https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=4406
Hello Howard Roadrunners,
We survived our first week back and are now heading into our first full week of the year.
Twenty-three items of note this week:
• Safety Week, Sept. 28 – Oct. 1 – September is National Preparedness Month and I’d like to hold our annual Safety Week again this year. I’ve scheduled it for the end of this month so we can practice all of the most common safety drills and also take care of the September and October fire drill requirements all in the same week. This is a good way to bring awareness to staff, students and families about the various safety procedures right at the start of the year. The schedule for Safety Week will be:
• Monday, Sept. 28- Fire Drill, 1:30
• Tuesday, Sept. 29- Room Clear, time decided by teachers
• Wednesday, Sept 30 – Lock Down (Code Blue and Code Red), 9:00
• Thursday, Oct. 1- Earthquake/Fire Drill, 8:15It’s not for another three weeks, but I wanted to let staff know now to help with planning. All of these drills are listed in the “Emergency Procedures Manual” which is the rainbow tabbed spiral notebook that should be hanging in every classroom. I won’t be making any announcement before the drills, so it’s okay for staff to prep your students before these drills take place. For the Lock Down drill, please review the Code Blue and Code Red procedures. These Howard specific steps are more detailed compared to the more general of ones in the Emergency Procedures Manual. Please let me know if you do not have a manual or if you have any questions.
• Principal Visits to Classrooms – If you haven’t already set up a time for me to come read to your class, let me know a good 10-15 minute block for me to come in this week or next. I’ll read a favorite story to your class and chat with the kids a bit to introduce myself. Thank you!
• PBIS Assembly Date Change & Cookie Dough Sale Kick-Off Assembly – After informally surveying a number of teachers, the PBIS team decided that we should postpone our PRIDE/PBIS Assembly by one week and will instead combine it with our Cookie Dough Sale Kick-Off Assembly, which is scheduled for next week on Wednesday, September 23rd in the gym from 8:55-9:25. PBIS will kick-off the assembly and the cookie dough sale will wrap it up. Lori will call classes down to the gym starting at 8:50. See the attached assembly map for details. And remember there is a good Caring for Kids Class Meeting lesson on assembly behavior you can use in conjunction when you review Howard’s PBIS assembly expectations with students.
The key dates to know for the Cookie Dough sale, which is one of our bigger fundraisers of the year, are as follows:
Sept. 23 – Packets sent home with students
Oct. 1 – Orders due, students hand in packets to the teachers. Please put orders in the box labeled “Cookie Dough” in the mail room. Any orders prior to that can be put in the PTO box.
Oct. 16 & 17 – Cookie Dough Pickup in Gym• PTO Meeting & New School Tour, Tuesday at 6:00 – The September PTO meeting will be this Tuesday, 6:00-7:00 PM in the library if any staff are able to attend. It’s a nice show of support for the PTO’s work if staff are able to volunteer their time to come to a meeting. We’re going to entice families to attend this first meeting by taking them on a tour of the new building, so feel free to pass along that bit of information to your students. Hope to see you there!
• PTO Classroom Funds – PTO is planning to give us a lump sum for classroom funds, which is to be divided among classrooms. They are planning to give more than last year to compensate for our three additional classrooms. My thought is that the fairest way to divide these funds is to do a per pupil allocation, since classrooms of 20 are quite different from classrooms of 34. Let me know if anyone thinks I’m off base in using this method. I’ll let staff know how much we’re getting once PTO cuts us the check.
• AM/PM Synergy Attendance Reminder – When taking attendance in TeachVUE, teachers have ability to check both AM and PM for absent students on one screen and only having to save once. To do this, first hover over the ATTENDANCE tab and then click LIST. Next select BOTH, located in the top left of your screen, and you will now be able to mark students absent in both the AM and PM columns and will only have to click SAVE once. Below are a couple screen shots of what I’ve described. This reminder is because quite a few teachers are not been marking PM absences. Let me know if you have any questions on this and to prevent people from wondering if they’re doing it right or not, I’ll let teachers know by Wednesday if PM absences are still not getting checked and/or saved.
• Help with Synergy TeacherVUE – Tammy Christensen, the elementary Synergy TOSA, has updated contact information for help with Synergy TeacherVUE: sis@4j.lane.edu – creates a ticket and others may resolve the issue in the morning or she will contact you in the afternoon. (preferred method) It is helpful to include “elementary” in the subject line, but not necessary. christensen@4j.lane.edu – her 4j email that is answered after noon. x7791 – She responds to voicemail or phone calls after noon. Please no longer use 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu for Synergy questions.
• Entering Absences into AESOP – HR asked principals to share the following information regarding entering absences in AESOP:
Happy Thursday Everyone. Looking at AESOP over the last couple days I have noticed that quite a few staff are not entering their own absences into the system and the school Secretary is entering them.
I wanted to remind everyone that this is the employees responsibility. This is not the responsibility of the office staff and should not be added to their workload. This reminder includes all staff on a leave of absence.
It is ALWAYS the responsibility of the staff to enter their own absences.
If they are not sure how to do this there are training videos online at http://www.4j.lane.edu/hr/aesop-q-a-for-licensed-and-classified-staff/
Thank you for addressing this concern and helping communicate to your staff that it is always their responsibility to enter their absences.
Brandon Crohare
Human Resource Generalist II
Substitutes, Coaches, Extra Duty, Recruitment and MAPS• Howard Staff T-Shirts & Gear – New staff may have noticed lots of Howard shirts and other gear being worn this past Friday, so I thought I had better invite new staff members to come by the office to pick up a Howard shirt of your own if you haven’t done so already. Fridays are our unofficial Howard spirit day and it’s also a nice way to do our own Casual Friday.
• Updated Master Schedule – Attached is an update 2015-2016 Master Schedule (XLS and PDF). The library schedule has now been added to the document along with a couple minor tweaks.
• District Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff – If you haven’t already reviewed the District Back-to-School Memo (link or PDF) and returned the acknowledgment form to Lori, make sure you turn it in to the office no later than Friday, September 25th. See the 9/7 announcements for a summary of policy changes.
• Howard Staff Handbook Review – Attached is the updated Staff Handbook for 2015-2016. All staff must review the handbook and sign & return the acknowledgement form to the office by Friday, September 25th.
• Student Photos on Websites and in the Media – I mentioned last week that we have more students that usual with no photos by news media or on photos on the school website and that teachers should check your list in Synergy. However, I had a few teachers ask how to find this information, so you can find this information by running the following report in TeacherVUE:
1. Go to REPORTS
2. Go down to STU401, but click on the blue icon to the right that says “Open Report Interface”
3. Click on CONDITIONS
4. Click ADD
5. Under Conditions select “NewsMedia” or “SchoolWebSite” in the dropdown
6. Under NOT, select “Not” in the dropdown
7. Under OPERATOR, select “Contains” in the dropdown
8. Under VALUE, type in Y
9. Then click print and you should have a list of your students who do not have permission to be on the school website or be photographed by the news mediaAnd if that’s too complicated, just send me an email and I’ll run the report for your grade level (though it is good to know how to look this up yourself for when new students that enroll throughout the year.
• Popcorn Starting in October – If any of your student are asking, the PTO is planning to start selling popcorn the first Wednesday in October at the usual rate of 25¢ a bag.
• BEST Budget Update – The budget for BEST this year has been drastically reduced. We’re still waiting to hear what the staffing levels will be, but we do know there will not be a licensed academic support person and BEST EA hours are going to be reduced from 15.5 hours last year by as much as half. This is primarily due to district Title 1 funds no longer supporting BEST (they paid for 5.5 EA hours last year), which is due to the fact that state and federal Title 1 dollars have been reduced and the district wanted to avoid making further reductions to school Title 1 budgets (which I agree was a good decision). What this means is that we’re likely not going to be able to serve as many students as we have in the past. We’re hoping to have a clearer picture of BEST staffing and budget by our first Data Team meeting, so we can begin placing students at that time, but I did want to give staff the heads-up that we may not be able to serve as many students as in the past.
• Enrollment Updates – We’ve continued to have some move-ins and move-outs this past week, but our enrollment is holding steady at 409 students. Downtown is beginning to look at enrollment across the district, but with only a little over $200,000 (less than three staff members) for class size reduction funds, I’ve been told it is unlikely they will be making any monumental FTE allocations any time soon. There are over 30 classrooms with more than 30 students at the elementary level, though my bullet point arguments are that Howard typically grows over the course of the year. Last year we were at 336 students in September, but ended the year at 385 (an increase of 49 students). Howard is second highest on the district needs index (the highest last year) and large classes at Howard are much different from large classes at Adams or Gilham (two other very overenrolled schools). Homelessness is not factored into the needs index, but Howard had by far had the highest number of homeless students last year, mostly due to The Eugene Mission falling within our boundary. Also, River Road’s Dual Immersion program would benefit from Howard having lower class sizes at 4th and 5th grade, which would allow us to take their late program enrollees. So my thoughts are that we are certainly being considered for additional staffing, since we are one of the most over enrolled elementary schools in 4J. However, with what amounts to less than 3.0 FTE spread across K-12 to reduce class size bulges (Churchill is 100 student overenrolled) and with quite a few schools at elementary, middle and high school in situations not too different from ours, I’m not expecting to see any major influx of staffing, though I’ll certainly continue to advocate for additional FTE.
• Aerial Photography of the New Building – Spot On Aerial Photography on their Vimeo page made a very cool 7-minute video filmed by flying a drone around our new building. Might be a fun video to show students!
• Spirit Fair at North Eugene High School – The North Eugene High School ASB is hosting an event to showcase all the great opportunities at North Eugene. On Friday, September 18th from 5:00-7:00 pm, they will hold their first annual “Spirit Fair” before a home football game. The event will be held in the west parking lot where the old tennis courts used to be. ASB has invited North Eugene area feeder schools, current students and staff, and community and local businesses to attend.
• Architects in Schools – With our new building nearing completion, this is a timely opportunity for classes. For over 40 years Architects in Schools has matched professional architects and structural engineers with 3rd through 5th grade teachers for a 6 week FREE classroom residency. The program is based on a curriculum guide that teachers and their partner design professional can incorporate into existing curriculum to meet Common Core and New Generation Science Standards. The curriculum uses architectural concepts to help teach math, science, social studies, language arts and other disciplines, includes sustainable design concepts and can incorporate engineering and design standards. Participating teachers receive a free training that links the program to required education standards and they can receive graduate credit through PSU. Attached is this year’s program information. Applications can be completed online by Friday, October 2, 2015.
• Free Conservation Education Program (Speakers, Field Trips, etc.) – The Mckenzie Bridge Ranger District is offering various Conservation Education programs. They are presented by an international visiting wildlife biologist from South Africa. The programs are available until the end of October. Attached is the details of the activities and the official invitation letter.
• Free Willamette Resources and Education Network (WREN) Classroom Presentations – WREN has announced its 2015-2016 education programs. They provide trained staff who will visit your classroom to engage students in hands-on, minds-on learning that addresses the Oregon State Content Standards. If you would like more information, contact Susanna Hamilton by email, susanna@wetlands.org, or phone: (541)_338_7046.
• Math Anxiety is Contagious – In this NYTimes article, Jan Hoffman reports on a study in Psychological Science of how parents’ math anxiety is picked up by their first and second graders, pulling down the kids’ school achievement in math (but not in reading). The means of transmission? Parents helping their children with math homework. The study found that the more math-phobic parents helped, the worse their children did, slipping more than a third of a grade level behind classmates and becoming math-anxious themselves. “The parents are not out to sabotage their kids,” says Sian Beilock, one of the authors of the University of Chicago study. “But they have to ensure their input is productive. They need to have awareness of their own math anxiety and that what they say is important… Saying, ‘I’m not a math person either, and that’s O.K.’ is not a good message to convey.”
• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the next two weeks:
September 14 (M)
First Week of Library
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)September 15 (T)
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Library)September 16 (W)
8:55-9:25, PBIS Assembly (Gym)MOVED to 9/23
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
2:30-3:30, Optional Leadership Plan Development Meeting (Library)September 17 (H)
9:15, Charis McGaughy, 4J Chief of Staff, Touring Howard
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)September 18 (F)
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
5:00-7:00, Spirit Fair at North Eugene High SchoolSeptember 21 (M)
International Day of PeaceSeptember 22 (T)
8:00-3:30, Data Team Meetings (Room 8)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 1)September 23 (W)
First Day of Autumn (Autumnal Equinox)
8:55-9:25, PRIDE/PBIS & Cookie Dough Kick-Off Assembly (Gym)
2:30-3:30, Allan to North Region Elementary Principal MeetingSeptember 24 (H)
2:30-3:30, TLT Meeting (Room 6)September 25 (F)
10:40-12:30, August & September Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Library)
Have an excellent week, everyone!
Allan
