https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=2705
Hello Rockin’ Roadrunners,
I hope everyone had a good three day weekend. It’s hard to believe there is just one more week after this until Thanksgiving Break and then only three more weeks until Winter Break.
Fifteen items of note for this week:
• School Design Committee Update – In deciding how similar or dissimilar the new Howard and River Road schools would be, the district and board opted for something in the middle, where the schools would not be identical or wholly different but would have some elements that are the same. They call this option a “Design of Parts.” The most significant of these “parts” is the classroom pod configurations, which Howard and River Road are meeting on this week and will be the final step in the programming phase of the school design process. Let one of our reps (Angela, Jenny, Lori, Lupe) know your ideas if you’d like to weigh in.
The schematic phase of design process is next, which is where we’ll start getting into specific designs and layouts for the new school. I shared this last year, but I did want to share a potential site layout for the new building that was drawn up before the passage of the bond measure.
And don’t forget about the Pinterest page!
• Student School Design Programming Meeting, Thursday 10:15-11:15 – 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers should send me the names of students to be a part of a school design meeting intended to involve students in the design and feel of the new building. The district and architects are still working out the details, but they would like to meet with a group of 12-18 students this Thursday from 10:15-11:15. They would like the group to have more 2nd and 3rd graders, since they will be students in the new building, but we can also invite a few 4th and 5th grade students. Each 2/3 teacher should send me 2-3 names and 4/5 teachers should send me 1 name each. If you have more students who you think would be good for this, go ahead and give me their names as alternates. The architects will lead the discussion through light banter and engaging questions with the students. Later this same day, the architects will informally observe part of the school day at Howard to get a feel for the school culture and climate.
• Howard Community School Design Workshop, Saturday, Nov. 23rd – Not this coming Saturday, but the following Saturday on Nov. 23rd from 9:00-3:00 in the Howard cafeteria, the district and the architects will be holding a Howard Community School Design Workshop. This workshop is open to staff, families and students. A few people from the River Road Community Association will also be invited. Attached is a flyer that will be going out to families this week. To help the district and architects plan for how many people will be attending (lunch is being provided), they are asking for staff and families to RSVP. Feel free to promote this event to your class and families and let me know if will be attending all or part of the workshop.
• Safe Routs to School Classroom Surveys – Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is hoping teachers will be able to complete classroom surveys of how students get to school for two days this week or next week (done on T, W or H, not M or F). As an incentive for teachers, we have coffee gift cards for participating teachers. There are also parent surveys that should also be sent home with all students this week. There is a raffle prize for families who return the survey, so if teachers can keep track of who returned surveys on a class list, that would be helpful. Lori will put all of this in teacher mailboxes on Tuesday and all completed survey materials should be returned in to the office by Nov. 22nd.
• Students in the IMC Reminder – Just a quick reminder that students should not use the copy machine in the IMC. This has led to a few problems this year.
• The NED Show Assembly, Wednesday, 10:15-11:00 – I emailed this information out earlier, but we’ll have The NED Show Assembly, a PBIS related assembly, on Wednesday in the gym from 10:15-11:00. See the attached map and directions for the seating arrangement.
• Volunteers for UO/EWEB Parking Fundraiser 11/16 – I CC’d staff on my email to families, but please let me know if you any of you are able to help at the UO/EWEB Parking Fundraiser. It will be from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Saturday, Nov. 16, unless we get quite a few volunteers, in which case we can do 2 hour shifts instead of one 4 hours shift. Let me know!
• The Hour of Code is Coming Soon! – “Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer . . . because it teaches you how to think.” — Steve Jobs
This December, to celebrate Computer Science Education Week, Code.org is organizing a massive campaign to encourage 10 million students (and adults) to try an “Hour of Code.” The Hour of Code is a self-guided activity that every student, in every classroom, can do. A variety of hour-long tutorials will be available for students to try out the basics of computer science. More details can be found on their website and on this handout. There will be contests and prizes for teacher who participate, and as a thank you gift, every participating teacher will get 10GB of free DropBox storage. Code.org will even send a volunteer to help with the activity if you’d like!
• Sara Cramer Working at Howard Tuesday, Nov. 12th – Sara Cramer has been trying to get out into schools more and has started doing her district work out in elementary schools four days a week and this Tuesday will be her day to work at Howard, so don’t be surprised if you see her around the school this day.
• Berman Visiting Howard Tuesday, Nov. 12th – Superintendent Berman has also been visiting schools this fall and is planning to come by Howard Tuesday afternoon. He will meet with staff for a portion of our staff meeting, but don’t be surprised if you see him around the building before then as well.
• November Fire Drill, Thursday at 12:45 – We’ll do our November Fire Drill this Thursday at 12:45. If the weather isn’t cooperating, I’ll look for a day with a sunny weather forecast next week.
• Guest Teachers Hours – HR sent email containing two reminders for principals to pass along to staff. One, staff should remember to add into AESOP your “preferred” substitutes. And two, subs are dispatched for either 4 or 8 hours, so even if a teacher only needs a sub for 6 hours, the substitute is expected to work a full 8 hours. Some of the confusion on the later item comes from AESOP, in that the teacher enters their work hours, which is CORRECT. HR is looking into ways to have AESOP help us communicate a 4 or 8 hour assignment to subs. See the email for details.
• Beyond Thanksgiving – Related to my Thanksgiving reminder last week, here’s a good article from Teaching Tolerance that just came out on the same subject. With the Thanksgiving season rife with inaccurate representations of Native American culture, we are in a position to change that: Teach Native culture year round.
• Class Size Matters – Not that we need convincing on this matter, but if ever hear people argue that class size doesn’t matter, here’s a good website I recently learned about, which is dedicated to countering this oft used argument. Just thought I’d share.
• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for this week:
November 11 (M)
Veterans Day – No SchoolNovember 12 (T)
Reading and Math Progress Monitoring 4
10:00-3:30, Sara Cramer working at Howard
12:45-3:30, Shelley Berman visiting Howard
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)November 13 (W)
9:00-10:00, October Book Winners
10:15-11:00, The NED Show Assembly (Gym)
2:30-3:30, Design Team Touring Cal Young MS
4:00-6:00, Allan to Principal’s Meeting (Ed Center)November 14 (H)
8:30-11:30, Allan to TAG Training
2:30-3:30, Collaboration Time
10:15-11:15, Student School Design Programming Meeting (Location TBA)
11:15-12:15, Architect Informal Observation of Howard
12:45, Fire Drill
3:00-6:00, Design Team Meeting (River Road)November 15 (F)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP MeetingNovember 16 (S)
9:00-1:00 – EWEB/UO Game Day Parking Lot Fundraiser (EWEB Building)
Have a good every, everyone!
Allan
