https://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=6666
Greetings Roadrunners,
Summer is approaching and this is our final 5-day week of the school year!
Eighteen items of note for this week:
• 2017-2018 Music & PE Staffing – Our Music staff for next year will look very familiar, with Siera Kaup teaching music full-time first semester and David Adee teaching Music classes MTW half-time second semester. PE staff will be an entirely new crew. First semester we’ll have Ronny Mason half-time, teaching PE classes MTW, and second semester we’ll have Michelle Lampe full-time teaching PE. Please welcome these fine folks to the Howard team!
One change from this year is that on the off semesters for PE and Music we are getting 0.1 FTE less than this year, which means we’ll only have PE or Music Monday, Tuesday and in the AM on Wednesdays (not all day like this year). The only reason we got 0.6 FTE this year on the off semester is that there wasn’t any real process or formula in place at the time when we had to add specialist sessions. Now there is a formula HR is using to calculate PE and Music specialists, which looks at the number of classrooms in a school and calculate that specialists can can be scheduled 8 (and sometimes more) classes per day, which means we only needed two and a half days for 19 classrooms.
• 1st Grade Interviews – Wednesday, June 14th at 1:00 will be interviews for our 1st grade classroom vacancy, so let me know if you are interested in volunteering to be part of the committee. Also, last week we learned that Linda will unlikely be able to interview for the position due to an agreement between HR and EEA to only hire retirees for hard-to-fill positions, which is understandable, but is sad that we’ll lose a strong candidate for the position. Please feel free to recruit any rockstar teachers you know and tell them Howard is an awesome place to work! The posting closes this Tuesday.
• Summer Reading Staff Picks! – Since summer is almost here, it’s time for me to put together my annual end-of-the-school-year Summer Reading Staff Picks! Email me or let me know in person what you’re summer reading list looks like and I’ll post everyone’s picks in my final weekly announcements of the year. I love hearing what other are planning to read and have found some good books this way. My picks so far include all of the OBOB books (since my daughter is going into 3rd grade next year). I haven’t thought too much beyond that yet, but I have quite a few books left unread on my Kindle, so I’ll start working on prioritizing my books. Send me your book picks!
• Student Intent to Return Forms Due Friday – Downtown has created a process for confirming students returning next school year, which involves office staff putting together Returning Student Verification Form Packets (an Intent to Return form and a Student Information form stapled together) and classroom teachers sending them home on Monday if you didn’t send them home last Friday.
Students should return all forms by this Friday. Teachers should give Lori signed forms as soon as you get them so she can and enter them into a spreadsheet that we have to turn in by next week. The reason for the new process is that downtown wants to have better data for when they decide where to allocate “fix-it” funds for schools with enrollment bulges (like what we might have with our incoming kindergartners).
• NEHS Senior Stroll Thursday at 11:30 – I mentioned earlier that North Eugene High School staff had the cool idea of letting their graduating seniors visit their old elementary and middle schools this Thursday. They are first holding a Goodbye Assembly at North and from there will make groups based upon what school graduates want to stroll through. If all goes according to plan, they should get to Madison/River Road/Howard by 11:30, where they will stroll through the schools and load buses to depart by noon. Let me know if you have any questions.
• Class for PiVOT Exterior Photoshoot June 15th – Do any teachers want to volunteer their class to be part of a photoshoot PiVOT Architecture would like to do Thursday, June 15th? It’s pretty much the same thing they did last year with the interior spaces, but now they want to get some shots in the media center, the courtyards, and playground now that they are all put together. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll get you the photo release forms for parent/guardians to sign.
• Report Card Grading Day Expectations – Not this Friday, but Friday next week is the elementary report card grading day. This is a regular work day for all staff, with the exception of the very few student-contact-days-only staff. HR has said it is allowable for licensed staff to work from home this day if they notify their administrator (me) in advance, but be sure to make plans ahead of time if you need to collaborate with colleagues for grading. Also, be sure to use this time for grading and not use it to run errands around town. Teachers are highly visible members of the community, so keep in mind public perception. HR has said if working off-site on grading days is abused, we will not be allowed to continue the practice.
• Report Card Translation Deadline, June 12th – If you have report card comments you need translated into Spanish, they are due to Bianca by this Monday, June 12th.
• ODE Summer Academies 2017 – Teachers should let me know if you’re interested in this summer professional development opportunity, so I can put in an application for our school. Focus and Priority schools will automatically qualify and other schools with low growth scores in OAKS (like us) will get higher priority in getting in. Linked here is the email I was sent and linked here is a the Summer Academies Flyer. If this opportunity is of interest to you, let me know by the end of the week.
• Fire Drill, Monday June 19th at 10:15 – Our June Fire Drill will be Monday next week at 10:15 (while half the school will be on a field trip). If we’re unexpectedly rained out, we’ll try later in the day when there’s a break in the weather.
• Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program – Good news and bad news. The good news is that the FFVP will continue through June 9th, but the bad news is we still do not know if the program is being funded by the state for next school year.
• 2017 IPBS MATT Results – Brianna Stiller shared with us our MATT Results (Monitoring of Advanced Tiers Tool) for our IPBS end of year program evaluation. Brianna noted that Howard has once again shown ourselves to be an exemplar school in regards to implementation of Tiers 2 and 3 of PBIS. The only area where Howard didn’t “nail it” was the most difficult area; Fidelity of implementation of Tier 3 Behavior Support Plans, which we’ll plan to work on next fall. Thank you IPBS team members and everyone who works with students on CICO Cards and BSPs for your AMAZING work!
• Reminder: PRIDE Awards Assembly Friday – This Friday is our final PRIDE Awards Assembly of the year for Excellence (“Do your personal best.”). Teachers, please choose 2-3 students who’ve demonstrated this trait and complete the PRIDE Awards before Friday. The K-2 assembly is at 12:30 and the 3-5 assembly is 1:00 (I moved the time up by 5 minutes so 5th grade can come in straight off the playground). See the linked assembly map and directions for details
• Reminder: Class Lists Due Friday June 16th – Since Erin brought us into the 21st Century and created a Class List Spreadsheet to enter class lists for next year, teachers do not need to complete the placement cards unless your team would like to do that in addition to the spreadsheet. See Erin’s email for directions on the spreadsheet. Lists need to be completed by the end of next week, Friday, June 16th.
• Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program (Free Books for Kids!) – This is obviously a marketing ploy, but the Barnes & Noble’s Summer Reading Program will give kids a free book if they fill out a Reading Journal (available in both Spanish and English) of what they read over the summer and who they would recommend those book to. They can then redeem their completed journal for one of the free books listed in the journal.
• Countering Students’ Narratives – Like everyone else, students subscribe to narratives about themselves, their lives, and their abilities to accomplish things. But teachers can play an important role in helping students change how they think about those narratives. Read this Teaching Tolerance story of how using counternarratives can help turn students’ “I’m not good at this” into “I’m not good at this—yet!”
• Trauma Informed Care Video – I’m working with Awbrey Park and Madison on a joint professional development this fall for our back-to-school meeting day around trauma informed instruction. This 10-minute Trauma Informed Care video is a good introduction on the topic of Trauma Informed Care and/or Restorative Practices. The website this video comes from also has a brief but informative article on this topic. It is very powerful around how closely students watch adults interact with each other and with kids, and the impact our every day interactions have. NPR also ran a story on this topic recently as well, how some New Orleans schools adopted trauma-informed practices.
• Schedule of Events for the Week – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the rest of the year:
June 5 (M)
Library Book Return Week (All books due back by June 9th)June 6 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)June 7 (W)
Last Day for Popcorn
8:30-10:00, K – 2 Field Day (Kelly Track)
10:15-11:30, 3 – 5 Field Day (Kelly Track)
12:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Meeting (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals MeetingJune 8 (H)
7:50-11:45, Data Team Meetings (Conference Room)
11:30-12:00, NEHS Graduates’ “Senior Stroll”June 9 (F)
Last Day for BEST
Last Day for Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program
10:30-12:30, BBQ Lunch – Parent are Invited
10:35, Allan Reading to Class
12:30-12:55, K-2 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)
1:00-11:30, 3-5 Pride Assembly – Excellence (Gym)June 12 (M)
easyCBM Testing Ends
Deadline for Report Card TranslationsJune 13 (T)
Regular DayJune 14 (W)
BOGO Book Fair
9:30-12:30, Rock/Callihan to Science Factory
1:15-4:00, 1st Grade Teacher Interviews (Conference Room)
6:30-7:30, YMCA Art Show (Cafeteria)June 15 (H)
Last Day for Title 1 Groups
9:00-11:00, Allan to ILT Meeting (Ed Center)
10:30-12:30, Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)
2:15-2:45, Allan to BEST Year End Eval Meeting (Office)June 16 (F)
No School – Grading Day
7:30-9:00, Allan to 4JMAPS Meeting
5:00-8:00, PTO Howard School CarnivalJune 18 (SU)
Father’s DayJune 19 (M)
9:15-1:00, SPLASH Field Trip for Grades 3/4/5
10:15, Fire Drill
4:00-5:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)June 20 (T)
8:15-11:15, Allan to Elementary Principapls’ Meeting (Ed Center)
8:30, 4th Grade Play (Gym)
1:15-1:45, PBIS Waterballoon Launch Tailfeather Reward (Softball Field)
2:30-4:00, Allan to Eligibility Meeting (Conference Room)June 21 (W)
12:00-12:45, 5th Grade Graduation (Gym)
12:50-1:05, Clap Out for 5th Grade (TBA)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ MeetingJune 22 (H)
Last Day of School, 11:05 Dismissal
10:10, Grab & Go Sack Lunches
11:30, Staff Last Day of School Ice Cream Celebration (Cafeteria)“Grab & Go” Sack Lunch Schedule
10:00 Kindergarten
10:10 1st grade
10:20 2nd grade
10:30 3rd grade
10:40 4th grade
10:50 5th gradeJune 23 (F)
No School Day — Grading Day
Last Day for Licensed StaffJune 26 (M)
Last Day for Classified Staff
See below for this year’s 5th Grade Class Photo! If I did my math right, the first 5th grade class we took a picture of, which is hanging in the Community Room, is graduating this year.
Allan
