https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=10262
Greetings Bolts,
We made it through the first week and the internet at school even seemed to be stable (even if we were not). Hooray!
Sixteen items of note for this week:
• Blue/Green/Applied Time & Slow Rollout Notes – I emailed staff last week with some Green Time Clarifications, to make sure everyone is one the same page, and Brooke emailed teacher about the Week #2 Slow Rollout. A few items of note:
• Wednesday Schedule After this Week – For the rest of the year on Wednesdays, classroom teachers will teach 65-minutes of blue time (30-minutes SEL, 5-minute break, and 30-minutes small group). There are no green time asynchronous lessons this week, but there will be asynchronous lessons provided for green time starting next week. This was not made clear on the slow rollout schedule, so this is new information for most of us.
• Recommendation for Wednesday Green Lessons – Create routine activities kids can do independently. For example, for reading, have them read or listen to the story of the week and do an activity or have them record passage for fluency practice. For math, work from the lesson the day before with additional practice. Create a routine for Wednesdays that works within your lesson sequence and can be repeated each week.
• Video Recording Lessons? NO – This is still being negotiated, but at this time teachers should not record their lessons in a way where students can be seen, heard, or called by name.
• Applied Learning Time – This is time for students to practice their skills and learning. These are activities kids do on their own and do not submit to the teacher for feedback. Examples would be independent reading, Dreambox, math games, choice boards, or choice projects These activities are not “homework.” They are additional practice activities to be done on students’ own schedules.
• Teacher Office Hours (slow rollout) – The current expectation from downtown for office hours to have 30-minutes per day of office hours that you’ve communicated to families for when you are available (by phone, Zoom, or email) beginning this week. Office hours are not listed on the Slow Rollout schedule for this week, so teachers should identify their 30-minute time blocks. Wednesdays have also not been figured out by downtown yet for the morning or eventing office hour times, so for now just make sure your grade level team is all doing something similar. We’ll discuss this more at Tuesday’s Staff Meeting.
• PE/Music Schedule Updates – Two updates:
• Synchronous Times Now Earlier – The PE/Music Schedule was adjusted last week when it was noticed the live synchronous afternoon times were from an older version of the district schedule. The time change was so PE and Music specialists can participate in afternoon meetings.
• SEL Times – A couple teachers asked if they’ll see Alex and Tim each week during SEL or just one and then the other the following week? It’s the latter. Tim and Alex are flip flopping A and B weeks, so teachers will see them individually every other week.
• Leadership Plan Survey – Leadership Plan development can be an uncomfortable discussion for staff, since there are always more duties than there are days/slots to compensate, along with having to decide which extra duties are worth more days than others, so I’ve created a Leadership Plan Survey for licensed staff to give more anonymous of feedback. Please complete the survey by the end of the week. I’ll share an overview of the results at the October 6th Staff Meeting, which will help guide our process for creating this year’s plan. For your reference, linked here is the 2019-2020 Holt Leadership Plan.
• easyCBM Updates – Two updates regarding fall benchmarking:
• No Testing this Week (possibly next week too) – With downtown unexpectedly pulling the plug on testing this week (except for students with an IEP), I don’t want to create more work to staff by saying we’re definitely starting test next week, only to have that sudden change. After attending the Friday training on Administering easyCBM through Zoom, there are still quite a few questions yet to be answered. Linked here is the current easyCBM Guidance given principals on Thursday, which does have testing starting next week. Downtown is holding additional easyCBM Administration trainings this week, so stay tuned whether we’ll start testing next week or not, but right now I lean toward waiting another week until things look more solid.
• District Support Coming – Oscar Loureiro, Director of Research and Planning, emailed principals they are creating a plan to provide support to schools, maybe creating support teams that will move from school to school over time. As an example, all the trial testing they have been doing has shown them the importance of having at least two staff members in the zoom call when administering the assessment.
• Title 1 EA Interviews, Thursday @12:30 – This weekend I’m finishing up candidate screening for our Title 1 EA vacancies, all 72 of them (there is some overlap between the two postings, but that’s a solid pool of candidates!). We will hold interviews this Thursday, 12:30-4:00. Interviews will be in-person in the school garden area (weather permitting). I’ve heard from a couple people already, but please let me know if you’d like to volunteer your time to help select our newest Holt Bolts!
• New Bolts Start this Week! – Announced earlier, our newest staff members, Gloria Speasl, our Essential Skills Coordinator, is starting Monday, and Kim McManus, our Student Success Coordinator starts this Wednesday. They will both be working out of Room A02. Please welcome Kim and Gloria to Team Holt!
• Optional Building SMART Goals Meeting, Wednesday @3:00 – Teachers are, of course, welcome to create your own goals, but there was interest in having an optional shared building goal focused around the year’s already planned PD activities (which is still vague, but I have a general idea), so this Wednesday at 3:00 in the Library and Zoom (I think we’d be a small enough group we can socially distance in the library) will be an optional meeting to discuss potential building wide SMART Goals. For your reference, link here is the Shared Building SMART Goals I offered staff last year (updated with Holt logos), which allowed classroom teachers (and specialists too if they adapted the goals a bit) to cut-and-paste into each section of the TalentEd Goal Form.
• Student Supplies Distribution, Thursday & Friday? – There’s a possibility we’ll be allowed to distribute student supplies this Thursday and Friday. We’d likely do something similar to what we did at iPad Distribution. However, downtown has not made a decision on this yet, so stand by for details if we’ll be allowed. I’ve created a Wednesday Supply Bagging Sign-Up Google Sheet in case we are able to pass out supplies. We haven’t received any of the supplies yet from the warehouse, but I imagine we’ll have them by Wednesday. I create an additional sign-up sheet for distribution one I get parameters on how that will work. For additional supplies grade levels want to distribute, I will set out boxes for each grade in the hallway along the front entrance. Journeys student textbooks are allowed to be sent home (although I heard a rumor they might instead put together consumable packets). If your grade level is short textbooks, let me know and I’ll contact Chelsea, the ELA TOSA. For math, downtown is putting together LearnZillion packets that match up with the priority standards.
This round of supplies is pretty basic (see earlier email), but downtown is planning a second round with more comprehensive of student supplies (see newer email) for K/1, 2/3, and 4/5. Downtown is also talking about holding some sort of regular, possibly monthly, distribution of supplies, but details are still being decided on that as well.
• EA Laptops – James Emailed EAs earlier, but if you have borrowed a laptop from the testing COW without putting in a ticket, please email James at 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu and he will get you officially set up.
• EEF Grant Proposals Due Oct. 7 – Everyone received an email that EEF is now accepting grants, so Holt grants need to be given to me by Wednesday, October 7th for Site Council to rank order our grant submissions. I don’t need the grant completely written out, but if you can give me a title and general description of the grant, that’s enough for us to rank order them. Linked here is the 2020-2021 EEF Grant Application Announcement & Application. They changed the working, but I believe we can submit up to five grants in any amount up to $5,000. EEF this year puts a higher priority on requests that support equity, diversity, and inclusion; student engagement; and/or access to education. Let me know if you have any questions, want to bounce ideas off of someone, or would like help writing a grant. Later this year there will be a second round of EEF Grant applications that will be due January 8th.
EEF is also accepting “Urgent Request Applications” throughout the year on a rolling basis that support urgent needs related to COVID or Comprehensive Distance Learning, and are unplanned needs that cannot wait for the standard application review period. Applications submitted as Urgent Requests will be evaluated within 5 business days.
Application guidelines, funding priorities, and FAQs are located at the above web address. Please read through them before submitting to me your grant for Site Council consideration, as there are changes from prior years.
• SELCO’s SPARK! Educator Grants – SELCO’s grant cycle typically opens mid-August, but they pushed back the application window by a month. SELCO is offering educator grants of up to $1,000 to help bring creative classroom ideas to life. Applications are open September 15–October 31. Visit the SPARK! Creative Learning Grants webpage for details and how to apply. SELCO is usually pretty generous in awarding most grant applications, so be sure to check this one out!
• New referrals for SPED evaluations? – Linked here is a Short SSD Document that may give you ideas about how to respond to parents (or staff) about the appropriateness of referring a student for special education during this pandemic-tinged school year.
• Collaboration Log NEW SLIDESHOW! – SSD made an Updated Collaboration Log Slideshow if you’re interested. Expectations are still the same as what I shared earlier, but this new slideshow provides some additional details and explanation why we are doing this (mostly due to ODE requirements).
• Wraparound Smore Newsletter Update – Maria Covernali, the 4J Wraparound Coordinator, shared the latest Wraparound Smore Newsletter. She made some updates to include tutoring and childcare resources she just learned about. Feel free to pass along this blog or any of these resources to families.
• 3 Keys to Effective Instructional Videos – When using videos with students, remember that we actually need to teach students to use instructional videos. See this Teacher2Teacher Article to read what one educator learned last spring for making instructional videos effective during distance learning. The short version is to keep videos six minutes or shorter and super focused on the learning target, take full advantage of tools that enable you to check whether students are still with you, and ask questions aloud in the video to help kids learn that they need to actually listen to you speak.
• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Holt Staff Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
September 28 (M)
4:00-5:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Zoom)September 29 (T)
3:00-4:00, Staff Meeting (Gym & Zoom)September 30 (W)
3:00-4:00, Optional Building SMART Goals Meeting (Library & Zoom)October 1 (H)
12:30-4:00, Title 1 EA Interviews (School Garden)October 2 (F)
Custodian Appreciation DayOctober 5 (M)
Regular DayOctober 6 (T)
3:00-4:00, Staff Meeting (Gym & Zoom)October 7 (W)
Regular DayOctober 8 (H)
5:00-6:00, Site Council (School Garden & Zoom)
6:00-7:00, PAHS Meeting (School Garden & Zoom)October 9 (F)
No School — Statewide In-Service Day
Hey, this first week went way smoother than expected!
Keep on Truckin’
Allan
