March 4, 2013

By Allan 　

Hello Howard Staff,

Monday, March 4th through Friday, March 8th marks the celebration of Classified Employees Appreciation Week!. Contributions by classified staff to our school, students and families are immeasurable! Our school would not be able to operate if it were not for the invaluable contributions and tireless efforts of our classified staff. Thank you all for making our school the wonderful place it is for our students! We couldn’t do it without you!

Nine items of note for this week:

• Sara Cramer Visit to Howard, Mon. 8:00-12:00 – Sara Cramer was originally scheduled to visit in December, but was unable to make that date, so she is rescheduled for this Monday. She is meeting with all of the elementary principals to review our school improvement plan, master schedule, student achievement data and specifically students who are struggling. She and I will then shadow one of those students for approximately 60-90 minutes in order to see things from the student perspective.

• Handwriting Compliment from Kelly MS – I received an email from Barb Whitlock at Kelly MS saying she’s really seen a real difference in Howard 6th graders’ handwriting this year and wanted to thank staff for your efforts.

Allan, I just wanted to complement your staff on the work they have been doing with the handwriting curriculum. This is the first year at Kelly that we have been able to see the fruit of their labors and it is wonderful to have more students with legible handwriting.

Thanks so much,
Barb

• Friday @ 4:00 at The Bridge! – I said I’d reschedule a Friday at 4:00, so anyone looking to blow off some steam and have a good time, plan to meet up at The Bridge (on Franklin across from Matt Knight Arena) this Friday at 4:00. See you there!

• PBIS Focus: Safe Bodies – It’s a new month and the March PBIS focus is Safe Bodies. Remember the PBIS team created a handy PBIS/CFK cheat-sheet that matches our monthly themes with Class Meeting lessons from the Caring for Kids curriculum. The lessons on Bullying and Arguing & Fighting are pretty good matches for this month’s theme.

• OBOB Regional Competition this Saturday! – Come cheer on the “Ninja Spider Monkeys,” Howard’s team for the annual Oregon Battle of the Books competition, this Saturday at North Eugene High School! The opening assembly will start at 9:30 if you’d like to join me in cheering on our team! Also, if any of you are interested in moderating, I think they are still looking for moderators for the preliminary round of battles. It’s pretty fun. I did it last year and am doing it again this Saturday.

• April 1st and 12th PD & Planning Days – It’s hard to believe Spring Break is only three weeks away, but to remind staff how these days will work, here is the schedule for April 1st and April 12th. It’s a regular work day for classified staff, but will be the following for certified staff.

For April 1, the schedule is as follows:

3.5 hours — professional development (Caring for Kids activity led by Carla & Allan)
0.5 hours — lunch
2.0  hours — individual, contractually guaranteed planning
2.0 hours — budget reduction time

For April 12, the schedule is as follows:

4.0 hours — planning time
4.0 hours — budget reduction time

• March Title 1 Blog – Here’s the latest blog post from Suzy Price with happenings in Title 1 and also a number of links to various resources and articles, including one on “15 Of The Best Educational Apps For Improved Reading Comprehension.”

• Essay contest on interviewing an older adult – The Legacy Project’s national “Listen to a Life” Contest is inviting students to submit a 300-word essay by March 22nd. The prize is a new computer. It’s for students 8-18, but the rules state the judges will take into account the age of the entrant in evaluating entries.

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

March 4 (M)
PBIS Monthly Focus: Safe Bodies
ELPA Testing (ELD Student Only)
8:00-12:00, Sara Camer Visit to Howard
1:45-2:30, BEST Principals Meeting
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals Meeting (Ed Center)

March. 5 (T)
8:00-4:00, Allan to All Principals Training with Jon Saphier (Ed Center)
11:00-2:00, 3rd Grade UO Baseball Field Trip
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 10)

March 6 (W)
7:45-11:15, Data Team Meeting (Room 12)
4:00-6:00, Wednesday Forum with Jon Saphier
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals Meeting (NEHS)
7:00-9:00, Allan to School Board Presentation for CFK Pilot School Report (Ed Center)

March 7 (H)
9:00-11:00 Allan to Superintendent’s Cabinet Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 6)

March 8 (F)
9:00-10:00, Dance Africa Assembly
10:00-10:30, Book Drawing Winners
4:00, Friday at 4:00 at The Bridge

March 9 (S)
9:30, OBOB Regional Competition (NEHS)

Have a great, everyone!

Allan

This entry was written by Allan, posted on March 2, 2013 at 6:05 pm, filed under Announcements, Articles, Caring for Kids, P.D., Technology. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.