November 4, 2013

By Allan  

Hi Everyone,

I hope you all had a fun Halloween and had a good weekend. Last week was incredibly busy, but it was also a pretty fun one. It was great getting staff all together for dinners during conferences and our big Halloween festivities on Thursday were also a lot of fun!

Ten items of note for this week:

• Thanksgiving Classroom Reminder – This is a repeat from last year, but with Thanksgiving coming up I wanted to remind staff to keep in mind that student conceptions of Native Americans often come from classroom activities around the First Thanksgiving. The conception of Native Americans gained from such early exposure is often both inaccurate and potentially damaging. When planning activities, be aware that what most of us learned in school about the “Pilgrims” and “Squanto” and the “First Thanksgiving” is a mixture of both history and myth. Thanksgiving activities should avoid reinforcing historical myths and should also avoid stereotypes (ie. NO warbonnets!). It’s best to shift the focus away from reenacting the “First Thanksgiving” and instead focus on items children can be thankful for in their own lives and on their families’ celebrations of Thanksgiving. One good resource on what to avoid and what to teach can be found at Education World. Here is a good article with a Native American perspective on Thanksgiving. Also, the 4J Natives Program is a resource that is available for classroom presentations and can offer an accurate picture of Native American culture.

• School Design Committee Update – The design team met last Tuesday to review the ed specs for the new building and get the square footage down to the size that was bonded for. Surprisingly, we did not actually have to give up that much. We eliminated one multipurpose classroom that was not immediately needed, reduced the size of a SPED motor room by half, and reduced some office space, which allowed us to retain 20 general classrooms, 4 kindergarten classrooms, 5 multipurpose classrooms, dedicated COW storage in each pod, a library that’s larger than Holt & Chavez, a full (high school) sized gym, a space for a family resource center, a room for a preschool program, a music room that is adjoined to and not located on the stage (like at Holt and Chavez), and more front office space compared to the inadequate space at Holt and Chavez. Since this building is being build for 600 students, we’ll likely be swimming in space when we move in after next year.

One other item I’d like to highlight for people is a K-12 public charter program in Southern California, High Tech High, which is one highlighted by Yong Zhao in his latest book. There are three elementary schools that are part of the program, and two of them are especially interesting, not just in their building design, but in their instructional programs. You can visit the site for High Tech Elementary Chula Vista and High Tech Elementary North County, which both focus on project based learning in a high tech setting. There is a section on the site that describes the philosophy behind their school’s facilities and physical design, which has good points for us to consider since we have a similar technology focus.

And don’t forget to follow our Pintrest page to share and weigh in on ideas!

• School Design Workshop Session, Sat. 11/23, 9:00-3:00 – Saturday, November 23rd from 9:00-3:00 will be a chance for staff and the community to share thoughts and ideas on what you’d like to see in the new building. It’s not an open house and folks will be asked to RSVP, but the session will be open to all staff, students and families who wish to attend. The architects will facilitate the event here at Howard and I will be putting together a flyer to send to families once I get more details. In the meantime, feel free to share this date with your students and families.

• Writing Pilot Opportunity – Downtown has invited Howard teachers to participate in a 3 month pilot of the “Being a Writer” program by the Developmental Studies Center, the same people behind Caring for Kids. The entire school does not need to participate. Teacher teams, cross-grade level teams, SPED and/or individuals may choose to join the pilot. Downtown just needs enough teachers participating to make the pilot worthwhile. See the attachment for details, but the main pieces are that there would be a day long training in December and a second half day training eight weeks into the pilot. Let me know by the end of the week if this is something you’d like to do. My suspicion is that this curriculum is going to end up being a districtwide adoption, and it’s been my experience that piloting new programs tends to get you more support on the front end rather than coming in later, so I’d encourage teachers feeling up to it to give it a go!

• Friday at 4:00 @Level Up! – It was great fun getting everyone together during dinners last week at conferences, so let’s get together again after school this Friday at Level Up on 12th and Oak (the same block as FedEx/Kinkos on Willamette). It’ll be a dry Friday at 4:00 for me since I’ll be heading back to school for Family Movie Night, but at least I’ll be able to play some Donkey Kong or pinball while we’re there. Hope you all can make it for some beverages and fun!

• Adjusting Mathematical Language to the Common Core – I quite like this article, which succinctly lists a number of changes in the way elementary mathematics is conceived in the Common Core and how implementing the new standards means letting go of a lot of old habits, such as eliminating “Let’s ‘borrow’ from the tens place” and replacing it with “regrouping,” “trading,” or “decomposing” instead, or eliminating referring to “the answer” and replacing it with “the model” or “the relationships” or “the structure” or “justify your answer.”

• November PBIS Focus: Appreciations – The November PBIS monthly focus is Appreciations. The PBIS team created a PBIS/CFK cheat sheet that matches our monthly themes with corresponding Caring for Kids class meeting lessons, which is a nice way to tie the two activities together.

• District Title 1 News for November – If you’d like to know what’s being communicated to Title 1 Coordinators from the district level, here is a link to the November Title 1 Newsletter.

• OSPIRG Energy Education Presentations – OSPIRG is a student-directed nonprofit at Lane Community College and they are offering free educational presentations for students of all ages that focus on the value of conserving energy and promoting active environmental stewardship. Sample lessons can be found here and here. If you’re interested in having a presenter, contact Charlotte Helton, OSPIRG Energy Service Corp. Coordinator, at (541) 505-1582 or charlottehelton12@gmail.com

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

November 4 (M)
PBIS Focus: Appreciations
8:00-2:00, Allison and Allan to LEL Meeting (Edgewood)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals Meeting (Ed Center)

November 5 (T)
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 22)

November 6 (W)
7:30-11:30, Data Team Meetings

November 7 (H)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 6)

November 8 (F)
4:00 Friday at 4:00 at Level Up! (12th and Oak)
6:00 Family Movie Night (Gym)

And remember that Monday, November 11th is Veteran’s Day so you have a nice three day weekend to look forward to!

Allan

 

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Flash Mob Media Bonus! – If you missed it, here’s a link to the KEZI article, the KMTR video, and a link to the video the Register Guard made of our flash mob event last week. Kim Ketterer also took some pictures and videos that you can find here. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQfLVuex70E[/youtube]