January 7, 2019

By Allan  

 

Happy New Year!

It’s 2019 and according to Blade Runner we’re now supposed to have flying cars, robot servants, and dress in futuristic trench coats (Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man and the anime classic Akira are also set in 2019, but we’re not as apocalyptic as those films).

Hope you all had time to unplug, reenergize, and have some fun over the break. I know I enjoyed my two weeks off. Lots of family actives (gatherings, meals, and one trip to the coast), reading (best new book was The Geek Dad Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists), music (new favorite song was Love, You Can Never Give Up by Beangrowers, although The Essex Green’s Sloane Ranger was a close second), movies (best movie watched was Brian De Palma’s Scarface), and TV shows (best new show was Bodyguard on Netflix, but The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was a solid runner-up). So it was a good break where I did manage to lose track of what day of the week it was at one point.

Seventeen items of note for this week:

• UPDATE: January 7th PD/Planning Day (Classified & Licnesed) – Since my last staff announcements there’s been several new emails about the January 7th PD Day. Linked here is the Classified Staff Email and Licensed Staff Email on how to set up a TalentEd account to register for a workshop on Monday. Linked here is the TalentEd Registration Directions. Full-time staff attend two trainings. Part-Time staff attend one. Note that on the Jan. 7 Professional Learning Opportunities Document that some classified and licensed staff members (i.e. 5th grade teachers, kindergarten staff, counselors, staff who’ve not received ALICE training, etc.). have some required trainings, which are marked in green.

Also note that the TalentEd Registration System is something new, so there is very likely going to be bugs this first time out, so do your best to register, but if it doesn’t work for you for any reason, go ahead and crash the sessions you’re hoping to attend. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

• Staffing Update, 4th Grade Job-Share – Some folks already know, but so everyone is in the loop, Justine is taking a part-time leave, teaching in the mornings and working with a job-share partner between now and spring break. You’ll likely recognize her job-share partner, Jasmine Ward, who this past term was student teaching in Carla’s 4th grade class, so please welcome Jasmine as the newest member of the AMAZING Team Howard!

• Julie Helping Cover for Matt – Julie has offered to do morning check-ins for Matt while he’s out on parental leave this week. Julie also offered herself and the libary as a place for kids needing a break or someone to talk to. Thank you, Julie!

• Artist in Residence Request – Nicole Hummel will be starting this Tuesday and asked if teachers can provide a student or adult volunteer to help her transition between classes. And a repeat, linked here is the January Artist Schedule and the May Artist Schedule.

• PLC Meetings Next Week – Not this week, but Monday and Tuesday next week are Grade Level PLC Meetings with roving subs. Dates and Times for grade level teams are:

Monday, Jan. 14

1st – 8:30-9:30
2nd – 10:00-11:00
5th – 11:15-12:15

Tuesday, Jan 15
KG – 11:10-12:10
3rd – 12:15-1:15
4th – 1:25-2:25

• School Choice Visitation Week & Info – School Choice season has begun and the School Showcase will be held this Saturday at the Ed Center, 10:00-12:00 if any staff are interested/willing to help me brag about our school. This event is for families to learn about all 4J schools in one place at the same time. Last year they provided breakfast for staff helping at the event. Let me know if any of you are interested/willing to help promote Howard and tell families why they should come to our amazing school!

Three related items: One, the first School Choice Visitation Week is next week, January 14-18, so be prepared for families to drop by classrooms over the course of the week. The second visitation week will be Jan. 28-31. Two, I’m holding two school choice evening presentations/tours. The first will be Thursday, January 17th 6:00-7:00 and the second will be Tuesday, January 29th 6:00-7:00, if any staff are interested/willing in helping me talk about our awesome school. And three, the window for school choice applications is again shorter this year, closing at the end of the month, so if families ask, they have until January 31st to lottery into Howard. Students who live outside of 4J may apply March 1–31, to be included in the lottery. Post-lottery transfer requests will be accepted beginning in May 2019. One change this year for out-of-district transfers is that the state law allowing inter-district transfers sunset at the end of last year, meaning that school districts are reverting back to the prior practice of one-to-one student exchanges (i.e. 4J will maintain a list of students from Bethel wanting to come to 4J and will take one from the first on the list when a 4J student wants to enroll in Bethel). More details on all of this can be found on the 4J School Choice webpages.

• Wacky Wednesday: Silly Sock Day – Not this week, but Wednesday next week is Silly Sock Day, so start getting kids excited to show off their wacky and/or mismatched socks next week (as well as planning for your own silliness).

• Post Winter Break Rules Review – With kids out of school for the past two weeks, this may be a good time to review basic classroom and school expectations. Linked here is the PBIS Back-to-School Refresher if teachers want an easy way to cover a lot of material at once or break it up into smaller chunks. This as well as the PBIS Playground Rules slide show can be found on the Howard Team Drive > Meetings/Teams > 2018-2019.

• January PBIS Focus: Be Your Best – The January PBIS monthly focus is “Be Your Best.” The PBIS team created a PBIS/CSC Cheat Sheet that matches our monthly PBIS themes with corresponding Caring School Community class meeting lessons, which is a nice way to tie the two activities together.

An a related note, here’s a nice short film about playground inclusion Ashley shared with me, which might be a nice video to show and discuss with students. It’s a bit heavy on metaphor, so it’s probably more appropriate for older students. Here’s a link to some related educational resources from their Official Film Website.

• BEST Strings Teacher Update – Our prior ESYO string teacher has moved on and we will have a new teacher, Emily Pfeifer, starting this week. Emily is currently teaching string at Willagilespie and will now take on both Howard and WillaG. Please welcome Emily as our new 4/5 ESYO Strings Teacher!

• Email Reply-All Reminder – Downtown asked principals to remind teachers to refrain from using email reply-all unless it’s necessary and if you do reply-all, make sure you’re aware of who all is on the email thread. Besides some of the reply-alls to the Jan. 7th emails, there was recently a district-wide specialist email that began professionally and included the outside group who there were concerns with, but subsequent reply-all emails became less professional and created a bit of a mess, so be careful out there.

• December McKinney-Vento Student Data – Linked here is the district-wide December McKinney-Vento Student Report. These totals represent students for the entire school year, not necessarily who’s in buildings right now. As in the past, Howard serves more homeless students than any other elementary, middle, or high school in 4J; 49 students total, which is more than 1 of every 10 students at Howard.

• Google Permission Forms – It came up at the last Technology Leadership Team (TLT) meeting that classroom teachers may not know which student do or do not have permission to use Google Classroom and other Google Apps, so attached in my email is a list of student who DO NOT have permission. Most students are cleared because the permission form is was included in enrollment packets the past couple years, but for any students who enrolled before that, they may not have a signed form.

• Monthly Walk & Roll to School Day, Wednesday – The first Wednesday of each month is a Walk + Roll to School Day, so remind your students that if they’re able, they should bike, walk, skate, or scooter to school this day.

• DSH Child Care Assistance for Working Parents – The Employment-Related Day Care program (ERDC) helps eligible low-income families pay for child care while they are working. ERDC is a subsidy program, meaning eligible families still pay part of the child care cost. Feel free to share this resource and follow the above link for information as to who can qualify and how to apply.

• Fun Background Removing Tool – I learned about Remove.bg from my favorite nerd blog, BoingBoing. With one click, it removes the background of any photo using AI. Just upload photo or take a picture of a person, animal, or thing, and it will erase everything in the background, replacing them with transparent pixels you can paste on top of another image (like this or this). If you want to do it with kids, I tried it out on my iPad and it works pretty easy using Safari and Pages.

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

January 7 (M)
No School – District PD/Planning Day
Matt out all week on Parental Leave
8:00-10:00, Allan to TalentEd Rubric Committee Meeting (Cal Young)
8:00-10:30, Staff PD Session #1 (full-time staff attend 2 of 3)
11:00-1:00, Staff PD Session #2 (Full-time staff attend 2 of 3)
1:20-4:00, Staff PD Session #3 (Full-time staff attend 2 of 3)

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

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)
10:00, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – Math PLC (Library)

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

January 14 (M)
School Choice Visitation Week #1
8:30-12:15, Howard PLC – Half-Day (5/2/1)
1st – 8:30-9:30
2nd – 10:00-11:00
5th – 11:15-12:15
2:30-3:30, Allan to Title 1 Cooridinators’ Meeting (Ed Center)

January 15 (T)
11:10-2:25, Howard PLC – Half-Day (K/3/4)
KG – 11:10-12:10
3rd – 12:15-1:15
4th – 1:25-2:25
2:45-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Erin’s Room, RM22)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Cafeteria)

January 16 (W)
Wacky Wednesday – Silly Socks
11:15-12:40, OBOB Lunches (Community Room)

January 17 (H)
2:45-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, RM24)
6:00-7:00, School Choice Presentation & Tour (Library)
6:30-7:30, KG Sugar- Read In Your Jammies (Katrina’s Room, RM2)

January 18 (F)
1:30-2:30, PBIS Meeting (Rae’s Room, RM1)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – SBAC Training (Volunteer’s Classroom)

January 21 (M)
No School – Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Factoid of the day, as of this Tuesday, Howard gets bragging rights that we have over 500 students (including our 19 preschoolers). We’ll see how many more student enroll starting this week.

See you all soon!

Allan