https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=13147
Hello Holt Staff,
It was a long week, but we’re building up our stamina, right?
Twenty-seven items of note for this week:
• New Building Behavior Support Assistant, Julie Zybach – We’re pleased to announce that Julie Zybach will be our new Building Behavior Support Assistant (i.e. Behavior EA), who many of you already know from a long-term sub job last year and this year subbing for Lisa P. in Title. Julie is also a Holt parent of a 5th grader, so we have a new member of the Holt Parent/Staff Member Club. Julie’s first official day in her new position will be Wednesday and Jenny and I are working on securing another EA Sub to take over. Please welcome Julie to Team Holt!
• Wednesday PD: Shared Staff Goals Development – Wednesday at 1:30 in the library will be an optional meeting to brainstorm shared building goals teachers can cut-and-paste into TalentEd as your goals for the year if you choose. With the district push for morning meetings at the elementary level, I was thinking that could be one area of focus. We might also possibly look at some of our equity based goals on our SCIP. I’ll try to draft a few ideas ahead of the meeting to get the ball rolling, but let me know if any of you have ideas as well.
• Fire Drill, FRIDAY, @8:20 – This Friday at 8:20 will be our first Fire Dill of the year. It’s fine for teachers let students know about the drill ahead of time to do pre-teaching before it happens, since this is our first one of the year.
See the Holt Staff Handbook for complete details on Fire Drill Procedures, but highlights are:
• Students and staff clear the building, following the Evacuation Routes Map.
• Teachers should take their Emergency Binders (let me know if you do not have one).
• Classes walk single file to their marked spot at soft play/playground (see map).
• Students at specialists (PE, Music, Title, ELD, SPED, etc.) return to their homeroom teacher for attendance
• Teachers take attendance and raise their green card once all children are accounted for.
• Notify the admin or designee or of any missing/additional children in your line by raising the red card.
• Admin or designee running the drill will announce the all-clear when classes may return to the building.On a related note, I’m planning on holding a “Safety Week” the week of Oct. 30th to review all the most common safety drills.
• Dynamo Math Groups Delayed – Due to staffing issues, the start of Dynamos math groups will be delayed until late October or early November. Dynamos reading groups start:
1st-2nd grade start Tuesday, Sept. 26
3rd-5th grade start Thursday, Sept. 28
Kinder will start mid-October
• School Spirit Assembly, Sept. 29 @8:05 – We’ll have our monthly School Spirit Assembly on Friday, Sept. 28 in the gym. The assembly will start at 8:10, but all classes should be in the gym by 8:05. Stay tuned for details! The first spirit day theme will be “Ultimate Holt Spirit Day” where we encourage kids and staff to deck themselves out in Holt Colors (purple and green) or Holt Gear!
• PTO Updates – Here is the PTO Event Calendar for the year. The first big event is the Costume BINGO & Trunk-or-Treat event for Thursday, October 26th, which will take place during the Book Fair. They might also have some food trucks come. The Spring Carnival is planned for April and the Holt Bolt Jog-a-Thon will be in May (so we can better avoid fall rain or bad air quality)
• YMCA Student Roster – Not on my blog, but attached to my announcements email is a list of all the students enrolled in YMCA.
• Hispanic Heritage Month Resources – Sept. 15 – Oct. 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. Helpful resources can be found on the Library Lowdown Hispanic Heritage Month Slide, Hispanic Heritage Month Collection on Sora, Common Sense Media, and the US Gov Hispanic Heritage Month Teacher Site.
• Stop, Walk, Talk Reminder – Staff decided last spring to teach Stop, Walk, Talk for common language for kids to solve minor (non-phsycial) problems on their own. I’ll put this on a futrue Wednesday PD to review with teacher, but if people want to teacher want to review this with student earlier, we we agreed last year to use lessons 1 and 2 of the Stop, Walk, Talk Bully Prevention Lessons. Lesson 1 takes about 50 minutes and lesson 2 takes about 30 minutes. Lessons 3, 4, and 5 offer additional practice for specific situations (Gossip, Inappropriate Remarks, and Cyberbullying) if teachers would like to cover these as well.
I’m also a fan of this short Stop, Walk, Talk YouTube Video done in the style of a silent film to teach kids how to use it.
• Visitors & Volunteers – With COVID restrictions on visitors and volunteers gone, I’d asked for clarification on the current 4J Volunteer/Visitor Policy and I got the answer I was hoping for, which is that any parent, guardian, or adult coming into the building (whether a visitor or volunteer) needs to sign-in at the front office and also have completed a background check.
For volunteers, we are no longer limited to volunteering only for safety or instruction.
For visitors, a change from pre-COVID rules is we are no longer allowing the flood of parents in the morning to walk their children to class or breakfast, without first signing in at the office and having a completed background check on file.
The only exception to this is for scheduled meetings (IEP, 504, conferences, etc.) or large school events (open house, curriculum night, family night, PTO meetings, school carnivals, book fairs, etc.).
• Student Head Injury Reporting – Not new, but a reminder that 4J policy requires parent notification for all student head injuries. Linked here is the Head Injury Notification Letter and below are the steps to follow:
1. Student experiences head injury
2. Staff member completes letter and notifies guardians.
3. School nurse receives email notice of letter to guardian
4. If child is diagnosed with concussion or activity restrictions, guardians notify school.More info can be found on the 4J Students with Concussions Webpage.
• FREE White Board Easel (broken wheel) – Does anyone want a free white board easel? The only catch is it has a broken wheel, so it probably needs to be stationary for the most part.
• School Board Policy AAC: Racial Harassment – Schools are required to inform and instruct students on School Board Policy ACC – Racial Harassment. District staff are working to take the policy and turn into a kid friendly presentation for elementary schools to use with students. More info can be found on the 4J Hate & Bias Resources Webpage.
• Use 4jdesktop or Freshservice for Tech Support – Please do not grab Rob in the hallway if you need tech support. Instead, put in a ticket by emailing 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu or using the 4J Freshservice Website. This documents what all is being asked of Rob at Holt and is what determines future TSS staffing levels at our building. On a related not, Erica Bowman is taking over for Rob this week. She may not be on site as much, but if you put in a ticket, she will come out if it’s something she can’t take care of remotely from downtown.
• Raptor Alert App on Pause – For folks not at the Staff Meeting or who missed it in the minutes, principals were emailed last week that use of the Raptor Alert App is on pause to address some tech issues. I’l keep folks posted for when we’re ready to try it again.
• Raptor Alert on Personal Devices – It was asked during inservice week the rules around installing the Reptor Alert App on personal vs. school devices. Principals were told building staff can choose to add this app to their personal device, however it is not a requirement. In my opinion, the app loses most of its usefulness since staff do not carry their laptop or iPad with them at all times, and even if they did you’d lose wifi as soon as you left the building. Downtown is working on a new training for staff on Raptor Alert, so we’ll see if they address this issue or not, but I’m thinking reunification situations would most likely rely on paper/paper and not the app.
• Equity & Inclusion Administrator Draft Job Description – If you’re interested, here is the Draft Equity & Inclusion Administrator Job Description, which takes the place of SSD Admins, though Angela Crum is still the district admin for Sheldon Region.
• Kid Art for CASA of Lane County – Former Holt teacher Jacque Barton is looking for student artwork that could be used for thank you and holiday cards for CASA of Lane County. See Jacque’s Email for details, but the short version is:
Thank-You Ideas: Ocean scenes, birds, cats and dogs, family, nature, abstract, etc.
Holiday Art Ideas: Fall trees, pumpkins, scarecrows, winter scenes, snowmen, penguins, mittens, hot coco, etc.
No Pokemon, but email artwork to Jacque Barton <jacqueb@casa-lane.org> or she can pick-up them up at the office.
• 4J Air Quality Info – Downtown emailed principals the current air quality guidelines they are following. Nothing seems different than before except I noticed they said schools will provide staff with N95 masks for any staff wanting one when AQI goes over 100.
• WREN Newsletter & Workshops – The latest WREN Newsletter has several new PD opportunities for both classified and licensed staff. Most of them are virtual and most of them offer a stipend if you attend. Check them out!
• UO Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) Study – See this flyer if you’d be interested in doing a 30-60 minute Zoom interviews on DEI and then receive a $25 Amazon gift card for completing the interview.
• Holt Resource Map (add your info) – I’ll put this on a future Wednesday PD or Staff Meeting, but downtown wants all school to complete a “Resource Map” that lists licensed staff members’ degrees, endorsements, certifications, areas of expertise, etc. If you’re so inclined, add you info now to the Holt Staff Resource Map.
• SSD September Newsletter – If you are interested, here’s the September SSD Newsletter that was send to SPED teachers and principals. Lots of info in this one on info about Abbreviated School Days, meeting types, IEP timelines, mental health, and a newly created position.
• MagicSchool.ai Educator AI Tool – Here’s an educator specific AI tool called MagicSchool.ai. You can use it to help lesson plan, differentiate, write assessments, create rubrics, write IEPs, communicate clearly, and more. I tired it asking “Raina” to write a SMART Goal for elementary morning meetings and got a far better result than I did from ChatGPT.
• Repeats & Reminders – See prior announcements for details:
• TalentEd Self-Assessment & Goals – All staff, both classified and licensed staff, need to complete the Self-Assessment/reflection in TalentEd by Sept. 30.
• PBIS Common Area Rules Review – If you haven’t already, review the PBIS Common Area Rules Review Slideshow with your class.
• Principal Visits to Classrooms – Let me know a 10 minutes block of time I can come and visit sometime this month to introduce myself and read a story to your class.
• SELCO’s Educator Grants, Due 9/30 – SELCO’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grant Program offers grants up to $1,000, which are due Sept. 30th.
• Holt Spirit Gear Sale Deadline, TUESDAY – See Ashely’s Email for details, but the limited edition Holt Spirit Gear Sale ends Sept. 20.
• Team Sign-Ups – Feel free to add you name to the Team Sign-Ups Spreadsheet.
• HANDBOOK HIGHLIGHT: Inside Recess – Since we very nearly had to do inside recess last week due to poor air quality, this week’s highlight from the Holt Staff Handbook seemed timely, which is on Inside Recess. Teachers should note of posting above your door your inside recess expectations/choices for students:
Inside Recess:
Indoor recess takes place in individual classrooms under the supervision of EA personnel. Having quiet activities available to students (board games, cards, coloring materials, hopscotch, manipulatives, etc.) is important.
Expectations:
• Students may not go in the cubbies
• No electronics. This includes iPads or classroom computers
• 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 bathroom
• When the lights turn off turn and look at the adult by the door
• Classroom expectations/choices should be posted above your classroom door
• A trial plan is in place for allowing some access for under cover supervision during recesses
• 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.Supervision:
• EAs and additional staff will be assigned to hallways and classrooms for supervision
• Teachers will take inside recess as their regular break time and are not required to supervise classes
• 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 18 (M)
Dental Packets Due
8:00, Morning Announcements (Zoom) Pledge Sign-Up
9:00, Allan to Parent Meeting
2:45, Allan to 504 Plan MeetingSeptember 19 (T)
Talk Like a Pirate Day
2:45-3:30, PBIS/SEL Team Meeting (Library)September 20 (W)
7:30-8:30, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting (Zoom)
1:30-2:30, Wed. PD – Optional Staff Shared Goals Planning
7:00, School Board Meeting (Zoom)September 21 (H)
Regular DaySeptember 22 (F)
Regular DaySeptember 25 (M)
8:00, Morning Announcements Begin (Zoom) Pledge Sign-Up
3:30-5:30, Allan to Elem Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)September 26 (T)
Dynamos/Title 1st & 2nd Reading Groups Begin
5:00-6:30, Curriculum Night
⁃ 5:00-5:25, Grades K/1
⁃ 5:30-5:55, Grades 2/3
⁃ 6:00-6:25, Grades 4/5
⁃ 5:30-6:30, Pizza in the CafeteriaSeptember 27 (W)
Happy Birthday to Me!
1:30-2:30, Wed. PD – Stop, Walk, Talk ReviewSeptember 28 (H)
Dynamos/Title 3rd-5th Reading Groups Begin
Holt Night Out – DoughMo Cookies
10:15, Monday Announcer Tryouts (Reich’s Room)
2:45-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)September 29 (F)
Regular Day
And we’re three weeks away from our first four-day week, but who’s counting?
Allan
