October 26, 2015

By Allan  

Conan

Hi Everyone,

It definitely feels like a we’re in groove of school now, though I suppose it should since we’re going into the last week of October, which seems really hard to believe.

Fifteen items of note this week:

• Building SMART Goals Reminder – For licensed staff, if you haven’t already, be sure to enter your SMART Goals into TalentEd by the end of this week. Attached are the Building wide SMART Goals for reading and math if you’d like to match most people’scut and paste.

• Halloween Costume Parade, Friday at 1:00 – This Friday is the annual Howard Costume Parade. Details are in the attached map and directions and were described in last week’s announcements. Also note the rainy day parade route map and alternate 5th grade only Thrill the World performance in the gym if the weather does not cooperate.

Last year, classes and grade levels decided what if they wanted students to come in costume or not, which you can do again, but I did want to say that it is okay for students to wear their costumes to school. We just want students to keep them as simple as possible and not be too much of a distraction to themselves and others. If they need to, they can change into their costume at the start parade. And please remind students of our school’s costume guidelines:

• NO weapons
• NO weapon-like props
• NO excessive bareness
• NO dress as another ethnicity or race
• NO masks (during the day, parade is okay)
• NO especially scary or gory costumes

• K-2 and 3-5 PRIDE Assembly, Wednesday, Nov. 4th – Next week, on November 4th, we’ll hold our first PRIDE Awards Assembly. The PBIS Team is meeting this Wednesday and will email out the details, but I have tentatively scheduled the K-2 assembly for 9:10-9:35 and the 3-5 assembly for 9:40-10:05. See that attached map and directions for details and watch for further details later from the PBIS Team.

• LEL Visit Problem of Practice – On Tuesday, November 3rd the Learning about Elementary Learning (LEL) network group will be visiting Howard. I described how the LEL group works in an earlier post this year, but essentially the hosting school presents a “Problem of Practice,” which is a topic area the school the is interested in receiving feedback on in the form of nonjudgmental, objective observation data. No names or individual teachers are discussed by the group, but instead the group focuses on overall themes and patterns.

Howard has hosted the LEL group a couple times before. Our first problem of practice the LEL group looked at was clarity of lesson objectives. The second visit they looked at quality and consistency of technology integration. I have some potential ideas for our problem of practice this time around which are to have the LEL look at the quality of differentiation during Tier II reading since we’re all using a new reading program, or maybe have the LEL look at math Number Talks since we’ve done some work around that, or we could maybe revisit technology integration since we have a lot of new staff members and also different devices (iPads) at some grade levels who didn’t have them before. If we did tech integration, we could use Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model that I shared last year, which is kind of a Bloom’s Taxonomy of looking at technology integration. Teachers can let me know if you have any thoughts on any of these potential problems of practice or if you have any other ideas that might be good.

• HMH Leveled Readers – I know many teachers are anxiously waiting for access to the digital leveled readers and other online Journeys resources, so I checked directly with the HM rep last week who said that the order was in process as we speak. She said downtown should receive the authentication codes in the next couple of days and hopefully they will be able to get schools set up soon after. I’ll keep everyone updated as I get more information.

• Leave Balances, Payroll Info & Other Self-Service Lawson Information – Staff may not know about this resource, but you have access to all of your information such as leave balances, personal information, pay stubs, etc. through the Employee Self Help section of Lawson. If you are unsure where to find this, you just need to go to the 4J website >> Staff >> MORE STAFF LINKS >> Employee Self-Service. You can then click on the topic you are interested in and log in using you email log in information.

• CLC Staffing Updates – I’m pleased to announce that Byron Dudley will be returning to Howard starting Monday as a CLC 1:1 EA working with one of our 3rd graders. Byron has an extensive background working with special needs student ranging from CLC EA work to working with students in clinical settings. For those of you new to Howard, Bryon worked in the CLC and BEST two years ago before moving to Portland, but when he moved back down to Eugene he of course wanted to come back to Howard. On a related note, Blake, who was subbing in this position, is planning to apply for our 1st grade CLC 1:1 EA position which we hope will post soon. (Blake said Howard is the first school he worked at that he’s really liked. :) )

• PTO Meeting Updates – Two items of note from last week’s PTO meeting:

• Classroom Funds – Let me know what your plans are for your classroom funds, if you know at this point. The PTO wants to include this as part of marketing efforts in promoting their fundraisers; telling donors what their donations are going towards. On a related note, the PTO has also begun looking into more corporate sponsorships (i.e. Bi-Mart, Levis, Symantec, etc.) to support fundraising efforts and not always going back to families for donations.

• PTO Holiday Bazaar Special Staff Offer – The PTO Holiday Bazaar is Saturday, Dec. 5th, 9-4 in the gym, the same day as several other Holiday Bazaars in the area. The PTO is selling table space for $20 a table to vendors in the community to sell their crafts, baked goods, Pokemon cards, or whatever they want to sell. The PTO said if any staff members want to fundraise for your classroom or program, they’ll give you free table space this day. Just fill out the Bazaar Application Form (DOC or PDF) and email it to the PTO at howardelemenatrypto@gmail.com And just for fun, here’s a picture I came across last week of a Howard Holiday Bazaar from 1976. Those plaid pants are awesome!

1976 Bazaar

 

• New Building Updates – Attached are the minutes from the last Owner/Architect/General Contractor (OAC) Meeting and below are a few items of note:

• No Tours Until End of November – There is A LOT of activity going on out on the construction site right now, so it’s not safe to take students on the site at this time. However, tours will be able to resume after Thanksgiving break.

• Community Meeting: New School Design & Construction 11/2 at 6-7 – This event is more geared towards the community outside of the school and staff should be caught up on all this info if you’ve read the construction updates in my announcements, but if you’re interested, families, neighbors, and community members are invited to get an update on the Howard school replacement project. The event will be in the cafeteria on Monday, November 2nd, 6:00-7:00 in the cafeteria. Participants will see the final design for that school, hear what to expect in the construction schedule, get an update on building progress so far, and have the opportunity to talk with the school principal and members of the design team. See the news release for details.

• Historical Photos of Howard and Area Needed for Display– Part of what was discussed at the design meeting I attended last week is to put together a permanently installed display about the history of our area and the history of Howard Elementary School. We’re is looking for any historical photographs of the old Howard building, so if you or anyone you know has pictures of Howard from the past, please send me a scanned or hard copy of them to go into the display. Attached is the agenda if you’d like get an idea of what was discussed, but they’re looking to include history of the area in terms of geological history, indigenous peoples’ history, white settlers’ history and Howard history in particular, so let me know if you have any photos or know of people who might. Here are a few fun ones I found in a box that used to be stored in the back room of the library.

 

• Second Semester PE Schedule – For second semester PE, Howard will have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays with our newly hired PE teacher, Justine Delaine, which is what I was hoping for since there are more Friday’s off than there are Mondays. Justine will be at Awbrey Park Thursdays and Fridays and half a day on Wednesdays. This PE time will be in addition to our regularly scheduled second semester Music times, which means classes will have Music twice a week on your current PE days/times, and classes will have PE on the Monday or Tuesday opposite when you have Music.

• Workers Compensation Claims: Staff Injuries – Risk management shared some resource that are good for staff to review. Staff should always try to incorporate safety into every activity every day and below are some easy strategies to incorporate a safety culture our daily work.

Strength and Lengthen
Elementary Safety 4 Children
Tough Caring Contract

• Yo-Yo Assembly Vote: NO! – We had a low voter turnout, but the “NO” votes narrowly won with 3 no-votes and 2 yes-votes, so we’ll pass on the yo-yo assembly this year.

• Immunization Exemption State Law Changes – Robin Wellwood shared this with building principals, but I thought staff may also be interested in this law change. The previous religious exemption to immunization has now disappeared. Those students will be considered incomplete and potentially be excluded from school in February unless they go through new steps for non-medical exemption. These families received an autodial email from the district last week. There is information on the 4J Health Services website under Health Requirements immunization section that explains how parents/guardians can now claim a non-medical exemption, which includes an educational component either through a health care provider or the state vaccine education module.

• Byrdseed TAG Resource – Although we don’t have too many TAG identified students, we do have a fair amount of bright students at all grade levels, so I thought I would share the website Byrdseed, which Kerri Sage (the district TAG Coordinator) shared with building TAG Coordinators. And as a reminder, please let me know if you have any students who you think may qualify for TAG and who you think should be tested.

• 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:

October 26 (M)
2:30-3:30, Site Council (Staff Room)

October 27 (T)
9:30-11:30, Kreider’s Class to Maude Kerns

October 28 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)
2:30-3:30, Care Team Meeting (Staff Room)

October 29 (H)
Data Team Meetings (Staff Room)
9:15-11:15, Zimmerman’s Class to Maude Kerns
2:30-3:30, Taking it Up Meeting (Staff Room)

October 30 (F)
10:45-12:40, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Library)
12:30, Robin and Allan meeting with Tasha
1:00-2:00, Halloween Parade & Thrill the World (Playground)

November 1 (SU)
Daylight Saving Time Ends
World Ewok Appreciation Day

November 2 (M)
Progress Monitoring Week 3
2:30-5:00, Allan Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
6:00-7:00, New School Community Meeting (Cafeteria)

November 3 (T)
8:30-1:00, Larsen and Swift to Pisgah
9:00-12:00, LEL Classroom Visits
12:45-1:45, Zany Zoo Visiting Room 3

November 4 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Favorite Team Day
8:30-1:00, Gaston to Pisgah
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
9:10-9:35, K-2 PRIDE Assembly (Gym)
9:40-10:05, 3-5 PRIDE Assembly (Gym)
2:15-2:45, Allan to Grade Level Goal Meeting

November 5 (H)
8:00-1:00, Data Team Meetings (Staff Room)
10:00-11:00, NCU Student Technology Visit (TLT Classrooms)
1:00-2:30, Allan to Staff of Color Recruit/Retention/Hire Meeting (Ed Center)

November 6 (F)
8:00-1:00, 3rd Grade to McGowan Creek
9:40-10:30, Allan Teaching Math Group

And if you missed it on the news this week, Howard managed to get on all three local news stations (KEZI, KVAL, KMTR) when Kealy invited Casey the Firedog to help teach kindergartners about fire safety. Firemen, kindergartners and dalmatian fire dogs is pretty much a can’t miss media-op.

Allan