Joel's Journal- A Weekly Bulletin Paulo Freire — Education transforms people. People transform the world.

Hey Bulldog Staff,

This week is Classified Employee Appreciation Week!  The contributions to our students learning is immense by this group of people. Joanne, Jill, Jeremy, Margie, Claire, Melody, Melinda, Brenda, Debbie, Pat, Larry, Richard, Charlotte, Vicki, David, David, James, Misty,and many more have had a huge positive impact on our student’s learning. Take some time to thank them this week for their help and support for our students throughout the week.

March 4 (M)
PBIS Monthly Focus: Respect
8:30-9:00 Joel covers for Title 1 Lesson Study Collaboration. (In Christina’s Room)

9:05-9:45- Joel and Melinda meet to discuss Spring projects. (Joel’s Office)

2:30-5:00, Joel to Elementary Principals Meeting (Ed Center)

5:00-9:00- Joel to Ed Policy Analysis Class (UO)

March. 5 (T)
8:00-4:00, Joel to All Principals Training with Jon Saphier (Ed Center)

3:00-4:00, PBIS Meeting (Tami’s Room)

Note: There is not a staff meeting this week. March 12th is the next staff meeting.

7:30-8:30, IEP Meeting in the conference room.
8:50-9:45, Joel in Formal Observation

2:45-3:10, Joel in Post Observation Meeting

4:00-6:00,Wednesday Forum with Jon Saphier

4:00-5:00, Joel to North Region Principals Meeting (NEHS)

Earthquake and Evacuation Drill Thursday or Friday– Please review this procedure with your students early in the week.
3:00-4:00, OBOB Practice for the big competition.

Earthquake and Evacuation Drill Thursday or Friday– Please review this procedure with your students early in the week.
3:00-4:00, IEP Meeting in the conference room.

March 9 (S)
9:30, OBOB Regional Competition (NEHS)

Here are some items of note for the week:

Visible Thinking Focus at Awbrey Park:  As mentioned in our staff meeting in February, The Harvard Project Zero Website has many valuable thinking routines to try to improve your visible thinking strategies. I encourage you to explore them here. These would be great tools to try out in your collaborative practice time in April, May and June.

Come to meet with me: I’d like to have one on one short conversations about staffing and how your year has been for you.  This meeting is an informal meeting to share your feelings about the year, a face to face conversation about staffing, and give me feedback on any changes that you have noticed this year in our school.  I have set face to face meetings at 3:00 and 7:45 on several days this week. These are tentative. If you have another time you’d like to check in approach me and I will see if I can make that time work! Thanks.

April 1st and 12th PD & Planning Days: It’s hard to believe Spring Break is only three weeks away, but to remind staff how these days will work, here is the schedule for April 1st and April 12th. It’s a regular work day for classified staff, but will be the following for licensed staff.For April 1, the schedule is as follows:3.5 hours — professional development
0.5 hours — lunch
2.0  hours — individual, contractually guaranteed planning
2.0 hours — budget reduction time

For April 12, the schedule is as follows:4.0 hours — planning time
4.0 hours — budget reduction timeTaking It Up Meeting in March and the Flower Project: I received the last of the photos for the flower project on Friday. I have seen some of the beautiful flowers being created by students in Mrs. Justice class. We are going to have a vibrant display very soon. I have set a Taking It Up Equity Meeting for March 19th at 7:30 AM. If you like to join us all are welcome. Also, I will provide breakfast to anyone who comes. This time we will have cereal and gluten free options available for all who come.OAKS Testing Schedule coming out soon: Melissa and Kristen met on Friday to work on the OAKs schedule. This week expect a schedule to be distributed by Kristen and posted in briefcase by Melinda.

Collaborative schedule being completed this week: Joel, Kristen and Melissa also met to make sure the OAKs schedule does not conflict with our Music and PE schedule. This will be posted via email and briefcase in the next week.

March Title 1 Blog: Here’s the latest blog post from Suzy Price with happenings in Title 1 and also a number of links to various resources and articles, including one on “15 Of The Best Educational Apps For Improved Reading Comprehension.”

Essay contest on interviewing an older adult: The Legacy Project’s national “Listen to a Life” Contest is inviting students to submit a 300-word essay by March 22nd. The prize is a new computer. It’s for students 8-18, but the rules state the judges will take into account the age of the entrant in evaluating entries.

Sharing our Read to Feed Project: Read2Feed I have inserted the Read To Feed Presentation for you to use with your classrooms. It is posted here as a PDF.  A few days ago Melissa sent it as a Keynote. Reading is already underway for this project and we have received our first contributions as well!

Joel