Allan's Announcements

By Allan 　https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=4782

Hi Everyone,

To start off on a fun note, Kathryne in Lupe’s class was one of 12 winner in the Sanipac Recycle Art contest. Her class will get $350, a pizza party, her art will be featured on the side of a Sanipac truck later this spring, will be featured in the Children’s Miracle Network Calendar, and will also appear in the Sanipac newsletter and website. Howard kids rock!

Eleven items of note this week:

• Tier II Updates & Training Opportunities – I just got word last Friday and soon after an email from Susan Penrod went to cert_elem that the January 5th PD Day is going to be a district led training around Journeys. I wanted to highlight that one of the breakout sessions later in the day will focus specifically on Tier II instruction using Journeys. This would be a good session for teachers to attend who’d like to get a better picture of how Tier II will work in classrooms. One session is for K-2 and there is a second session for grades 3-5. Use the 4J Workshop webpage to sign up for sessions.

To provide additional support for teachers, I’ve scheduled time at the end of our January Staff Meeting for Gretta Sagolla to be available for anyone who’d like to talk with her about Tier II implementation. On a related note, I’d shared earlier in the year about Title IIA funds that are available for sub days for teachers to do peer observations. That offer is still going to be open, but in talking with Gretta we we’re thinking we could open this up for teachers to observe Tier II at other schools serving similar student populations (Spring Creek, Chavez, etc.) and not just peer observations here at Howard, which might actually be preferable since teacher could observe at their own grade level. More to come on that.

I also got clarification from Tasha Katsuda for some questions I’d been asked by teachers:

Do grade levels have to regroup by ability across classrooms in order to make an allowable walk-to-read model?
No. Regrouping by ability can occur within a classroom for Tier II and does not have to be done across grade level classrooms. All students should get 60 minutes of Tier I, but teachers can do a continuous rotation of students during the 30 minutes of Tier II (done by the classroom teacher) and the 30 minutes of Tier III (done by Title 1 staff) if they are ability grouping either within their classroom or between classrooms. 20 minute rotations are also an option.

Can Title only serve students below the 20%?
No. The 4J guideline is for Title 1 to serve student at or below the 30%, but there is a level of discretion to serve students above that if there is other evidence the student needs additional targeted instruction.

Can Title 1 support math?
Yes, if the instruction is targeted and is being done outside of math core, meaning no push-in for core, but math booster is okay.

I’ve also Tasha Katsuda is she would be available to speak with staff about the mandated changes and to answer questions. If you’d like to meet with Tasha, please let me know by the end of the week and Tasha said she will contact staff to work out a time with meet, either as individuals or groups.

• Tips & Resources for Participating in Hour of Code – I jumped the gun initially in my announcements last week, but THIS week is Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code. If you’d like to participate, I shared a number of resources last week, but this blog post from Edutopia has some great tips and resources to help educators hold in-class events across all grade levels and content areas.

And if you are planning coding activities with your students this week, let me know when you’ll be doing it so I can see if we can get some media coverage for our technology immersion program.

• Fire Drill, Tuesday, Dec. 15th at 9:15 – If the weather cooperates, we’ll hold our December Fire Drill next week on Tuesday, December, 15th at 9:15. If we’re rained out, we’ll try later in the day at a dry moment or the same time on Wednesday.

• Christmas at School – I have to admit that I’m somewhat at fault here too, since I’ve seen Christmas items around the building and not batted an eye until it was brought to my attention and I was reminded how this would feel to students, families and staff who do not celebrate the holiday. While teachers do have a certain level of academic freedom in what they teach, we do want to balance that with being inclusive. Please be mindful in your class activities and displays as we enter the holiday season.

• 2015 Conferences Survey Results – With 10 respondents, the SurveyMonkey Results regarding conferences was very positive. For the first question, “Did you like having conferences later than normal?” had 5 staff who loved it, 4 who liked it and 1 neutral. For the second question, “Did you like having conferences the week of Thanksgiving?” there was more support with 7 staff who loved it, 2 who liked it and 1 neutral. There were lots of comments from teachers who felt they knew their students better with conferences a month later. There were also some comments that there seemed to be more families attending than in the past, and also comments that having the day off before Thanksgiving worked well for both families and staff. So based upon this survey, it’s sounding like staff are wanting to do this again next year.

• School Composting Opportunity – Tim Whitley, the EWEB Grant Coordinator, contact me about setting up composting at the new building. To get such a program up and running, we’d need a volunteer to coordinate the composting and student leaders to supervise daily food sorting in the cafeteria and transferring the food waste from indoor collection containers to outside rolling carts that are picked up weekly by Sanipac. You can see Tim’s email for details, but let me know if any of you are interested and we can talk more.

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

• Packing & Moving of Teacher Tubs – I was asked a good question last week, “Can teachers just label their own storage tubs for moving or do they have to unpack tubs and put the contents into the district provided boxes?” The answer is that teachers don’t have to unpack tubs. Teachers just need to label the long sides of the tubs and then tape around the tub to make sure the lids stay shut. Also keep in mind that some plastic tubs can crack and break easily so don’t put very heavy items in them.

On a related note, I was later asked about the packing plastic file crates that many teachers use. I haven’t gotten an answer on that yet, but I’ll keep folks posted.

• No Tours Until Mid-January – I jumped the gun last week on tours resuming. Todd Construction now says they can’t safely let any students out on the construction site until mid-January. However, if staff would like to go out on the site, I can take anyone interested out for a tour after our next staff meeting or maybe on the Jan 5th PD/Planning day.

• Library Weaving History – If you’re interested, I met with the Howard Art Teacher (wouldn’t that be nice to have again) from 1977, Paul Bodin, who gave me the lowdown on the big weaving in the library. There was apparently a lot of federal grant money for the arts in schools in the 70s and he was at Howard and Edgewood full-time for four years, doing a lot of art, music, and storytelling with students, before becoming a classroom teacher. One of the storytelling topics was creation stories, which included students writing their own creation stories. Paul teamed up with an artist out of Portland, who together made a hybrid story out of the student writing. They then made the massive weaving in our library. He said the Portland artist created a giant loom frame with vertical yarn stretched top-to-bottom. He then painted the string different colors for the sky, ground, sun, star and other main areas to give students a general idea of what color material to weave into the visual representation of their stories. He said it took about a week for students to do it and that just about every grade level got to add something (I’m not sure I did though. I figured out that I was a kindergartner at Howard the year this was made). Paul also said he’d love to take the weaving at the end of the year if we don’t have a place to display it in the new building, so it sounds like this piece of Howard history will get a nice home when we move. And if that wasn’t enough background on the weaving for you, here’s a Register Guard article from May 26, 1977 on Paul’s Artist in Residence work. He’s now, interestingly enough, working as an Adjunct Professor at the UO Philosophy Department, where he just showed up with a proposal to bring philosophical discussions to 4th and 5th graders with undergraduate philosophy students and it’s something that’s taken off at a number a 4J schools. He said he’d be glad to bring it to Howard too. Paul is a pretty interesting and cool guy.

• District Title 1 Newsletter – Here is the latest district level Title 1 Newsletter that went out to Title 1 Coordinators and principals. As usual, this month’s newsletter is mostly coordinator specific information and tasks, but there is a nice video titled Dear Teacher: Heartfelt Advice for Teachers from Students. The video features kids with a formal diagnosis, such as autism, Asperger’s, ADHD, learning disabilities, Sensory Processing Disorder, and Central Auditory Processing Disorder — along those who just need to move while learning – and how they find it challenging to shine in a traditional classroom. They wanted to share with educators how their brain works and offer simple ways teachers can help.

• Math and Science Lesson Videos from Seven Countries – In this article, educators Douglas Lyons and Andrew Niblock recommend the videos on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) website. These classroom videos from seven countries show how the same subject matter is taught in dramatically different ways in other countries – and get teachers thinking about unconsciously held cultural assumptions about teaching and learning. The videos show seventh- and eight-grade math and science lessons in Australia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. To access the videos, go to the TIMSS website (free registration), click on the subject, then the country, and then choose one of the lessons.

• How educators use “Star Wars” for instruction – Sorry. This article is so geeky I had to share. Some educators and schools are incorporating “Star Wars”-themed lessons in the classroom ahead of the release of the seventh film in the series. The website Star Wars in the Classroom features stories about how nearly 400 teachers have used the movie in their lessons. I’m also kind of interested in the Star Wars anti-bullying program, Heart of the Force, and am curious if there’s a local chapter in our area.

• 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:

December 7 (M)
Progress Monitoring Week 5
Computer Science Education Week and “The Hour of Code”
2:30-5:00, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee Meeting (Ed Center)

December 8 (T)
Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day
9:00, November Book Winners (Office)
12:00-1:20, 3rd Grade Salmon Release Field Trip
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Room 1)

December 9 (W)
Sara Green Visiting North Region Schools
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals Meeting

December 10 (H)
2:30-3:30, Taking it Up Meeting (Staff Room)

December 11 (F)
Regular Day

December 14 (M)
Regular Day

December 15 (T)
9:15, Fire Drill
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Library)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Library)

December 16 (W)
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)

December 17 (H)
3:45-5:00, Allan to Kindergarten Teacher & Principals’ Monthly Meeting (Chavez)

December 18 (F)
10:45-12:30, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Library)

December 21 – January 1
No School – Winter Break

January 4 (M)
No School – Furlough Day
In District School Choice Requests Open

January 5 (T)
No School – Professional Development Day
8:00-12:00, District Professional Development Day for Elementary Teachers (Holt)

January 6 (W)
Classes Resume
9:00-11:00, Allan to OAC Meeting (Construction Trailer)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Room 21)

Two weeks until Winter Break!

Allan