May 20, 2019

By Allan  

 

Greetings Friends,

Get this! After this week there are only two more 5-day weeks until summer!

Sixteen items of note for this week:

• 2019-2020 Staffing Updates – Principals were told at our last meeting, pending budget committee and board approvals, that all schools (minus a few smaller schools) next year will get a full-time, 6.5 hour, Project Pass Coordinator to help with Tier 2 Tier 3 student behavior support. This will be a new classified position and downtown is still deciding on the job classification, but it will be posted sometime in the near future. Also, our 3-hour Learning Center EA Job Posting is currently posted (it closes 5/28) and a 6.5 hour Life Skills EA position should be going up later this week. Be sure to encourage any excellent people you know to apply!

• REPEAT: PLC Meetings 5/21 & 5/22 – Tuesday and Wednesday this week are Grade Level PLC Meetings with roving subs. Dates and times for grade level teams are:

Tuesday, May 21
1st – 8:30-9:30
2nd – 10:00-11:00
KG – 11:10-12:10

Wednesday, May 22
3rd – 12:15-1:15
4th – 1:25-2:25
5th – Moved to Friday, May 17th

• REPEAT: Ukulele Club Assembly, Thursday – This Thursday is an optional assembly for classrooms to come see Howard’s Ukulele Club perform at 8:40 in the Gym. See the linked Ukulele Assembly Map & Directions for details!

• Oregon Children’s Choir Assembly, 5/30 – Not this week, but next week on Thursday, May 30th at 9:50 in the gym will be an optional assembly for classrooms to come see the Oregon Children’s Choir, which our very own music teacher, Siera, works with. See the linked Oregon Children’s Choir Assembly Map & Directions for details!

• Roadrunner Award Assembly, 5/31 – Linked here is the Roadrunner Award Assembly Map & Directions for the assembly happening in the gym on Friday, May 31st. K-2 will be 8:45-9:10 and 3-5 will be 9:20-9:45. Teachers should choose 2-4 students who have demonstrated exceptional Roadrunner Behaviors (Safe, Kind, and Responsible). Certificates and parent/guardian invitations are located in the filing cabinet by Elizabeth’s desk. Be sure to get certificate to me before the 31st so I can get them organized before the assembly.

• End of Year Items – Several informational end-of-year items:

• Report Cards & Permanent Record Cards – Teachers can work on report cards anytime, but for attendance purposes, wait to print the later afternoon on the last student day, Tuesday, June 18th. Lori needs to run an attendance update for the dates to calculate correctly on the report cards.

For printing report cards and stuffing report card envelopes, as has been done in the past, teachers will print two copies of the report cards, stuffing one in the report card envelope (an addresses report card envelope this year) and stuff one in student CUM files (in the back of CUM files, not the front). Another change is teachers no longer need to fill out the permanent records cards. For this year’s report card envelopes, do not put anything in the envelope other than the one sheet (printed back-to-back). All envelopes have to be the exact same weight since this will be a mass mailing. If teachers would like help stuffing envelopes, there will be classified staff working on Grading Day, Wednesday, June 19th, so we should be able to find folks still working in the building this day to help if teachers get report cards printed before noon this day.

PE, Music, and Title 1 reports are to go home on Friday, June 14th in Friday Envelopes. SSD and Instruction are still deciding how to handle SPED end of year reports, which can be multiple pages.

Lastly, be sure to see Lori’s earlier email for which students need a Spanish report card sent home.

• Class Lists – Linked here are the 2019-2020 Class Lists. Sending grades and SPED staff should finalize lists, so other building staff can take a look at student combinations and give feedback. Teams should let me know if you need any help from me.

• Last Day Dismissal Time – Howard’s dismissal time for the last day of school, Tuesday, June 18th, will be at 11:10.

• 5th Grade Promotion & Clap Out – 5th grade is having their promotion ceremony Friday, June 14th at noon in the gym. We’ll also plan to end the day with our traditional clap-out event.

• Grab-n-Go Lunches – We’ll again provide students with a build your own sack lunch the last day of school to take home. Times are posted on the Staff Google Calendar and I’ll share logistics as we get closer, but I plan to run this as we’ve done in the past.

• Last Day for Specialists – Downtown’s expectation for PE and Music is that it will go through the last day of school. For Title 1 and SPED, groups will end on Thursday, June 13th, with the exception of Life Skills and some individual CLC students.

• Friday Early Release PD – This Friday’s Early Release Math PD is for “Building Goals” so this meeting will be a number of business items including our ESSA Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP), First Day of School Plans (meet in gym or just go to class), Class Lists (how are they looking?), Master Schedule (updates and discussion), and any other business items folks might have, so let me know if you have any items to add to the agenda.

• ESSA Updates – Licensed Site Council reps met last weeks to begin solidifying strategies and timelines to for our three Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) goals. This is a three year plan and our three goals are 1.) improving math and reading scores, 2.) investigate AVID strategies and consider becoming an AVID school, and 3.), a school climate goal (i.e. PBIS, SEL Curriculums, Equity/ELL PD, Attendance Systems, etc.). See the linked Draft Howard CIP for details (the highlighted parts still need to be wordsmithed), but we generally tried to connect a majority of our strategies to existing district initiatives, since the problem we ran into with our last school improvement plan was finding time for our SIP initiatives and district initiatives. We did a a few of our own that seemed manageable, taking into account this is a three year plan and not everything having to happen all at once. I’ll share more at Friday’s Early Release Meeting and will give staff a chance to discuss and ask questions, but let me know if you have any questions before then. The plan is to finalize the CIP at the May Site Council Meeting on 5/29.

• Library News – Library News form Julie:

Out of the building on Monday May 20th.

Our last week of check out was a busy one, teachers you will find current list of all books checked out to your students. Books are due back either Tuesday the 18th or Wednesday the 19th depending on when your library class was last week. I have indicated on the top of the list my hopeful return day. Each student who returns their books by Wednesday at the latest, fines paid or an agreement for working of fees for lower cost books will be entered into a drawing for a book fair posters from our previous book fairs. Posters will be given out the week following the book fair. An email with more details will be coming soon.

Staff library books will be due June 12th

I attended the year end library meeting last Thursday, and received some exciting news.. We received 4th place for circulation for elementary schools at 13,227 titles checked out this year. Our school had the lowest fines owed and some of those fines were carried over from other schools. I added the most books to our library over the course of the year over 700 books. Our current inventory is almost 13,000 copies. One other note of staff changes downtown is our catalog specialist Alison Conner is retiring. We are in hopes they will hire a certified teacher librarian to fill her position. This would be beneficial in countless ways. All in all Howard is one of the top libraries in the district! Yay us! Thank you for making our library a priority in our school.

Top books circulated was The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (OBOB) and Raina Telgemeier’s Sisters and Smile (non-OBOB)

Top patrons for check out were Lyra for Mrs. Chunn’s class and runner ups were Raechel and Riley from Mr. Stone’s class

Top class with most circulations was Mrs. Groshong’s class with 1,070 copies WOW!!

Library classes will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, (no check out this week – book fair talk and info)

Book fair will be open Friday for student preview, staff preview will be held after school to allow you more time to browse. I will have wish baskets out on the table for you to add a few books you might like parents to buy for you :) Remember if you add a few books to your basket, I will give you a $5.00 gift certificate! Please have students wait until the following Tuesday to purchase items at the book fair. – thank you.

Hope you all had a restful weekend, see you Tuesday! – Julie

• Barcoding Elementary Curriculum Materials in Schools – Principals were sent an email letting us know that this summer a 4J cataloging specialist will be barcoding all the Journeys, Being A Writer, and Intervention materials in all elementary schools. Since we have three summer school programs using downstairs classrooms and teachers usually like to lockdown everything, but teachers should make sure that the above listed materials are not locked up and are accessible to the catalog specialists. Downtown also asked principals to remind teachers changing buildings that curriculum materials stay in the current building and that staff do not take materials with them to their new location. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

• PTO Meeting Tuesday @6:00 – The final PTO meeting of the year is this Thursday at 6:00 in the cafeteria if any staff are able to volunteer you time to attend. I know our PTO folks always appreciate it when staff are able to attend.

• REPEAT: Don’t Touch the OAKS Testing Snacks – Final reminder for the last week of testing (until easyCBM testing begins). The snacks in the Staff Room are for 5th graders during state testing. They are NOT up for grabs, but will be next week.

• 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 your 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 Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which sounds like Almost Famous meets Fleetwood Mac and You Can’t Win by Jack Black, which a friend recommended as a fascinating autobiography of a depression era self-described “criminal hobo”. If you want some ideas, here’s Publisher’s Weekly’s Summer Book Picks, but let me know your books!

• An Evening with Dr. Wendy Ellis: Building Community Resilience – A Call to Action – Tuesday, May 21st from 6:00-8:00 at the Ed Center Auditorium will be a free event sponsored by Lanekids and Lane Early Learning Alliance, for preK-12 leaders, educators, and community members. Dr. Ellis will share information and lessons learned from the Building Community Resilience (BCR) initiative and the community based efforts to address adverse childhood experiences and adverse community environments, which Dr. Ellis has coined the “Pair of ACEs.” See the linked flyer for details and if you’d like to attend, follow this Registration Link.

• May Is Mental Health Awareness Month – Is mental health a priority at your classroom or school? In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Teaching Tolerance has put together these resources for destigmatizing conversations about this critical topic. Read, share and use them to make your classroom, school, and district safe and inclusive for all students.

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

May 20 (M)
Artist in Residence Continues
OSAS (formerly OAKS) Testing Continues
Spring Benchmark Testing – easyCBM Continues
Library Book Return Week
Julie Out of the Building

May 21 (T)
8:30-12:15, Howard PLC – Half-Day (1/2/KG)

1st – 8:30-9:30
2nd – 10:00-11:00
KG – 11:10-12:10

2:45-3:30, Staff Meeting (Imelda’s Classroom, RM7)
6:00-7:00, PTO Meeting (Cafeteria)

May 22 (W)
June Newsletter Deadline
9:15, 5th Grade Group Photo (Front of School)
12:15-2:25, Howard PLC – Half-Day (3/4/5)

3rd – 12:15-1:15
4th – 1:25-2:25
5th – Rescheduled to Friday, May 17th

2:40-3:30, Student Care Team Meeting (Conference Room)

May 23 (H)
Book Fair Set-Up (during school) – Library Closed
8:00-10:00, Allan to Night Custodian Interviews (Conference Room)
9:00-12:00, Experience Oregon Architecture and Engineering Tour of Building (Time is TBA)
2:45-3:30, TLT Meeting (Angela’s Room, RM24)

May 24 (F)
Book Fair Student and Staff Preview
8:40-9:10, Ukulele Club Assembly (Gym)
10:30-12:40, May Birthday Lunches with the Principal (Community Room)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – Building Goals (Library)
6:00-8:00, PTO Movie Night “How to Train Your Dragon 3” (Cafeteria)

May 25 (SA)
Towel Day

May 27 (M)
No School — Memorial Day

May 28 (T)
BOGO Book Fair
Artist in Residence Continues
Spring Benchmark Testing – easyCBM Continues
8:15-12:00, Elementary Principals’ Meeting, Trinity Welch-Radabaugh subbing (Ed Center)
9:15, Kelly Pilots visit 5th Grade
2:45-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Erin’s Room, RM22)

May 29 (W)
9:10, Fire Drill
9:15, 5th Grade Visit to Kelly
2:45-4:45, Site Council/ESSA Meeting (Conference Room)

May 30 (H)
8:10-8:40, 3rd Grade Delgani String Quartet Assembly (Gym)
8:40-10:30, 5th Grade Planetarium Field Trip – Cortez/Stone
9:50-10:40, Oregon Children’s Choir Assembly – Optional (Gym)
9:55-12:00, 5th Grade Planetarium Field Trip – Rock/Callihan

May 31 (F)
Title 1 Progress Monitoring Day – No Groups
Book Fair Clean-Up & Breakdown (during school) – Library Closed
Last Day to Use School Credit Cards
Supply Lists Due to Lori
8:45-9:10, K-2 Roadrunner Award Assembly (Gym)
9:20-9:45, 3-5 Roadrunner Award Assembly (Gym)
10:30-12:45, All School BBQ (Cafeteria/Courtyard)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – PLC Focus for 2019-2020 (Library)

June 1 (SA)
11:00-3:00, Howard Carnival (Gym/Cafeteria/Courtyard/Playground)

Make it a good week and have yourselves as restful 3-day weekend!

Allan