https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=5896
Hello Howard Staff,
After what will go down in the history books as one of the most divisive elections to date, we are now faced with the “days after” and are faced with a fractured and divided citizenry. As educators, we are in a unique position to begin the restoration process. We teach the public’s children and therefore are able to create a strong sense of unity within our school and community. It begins with us. We must bring our disparate views and rhetoric to a place where we can all move forward as a peaceful, productive and accepting society.
I know many of you have seen this short video of Kid President. I’m posting it here again to remind us of the power within each of us to create something awesome. Kid President (Robby Novak) is a 12 year middle school student who suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, which makes him susceptible to bone damage. He has experienced over 70 fractures and has been a victim of bullying. If Kid President can do it so can we. I love his quote…. “We were made to be awesome. Lets get to it”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o
Lets get to it…
Sixteen items of note for this week:
• LEL (Learning About Learning) Science Lesson Visit, Nov. 16th – This Wednesday is the LEL visit to observe science instruction of the new FOSS Science Kits. Linked here is the Updated LEL Visitation Schedule for the day. I made some changes from last week and have already spoken with the teachers effected. Remember that during your visitation time on the schedule, it does not have to be the start of your lesson (it can be the beginning, middle or end), but you should be teaching science for the entire 30 minutes of your scheduled time. Let me know as soon as possible if you see anything that needs changing on the schedule.
• PTO Meeting Tuesday at 6:30 – The November PTO Meeting will be this Tuesday at 6:30 (instead of 6:00 due to the BEST Parent Night) in the Community Room. It’s always great to have a few staff members at the meeting besides myself to show support for the PTO’s work and to also share staff perspectives on things when questions come up. Hope to see you there!
• BEST Family Night/Rotary Tuesday at 5:30 – Speaking of the BEST Family Night, linked here is a flyer for the BEST Family Night if you’d like to know what’s planned for this evening event. Members of the Eugene Rotary Club, who are financial supporters of BEST, are also attending.
• Conference Meals – And speaking of showing appreciating for the PTO’s work, they will again be providing dinners for teachers both evenings of conferences. One night will be a taco bar with a variety of fixing and the other night will be a variety of soups and salads. We have one parent who just started up a pre-made crockpot meals business, so I’m kind of excited to see what she brings!
• Classified Staff Conference Days Expectations – Tuesday, Nov. 22nd and Wednesday, Nov. 23rd are both regular work days for classified staff, though licensed staff who worked evening conferences will take the Wednesday as a comp day. If there are any classified staff who have comp time, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a good day to pay back that time. Please let me know if you have any question.
• Night Custodian Update – Our original hire for the 12-month night custodian position was unable to pass one of the 4J Facilities required tests, so we we are hiring our runner up (who was actually the first choice at three other schools she interviewed), Auburn Chapin. Auburn will most likely start on November 17th. Her most recent custodial experience was at Lane Community College, where she worked in a very similar position. Please welcome Auburn to Howard as she joins the Howard Team!
• Second Semester Music Teacher Update – For Music second semester, we’ll have Music Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesday just like we do for PE this semester. David Adee will be here on Mondays and Tuesdays (as we do with Rachel), and on Wednesdays Matt Taylor has been hired for that position. As veteran Howard staff know, this continues our long tradition of staff double names, with Matt & Matt joining Carolyn & Carolyn, Jennifer & Jenny, Jessi & Jessy, Linda & Linda, Rachael & Rachel, Rebecca & Rebecca (and a Becky), Robin & Robin, Shelley & Shelly, Suzanna & Suzy, but my favorite is our quadruple same names, Debbie, Debbie, Debby, and Deborah. I wasn’t part of the interview committee that hired Matt, but his resume has the usual educator references and practicum experience, but in addition to that he has 10 years working as a musician for Las Vegas shows like Jersey Boys. One of his references was the lead trumpet for Celine Dion and the Holt principal (where he’ll be working this semester) said she thinks she remembers Matt mentioning working Lady Gaga as well, so I think we can expect some interesting stories next semester.
• SSD Staffing Updates – Lyndsey Springfield has been in a long-term sub position as a 1:1 EA working in Kealy’s classroom most of this school year, but she has now been officially hired into the position. Another SSD 1:1 EA position is changing in Life Skill. Cassandra has been substituting most of the year in the 1:1 position, but SSD was not able to post for the position due to a current 1:1 in the district needing a position (her student moved on to an out-of-district placement). Starting Monday, Susan Schueller from the Edison CLC-B (where she worked with students with ASD or behavior challenges) will be joining the Howard Life Skills team as a 1:1 EA. Please officially welcome Lyndsey to Howard and also welcome Susan as they join the Howard family!
• New Building Updates – Here are the items of note regarding our new building:
• Furniture Wish List – Next week I’m going to submit the list for additional furniture you believe we need. Let me know by the end of the week if there are any items you need or you think we should have at the school that we do not have already. This is the time to ask because there will not likely be funding in the future. Linked here is the Furniture Wish List that I’m planning to submit.
• Playground Rules Update – Recess supervisors met last week to update playground rules and to make sure expectation for the new equipment is consistent across recesses. Linked here is a PowerPoint with the updated rules (and here in PDF). The main changes/clarifications that may be new to some staff are that students are allowed to run anywhere within boundaries (blacktop included), on the swings students may gently push other students, on the honeycomb structure no standing or on the top three, but sliding off from the outer two is okay, no standing on top of the roller-table bars, and on the small structure students may flip upside-down on the bars (“skin-the-cat”) but may not hang upside-down for extended periods.
• Math Adoption Open House Follow-Up – Maddy Ahearn, the district Math Administrator, sent this to licensed staff, but asked that principals also share the following information with classified staff for input. The Math Elementary Adoption process is underway and needs you to weigh in. The Math Adoption team has narrowed their choices down to EngageNY, Learnzillion or keeping our current curriculum (Investigations) with some additions/changes. If you were not able to attend, please:
1. Check out the math adoption website for more information
2. Review the linked updated version of the back-to-school flyer
3. Provide your feedback through this short survey• Leadership Plan Approved – A quick FYI that Howard’s 2016-2017 Leadership Plan was approved last week by JCAC.
• Fantastic Resource From Lily Gold, District ELD Coordinator – The educational website NewsELA is one of the best nonfiction, engaging, current, FREE resources out there. A special element of NewsELA is that teachers can select specific Lexile levels for each article, encouraging students to read at their individual instructional level, and an easy opportunity for differentiation within the classroom. NewsELA also supports Common Core standards by providing Text Sets, as well as being Common Core aligned with appropriately rigorous questions at the end of each article. NewsELA also provides a ton of opportunity for our students to interact with Text Features, annotation, oral communication, while always demanding evidence from the text. Finally, NewsELA also has hundreds (thousands?) of articles in Spanish! Feel free to contact Lily Gold with any questions or support.
• Funding to Support UO Master’s Students in Special Education – The UO shared with principals that the University of Oregon Special Education program is looking for the next generation of SPED educators for their program and asked us to forward this information along to gen ed teachers looking to get an endorsement in Special Education or their Master’s Degree in Special Education and also Educational Assistants looking to get their special education certification. Their courses are scheduled in the late afternoons and evenings to accommodate working educators. They also have potential financial support for qualified applicants. See the linked flyer and grant application for information about their current funding opportunity. More information is available at their website.
• The Impact of Peer Review on Upper-Elementary Students’ Writing – In this article in Reading Research Quarterly,a new study reports that most elementary students have difficulty revising their own writing. The study reveals that students who participated in peer reviews of writing did a significantly better job than control groups and wrote significantly better persuasive essays after the intervention.
• Teaching Tolerance Post Election Resources – In this Teaching Tolerance post, they share several resource for educators following the presidential election, which includes What to Say to Kids on November 10 and the Days After and Speak Up for Civility.
• 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:
November 14 (M)
8:20-1:45, Zimmerman & Vaughan Salmon Field Trip
3:00, Allan to Dentist AppointmentNovember 15 (T)
9:30-11:45, Torres & Kreider/Shadwick to Hult Center
12:00-12:30, Allan covering a classroom
2:30-3:30, Staff Meeting (Angela’s Room, B204)
5:30-6:30, BEST Family & Rotary Night (Cafeteria)
6:30-7:30, PTO Meeting (Community Room)November 16 (W)
No Title 1 Wednesday
8:00-4:00, LEL Visit to Howard
2:30-3:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, A101)
2:30-3:30, Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)November 17 (H)
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, B204)
6:00-7:00, 4J Vision 20/20 – Community Meeting (Chavez)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1868217413407824/November 18 (F)
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
10:30, American Red Cross Safety Presentation in Kreider/ShadwickNovember 19 (SA)
9:00-3:00, PTO Holiday Bazaar (Gym & Cafeteria)November 21 (M)
4:00-8:00, Conferences
6:00, Allan to ConferenceNovember 22 (T)
8:00-8:00, Conferences
8:20, Allan to Conference
6:20, Allan to ConferenceNovember 23 (W)
No Students – Conference Comp Day for Licensed StaffNovember 24 (H)
No School – Thanksgiving HolidayNovember 25 (F)
No School – Thanksgiving Holiday
I’ll close with one more Kid President video. This is a more recent of one from September is called Kid President Is Over It! which is his guide on how to disagree with people.
Have a good week, everyone!
Allan
And congratulations to Allison who received her Oregon Elementary Science Teacher of the Year Award this past Friday. Congratulations Mrs. Kreider!
