up to two minutes for some questions—improves their learning.
• Do’s and Don’ts of Teaching Black History – February is Black History Month and linked here is a good article from Teaching Tolerance on the Do’s and Don’ts of Teaching Black History. Do’s include incorporating black history year-round, reinforcing to students that “black” history is American history, and connecting issues in the past to current issues. Don’ts include don’t stop your “regular” curriculum, don’t talk about black history in solely “feel-good” language, and don’t decontextualize heroes or holidays. Linked here are some additional resources from NEA, Scholastic, and Edutopia.
• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
January 22 (M)
School Choice Week #2
8:30, Fire Drill
9:30, Allan leading school choice tour
2:30-3:30, Site Council (Conference Room)
January 23 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Mariah’s Room)
6:00-7:00, School Choice Evening Presentation (Library)
January 24 (W)
7:30-11:30, 2nd – Number Talks Peer Observations
1:30-2:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Conference Room)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)
January 25 (H)
February Newsletter Articles Due
7:30-11:30, KG – Number Talks Peer Observations
2:30, Allan to Parent Meeting
6:30-7:30, KG (Sugar) Read In Your Jammies
January 26 (F)
Howard Winter easyCBM Benchmarking Ends
7:30-11:30, 1st – Number Talks Peer Observations
10:30-12:45, January Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)
A big thank you to teachers for going with the flow on the visit from Roseburg SD staff last week. They were quite impressed with what they saw and it’s a nice reminder of all the good instruction going on in our building that I think we often take for granted. They were impressed with how classrooms they used small group instruction for Tier II and Tier III reading and also for math booster , not to mention all of the technology integration (Robin told me one person even asked to take a picture of the directions she’d quickly typed and projected on her screen). Nice work, everyone!
Twelve items of note for this week:
• Staffing Update – HR has filled our vacant 5.75 hour Title 1 EA position for next school year. HR said we’re getting someone good, and it’s Chelsea Norris from Family School, who’s been a Kindergarten EA over there the past two years. Please welcome Chelsea to the Howard Team!
• District Math Updates – Maddie Ahearn shared several math updates at last week’s elementary principal meeting:
• Primary/Intermediate Math Teacher Leaders Needed – Maddie is opening up the math teacher leader positions for next year and those leaders do do not have to be our traditional teacher leader. They are also asking to have two reps this coming year, preferably a primary and intermediate rep. Linked here is a job description and a list of responsibilities (meetings, trainings, and trainings you would lead). Follow this link to the 2017-2018 Rep and Leadership Positions Google Sheet if you’d like to be a math teacher leader and/or any of the other positions.
• Math Manipulatives Coming in August – Math manipulatives have been ordered for the LearnZillion rollout next fall and are set to arrive in August. They have been ordered for both gen ed and SPED teachers.
• Revised April 3rd Math PDU – One last math update, the previous PDU certificate given to teachers incorrectly shorted you on PDU hours and a revised form will be put into mailboxes this week.
• PTO Meeting Updates – Thank you to the staff members who came to last Tuesday’s PTO Meeting. Parents definitely appreciate it. Here are three updates from that meeting:
• Fundraising District Policy Changes – Andrea Belz from Financial Services shared a draft fundraising policy that is most likely going into effect next year. The main changes are that if a fundraising event is held during the school day and students are pulled (such as the Tech Trot), the money has to go through the school accounts and not PTO accounts. Cookie Dough, Popcorn, or other fundraisers that don’t have an event type of activity stay the same.
The other change is progressive prizes, will no longer be allowed, such as if you bring in $100 for a fundraiser you get a limo ride, and if you bring in $200 you get a helicopter ride, etc. This wouldn’t apply to events like the Cookie Dough fundraiser since there isn’t a jog-a-thon or River Walk type of event happening during the school day, but it would apply to our Tech Trot. However, for rewards we can still do raffles for participation, classroom competitions, or overall school progressive prizes like if we bring in $1,000 the principal will shave his head, or $2,000 the principal will camp on the roof, etc.
• Popcorn Day Moving Next Year – There was a vote at the PTO meeting and popcorn day are going to be moved to Fridays next year. This day is much easier for our volunteers and has fewer conflicts.
• Sponge in the Face? – The School Carnival planners were wondering if there any staff members are willing to get a wet sponge in the face at a carnival booth they are considering doing. I did this at a prior school and it was a big hit. Let me know if any of you are game to get wet for a 30 minute block the night of the carnival!
• EEF Grant Timeline – The EEF Board meets on June 14th to review the grants and will notify grant winners soon thereafter.
• No More Spinners – If you missed my announcement on Friday or my post on the Howard Facebook Page, I’ve now banned the very trendy, very annoying spinners, which are really just toys masquerading as fidgets. Here’s what I posted on Facebook and will send out in the June newsletter, along with a link to the article Whirring, Purring Fidget Spinners Provide Entertainment, Not ADHD Help. So from they point forward, treat spinners as you would any other toy at school (a warning the first time and then taking it away if it appears again).
Fidgets and Toys
A reminder to families that students should not bring toys to school. This would include spinners, trading cards, action figures, etc. These items quickly become distractions in the classroom and create problems when they go missing or are traded at school. Please remind your child to not bring these items to school.
For those who benefit from having a fidget-type device at school, that can be part of a plan that is developed between the teacher and the family. We have an ample supply of less distracting fidgets at Howard.
• June Newsletter – Speaking of newsletters, we don’t usually have a June Newsletter, but I’m sending one and wanted to highlight a couple resources I’ll be sharing in the newsletter:
• Free Summer Lunches for Kids Ages 2-18 – Food for Lane County operates one of the largest summer food programs in the state. They provide free meals to youth ages 2 to 18. Most sites open June 26. To see a list of lunch sites, please visit the FOOD For Lane County website, or email info@foodforlanecounty.org, or call (541) 343-2822. The closest location is right next-door to us at River Road Park (AKA Emerald Park), which will serve lunch 12:00-1:00 pm June 26th-August 25th.
• Direction Services Summer Directory – Each year Direction Service publishes The Direction Summer Directory with resource for recreation, respite, support, and service opportunities that families of children with disabilities can access during the summer months. Attached and you can also access it via the Direction Service webpage.
• Friday Beep, Beep Drawing Prize Cards – Remind your kiddos to use their Friday Beep, Beep Drawing prize cards and/or return used one to the office after cashing them in. Our selection of prize cards in the office is getting rather thin.
• Change in the Oregon Accountability System – A major change is coming in the Oregon School and District Accountability System (i.e. state report cards) that was included in the Oregon ESSA Implementation Plan submitted by ODE to the US Education Department. If that plan is approved by USED then starting next year, the proficiency rates to be reported by ODE in the report cards would count each non-participant student, those opting out to state testing, as not being proficient. In other words, proficiency rates will be defined as the number of students reaching levels 3 or 4 divided by total enrollment. This change does not affect the student growth scores also included in the report cards. If our district OAKS non-participation rate continues to be about 10% in ELA and 12% in Math this change in calculation method will lead to a 10% – 12% reduction in the proficiency rates to be reported in our school and district report cards. This change will also affect all information about schools that includes proficiency rates in state tests, so any students who opted out of testing this year are really going to hurt us on our next state report card.
• Google Expeditions – For anyone teaching Social Studies lessons, you should check out Google Expeditions. This is a really cool tool for students to “explore” places through a set of goggles and a virtual experience (I believe it also works with a tablet and no VR goggles). See the above link for details.
• Teaching Tolerance Guide: Serving ELL Students and Families – Teaching Tolerance recently posted a new guide, Best Practices for Serving English Language Learners and Their Families. With sections centered on instruction, classroom culture, policies, and family and community engagement, the guide is packed with recommendations that can be applied across buildings.
• What’s driving adoption of Google in schools? – I’m actually working with Kim Finch on getting an Apple Distinguished Teacher to present on how they use Google Classroom at our October Howard PD Day, so this is a timely article. Google estimates that 15 million primary and secondary school students use Google Classroom. This article highlights the company’s journey into classrooms and how educators in the nation’s third-largest school district use Google products.
• 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 22 (M)
Last Week for Library Checkout
9:30-10:30, Allan to Tech Alignment Meeting (Kelly MS)
2:30-3:30, Site Council Meeting (Conference Room)
4:00-5:30, Allan to All Administrator Meeting (Ed Center)
May 23 (T)
Bianca Out
10:30, 5th Grade Class Photo (Old Howard Sign)
12:30-1:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Sarah’s Room, B203)
May 24 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
2:00-3:00, District EA iPad Basics Workshop (STEM Room, A101)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)
May 25 (H)
Towel Day (if you’re a nerd, you’ll know what this is)
7:30-5:00, 2nd Grade Zoo Field Trip
10:30-12:30, May Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)
1:45, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
May 26 (F)
No Students, Howard PD Day
8:00-12:00, Staff Meeting (Cafeteria)
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
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)
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.
This Wednesday is Administrative Professionals Day, formerly known as Secretary’s Day, and I wanted to recognize our rockstar office staff! Lori is the most adept secretary I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with and I don’t think staff fully realize all that she does to make our lives easier, from talking down an angry parent to taking care of reports asked for by downtown and so on and so forth. I’d also like to recognize Bianca, who it’s been great to have here more this year to help with students, families, and staff. It’s been especially great to have Bianca this year due to our building’s unexpected 70+ student growth this fall. You two are the best!
Twelve items of note for this week:
• Staffing and Job Expo Updates – From the 1st and 2nd round of the Job Expo, we’ve managed to snag a couple of great teachers! For our temp kindergarten position, we’ve hired Katrina Sugar to take Kealy’s spot. Katrina has taught kindergarten for the past 19 years, starting at Willakenzie and then at Holt when Willakenzie and Washington merged to create Holt. For our part-time facilitating position, Rhonda Lawson was offered and accepted the position. Rhonda has been the Title 1 Coordinator at Twin Oaks the past four years and prior to that taught a variety of positions at Shasta Elementary School in Klamath County SD since 1993, including kindergarten, 1st, 4th, and 5th grade. Please welcome these fine new folks to the Howard Team!
• OAKS Testing Snacks – If you notice quite a few snacks on top of and inside the Staff Room refrigerators, these are for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders doing state testing this week, so leave these for the kiddos. 3/4/5 teachers, there are five different snacks, so help yourself to a class set of each when you are ready for them.
• 2017-2018 Supply Lists – Lori emailed a reminder out to teachers last week about getting her updated School Supply Lists for next school year, but has only heard back from one grade level. Please connect with your team members for next year and get an updated list to Lori by the end of the week.
• Student Body Funds Spending Deadline – Student body accounts (teacher funds, grant funds, etc.) need to be spent down to as close to a zero balance as possible by June 1st. If anyone has questions on their balance, please check in with Lori.
• School Credit Card Use Deadline – Use of the school credit card for orders will be cut off May 19th, so that everything will clear before the summer.
• Artist in Residence Change – We’ve changed our Artist in Residence from the Rainy Day Blues in Schools to Cartooning with Teri Robertson. I’d emailed teachers last week that the Rainy Day people were only planning to teach one 30 minute session with each classroom, versus the usual three sessions most artists do, so I put it to a vote and Cartooning won by 6 votes to 2 votes for silk painting and 2 votes for tile mosaics. I’ll be working with Lane Arts this week to set up the schedule and will keep you posted.
• Reminders from Last Week – Several reminders from last week’s announcements:
• 2017-2018 EEF Grant Applications Due Monday – EEF grant applications are due to me before Monday’s Site Council Meeting. You don’t actually have to have a final draft of your grant. Just give me a title and enough of a description for Site Council to rank order the grant submissions. We can submit up to five grants in any amount up to $5,000 each. Grants focused on Arts, Literacy, and STEM receive a higher priority. Linked here is the application form and linked here is the EEF Grant Guidelines.
• Natives Program Assembly Thursday – A Native American Storytelling Assembly will be Thursday, April 27th, with the 3-5 assembly 9:00-9:30 and the K-3 assembly 9:40-10:10. See the linked assembly map and directions for details. This assembly is optional given all of our recent interruptions to the regular schedule.
• Earth Day Poster Contest Ends this Week – The NuNaturals and Market of Choice Earth Day poster contest deadline is the end of this week. Winners will receive a “tree kit” for every student in their classroom and a gift certificate from the National Geographic Society for their teacher to use for learning materials for their class. See the linked flyer for details.
• Tech Trot & All-School Photo – The Tech Trot is this Wednesday. Classes should be out on the track, ready to go at the following times:
The new Howard t-shirts should be passed out the day of the Tech Trot. We’ll plan to all meet at 12:45 in the west courtyard the day of the Tech Trot to take an all-school picture from the green wing balcony. See the linked map and directions for where to stand, although we may need to adjust positions once we get out there.
• PTO Updates – We had several teachers attend last week’s PTO meeting, which was great! Below are a few updates from the April PTO Meeting:
• Family Night: Crafts, Coney’s, & Science May 19th, 5:30-7:30 – The next family night will be a craft night that includes “Coney’s” (east coast hot dogs) for folks to buy and eat and STEAM related activities led by Allison.
• Carnival Friday, June 16th, 5:00-8:00 – Most all of the carnival will be held in the gym, cafeteria, courtyard, and playground.
• By-Laws Update – The PTO is planning to update their by-laws to better match recent practices, mainly related to board membership. Draft revisions will be shared at the next meeting and will be put to a vote.
• Staff Appreciation – The PTO is putting in place some very nice plans for all staff on Teacher Appreciation Week coming up May 1-5.
• Volunteer Appreciation Thursday – Related to all of the above, remember to recognize your volunteers by inviting them to the volunteer appreciation even on Thursday, 12:00-4:00 in the Community Room.
• District Admin Updates – KC Clark, current SSD administrator assigned to high school and post-graduate programs, will be the administrator of the Fox Hollow Campus, which is a new SPED focused facility that opened this school year which houses three programs—Comprehensive Services, Home Instruction, and Instructional Programs. The Lane ESD provided the on-site administrator this year, but starting next fall, the Fox Hollow administrator will be provided by 4J, and KC has been selected for the position.
• Anti-bullying resources – The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable Knowledge has launched One and All with strategies to protect students, help them reject bullying, and build communities in which everyone thrives. Resources so far include: Widening the definition of bullying; a conversation about how to honestly confront racial trauma and facilitate conversations about racially tinged events in the news; and one ELL teacher’s first-hand experience as an ELL student.
• 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 24 (M)
Volunteer Appreciation Week
ODE Title 1 School Monitoring Visit
EEF Grant Applications Due to Allan by 2:30
9:30-10:30, Allan to Tech Articulation Meeting w/Kelly MS (Kelly)
2:30-3:30, Site Council Meeting (Conference Room)
4:00-5:30, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)
April 25 (T)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Sarah’s Room, B203)
3:30, Allan to Parent Meeting (Office)
5:00-7:30, ACE Awards (Hult Center)
April 26 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Administrative Professionals’ Day
8:00-11:30, Tech Trot
• 8:30-9:15 – 2nd & 3rd Grade
• 9:30-10:15 – Kinder & 1st Grade
• 10:30-11:15 – 4th & 5th Grade
12:45, All-School Photo (West Courtyard)
1:30-2:30, Teacher Training for ALICE Student Training (Volunteer’s Room)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)
April 27 (H)
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
9:00-9:30, 3-5 Native Storytelling Assembly (Gym)
9:40-10:10, K-2 Native Storytelling Assembly (Gym)
1:30, Allan to Truancy Follow-Up (Office)
4:00-6:00, Allan Potentially to Elem. Job Expo (Ed Center)
12:00-4:00, Volunteer Appreciation w/Donuts (Community Room)
5:00-6:00, Human Growth & Development Parent Preview (5th Grade Wing)
April 28 (F)
9:15, Earl the Mailmain Visit to Kindergarten
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)
May 1 (M)
Teacher Appreciation Week
Children’s Book Week
PBIS 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)
May 3 (W)
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)
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)
May 5 (F)
Regular Day
Believe it or not, there’s only 41 more student days until summer!
Allan
The sun briefly came out last week and 4th grade got to eat lunch out in the courtyard!
This is the big week! The start of any school year is always crazy, but throw in a new building and we’re guaranteed extra craziness. I’m just about positive there will be technology that fails, kids and families who get lost, and planned systems that won’t quite work out like we planned, but like I said at our meeting; as long as we get kids into their classrooms, it’ll be a good day. Moderate your expectations of all the new “stuff” working perfectly and instead focus on making students feel welcome and cared for. That’s the most important piece for our start of the school year.
Twenty Five items of note for this week:
• Enrollment Updates – If you’re curious what our enrollment looks like, we’re over our projection at all grade levels, except for 3rd, which is still our largest grade level; KG (65 projected, 76 actual), 1st (68 projected, 83 actual), 2nd (61 projected, 69 actual), 3rd (85 projected, 84 actual), 4th (63 projected, 70 actual), 5th (70 projected, 78 actual). Our total projection was originally 413 students, but we currently have 460 students fully registered. These projections and actual numbers include Life Skills students counted as a whole student, though for staffing purposes HR counts LS students at 0.25 a student since they are not primarily served in gen ed classrooms. I have notified downtown about our numbers and am advocating for an additional 1.0 FTE to make three classes at both 4th and 5th grade. Our actual numbers at the moment justify an additional 0.66 FTE, but if all our packets out come back and we don’t have too many no-shows, we will have enough students to justify another full-time teacher. I think we can minimally expect to receive some FTE, but I will keep you all posted once I hear anything.
• Meet Your Teacher – During Meet Your Teacher on Tuesday, I’d like to have all non-classroom staff available to direct families, passing out a zoomed in version of this school map with highliters to help guide families and also passing out a flyer about parking procedures & the first day of school. 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.
• What is your hope? – Here’s the video I wanted to show at the end of Wednesday’s meeting, but had technical difficulties with. I’ll be out front during Meet Your Teacher with a white board doing this.
• First and Second Day Plans – Linked here is a more detailed version of our plan First Day Plan, but the short version is most everyone who is not in Life Skills, CLC or a classroom teacher will have an assigned spot when the doors open at 7:25. Students will meet their teachers in the Gym (1-3), Cafeteria (KG), and Courtyard (4-5). All staff members with assigned location will have a set of class lists, and maps w/highlighters to guide families. At 7:55 I will do a brief welcome and classes will be dismissed to class. During my welcome to students, staff members with assigned locations should move to their new locations to help guide students and families who arrive late or get lost along the way to class. See the linked First Day Maps for where staff are assigned from 7:25-7:55 and a second map from 7:55-8:10ish (or whenever everyone is in class). If you are available to help and I left you off this list, please let me know. If you are unable to adjust or schedule to come in at this time or have another responsibility at this time, let me know ASAP so I can revise the map.
The second day of school we will begin our normal routine of students eating breakfast and then grades 1-5 going out to the playground. It would be good for 1st grade teachers to pick up students, but I think other grades should be able to find their way. And hopefully the door timers are programmed correctly so they are unlocked at the end of the before-school recess. The second day of school will be more informal, but it would be good if non-classroom staff can again make themselves available to help guide students from breakfast to the playground (7:25-7:50) and from the playground to class (7:50-8:00).
I’m sure we’ll still have some kids get lost these days, but we just need to do our best to make kids feel safe and career for. Le the know if you have any questions on this.
• Media Coverage Tuesday and Wednesday – On a related note, KMTR is going to be here for Meet Your Teacher. They are going to be in charge of getting parent permission to film kids, so staff don’t have to worry about No-Media kid lists yet. We’ll also have The Register Guard here on Wednesday, the first day of school, but I’ll take them around after we have everyone in their classrooms and after Coffee & Doughnuts with the Principal and PTO is over.
• Playground Lines – Linked here is a map of where classes should line up at the end of recesses. I’d asked for each of the numbers to be spaced 3-feet apart, but they appear to have gotten scrunched together starting around the double digits, so I did every other number for 4th and 5th grade (I also noticed in the picture they seem to have skipped eleven). But the reason I need teachers and recess supervisors to teach students assigned spots for lining up is for when we have grades 1-5 all outside at the same time during breakfast before school so they all need to know where they should line up. From there, in the mornings, I dismiss students by class to walk to class.
• Howard/Kelly Track Use Schedule – We have a new plan for sharing the track this year, where both schools can use the track every day, but we’ll plan to just cut the track and field in half, where Howard uses the east end (the half closer to our building) and Kelly will use the west end (the half closer to their building) each day. The one exception to this is the same as last year, which is if the the Kelly PE classes are using the track and field, Howard kids stay off the field. That didn’t happen too often, but this year we’ll have a small soccer/softball field with natural grass adjacent the playground that we can also use. That field should e done next week, but it’ll only be seeded, which means we’ll have to wait a few months for the grass to grow before we can use it.
• Investigations Workbooks Recall – The Investigations workbooks schools received are the 2008 edition and we should have received the 2012 edition. This was a mistake when downtown ordered them and they are extremely sorry to add this layer of confusion to an already chaotic time of year. They expect the correct workbooks to arrive no later than Friday, Sept 9th. In the meantime, box up the student workbooks we already have, which will be picked up sometime later this week. I’ll have Crystal see if we still have boxes around to put them in if you already got rid of all your boxes.
• PBIS First Week Plans – Watch for an email from Rae with details on this year’s PBIS teaching plan, which will be very similar to last year. We’ll do a playground rules review the first day of school at the start of each recess. We’ll also again have school rules for classroom teachers to review with students.
• Principal Visits to Classrooms – I’d like to again visit every classroom sometime during the first few weeks of school to greet students. I’ll read a favorite story to your class and chat with the kids a bit. Teachers, please let me know a good 10-15 minutes block of time I can come and visit. Thank you!
• Classroom Newsletters – I’d love to have copies (email is best) of classroom newsletters when teachers send/email them home to families. This helps me get school events on the building calendar, keeps me up to date on what’s happening or going to happen in classes when families ask, and it also lets me know details of any class activities that I might be able to get the local media to come out and cover. I love promoting our school!
• District Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff – Here’s a link to this year’s District Back-to-School Memo (and PDF), which covers a variety of district rules, policies and guidelines. Section 1 is the portion that all staff are required to review. I honestly haven’t had a chance to review this year’s update, so I’ll try to provide a summary of any changes next week. All staff must review the memo and sign & return the check list acknowledgment form to the office no later than Friday, September 29th. I’ll place hard copies of the acknowledgement form in staff mailboxes next week. This year principals are expected to give HR copies of all signed forms, so be sure make time to review these polices before the end of the month.
• Monthly PBIS Focus: Safety – The September PBIS monthly focus is Safety, so remember the PBIS/CFK Cheat Sheet, which matches our PBIS monthly themes with Caring for Kids class meeting lessons. This is a nice way to tie the PBIS and Caring for Kids together.
• Bus PBIS Slips – The transportation department sent principals and secretaries an email about how they are doing their behavior management systems this year, but the one part the effects classroom teachers is they are asking us to honor their positive slips (Star Slips) the same as we would our positive PBIS slips (Beep, Beeps).
• TAG Identified Students – Teachers, if you have any TAG identified students in your class this year, you’ll have already received an email naming the kiddos. If you didn’t see an email, you’re off the hook.
• Morning Announcements Start Monday, 9/12 – I won’t do morning announcements the first three days of school, but we will be starting regular morning announcements the first full week of school on Monday, September 12th with a couple 5th graders who were trained up at the end of last school year.
• Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program – The Fresh Fruits and Vegetable program will be continuing this year and is set to start on Monday, September 12th. Joan is working with Rae to figure out if they’ll need another wagon for this year.
• New Building Updates – Here are quite a few items of note regarding the new building:
• Projector Updates – The Technology Department has come up with a solution for our projector issues, which is to use HDMI cables instead of VGA. They have ordered HDMI cables and Thunderbolt adapters, which should be here Tuesday, so everyone should have working video the first day of school. The audio cables may not get here by Tuesday, so have your old desktop speakers handy for the first day of school. Peggy will be coming around on Tuesday to help everyone set up their laptop, doc cam, and projectors. I’ve requested that the Tech Department send extra help on Tuesday to make sure everyone is ready to go. I’ve also asked for extra TSS staff for our first day of school. And if you’d like to tackle it yourself, linked here are a couple Quick Sheets for connecting your doc cam to the projector and connecting your laptop to the projection (though you’ll need an HDMI cable for that one).
A separate issue with the projectors, particularly for second floor classrooms who have skylights, is the projectors are not bright enough (despite the reassurances we received during design and construction phases of the new building). There is not a definite solution at this point, but Misty is getting a demo projector in that has 7000 Lumens and is are going to see how that works with all of the natural light in these rooms. Technology folks know teachers are very frustrated and are working through this as quickly as possible. In the meantime, teachers may want to use your remote to go into the projector settings in the Menu and increase the brightness. It does help a little.
• Evacuation Plans – Linked here in an updated version of the fire evacuation lines I shared at Wednesday’s meeting, which includes where classes are to line up. Also, the Fire Marshall just last Thursday gave final approval of our building evacuation plans, so I will be updating our building emergency procedure manuals to match the approved plans and will be sharing that soon. Linked here is the fire evacuation routes from different points in the building. One important item in regards to students in wheelchairs on the second floor during a drill do have permission from the Fire Marshall to use the elevator if the elevator is operational (it will shut off if the smoke detectors inside the shaft are tripped). If the elevator is not operational, an adult should stay with the student at the “Primary Area of Refuge,” which is marked on the map and located by the upstairs front windows so fire fighters could easily spot that someone is still in the building. If that location were unsafe, the student and adult would go to one of the “Secondary Areas of Refuge” which are located in front of each of the upstairs courtyard windows. Let me know if you have an questions on this.
• No Recess Bells (yet) – Sub contractors are working over the weekend to get exterior speakers installed, because right now we cannot page outside the building or hear any bells ring outside either, so anyone supervising students out on the playground should have a whistle handy just in case the bells are set in time.
• Elevator Badges – I’ll be giving out an elevator badge to all upstairs gen ed classrooms so you can safely send students downstairs with lunch boxes and/or library books. However, as of Friday, the elevator still works with the push of a button.
• Punch List Items – As with any new building, there are plenty of things that got missed, damaged or installed wrong. Please send me an email, with a picture if applicable, and I can get our project manager on it. We want to get all punch-list type of items taken care of now, while Todd Construction is still here. Another reason we want to know right away is because many items were installed back before spring break, so their warranty started back then, which means we’re already 6 months into their coverage.
• Clean Maps – If you’d like a fairly clean map of the school without a lot of architectural markings, attached is a first floor map and a second floor map. Linked here is a map of the entire Howard property that includes playground, parking, bus loop, etc. if that helps to explain to students the different areas of the building.
• ENZO Keyboards Coming this Week – Last week’s training was not what I was expecting and was kind of a debacle. I though the training would be to just show how to connect your doc can and laptop to the projector and how to use the interactive features. However, if you do want to play with the ENZO wireless, the keyboards are being delivered this week, possibly on Tuesday.
• ENZO Manuals and Video – This is probably more information than anyone wants at this point, but linked here is the manual on how to access the ENZO system to wirelessly to your projector and also how to utilize MirrorOp, which is good for laptops, but pretty limited in it’s use with iPads. Linked here are the classroom IP address of each classroom ENZO unit and a short 2-minute video on how to connect to the ENZO system.
• State Test Results Released Tuesday – ODE is releasing state test results this Tuesday. Principals and ESCs were given preliminary results and our scores took a pretty big dip last year. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the preliminary scores ahead of time and I’ll share the official scores after they’re released.
• Substitute Folders/information (EA and Guest Teachers) – HR asked principals to share the linked list of suggested information/items that teachers and EAs should consider when preparing lesson plans for substitutes. With the goal being seamless transition and a successful day when permanent staff is out, it is essential that our Guest Teachers and Educational Assistant Substitutes receive the best information possible. Our Guest Teachers continue to ask for this help and support.
• On the job injury: Incident Report and Process Flow – Starting this school year, for all on the job injuries, staff will need to complete the an Incident Report, which is now available in fillable form on the Risk Management Occupational Safety and Health webpage. Also available to district staff in the above link is an interactive process flow for on the job injuries, which has links that provide further information.
• Northwest Community Credit Union (NWCU) Grant – NWCU has a grant opportunity seeking requests for classroom supplies, technology, books, funding for projects, programs or field trips, to Northwest People Power volunteers to paint, landscape, move, or spruce up a space to make it a better learning environment for kids. Nominations will be accepted through October 15, 2016, while project fulfillment may extend into 2017. See their website for more information.
• Google Apps Permission Form – I don’t believe anyone was using Google Apps with students last year, but if you are, linked here are the permission forms in English and Spanish.
• Technological revolution to affect education, economy – A fourth wave of technology is approaching that will drive the economy and revolutionize education, said theoretical physicist Michio Kaku during the keynote address of the annual International Society for Technology in Education conference. “The future of education will gradually be changed,” he said. “This means that educators are going to have to stress concepts and principles, rather than the drudgery of memorization.”
• 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:
September 5 (M)
Labor Day – No School
September 6 (T) 8:00-10:00, Staff Meeting – CANCELLED
10:00, Q&A Session for New Staff – Optional (Office)
1:00-2:00, Meet your Teacher
September 7 (W)
First Day for Students
easyCBM Fall Benchmarking Begins
PBIS Focus: Safety
7:25, All Hands on Deck to Greet Students and Families
September 8 (H)
Regular Day
September 9 (F)
8:30-5:00, School Board Retreat (Howard Community Room)
September 12 (M)
First Day of Library
September 13 (T)
Regular Day
September 14 (W)
4:15-5:15, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (Awbrey Park)
September 15 (H)
8:00-12:00, Data Team Meetings (Title 1 Room)
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
September 16 (F)
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
I got a little perspective last week on how our new building is coming along when a custodial supervisor was out here and said that, believe it or not, that Howard is actually way better off than Roosevelt or Gilham. But like I said before, don’t expect everything to be perfect, just focus on making it a great first week for kids.
This Wednesday is Administrative Professionals’ Day, formerly known as Secretaries Day, and I’d like to take a moment to recognize our excellent office staff, Lori and Bianca, and thank them for all they do to keep our school running and also for the many things they do during the day that often go unnoticed and unappreciated. We’re all very lucky to have you here at Howard!
Sixteen items of note for this week:
• Friday, May 6th PD/Planning Day – Not this week, but next week will be a district PD/Planning day. There aren’t any required district trainings this day, so we’ll meet here in the building at 8:00 to go over some business items (preschool information, CAP updates, class lists process, 16/17 leadership plan process and master schedule process) and the main item will be to review our updated PBIS rules and teaching plans for the new building. I’ll send the agenda our later this week, but my plan is to end the meeting early to give staff more time to resume packing and cleaning out of old and unused items. There are only 34.5 student days left, so the deadline to get everything packed is approaching faster than you think!
• Classroom Spending and Reimbursement Deadlines – May 10th will be the last day for district credit card use or purchase orders against the general fund (stuff I might buy for out of building funds). May 25th will be the last day for district credit card use when coming out of student body funds (i.e. PTO teacher funds or grant funds). The deadline for staff reimbursements out of student body will be June 15th. And remember that student body accounts need to be spent down to as close to zero as possible. If you need to know your balances, please check with Lori.
• 2016-2917 Supply List Reminder – Please remember to review this year’s supply lists and let Lori know of any changes by the end of the week. A gold star to 1st and 5th grades already turning theirs in.
• 2016-2017 Zaner Bloser Name Tags – Lori also needs to know if classrooms want the Zaner Bloser name tags for next year or if teachers will be doing their own thing. Let Lori know your preference by the end of the week.
• Fire Drill, April 27th at 8:30 – Our last scheduled fire drill was rained out, so we’ll try again this Wednesday, April, 27th at 8:30. If it’s raining at that time, I’ll wait for a break in the weather and try to squeeze it in before morning recess.
• Staffing Updates – Our 2nd grade vacancy has been filled and former Howard teacher Ashley Pond will be coming back. For staff who do not know Ashley, she currently teaches 3rd grade at Gilham, before that taught 3rd grade at ATA and before that taught here at Howard. Please welcome Ashely back to the Howard family! Our counselor and facilitating positions are still vacant and will be posted for the third and final round of the Job EXPO.
• Revised Artist in Residence Schedule – Linked here is an updated version of the Artist in Residence schedule for next month. There was a field trip and an assembly that required an adjustment to the second and third weeks. Please take a look at your scheduled times and make sure they work for you. I’ll plan to share this schedule with Alex at the end of the week.
• NEHS Book Drive Update – The NEHS Key Club had a great first bookfair of us! They had about $1,700 in sales which is about $340 for the school on a Barnes and Noble gift card which we can use to buy books for the library with the 20% discount they give schools. They also have a full box of books that were purchased and donated which the NEHS students would like to present to us at a staff meeting.
• Putting in Tickets for Technology Help – The Tech Department sent a friendly reminder to principals, asking us to remind staff that when you need assistance with anything technology related, you should send an email to 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu, which creates a ticket, or call x7777. 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 to talking the TSS directly instead of putting in a ticket.
• “After ALiCE Next Steps” Training – Risk Management is holding an “After ALiCE Next Steps” training on Monday, May 16th, 3:00-5:00 at River Road Elementary School. See the email from Randi Bowers-Payne for the agenda and details. I’m planning to attend the training, but other staff are welcome to attend if you’re interested. Please let me know by the end of the week if any of you would like to attend. On a related note, linked here are the minutes from last month’s Safety Committee meeting, which already addressed some of the post ALICE training questions and next steps.
• New Building Updates – Just two items of note regarding the new building and move:
• Grand Opening, May 15th, Tentative Agenda – Details are still being ironed out and the date is still soft, but linked here is the tentative agenda for a community grand opening even on Sunday, May 15th. The general plan is to have some opening and closing remarks, serve some food and give guided tours of the new building. I’ll keep people posted as details become more solid. On a related note, I’m continuing to work with downtown on our goodbye event to the old building, but and still waiting for approval on the date from downtown. That event will start with some opening remarks, have old photos and memorabilia on display, we’ll open the time capsule a year early, and we’ll allow people to walk around the building one last time (no classrooms will be unlocked unless staff are present).
• Updated Class Assignments Map – Linked here is an updated version of the new building class assignment which includes the correct room numbers for classrooms. A few changes from the last map, 3rd grade and ELD classes shifted around in that wing and 2nd grade classroom assignments shifted a bit in their wing as well.
• Medications on Field Trip – With field trip season now upon us, one important reminder to staff going on field trips is that only school staff should ever administer medication. Unless it is a custodial parent, volunteers or other parents leading groups of students on a field trip should never be the ones to administer medicine.
• “Oregon Rising” Event Wednesday – Flyers for this event went home last Friday and an email was sent to families, but if you missed it, on Wednesday, April 27th from 7:00-8:00 at Sheldon High School, which is a statewide public outreach effort to answer the question, “What do we want Oregon schools to be for our children and grandchildren?” All the information gathered will be presented to state legislators to tell the story of what we want our state’s education system to look like. If you cannot take part in the community conversation, you can respond online at oregon-rising.org
• Survey about Smarter Balanced – Teachers may have received invitations from the Audits Division of the Oregon Secretary of State to participate in a survey about Smarter Balanced. These surveys are part of an audit mandated by HB 2713, from the 2015 legislative session. Linked here is a copy of HB 2713 in case you would like to learn more about the context for the survey, but I did want teachers to know this survey is legitimate and is an avenue to directly let the legislature know your thoughts on SBAC.
• Election Rhetoric Takes its Toll on Students – Some students have suggested that they are fearful about what the outcomes of this year’s presidential election could mean for their families and friends, according to a survey of 2,000 teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The anxiety is most prominent among immigrant students and Muslims. I usually avoid overtly political articles, but this something that’s been on my mind ever since a 4th grader came to me a couple months ago sincerely concerned that he would no longer be able to play with his Latino friend if Trump were elected president. Who knows what policies will or will not be changed following the election, but this article from NPR discusses the very real impact election rhetoric is having on students and families. Teaching Tolerance posted a similar article this weel as well.
• 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 25 (M)
Progress Monitoring Week 12
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
April 26 (T)
8:45-12:45, 1st grade to Mt. Pisgah
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 1)
April 27 (W)
Administrative Professionals Day (formerly Secretaries Day)
9:00-12:00, KG to Science Factory
8:30, Fire Drill
1:00-1:40, EA OAKS Test Security Training (Room 8)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)
2:30-3:30, Care Team Meeting (Staff Room) CANCELLED
April 28 (H)
5th Grade Science Testing Begins Papa’s Pizza Fundraiser for Howard Family (Coburg Road)
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
2:30-3:30, Site Council (Staff Room)
4:00-7:00, Allan to Elementary Job Expo (Ed Center)
5:00-6:00, 5th Grade Parent Preview of Planned Parenthood Course (Room 18)
April 29 (F)
10:45-12:40, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Library)
3:30, Allan Touring Superintendent & 4J Directors at New Building
May 2 (M)
Teacher Appreciation Week
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Smarter Balance Testing Begins (No SPED/Title 1 Groups)
Children’s Book Week
1:00-2:00, Allan Covering Classroom
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee (Ed Center)
With staffing decisions now upon us, it’s never easy or pleasant to have these discussions where the outcome of which has the potential for unwanted changes and challenges for our colleagues, whom we work with every day. While I want to be transparent in our process for deciding upon a staffing plan and to give everyone a chance to have their say, I also don’t want staff to ever feel like they are competing or at odds with one another. Howard staff has always been good about putting students first and I think that is the best way to frame these difficult decisions. I believe it’s important for staff to work together when we make our decision a week from Tuesday and to move forward from that point. You all are the best!
Fifteen items of note this week:
• K-2 and 3-5 PRIDE Assemblies, Wednesday – This Wednesday is the PRIDE Awards Assembly for Integrity. The PBIS Team will be sending out the details, but the K-2 assembly will be 9:10-9:35 and the 3-5 assembly will be 9:40-10:05, both in the gym. Integrity PRIDE Awards are on the counter in the mailroom. See the linked map and directions for details and watch for further information from the PBIS Team.
• Wacky Wednesday: Favorite Color Day – This Wednesday is the March Wacky Wednesday, and this time it’s Favorite Color Day, so we don’t have to worry about planning elaborate costumes this time. Tell you students to come to school wearing their favorite colors and remember to don your favorite color!
• Safety Committee Meeting – I’ve scheduled a follow-up Safety Committee Meeting with the 4J Risk Manager, Randi Bowers-Payne, for input and answers to questions that were generated at our meeting earlier in the year and some questions generated since then. That meeting will be on Wednesday, March 16th at 2:30 in the library. The meeting is open to anyone who would like to attend. As a reminder, linked here are the Safety Committee Meeting Minutes from that meeting, which contains various safety questions/concerns that were raised. Please look over the minutes and let me know before the meeting if you have any additional safety related questions or topics you think should be brought up at the meeting.
• Emazing Readers Assembly Reschedule – We accidentally schedule this on top of the Fluoride Varnish also happening in the gym on March 9th, so we’re working to reschedule the assembly for another date. Stay tuned for this new date.
• Student Care Team Resources – I wanted to share a few resources that were shared at last Wednesday’s Student Care Team meeting. One is a service through OSU Extension Services, FoodHero.org, which provides families with recipes, meal ideas, budgeting, shopping, and many more resources, such as classes. The site is available in both English and Spanish. They also offer the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. This came out of a situation where a parent was having trouble managing food budgets and had little experience cooking, instead buying more expensive prepared/processed foods. A second resource was for a situation involving an adoptive parent looking for support with challenging behaviors, and DHs shared a state run website, the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center, which has many resources ranging from trainings, to a lending library, to support groups, to many other support services. A last one is WellMama, which is a non-profit that provides pregnancy and postpartum mental health support services to women and their families in Eugene and Springfield area.
• 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.
• EAST Reminder: Lesson Plans – HR meets monthly the the substitute teacher’s union, EAST, and HR emailed principals asking us to remind both licensed and classified staff to help in getting lesson plans to substitutes. Sometimes lesson plans are sent directly to substitutes outside of AESOP, but many substitutes access AESOP via phone rather than computers. Also, some may not have access to technology or printers at their homes. Other situations have lesson plans coming very late via email and the substitute may not have access to a computer/printer in the building. When possible, attach lesson plans in AESOP rather than only emailing them directly to the Guest Teacher/Substitute. This step will also will allow office staff to serve as back-up and assist in printing off the lesson plan in the event the Guest Teacher/Substitute is not able to access the plans from home. NOTE: Lesson plans can be attached after the position has been accepted.
• State Testing & Student Opt-Outs: FAQs for Staff – In the email sent by Randy Bernstein to all staff last week regarding state testing and opt-outs, I wanted to highlight the Staff Communication Guidelines section of the email. Note that during work time, over district email or using other district resources encourage parents to opt-out. Outside of work hours, staff are free to express their opinions publicly about standardized tests or about opting out, but if families ask you about testing in your official capacity as a school district employee, staff are to remain neutral and factual. The best response is to refer them to either me or the school district website on the opt-out process.
• TELL Oregon Teacher Survey Deadline Extended – Due to high interest, the TELL Oregon Teacher Survey deadline has been extended to Thursday, March 10th. Now that we’ve seen out staffing for next year, this is an opportunity to sound off at the Oregon Legislature about school funding, class sizes, testing, teacher evaluations systems and other topics. The survey takes about 20–30 minutes to complete online. The survey will ask you for a unique individual code, which you can request online or you can get off of the letter that was put in licensed staff members’ mailboxes last week. As of writing this, there have been only three responses from Howard (the website allows you to see the response rate by school).
• Bias in the Journeys Materials – This is a reminder of something I shared earlier in the year. Downtown is wanting to address bias in the HM Journeys reading materials. Principals have been asked to have teachers report elements of bias you come across in the new reading materials, whether it’s race, gender, religion, language, culture or otherwise. There is not a formal reporting form or an official plan of will be done with the collected information, but I do think it’s important for us to report bias in Journeys and in any other curriculum materials.
• Barnes & Noble Book Fundraiser – Clair Wiles, the NEHS Key Club advisor, let me know that they have set up the Barnes & Noble Books fundraiser for the school library and classroom for April 15, 16, and 17.
• Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program (FFVP) Audit Update – If you were wondering how we did on the ODE and USDA audit, Howard passed with flying colors. Nice work, team!
• Supervision & Security Information – Linked here is a flyer with tips from Risk Management on preventing vandalism and theft through line of sight supervision, keeping keys with staff, not covering classroom windows, keeping doors locked, closer supervision in high risk areas (such as the TSS space), and monitoring classrooms and hallways during passing times (which is a time we’ve had some thefts out of backpacks).
• Should schools change approach to Black History Month? – February is Black History Month, which this year has been marked by calls from some to reconsider how the nation — and schools — mark the month. Some educators say setting aside a specific month for such lessons can lead to less integration of the topic throughout the school year. See this article from The Atlantic for the complete story. On a related note, remember that Teaching Tolerance has many quality ready-made lessons that can be used throughout the school year to teach topics on race, equity and diversity.
• 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:
February 29 (M)
Progress Monitoring – Week 9
11:30-3:30, Allan and Robin to Title 1 Principal & Coordinator Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to Nutrition Services Community Meeting (Ed Center)
March 2 (W)
Wacky Wednesday, Favorite Color Day NEA’s Read Across America
9:10-9:35, K-2 PRIDE Assembly (Gym)
9:40-10:05, 3-5 PRIDE Assembly (Gym)
10:20, Allan Meeting w/Sodexho Rep (Office)
12:00-2:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Mid-Cycle Goals Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Site Council (Staff Room) Moved to 3/9 @1:30
March 3 (H)
ELPA Testing Begins
9:00-11:30, Carla’s Class to Museum of Natural and Cultural History
2:30-3:30, Taking it Up Meeting (Staff Room)
3:00-3:30, Allan to Folding Panel Partitions Training (New Building)
March 4 (F)
8:30-1:30, Allison’s Class to Museum of Natural and Cultural History
12:20, Safety Patrol Check-In Meeting (Library)
March 7 (M)
Classified Employees Week
Women in History Week
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
March 8 (T)
International Women’s Day
7:45-1:45, Data Team Meetings (Staff Room)
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)
March 9 (W)
Fluoride Varnish in Gym
8:40-9:05, K-2 Emazing Readers Assembly (Gym) Rescheduled due to Fluoride Varnish Conflict
9:10-9:35, 3-5 Emazing Readers Assembly (Gym) Rescheduled due to Fluoride Varnish Conflict
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
4:00-5:00, North Region Principals’ Meeting (Kelly MS)
March 10 (H)
8:30-3:30 Allan, Carla, AJ to LEL Meeting (Edison)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 6)
2:30-3:30, Dr. Baldaras Visiting BEST
March 11 (F)
Book Fair Preview
March 12 (S)
9:00, Regional OBOB Competition (North Eugene HS)
March 13 (SU)
Daylight Savings Time (Spring Forward)
It was great to see so many students doing coding last week! Next year, more teachers should tell me ahead of time what you’re doing so we can try to get more media out here, because there were some pretty cool activities and presentations happening last week. One of activity landed Howard on the front of the Register Guard, which if you went to the website had a pretty nice video to go with the story.
Seventeen items of note this week:
• January 5th Workshop Sign-Up – Licensed staff, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for two workshops for the January 5th PD day when we return from winter break. See Susan Penrod’s email for details. And for classified staff, there is a training that sounds good being held this same day at Chavez 10:30-12:00 titled “Preventing and Managing Behavior Problems in Small Groups,” which is specialty designed for EAs who provide small group instruction. For both classified and licensed, to register for workshops, go to the 4J Workshops webpage.
• Fire Drill, Tuesday at 9:15 – The weather forecast looks good for holding our December Fire Drill this Tuesday at 9:15. If we’re rained out, we’ll try later in the day at a dry moment or the same time on Wednesday.
• 2nd Grade Job-Share Interviews Monday – It’s short notice, but if anyone is interested in helping with interviews for Erin’s job-share parter, Erin and I will be conducting interviews this Monday after school in the office at 2:15. Let me know if you’d like to join the interview committee.
• PTO Meeting, Tuesday at 6:00 – The December PTO meeting will be this Tuesday, 6:00-7:00 PM in the library if any staff are able to attend. There was a small turnout of regulars at the last meeting, but it’s always great if any staff besides myself can attend.
• PTO Papa’s Pizza Coupon Fundraiser – If you didn’t see it on the Howard PTO’s Facebook Page, they were selling Papa’s Pizza Coupons at the Holiday Bazaar for $15. They have 90 left and are going to allocate $5 of each sale to any teacher, support staff or fund that the purchaser would like. That is $450 of potential extra money directly to the staff this year. Feel free to promote this with your students and to tell them direct the $5 towards your class or program.
• Child Abuse/Neglect Reporting Form – We’ve sadly had to make a fair amount of reports to DHS lately, which made me think I should remind staff to make a record of your report and to share a copy with me either by email or paper. Attached is a copy of the Abuse/Neglect Reporting Form that can be found in the Mail Room filing cabinet. You can use that form or you can also write up a summary with this same information in an email or text file.
• BRING Recycling Presentations, Field Trips & Art Contest – BRING Recycling shared several things with us last week. One, they are available to do classroom presentations on a variety of sustainability and recycling topics, including food waste, composting, paper making and “Where Stuff Comes From.” Two, they are offering field trips to the Lane County Waste Management Facility (colloquially known as “The Dump”). BRING will actually pay for transportation for this field trip. Lastly, they are again holding their annual art contest for the best student made posters capturing the message REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, RETHINK and/or COMPOST. Winners are published in their calendar and Howard actually had three students make it into the 2016 Calendar!
• Safety Reminders – 4J’s Risk Manager, Randi Bowers-Payne, sent an email reminder to principals about the annual Building Safety inspections, saying there are consistently several areas needing improvement across buildings. These areas include maintaining a clear path to electrical panels, shelves needing to store the heaviest objects lowest to the ground, and remembering to lock COWs to help prevent theft. See the above email for Randi’s complete list.
• 2016-2017 EEF Grant Application Changes – This is quite a ways off, but principals and secretaries received and email from EEF saying they are chaining their application process for next school year. Instead of having staff write grants at the start of the year, when staff are especially busy, EEF is going to begin accepting applications in the spring for the following school year. On a related note, the email also stated they will be announcing this year’s grants recipients this week.
• New Building Updates – Attached are the minutes from the last Owner/Architect/General Contractor (OAC) Meeting and below are a few items of note:
• Classroom White Boards – Our TLT Leaders, Angela and Erin, were invited by Kim Ketterer last week to look a short throw projector that was installed in a mock-up classroom in the new building. They immediately noticed the white board was mounted too high (about neck height for your average kindergartner), which meant most students and quite a few staff member wouldn’t be able to reach the top of the board. A second issue with the board was the size. We thought we were getting boards that were 5 feet in height, compared to the smaller boards that were ordered. However, good news! The district is stepping up to pay for the larger boards, which will allow us to have a larger space to project onto from the short throw projector.
On a related note, we were originally planning to order a SMART brand of short throw projector, but SMART discontinued the model, so we’re instead ordering an EPSON brand of short throw projector, which will still work with all SMART Notebook files. The EPSON projector will actually project a 100 inch diagonal image, though our boards will be nowhere that big.
• File Craft Packing – It was asked last week how teachers should pack their file crates and here’s the answer. Teachers housed label on the long side, put some sort of paper/cardboard over the top (which helps keep what is inside contained), and tape it around the top and bottom (tape completely around a couple of times).
• Staff Tour, Tuesday – To end our Staff Meeting on a fun note, I can take people out to the new building this Tuesday following our meeting. There are cabinets installed in classrooms (even if they’re smaller than we wanted), walls and glass are mostly installed, the tiles we made are now up, and the yellow/blue/green wing colors are going up too, so it’s definitely starting to look like a school. If anyone would like to tour the building at 3:15ish on Tuesday following the staff meeting, please feel free to join!
• News from the Emerald Empire Reading Council – Here’s the November Newsletter from the Emerald Empire Reading Council. This month’s newsletter includes a number of workshops and information on a $100 grant for reading and writing activities (small grants are usually easier to win). If you’d like more information, visit their rad-looking website.
• Parenting Group at the Child and Family Center – A therapist at the Child and Family Center (CFC) is offering a reasonably priced, mindfulness-based parenting group for parents of children ages 2-8 years old who are experiencing behavior concerns. They will start the group in Mid-January and offer free childcare and a light dinner at each group. See the email we received and the flyer for details and contact information if there are any families you’d like to share this with.
• District Admin Updates – Linda O’Shea is the new half-time principal at Family School Elementary. Linda served and continues at half-time as the assistant principal at ATA. This mid-year modification is due to Kathy Owen’s shift in responsibilities, leaving an opening at Family School. Kathy was split between Family School and Twin Oaks, but is now full-time at Twin Oaks, though taking on additional responsibilities. The last Twin Oaks principal was the district 504 Coordinator.
• Why computer science education is “gateway to the future” – President Barack Obama has called for increased support for computer science education in US schools. In this blog post, Melissa Moritz, deputy director of STEM at the US Department of Education, shares three key reasons why computer science education is critical.
• Smarter Balanced Classroom Activity Requirement Removed for 2015-2016 – I’m on an ODE Communications email list and got an email saying that for this school year the multi-state Smarter Balanced Consortium has voted to remove the Classroom Activity as a required precursor of the Smarter Balanced performance tasks for math and ELA. I’m sure there will be further details on this coming from 4J, but if you’d like more details, see the above linked email from ODE.
• Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – With the passage of ESSA, replacing No Child Left Behind, the work in many ways is just beginning, because the new law does away with so many federal mandates and shifts control to states regarding assessment, accountability and evaluation, state legislatures will be playing a decisive role in determining how ESSA is implemented. If you want all the nitty gritty details, see this EdWeek article which offers a pretty comprehensive summary of the new legislation. And here’s an OregonLive article that includes reactions from Oregon lawmakers, which gives hints at the changes we might see in our state.
• 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:
December 14 (M)
9:30-12:10, 4th Grade Symphonic Safari Field Trip
December 15 (T)
9:15, Fire Drill
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Library)
December 16 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
December 17 (H)
No BEST
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Meeting (Room 9)
3:45-5:00, Allan to Kindergarten Teacher & Principals’ Monthly Meeting (Chavez)
December 18 (F)
Tail Feather Reward – PJ Day
No BEST
10:45-12:30, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Library)
December 21 – January 1
Winter Break
January 4 (M)
No School – Furlough Day
In District School Choice Requests Open
January 5 (T)
No School – Professional Development Day
8:00-12:00, District Professional Development Day for Elementary Teachers (Holt)
January 6 (W)
Classes Resume
Winter Benchmarking Window Opens
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (Spring Creek)
January 7 (H)
Bianca Out 1/7-1/15
January 8 (F)
Regular Day
One week until winter break when staff can turn off all those alarms on your phone reminding you to send students to groups, to start supervision or any number of things. :)
