https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=10723
Hi Everyone,
Kids are finally coming back into the building this week. Guess that means it’s time to put away my “work slippers” and get out my principal ties.
Eight items of note for this week (though the second one is a long one):
• Staffing Updates – Three staffing updates
• Recess/Title 1 EAs – Please welcome Lisa Phillips and Kelly Stapp as our two newest EAs. Lisa and Kelly interviewed for Ben’s old position, but we had enough funds left in our Title 1 budget to hire two new staff members. Lisa comes to us from Utah where she worked as a Title 1 EA and is currently in the process of getting her teaching degree. Lisa is also a new Holt parent this school year. Kelly comes to us from Redmond, OR where she was a Title 1 EA for almost 10 years before moving to the Eugene area. Please welcome Kelly and Lisa to Team Holt!
• Hybrid EA – None of our Hybrid EA candidates worked out, so we’re back to the drawing board. However, I’m wheeling and dealing with HR to get a reliable sub into the position who was not in the original candidate pool, so hopefully I’ll have something to good announce next week.
• 21/22 Secretary Staffing – One bit of upsetting news, which I’m not done pushing back on downtown yet, is that HR informed me they are not staffing Holt with two secretaries next year. Their rationale is this is an equity issue concerning other large elementary schools who only have one secretary. I’d agree this is an equity issues, but there seems to be some even more gross inequities when every middle school gets a program staffed secretary and registrar, when a majority of 4J middle schools are smaller than Holt. Size of school should really determine whether a school gets additional office staff program staffed. I’m not sure I’ll be able to win they battle, but I’m certainly going to try.
• Hybrid Updates – Several Hybrid related items of note:• Holt Hybrid & SSO Handbook – Linked here is the Holt Hybrid & SSO Handbook. I don’t expect staff to read this cover-to-cover, but use this as a reference guide if you need to look up something specific. There is no new information in the above plan, outside of the items listed below. It’s really just a consolidation of all the emails, slide shows, meeting minutes, district videos, and various docs that have been shared over the past few months. Let me know if something is missing or wrong or if you have questions on anything.
• Snacks for Grade 2-5 Orientation – Nutrition Services is not providing snacks for the K/1 Orientation this week, but they will provide snacks for the grade 2-5 orientations. Deb said she would bag up a snack to simulate the morning breakfast pick-up when studnets first enter the building and which students can practice the meal protocols in their classroom later.
• Attendance/Contact Tracing – Student attendance is now less about tracking attendance and more about contact tracing. Classroom teachers will meet students at classroom door to complete the Visual Screener, looking for student symptoms of COVID.
• Unusual color
• Unusual behavior (behavior change, lethargy, unusual fatigue)
• New or significant coughing
• Respiratory symptoms not typical for student (noisy breathing, voice changes, nasal dripping)
• Shortness of breath
• Chills (shivering, teeth, goosebumps)
• Appearing ill (sweating, sunken eyes)
• VomitingTeachers will then ask ALL students the following two questions:
• Are you feeling okay?
• Have you felt anything that’s different for you in the last few days?If students answer yes to either question, they are to be escorted by an adult to the office. Call the office if you need assistance.
Classroom teachers are expected to take attendance daily before 8:10. The district is working on logistic if this will be done through Synergy, paper/pencil, email, or other means.
• Routine Cleaning by Teachers – Teachers are responsible for spot cleaning throughout the day within the classroom. This includes items or objects students or adults touch that will then be handled by others, such as shared items or any object students touch that shouldn’t be touched. Teachers will also need to spray down student desks and wipe them down after meals. All classrooms will have disinfectant spray, rags, and “Tech Wipes” for teacher use (not for student use). Place dirty rags on the lip of your garbage can and a clean rag will be left for you near your sink.
• Outside Recess Protocols (UPDATED) – Students will get a daily 30-minute recess with their cohort group. Students are allowed to play all the usual playground games that allow for 6-feet distance (4-Square, Horse, Hopscotch, etc.), minus those where they would come within 6-feet of one another (i.e. soccer, basketball, tag, etc.). Masks will continue to be worn at all times.
Before Recess: Teachers will walk students from the building to either the soft play or hard play if it is their day in that area. Students are released once EAs signal readiness.
During Recess: One grade level will be assigned to soft play and the other to hard play. The next day, the grade levels will rotate.
Restrooms: If a student needs to use the restroom, they will use their wing’s designated entrance/exit and will use their designated cohort restroom.
Equipment: Each cohort will have their own set of balls, jump ropes, hula hoops, etc. which will be sprayed down nightly.
End of Recess: At the end of recess, students on hard play will line up on the tic marks. Students on the soft play will line up on their own sidewalk (up front next to the fence by the parking lot, middle by the tether balls, and next to fence by the buddy bench). Bolts will be painted on the ground where students will stand. Teachers will meet their class to walk them into the building, maintaining 6-feet distance.
All classes need to have an assigned line for the end of recess times. Please work with the teachers/grades to assign class to lines. Consider flow, entrance to buildings, etc. when determining lines. A copy should be given to the office so that supervision staff can be informed.
• Inside Recess – Each class must be supervised by an adult. An indoor recess supervision schedule will be drafted. Students must remain 6-feet apart. Students should not share items. Electronics are allowed.
• Students may not go in the cubbies
• Students should choose a seated activity
• Games and activities should be provided and taught
• Students must stay in their own classroom
• Permission is needed by supervision staff to use the restroom
• When the lights turn off turn and look at the adult by the door
• Classroom expectations/choices should be posted above your classroom door
• In the future we may allow some access for under cover supervision
• Classroom teachers will have expectations in Guest Teacher binder and post on the wall (near or above the door) what room expectations are.
• All certified staff will teach their students what appropriate activities are prior to the first indoor recess.• Hybrid Meals (Breakfast & Lunch) Process – All students will be provided with a free breakfast and lunch, which they will eat in their classrooms. Students will eat meals at their desks and are allowed to remove their masks while eating. All meals are supervised by their classroom teacher.
Breakfast: Students will receive a bagged breakfast upon entry at their designated entrance.
Lunch: Lunches will be delivered to classrooms on a rolling cart. There will be a box of cold food (milk, fruits, veggie, etc.) and a warmer-bag of the individually packaged hot food (bagged pizza, hamburger, burrito, etc). The teacher will hand students one of each bag.
Extra Food: If there are extra breakfast or lunch bags, these may be given to students to take home. However, do not send home any hot items from breakfast, since that will go past their 4-hour lifespan.
Home Lunches: It’s encouraged that students eat food provided by the school but if students bring food from home, students should be able to open containers and bottles without staff assistance. Of course, we won’t allow a student to not eat because they can’t open their food and we can step in and help but we will want to follow up with the family to ensure they practice with their child so we don’t make a practice of touching students’ food/containers. Home lunches need to be nut-free.
• Lost & Found Cohort A & B – We will have two separate lost and found racks. One will be out for Cohort A on Mondays and Tuesday. The other will be out for Cohort B on Thursdays and Fridays. Custodial staff will move the lost and found racks between cohorts.
• Transportation Update – The Transportation Department has contacted all K-1 families eligible for bussing and will soon reach out to grade 2-5 families. The number of students allowed on buses is limited this year, so the Transportation Department is wanting to know who is riding the bus and who is getting to school by another method. Health and safety measures for riding the bus will be:
• Students will receive a visual screening before entering the bus
• Seats by the driver will be reserved for ill students and the school will be contacted
• Green dots will be marking places for students to sit. They are staggered left to right and on each row of seats.
• Drivers will assign a seat to each student
• Students will wear face coverings while on the bus.
• Students may not eat while on the bus.
• Drivers will use windows, fans, and roof vents to increase ventilation.• REMINDER: IEP/504 Collaboration Log (UPDATED – Left of Unit Info) – The IEP/504 Collaboration Logs are to be completed each Monday by 5:00pm for the previous week of lessons or at the end of a unt. This has been the same all year and will continue into hybrid. You will complete a separate entry each week or unit for reading, writing and math instruction (for the entire week or unit, not for each daily lesson). One response is required for each content area you teach in which students with disabilities are receiving specially designed instruction or 504 accommodations. If you do not have any students with a 504 or IEP related to reading, writing, or math, you do not need to complete this form. Linked here is an SSD Slide Show w/Voiceover on this topic.
504 Documentation – Since 504 Plans are typically not content area specific, if a teacher completed at least one log entry for a student with an IEP in any content area, that will cover the requirement for students with a 504 Plan.
Social Skills Only IEP Goals – If classroom teachers are delivering the Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) to meet social skills goals, they would fill out the log form, but in most cases it is SPED staff delivering social skills instruction and they will be the ones documenting this SDI on their own log.
Grade Level Content Specializing? – If one teacher at a grade level is creating the math lessons for the entire grade level, they can also fill out the log for their entire grade level IF (and this is a big IF), all of the teachers at that grade level are proving the same accommodations (since IEP accommodations can vary widely).
• Contact Tracing and Attestation Google Forms – I will cover this at Tuesday’s Staff Meeting, but if you want a preview, downtown is going to reactivate staff badges to work at all entrances. Swiping your badge will take the place of the paper/pencil sign-in we’re currently doing for contact tracing. For this switchover to happen, all staff will need to complete two Google Forms. One, the COVID-19 Attestation: Daily Screening and Reporting Requirements for Reporting to the Worksite form, and two, the Eugene School District 4J Contact Tracing form. Once all staff have submitted their forms, I will notify downtown, who will activate all of our building’s card reader access pads.
• Monday Mailer Pause – Leadership discussed continuing to primarily use digital communication over using paper. This is for reasons of being a green school, trying to avoid germ transmissions, and also making sure families during hybrid all get the same information at the same time, since we’d have to end up with Monday and Thursday Mailers for each cohort. There will be families with extenuating circumstances where will need to do paper communication, though that should for exceptions and not a family preference. We want families to get used to digital communication.
• Hybrid Master Schedule – Survey feedback on the hybrid schedule was generally supportive, ranging from I can live it (a 3) to it’s the greatest thing ever (a 5) and no 1s or 2s. After discussing with the Leadership Team, we are going to move forward with the Holt Hybrid Schedule. The schedule should be up to date, but let me know if you spot any mistakes or something that needs tweaking.
• Schedule the Next 4 Weeks – Will all the calendar changes, here’s the current plan:
Week of March 15: Kids shift into their new classes but nothing else changes. CDL schedule stays the same. K/1 zooms for blue time and does orientation events. 2nd-5th zoom as a whole group in their new class using the current CDL schedule. Interventionists continue to provide services.
March 22-26: Spring Break
Week of March 29: K/1 shifts into their cohorts and begins following the new hybrid/SSO schedule. 2nd-5th stay in their whole groups and continue to follow the CDL schedule, but each grade has an assigned day where they will do an in-person orientation (no optional Zoom orientation is required, as is for K/1). Grade levels DO NOT have any synchronous time on their orientation day. K-5 groups are canceled this week.
Week of April 5: 2nd-5th shift into their cohorts and begin following the new hybrid/SSO schedule.
• Synergy Rollover – The new hybrid cohort sections became “real” in Synergy Friday night. The SIS staff will be end-dating student class enrollments in the original homeroom sections. That should cause those original classes to drop out of Clever and probably anything that pulls data from Clever. The new cohort sections should be available in Clever as of Saturday. It may take a day or two (or three) for them to find their way into the other online applications that roster from Clever, depending on how often a vendor pulls data.
• Food Box Deliveries – Weekly food box deliveries will continue through the end of the year. Location for pick-up may change. If you become aware of a family needing food assistance, please contact Darla.
• Purell Professional Disinfectant Spray Product Literature – If you’re interest, linked here is an Email and Product Information for the replacement disinfectant products coming to schools. The Oxivir Five-16 Disinfectant spray bottles currently in classrooms will be replaced by Purell Professional Disinfectant Spray and the bottles in restrooms will be replaced by Oxivir Tb Wipes. Directions on using these products are in the above link, but will also be delivered to classrooms when you get your new products.
• Welcome Back Bolts Video – Here’s a short video covering some of the protocols we’ll follow when student return to in-person learning in the coming weeks:
• Erin’s Law & Second Step Child Protection Unit – Even though we are in CDL, the state still requires we cover the child safety lessons required by Erin’s Law. 4J uses the Second Step Child Protection Unit to meet this requirement. For each grade level, there are six lessons, which are to be covered at three points in the school year. The recommendation is to teach lessons 1-4 in the fall, lesson 5 right before spring break, and lesson 6 right before summer break.
I’m not sure if each teacher has a copy of your grade level’s Child Protection Unit and since CDL makes sharing more difficult, I’ve posted scanned versions of Child Protection Unit in the Staff Google Drive. Holt Staff Documents > Curriculum/Instruction > Social Emotional Learning (SEL) > Second Step
• Changes to the Staffing Timeline – As an FYI, this year’s Staffing Timeline was revised. The main impact for elementary is the Job Expo dates got moved back a week.
• Single Desk Samples – I went over the Edison to check out the furniture samples they had. There were a couple single desks that kind of worked with Holt’s extra wide chairs. Below are a few pictures. School Specialty is getting me a quote on these to make sure they’re in our price range and will then bring us some physical samples for staff can check out. Ignore the wheels on the one desk. We’d get them without wheels. Also, desks come with different styles of book boxes; clear plastic, solid colored plastic, wire basket, or no basket.
• REPEAT: 2021 ACE Award Nominations – How about nominating a fellow Bolt! Nominations can be made in three categories: teachers and licensed specialists, administrators and supervisors, and classified staff. Nominations are due by April 15th. Linked here is the ACE Awards Email and the ACE Awards Nomination webpage.
• Mars landing engineer is Jaime Escalante’s former student – Here’s a cool inspirational education story. Decades before leading a team of more than 100 engineers responsible for The Perseverance Rover that landed on Mars recently, East L.A. native Sergio Valdez was a student of none other than Jaime Escalante at Garfield High. In case you’re too young to remember or so old you forgot, Escalante was such a bad-ass math teacher that they made a movie about him in the ’80s called Stand and Deliver. Guess he’s still got it.
• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Holt Staff Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
March 15 (M)
K/1 Distance learning ends for K/1 Orientation Week
Grades 2-5 shift to hybrid class lists, continue following CDL schedule
12:00-1:00, Kindergarten Orientation
2:00-3:00, Kindergarten Orientation
2:00-3:00, 1st Grade Orientation
1:30-3:30, Allan to Elem Principals’ Meeting (Zoom) & KG Orientation
3:15-4:15, 1st Grade Orientation
4:00-5:00, Allan to Admin Meeting (Zoom)March 16 (T)
12:00-1:00, Kindergarten Orientation
1:00-2:00, 1st Grade Orientation
2:00-3:00, Kindergarten Orientation
3:00-4:00, Staff Meeting (Zoom)March 17 (W)
St Patrick’s Day
9:00-9:45, Virtual Coffee w/the Principal (Zoom)
10:00, Allan to Title 1 Budget Meeting (Zoom)
12:00-3:00, Bolt Stencil Party (Playground and Sidewalks)
4:00-5:00, Allan to BusinessPLUS Training March (Zoom)
4:30, Poetry Club w/Ms. Katharine (Zoom)March 18 (H)
12:00-1:00, Kindergarten Orientation
2:00-3:00, Kindergarten Orientation
2:00-3:00, 1st Grade Orientation
3:00-4:00, Allan to SSD Elem SPED Meeting (Zoom) & 1st Orientation
3:15-4:15, 1st Grade OrientationMarch 19 (F)
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Board Meeting (Zoom)
10:45-2:00, Food Box Distribution (Cafeteria)
12:00-1:15, Lunch Bunch – KG 12:00, 3/4 12:20, 1/2 12:40, 5th 1:00 (Zoom)
1:00-2:00, 1st Grade OrientationMarch 22-26
SPRING BREAK!March 29 (M)
K/1 Begins Full Hybrid
Grades 2-5 Orientation Week & continue hybrid classes on CDL schedule
2nd Grade Orientation Day (No Zoom this day)
1:30-3:30, Allan to Elem Principals’ Meeting (Zoom)
5:30-6:00, This Week in Sports w/Mr. Cole (Zoom)March 30 (T)
3rd Grade Orientation Day (No Zoom this Day)
3:00-4:00, PBIS Meeting (Zoom)March 31 (W)
2:40-4:00, PD/PLC Time – SEL – Trauma Informed Module #3 (Library & Zoom)
4:30, Poetry Club w/Ms. Katharine (Zoom)April 1 (H)
4th Grade Orientation Day (No Zoom this Day)
3:00-4:00, Allan to SSD Elem SPED Meeting (Zoom)April 2 (F)
5th Grade Orientation Day (No Zoom this Day)April 5 (M)
All Grades in Full HybridIt’s the first day of school again the last third of the year.
Ready or not, here they come!
Allan
