October 28, 2013

By Allan  

Hello Fabulous Howard Staff!

It’s a short week with students, but it’ll be a busy one.

Fourteen items of note for this week:

• School Design Committee Update – The building design committee met last week with the architects to go over the “ed specs” (the specification for things like classroom size, number of gen ed and specialist classrooms and so on) for the new building, updating the specs done ten years ago for Holt and Chavez. We ended up making a dream list, so we are WAY over the square footage the district bonded for, which means we are going to have to eliminate or scale back some. We’re planning for a 600 students school, so we will have plenty of space in the short term, but we want to plan as if we will have 600 students. Regarding classroom size, everyone on the team wanted larger classrooms, but to have a larger classroom we would have to install not just two exits, but one of the exits would need to be a double door, which then becomes a costing issue. They way we discussed to get around this is to do what Holt and Chavez did with the closet areas, which count as a separate room, but to potentially make the closet spaces larger, which would then allow us to maximize the rest of the classroom space for students.

Another exciting development is that Sara Cramer and I met with Yong Zhao last week, the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education at the UO College of Education, who is interested in working with Howard on creating a highly innovative school to support cutting edge learning. If you’re not familiar with his work, Zhao an internationally known out-of-the-box thinker who wrote Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization and World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students.

Lastly, don’t forget about the Howard School Design Pinterest page to share, comment, like or otherwise weigh in on ideas shared there. To add to the page yourself, just “Follow” the page and then I can give you access to post (that or you can just email me links, photos or videos to post).

• Updated Halloween Parade Directions & Map – 4/5 teachers and I have updated the parade plans. We’ll now start 15 minutes earlier at 1:15 and will do the Thriller flash mob on the playground instead of the gym. See the attached map and directions for details.

• Friday at 4:00 Next Week, Nov. 8th – I think we need to have some fun after conferences and all the other the craziness of the school year, so let’s plan to have a Friday at 4:00 next week. Location is TBA, but what do people think of going to Level Up for a mix of adult beverages and retro video games? I’m, of course, open to other suggestions, so please weigh in with your location of choice.

• Friday, November 1st Classified Staff Expectations – Similar to State Inservice Day, Friday, Nov. 1st is a regular work day for Classified Staff, but is not a work day for licensed staff who worked extended hours for conferences. Since there will be no students or teachers in the building this day, I would encourage classified staff who have comp time coming to use it this day. If you are planning to work on Friday, please connect with your primary cooperating teacher on how best to help out this day.

• TalentEd System Update – HR has said that TalentEd will be down through the end of the month, so don’t attempt to enter anything into the system because it may not get saved. Attached is the email principals received from HR, but it mainly just says for teachers to continue doing the steps in the Effectiveness and Growth System and to not worry about the deadlines since we can’t document anything in TalentEd right now.

• Howard Handbook and District Mandatory Policy Forms – This is the last reminder for anyone who has not already turned in your acknowledgment form (district and building) for the Annual District Policy Memo and the Howard Staff Handbook. Please turn them in to the office by the end of the week or else I’ll be visiting you in person next week!

• Annual Hazardous Weather Conditions Memo – Attached is the 2013-14 Hazardous Weather Conditions memo from downtown. The short version is that there will be no announcement from the district unless school is delayed or cancelled and that unless you are the lead custodian, you do not need to report to work if school is cancelled. Also, you can sign-up for a text message alert if there are school cancellations by going here.

• IEP Meeting Compensation – Since quite a few IEP meetings are happening now, I wanted to remind teachers that the EEA contract entitles classroom teachers to be compensated for up to four hours additional pay for attending IEP meetings. The “Non-ESS Licensed IEP Time Log” form can be found on the HR Forms section of the 4J website, though the document posted appear to have last year’s dates. In any case, I wanted to remind teachers to keep track of the dates and times you are in these meeting.

• Feed Hope Food Boxes – Howard is working with Feed Hope, an organization who would like to coordinate with our school community to provide food boxes for 50 families over winter and spring break. Feed Hope is a partnership between community groups, business and organizations who want to invest in our community and one of their board members is a Howard kindergarten parent. Lori is putting together a preliminary list of families, but if staff know of families who would benefit from food boxes, please email Lori their names so we don’t miss anyone.

• Oregon Humane Society Poster & Story Contest – The Oregon Humane Society is holding their 65th annual Be Kind to Animals poster and story contest. Each year students in Oregon are invited to either create a poster or write a short story portraying a part of the Oregon Humane Society’s mission. The deadline for entries is entries is March 19, 2014. Follow this link for details if this is something you’d like to do with your students.

• Teaching Tolerance Lesson on Stopping Halloween Stereotypes – Teachers are in a great position to show students that costume fun shouldn’t supersede respect. The Teaching Tolerance lesson “What Do Halloween Costumes Say?” is a good, simple activity if this is a topic you’re interesting in doing with your class.

• What it means to be a connected teacher – As part of Connected Educators Month, I shared an article last week how connected educators (those who use Edmodo, Facebook, Pinterest or other sites to connect with experts outside of their own schools) will stand out from their peers, and this week I wanted to share an article discussing three truths about connected educators. The author writes that teachers who use social media for professional purposes crave collaboration, are life-long learners and desire new ways of thinking. She suggests several ways to become connected, such as joining conversations on Twitter.

• The Leaf Rakers – Here is a student story called The Leaf Rakers that one could use to initiate a conversation with students on bias and interrupting racism. This short story is in this month’s issue of the Teaching Tolerance magazine. This story could be used in a CFK class meeting or as a 4th or 5th grade reading activity.

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

October 28 (M)
Reading Progress Monitoring Week 3
8:00-8:00, All-day Conferences – No Students (PTO provide dinner at 5:00)
8:00-10:00, Allan meeting with Sara Cramer (Office)

October 29 (T)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 4)
3:00-5:00, Howard Design Team Meeting

October 30 (W)
2:00-3:00, Allan to Principal Goals Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-8:00, Evening Conferences (PTO provide dinner at 5:00)

October 31 (H)
Halloween!
10:15-10:30, Allan Reading to Class
1:15-2:00, Halloween Parade

October 25 (F)
Conferences Comp Day for Licensed Staff Doing Conference
Regular Workday for Classified Staff

And now, enjoy the 1977 classic “Halloween is Grinch Night,” written by Dr. Seuss himself. One interesting note of trivia, out of the three Grinch TV Specials, this is the only one where the Grinch does not become good at the end. Have a spooky week everyone!

Allan

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygSEkwRCQPM[/youtube]