April 24, 2017

By Allan  

 

Howdy Roadrunners,

This Wednesday is Administrative Professionals Day, formerly known as Secretary’s Day, and I wanted to recognize our rockstar office staff! Lori is the most adept secretary I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with and I don’t think staff fully realize all that she does to make our lives easier, from talking down an angry parent to taking care of reports asked for by downtown and so on and so forth. I’d also like to recognize Bianca, who it’s been great to have here more this year to help with students, families, and staff. It’s been especially great to have Bianca this year due to our building’s unexpected 70+ student growth this fall. You two are the best!

Twelve items of note for this week:

• Staffing and Job Expo Updates – From the 1st and 2nd round of the Job Expo, we’ve managed to snag a couple of great teachers! For our temp kindergarten position, we’ve hired Katrina Sugar to take Kealy’s spot. Katrina has taught kindergarten for the past 19 years, starting at Willakenzie and then at Holt when Willakenzie and Washington merged to create Holt. For our part-time facilitating position, Rhonda Lawson was offered and accepted the position. Rhonda has been the Title 1 Coordinator at Twin Oaks the past four years and prior to that taught a variety of positions at Shasta Elementary School in Klamath County SD since 1993, including kindergarten, 1st, 4th, and 5th grade. Please welcome these fine new folks to the Howard Team!

• OAKS Testing Snacks – If you notice quite a few snacks on top of and inside the Staff Room refrigerators, these are for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders doing state testing this week, so leave these for the kiddos. 3/4/5 teachers, there are five different snacks, so help yourself to a class set of each when you are ready for them.

• 2017-2018 Supply Lists – Lori emailed a reminder out to teachers last week about getting her updated School Supply Lists for next school year, but has only heard back from one grade level. Please connect with your team members for next year and get an updated list to Lori by the end of the week.

• Student Body Funds Spending Deadline – Student body accounts (teacher funds, grant funds, etc.) need to be spent down to as close to a zero balance as possible by June 1st. If anyone has questions on their balance, please check in with Lori.

• School Credit Card Use Deadline – Use of the school credit card for orders will be cut off May 19th, so that everything will clear before the summer.

• Artist in Residence Change – We’ve changed our Artist in Residence from the Rainy Day Blues in Schools to Cartooning with Teri Robertson. I’d emailed teachers last week that the Rainy Day people were only planning to teach one 30 minute session with each classroom, versus the usual three sessions most artists do, so I put it to a vote and Cartooning won by 6 votes to 2 votes for silk painting and 2 votes for tile mosaics. I’ll be working with Lane Arts this week to set up the schedule and will keep you posted.

• Reminders from Last Week – Several reminders from last week’s announcements:

• 2017-2018 EEF Grant Applications Due Monday – EEF grant applications are due to me before Monday’s Site Council Meeting. You don’t actually have to have a final draft of your grant. Just give me a title and enough of a description for Site Council to rank order the grant submissions. We can submit up to five grants in any amount up to $5,000 each. Grants focused on Arts, Literacy, and STEM receive a higher priority. Linked here is the application form and linked here is the EEF Grant Guidelines.

• Natives Program Assembly Thursday – A Native American Storytelling Assembly will be Thursday, April 27th, with the 3-5 assembly 9:00-9:30 and the K-3 assembly 9:40-10:10. See the linked assembly map and directions for details. This assembly is optional given all of our recent interruptions to the regular schedule.

• Earth Day Poster Contest Ends this Week – The NuNaturals and Market of Choice Earth Day poster contest deadline is the end of this week. Winners will receive a “tree kit” for every student in their classroom and a gift certificate from the National Geographic Society for their teacher to use for learning materials for their class. See the linked flyer for details.

• Tech Trot & All-School Photo – The Tech Trot is this Wednesday. Classes should be out on the track, ready to go at the following times:

• 8:30-9:15 – 2nd & 3rd Grade
• 9:30-10:15 – Kinder & 1st Grade
• 10:30-11:15 – 4th & 5th Grade

The new Howard t-shirts should be passed out the day of the Tech Trot. We’ll plan to all meet at 12:45 in the west courtyard the day of the Tech Trot to take an all-school picture from the green wing balcony. See the linked map and directions for where to stand, although we may need to adjust positions once we get out there.

• PTO Updates – We had several teachers attend last week’s PTO meeting, which was great! Below are a few updates from the April PTO Meeting:

• Family Night: Crafts, Coney’s, & Science May 19th, 5:30-7:30 – The next family night will be a craft night that includes “Coney’s” (east coast hot dogs) for folks to buy and eat and STEAM related activities led by Allison.

• Carnival Friday, June 16th, 5:00-8:00 – Most all of the carnival will be held in the gym, cafeteria, courtyard, and playground.

• By-Laws Update – The PTO is planning to update their by-laws to better match recent practices, mainly related to board membership. Draft revisions will be shared at the next meeting and will be put to a vote.

• Staff Appreciation – The PTO is putting in place some very nice plans for all staff on Teacher Appreciation Week coming up May 1-5.

• Volunteer Appreciation Thursday – Related to all of the above, remember to recognize your volunteers by inviting them to the volunteer appreciation even on Thursday, 12:00-4:00 in the Community Room. 

• District Admin Updates – KC Clark, current SSD administrator assigned to high school and post-graduate programs, will be the administrator of the Fox Hollow Campus, which is a new SPED focused facility that opened this school year which houses three programs—Comprehensive Services, Home Instruction, and Instructional Programs. The Lane ESD provided the on-site administrator this year, but starting next fall, the Fox Hollow administrator will be provided by 4J, and KC has been selected for the position.

• Anti-bullying resources – The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable Knowledge has launched One and All with strategies to protect students, help them reject bullying, and build communities in which everyone thrives. Resources so far include: Widening the definition of bullying; a conversation about how to honestly confront racial trauma and facilitate conversations about racially tinged events in the news; and one ELL teacher’s first-hand experience as an ELL student.

• 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:

April 24 (M)
Volunteer Appreciation Week
ODE Title 1 School Monitoring Visit
EEF Grant Applications Due to Allan by 2:30
9:30-10:30, Allan to Tech Articulation Meeting w/Kelly MS (Kelly)
2:30-3:30, Site Council Meeting (Conference Room)
4:00-5:30, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)

April 25 (T)
2:30-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa/Sarah’s Room, B203)
3:30, Allan to Parent Meeting (Office)
5:00-7:30, ACE Awards (Hult Center)

April 26 (W)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Administrative Professionals’ Day
8:00-11:30, Tech Trot
• 8:30-9:15 – 2nd & 3rd Grade
• 9:30-10:15 – Kinder & 1st Grade
• 10:30-11:15 – 4th & 5th Grade
12:45, All-School Photo (West Courtyard)
1:30-2:30, Teacher Training for ALICE Student Training (Volunteer’s Room)
2:30-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)

April 27 (H)
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
9:00-9:30, 3-5 Native Storytelling Assembly (Gym)
9:40-10:10, K-2 Native Storytelling Assembly (Gym)
1:30, Allan to Truancy Follow-Up (Office)
4:00-6:00, Allan Potentially to Elem. Job Expo (Ed Center)
12:00-4:00, Volunteer Appreciation w/Donuts (Community Room)
5:00-6:00, Human Growth & Development Parent Preview (5th Grade Wing)

April 28 (F)
9:15, Earl the Mailmain Visit to Kindergarten
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)

May 1 (M)
Teacher Appreciation Week
Children’s Book Week
PBIS Monthly Theme – Positive Attitude
1:30-4:00, Allan to Testify at DHS Hearing (Lane County Youth Services)

May 2 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principals’ Meeting (Ed Center)

May 3 (W)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Pre-referral SPED Meeting (Conference Room)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (River Road)

May 4 (H)
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
2:30-3:30, Allan to IEP Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)

May 5 (F)
Regular Day

Believe it or not, there’s only 41 more student days until summer!

Allan

 

The sun briefly came out last week and 4th grade got to eat lunch out in the courtyard!