January 20, 2020

By Allan  

Hello Friends,

There was a great turnout for the PTO’s Family Science Night and thank you to everyone who came to the event. If anyone got any pictures, please send them my way. I forgot to take any.

Thirteen items of note for this week:

• Staffing Updates – Brittany Holtz has been hired as our newest 1:1 CLC EA. She’s been subbing in the position for the past couple month, so you’ll probably recognize her when you see her working in the CLC or in Imelda’s classroom. Please welcome Brittany to the fabulous Howard team!

• REPEAT: Fire Drill, TUESDAY @1:15 – Tuesday at 1:15 will be the January Fire Drill, so please plan accordingly.

• REPEAT: Roadrunner Award Assembly, FRIDAY @8:15 – This Friday is the January Roadrunner Award Assembly. Be sure to send home invitations to families of your winners. The halftime entertainment for this month will be an all school photo since we’re already all sitting together. The PTO will give shirts to teachers next week. The plan will be for teachers to pass out shirts Friday morning (or put them on desks Thursday after school) and for students to wear their shirts over their clothes to the assembly. Linked Assembly Map and Directions for where to sit.

• Friday Early Release PD – This Friday’s Early Release PD is designated as a PLC work session. Grade level teams will continue their work from last week’s PLC meeting.

• REPEAT: Staff New Year Party, Jan 24 @5:30 – See Matt and Justine’s Email for details, but the Howard Staff New Year’s Party is this Friday. Mark your calendar and remember to sign up on the Google Pot-Luck Sign-Up Sheet!

• Report Card & Grading Day Notes – Five items of note regarding report cards and grading day:

• Report Card Resources – The 4J Elementary Report Card website (which I actually made) has been updated which has information on getting started, best practices for teacher comments, a link to the Report Card Bridge Document on how the simplified report card language aligns with the standards, as well as printing instruction and information on Synergy Grade Book.

Take special note of the Performance Key for grading students, where a 3 is the target, students consistently meeting grade level expectations (scoring in the 74.88-98.99%) and a 4 represents consistently exceeding grade level expectations (scoring in the 98.99%-100%).

• Report Card Send-Home Date – Report Cards will go home on Friday, Feb. 7th, which is a district-wide date to send these home.

• Print AFTER 1/30 – Report cards should not be run until at least grading day. Attendance and other updates will be run after school Thursday, January 30th. Attendance will not be recorded correctly if they are run prior to these updates.

• Report Card Grading Day, Licensed Staff – For licensed staff, report card grading day is a regular work day. HR allows teachers to work from home if you notify your administrator (me) in advance, but be sure to plan ahead if you need to collaborate with any colleagues on 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 that if working off-site on grading days is abused, we will not be allowed to continue the practice.

• Report Card Grading Day, Classified Staff – For classified staff, please mark your calendar for an EA Extravaganza on January 31st (Grading Day). Downtown is in the process of putting together the offerings and they will likely use TalentEd for registration, so stay tuned for more info in the near future.

• Howard is Fragrance Free – This was in a back-to-school announcement, but to remind everyone, Howard is a Fragrance Free Building, so do not wear any scents, body sprays, perfumes, or such at school. We have a number of students and staff with allergies who can have serious potentially life-threatening allergic reactions.

• 4J Concussion Policy & Procedure – As a reminder, linked here is a one page document called Concussion-What Teachers Should Know. I’ll be placing hard copies of this in staff mailboxes on Monday, but know that 4J’s Concussion Policy & Procedures requires us to take extra precautions to check students when we suspect a head injury and need to assess if it is a potential concussion. In most cases, if we’re unsure, we want parents to make the decision.

• PLC Meeting Finds – Here’s two useful finds that came out of last week’s PLC meetings:

• Journeys Links in One Document – Tired of going to ThinkCentral for the teacher’s guide, audio, weekly tests, lessons, the student reader, vocabulary cards, leveled readers, etc? See this Journey’s All-Grade Links Document which contains easy to access links to EVERYTHING! Credit for this document goes to Awbrey Park teacher Patrick Chesterman, who I had the pleasure of working with at YG.

• New LearnZillion Math Games Location – If you’re having trouble finding the LZ games, we figured out it’s been moved to the 4J Differentiation Page. The path to get there from the 4J LearnZillion Website is go to first click the unit of study > Supporting Task with Differentiation, Games, and Technology > 4J Differentiation Page > LINK TO ALL, which will take you to the LZ Differentiation Google Folder.

• PTO Meeting Updates – Linked here is the January PTO Slide Show presentation from last week’s PTO meeting and here are two items of note:

• Science Night Success – The PTO Family Science night was a huge success with 174 people in attendance.

• Dickie Jo’s & Dickie Yo’s Fundraiser 2/19 & 2/20 – Eat at Dickie Jo’s and/or Dickie Yo’s Valley River Center location Feb. 19-20, and 25% of your bill will go to Howard! Show the linked Fundraiser Flyer to participate. It includes a voucher for a free dessert!

• District Admin Updates – Three district admin updates. One, Lavinia Page will be principal of Corridor Elementary School next year as they relocate to North Eugene High School. Lavinia has served as an assistant principal since 2016, splitting her time between Corridor, Yujin Gakuen and Holt, following nearly 20 years as an elementary classroom teacher. Two, Tom Piowaty, current principal of Corridor and Yujin Gakuen, will next year continue as principal of YG as they transition to its new location at Kelly MS. And lastly, Londa Rochholz, principal at McCornack, has decided to retire, leaving a vacancy at that building.

• Real-life examples boost fraction understanding – Using representational drawings or concrete examples from daily life can help students make sense of fractions, writes former teacher LauraMarie Coleman. In this article she gives an example of asking students how they would divide a giant chocolate chip cookie to share and making a bar drawing to visualize the problem.

• Schedule of Upcoming Events – See the Google Calendar for future events, but here are the events for the next two weeks:

January 20 (M)
No School – Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 21 (T)
Benchmark Testing Continues
8:15, Allan & Julie Meeting w/District Librarian (Office)
1:15, Fire Drill
2:45-3:30, Staff Meeting (Volunteer’s Room)
3:30, Allan Meeting w/Rob Hess (Office)
6:00-7:00, North Eugene School Design Open House (NEHS)

January 22 (W)
Vision Screening (Community Room)
Newsletter Articles Due
2:45-3:30, Student Care Team (Conference Room)

January 23 (H)
2:45-3:30, TLT Meeting/Training (Angela’s Room, RM24)
5:00-6:00, BEST/YMCA Parent Night (Cafeteria & Gym)

January 24 (F)
Popcorn Friday!
7:55, Howard T-Shirts Passed Out
8:15-8:45, K-5 Roadrunner Assembly & Tail Feather Reward w/School Photo (Gym)
10:30-12:45, January Birthday Lunches With the Principal (Community Room)
2:30-3:30, Early Release PD – PLC (Library)
5:30-8:30, Staff Holiday Party (Mellissa’s Party)

January 27 (M)
Benchmark Testing Continues
School Choice Visitation Week #2
10:00-1:00, Rest & Return Room Opens (RM21)
2:45-3:30, Site Council (Conference Room)

January 28 (T)
8:15-11:30, Allan to Elementary Principal Meeting – Gaston Covering (Ed Center)
2:45-3:30, IPBS Meeting (Mellissa’s Room, RM26)
3:30-5:30, Allan to Truancy Hearing (Office)
6:00-7:00, School Choice Evening Presentation & Tour (Library)

January 29 (W)
Last Day of Tailfeather Challenge
9:15, School Choice Visitation Tour
10:30-7:00, 4J New Teacher Institute (STEAM Room)

January 30 (H)
7:00-8:00, BEST Strings Concert (Kelly MS)

January 31 (F)
No School* – Grading Day (possible hazardous weather makeup day)
In District School Choice Closes
K-8 EA Extravaganza
8:00-12:00 or 12:00-4:00, Allan to District PLC Principal Meeting (Ed Center)

Have a good week y’all!

Allan