December 17, 2018

By Allan  

 

Greetings Roadrunners,

It’s been an adventure having four weeks of school between Thanksgiving and winter break this year compared to the usual three. This time of year is always filled with fun, excitement, and a lot of stress, so be ready for “interesting” behaviors from kids and families (and maybe even each other) this week. Welcome everyone with a smile and make this week a fun and enjoyable one before we send everyone off into the break. You got this, everyone!

Fourteen items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates: New ESC Hire – Becca Lambeth-Anderson, a regular Howard sub you may recognize, was hired as our new 0.6 FTE Title 1/ESC and will start Monday morning. Becca has previously worked as a bilingual staff specialist, a Spanish teacher, and a 2nd grade classroom teacher. Becca is also joining the Howard-Same-Name Club [Becca, Becca, & Rebecca, Carolyn & Carol, Debbie, Debby, and Deborah, Jenefer & Jenny, Jessi & Jessy, Robin & Robin, Rhonda & Rhonda, Shelley & Shelly, Suzanna & Suzy.Please welcome Becca to the AMAZING Howard Team!

• Tracking Room Clears on Level IIIs – Downtown is wanting to track the number of Room Clears happening at school and these are now to be noted on Level IIIs. There’s not currently a Room Clear checkbox on the Violation Category section, so until that is updated, just check “Other” and write Room Clear.

• Room Clear Guidelines – Downtown is also working on guidelines for when a Room Clear is appropriate and should be used, but the current guideline in 4J’s rainbow tabbed Emergency Procedure Manual says a Room Clear should be used “when the teacher must remain in in the dangerous situation but can send students to a designate safe area.” For example, if a student is being non-compliant and has crawled under a desk and/or making disruptive noises, that would not constitute a room clear. However, if a student was being non-compliant and was posing a direct threat to others and will not leave the room, that would constitute a room clear. There will be more to come on this, but in the meantime let me know if you have any questions.

• January 7th PD/Planning Day – Licensed staff, watch for more details on times, locations, and various required trainings for specific staff (i.e. 5th grade required Outdoor School meeting, KG required meeting, counselor required meeting, etc.). For classified staff there are no required trainings this day, so please connect with your cooperating teachers as to how you can be helpful this day.

• EA Supervisors’ Meeting Notes – Nurse Robin went over some diabetes information she’ll be sharing with licensed staff at a later date, but some additional items of note include:

• Physical Aggression Documentation Clarification – To clarify a prior announcement about being sure to document all incidents of physical aggression. Always document when a student:

• Level 2 Procedures – If a student receives a level two, the person writing it should handle the situation with reteaching and consequences as necessary. One copy of the form goes home (or a phone can can be made instead), one copy goes to the teacher, and one copy goes in Rae’s mailbox to be entered into SWIS. If a staff member is unable to follow-up with a student about a Level 2 referral, they should connect with either me or the classroom teacher to follow-up with the student and contacting parents.

• intentionally tries to hurt someone else, even if they don’t actually hurt them.
• hurts another student through rough play
• is continuing to play rough after prior warnings, even if they haven’t actually hurt anyone.

• Keeps Gates Closed – For teachers who take your classes to walk the track, be sure to keep the gate closed. There are a number of students who will run off the playground if they see an opening and keeping the gate closed helps to deter this.

• Staff Room/Quiet Room – It’s recently come to light that kids in the Quiet Room can hear pretty much anything being said in the Staff Room, so be sure to check your volume if you’re sharing something students shouldn’t here.

• Admin Subs for Elem Principal Meetings – Downtown is seeking to help large elementary schools when principals are out of the building for elementary principal meetings (not all-admin meetings), so for the remainder of the school year, they have assigned middle and high school assistant principals cover buildings on these dates. Erin was already set to sub for me this Tuesday, but the remaining elementary principal meetings this school year will be covered by Kelly MS assistant principal John Wayland and NEHS assistant principal Trinity Welch-Radabaugh (1/22 Trinity, 2/26 John, 3/19 Trinity, 4/23 John, 5/28 Trinity).

• Elementary Future Chefs Event – Flyers will be coming soon to go home with students, but feel free to let 1st through 5th grade student know about the event. Linked here is a Future Chefs Teacher Letter and Flyer.

• AESOP REMINDER w/Visual – I had some questions on this last week, so I added a visual to show the two spots where teachers list your absence time and the “Substitute Report Hours.” These default to being the same, but if your absence times are less than 4 or 8 hours, click the small icon between the two sections to update the Substitute Report Hours field so that it has either a 4 or 8-hour time frame for the sub work hours.

• No Popcorn This Friday – There will be no popcorn this Friday due to our “Popcorn Moms” being unavailable as well as their regular subs, but a make-up popcorn day will be held on January 11th, so students who paid for year long popcorn won’t get cheated. I’ll include this in morning announcements, but teachers can also remind students.

• Artist in Residence Schedule – Several changes were made to the draft schedules. Effected teachers were already notified, but linked for everyone else is the Updated January Artist Schedule and the Updated May Artist Schedule

• Hoax Bomb Threats – If you missed it in the Register Guard, there’s been a rash of hoax bomb threat emails demanding Bitcoins across the US and it’s come to Eugene. One 4J employee received an email (here the email sent to principals), and EPD is advising if anyone receives one of these emails you notify the office immediately so we can check the building and notify the appropriate people. Bomb Threat procedures are also listed in 4J’s rainbow tabbed Emergency Procedure Manual, which should be prominently hung in each classroom. Let me know if anyone needs a copy of that or if you have any questions.

• 13 Ways to Boost Your Immune System When the Whole School Is Sick – Prevention is possible! See this WeAreTeacher Article for how to keep yourself healthy.

• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events of note for the rest of the year:

December 17 (M)
3:45, Allan to Elem Report Card Committee Meeting (Ed Center)

December 18 (T)
8:15-12:00, Allan to Elem Principals’ Meeting – Erin Subbing (Ed Center)
2:45-3:30, Staff Meeting (Justine’s Room, RM29)
4:00-7:00, Allan to 4J Assessment Adoption Workgroup (Ed Center)

December 19 (W)
11:15-12:40, OBOB Lunches (Community Room)

December 20 (H)
2:45-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, RM24)

December 21 (F)
Winter Solstice
8:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
10:30-12:40, Birthday Lunches w/the Principal (Community Room)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, RM1)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – CANCELLED to comp for Thanksgiving missed hour of prep

January 7 (M)
No School – District PD/Planning Day
8:00-10:00, Allan to TalentEd Rubric Committee (Cal Young)
8:00-10:30, Licensed Staff PD Session #1 (must attend 2 of 3)
11:00-1:00, Licensed Staff PD Session #2 (must attend 2 of 3)
1:20-4:00, Licensed Staff PD Session #3 (must attend 2 of 3)

January 8 (T)
Artist in Residence – Nicole Hummel – Functional Pottery Begins
Winter Benchmark Testing – easyCBM Begins
8:30-12:00, Allan to All Admin Meeting (Ed Center)

January 9 (W)
Monthly Walk & Roll to School Day
11:15-12:40, OBOB Lunches (Community Room)
2:30-5:00, Allan to Pay Grade Evaluation Committee (Ed Center)
4:00-5:00, Allan to North Region Principals’ Meeting (NEHS)

January 10 (H)
Regular Day

January 11 (F)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – Math PLC (Library)

January 12 (SA)
10:00-12:00, Allan and Lori to School Showcase (Ed Center)

Factoid of the day, as of this Monday, Howard gets bragging rights that we have 500 students (including our 19 preschoolers). I wonder where we’ll be after winter break?

And not that anyone is counting, but five days until winter break! You can do it! Go, Team Howard!

Allan