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

Hello Staff,

I hope you all had a nice three-day weekend.

• Schedule of Events for the Week

Feb. 18 (M)
Presidents Day – NO SCHOOL

Feb. 19 (T)

7:30-8:00, Joel in Teacher Meeting

9:30- 9:45, Office Staff Meeting

1:00-1:30, Walkthrough

3:00-4:00, Green Team Meeting

3:00-4:00, TLT Meeting- Harter’s Room

Feb. 20 (W)
Exclusion Day for students without up-to-date vaccinations

Spirit Day- Sports Theme

11:30-12:00, Walkthrough

1:45-2:45, After School Science Program

3:00-4:00, Joel to Downtown

7:00-9:00, 4j Board Meeting to Decide the Bond Proposal

 

Feb. 21 (H)
7:45- 8:10, Math Leadership Planning Meeting in Joel’s Office

9:00-9:30, Walkthrough

9:30-10:00, PTO Business Meeting

1:15-2:15, Joel to team teach with Christina using Saphier Model

2:40-3:40, OBOB Competition in Room 13 and Room 12

 

Feb. 22 (F)

Melinda sends out Verification forms. – Teachers: Please send special Friday folder even if you normally send out on Mondays.

Joel Teaches for Title Collaborative Practice Lesson Study Workgroup in Terri’s Room in the PM.

7:45-8:20, Joel and Melinda Finances Meeting

9:00, Phone Appt.

2:00, Walkthrough

 Some Items of Note for the Week:

• March 1 Classified PD with David Nelson, 10:00-11:00, Get all those questions answered you’ve been meaning to ask a tech.  David will meet classified staff in room 13 to go answer questions on word processing techniques, email management and more.

• March 1 PD Day, 12:00-3:30. Awbrey Park, This will be our final math focused PD of the year.  Raquel and Chris will lead with the help of our own Math Leaders, Jamie Tait and Beth Shershun. Topics: 1. ) Math Fluency Follow Up, 2.) How to give students effective math feedback and use error analysis as a grade level team.

• March 1^st Awbrey Social at Putters 4:00-6:00– It’s not bowling, but it’s close. Come play mini golf with your family and with staff on March 1^st after our PD Day. It’s time for a little fun!

• Student Headphones Order – The headphones are here.  We recently ordered 100 headphones for replacement of student headphones in classrooms. These are the same as the one’s we ordered in October.  Please work with David Nelson or David Greene to get your replacements.

• Facilities Bond and Technology Plan – Recently, the technology department proposed to add a technology piece that includes buying more tablet technologies amongst other items.  The board will meet this week to approve the final points for the bond levy to be up for election in May.

• OBOB Battles Continue – Very soon the Awbrey Park finalist will be chosen for the OBOB Competition in early March. The regional battle will again be held at North Eugene High School on Saturday, March 9th. Stay tuned for more details!

• Staffing Survey Due Friday, March 1st – If you haven’t done so already, please submit the staffing survey to me by Monday, February 25th. If you are interested in completing this by paper, I will have it available in the staff lounge for teachers to complete and put in my box.

• Free Run, Jump Throw Activities for Youth – Here’s a fun free activity for kids ages 5-12 you could mention in your classroom newsletters or tell your students about. It’s a free track and field clinic coached by UO and OTC athletes on Saturday, March 16th, 10:30-11:45 at Hayward Field. See the flyer for details.

• Caring For Kids Initiative Will Be District-Wide Next Year: Did you know that the Caring For Kids Initiative is off to a great start this year?  The plan is to have the Developmental Studies Curriculum implemented in all elementary schools next Fall. Kristen still has our packet of material for teachers to use as resources and try out on a mini- pilot level.  Stop by the counseling office if you want to take a closer look at all that it entails. Also, here is a link to the outline of the Caring School Community (CSC) program.

• How Is Creativity Killed? – Here’s a very smart article from Yong Zhao, a recent addition to the UO College of Education, who thinks U.S. education risks importing China’s creativity gap by adopting test-centered curriculum, pedagogy, and policies. He’s also written a book I liked a lot on this topic, Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization.

 

Have an excellent week, everyone!

Joel

 

Feb. 11 (M)
PBIS Focus: Perseverance
8:00-12:00, Sara Cramer visits Awbrey Park- Walk-throughs will be happening for an hour in the morning.
3:00-5:00,  Elem. Principal Meeting

5:00-9:00, Joel at university course.

3:00-4:00 Licensed Staff Meeting (Don’t forget to read Jon Saphier) See agenda below.

Feb. 15 (F)
7:45-8:30, Weekly Meeting Joel and Melinda

8:45-9:45, Joel teaching for the Title 1 Collaborative Team Terri, Melissa, Christina.

9:45-10:00- Weekly Office Meeting

3:00-4:00-  Joel at IEP Meeting with Jason Robbins

Some items of note:

 A Message from Jeanne Hall:  We’re already planning for spring! The UO Educational Foundations undergraduate major is in need of at least 80 field experience placements in classrooms for the Spring term (April 1 – June 7, 2013)!

Please respond by Friday, February 15.

Our Educational Foundations field experiences include the following expectations:

1. The Ed Foundations undergraduate major fully prepares our students to apply to graduate elementary licensure programs, so it is not an undergraduate licensure program. Therefore, host teachers are not required to have a certain number of years teaching experience…just a positive learning environment!

2. The field experience student will assist in the classroom for 30 hours total (approx. 3 hr. block per week for 10 wks locally).

3. Field students are eager to assist individuals and small groups, under the direction of the host teacher. During the majority of the time, students will need to assist or observe the children during instruction versus doing paperwork. Your field student will let you know of any specific assignment or observation for a course.

4. We ask that only one university student (field experience, practicum, or student teacher) be assisting at a given time frame.  However, you may request 2 field experience students if they each have their own time slot.

5. Field students will not be designing or teaching work samples, so there is no monetary compensation for host teachers. The host teacher is only asked to initial the student’s hourly log and fill out a very brief one-page evaluation of the field student at the end of the term. We believe your classroom will benefit from having an aspiring future educator as your consistent assistant!

With their varying schedules, most of our EdF juniors could be available on any day of the week, except they will not be available on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons.

If you are interested in hosting an Educational Foundations field experience student, please email Jeanne Hall with the following information: <jmhall@uoregon.edu>

1. Your name, grade, school, and email.

2. Your preferred days and 3-hr time blocks for those days each week for the Spring term.

3. The type of classroom setting you have (general ed., Title I, ELD, etc.)

4. If you wish to have 1 or 2 field experience students.

Article Link of the Week:

7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning– I really like this article.  It applies to much of the work we are currently undertaking.

Bobble Rules:

Teachers, please remember to review Bobble Rules with students. You should have a presentation that goes over the decided rules in the classroom. We have students who are creating alliances and not including students. This needs to be addressed beyond the rules.  Remind them that Mr. Lavin could end bobble if these non inclusive behaviors continue.

Here is the guideline we give to parents around balloons and flowers.  We will be following these guidelines on Thursday. Please understand that they will not be delivered to classrooms as it is distracting. Parents just received this information in the newsletter. I will remind them again this weekend.

Balloon and Flower Deliveries at School

Are you considering sending something special, like flowers or balloons, to school to celebrate your child’s birthday, Valentine’s Day or another event?  These deliveries interrupt classroom instruction and student learning.  They can also, unknowingly, hurt feelings of other students less fortunate.  If you still plan on sending something, we wanted to share with you our procedure for deliveries:

 

• All deliveries will be kept in the office.  The office staff will do their best to contact your student, at the end of their school day, to pick up their special deliveries.  We do need to caution you that pressing student issues will take priority over such announcements.
• Balloons and flowers are not allowed on the bus.  Please make alternate arrangements for transportation home, if your child is a bus rider.

In  addition, I caution you about any snacks or candy given out on Valentine’s Day. Please make sure you are following Health and Wellness guidelines in classrooms that day.  Thanks,

 

Have a good weekend,

 

Joel

Hello Staff,

We are more than halfway through the year. It seems like it’s flying by!

• Schedule of Events for the Week

Feb. 5 (T)

Feb. 6 (W)
2:00-2:30- Classified Staff Meeting
4:00-6:30- Digital Learning Day (Madison Middle School)
4:30-6:30- Jon Saphier PD Series “Cognitive Strategies Matched to Content and Students” (Sheldon HS)

Feb. 7 (H)

12:00-3:30- IT3 Training in Room 13

• PBIS Booster Rewards: – Kristen has collected all of the charts to verify reteaching of PBIS. All those classrooms with a completed chart will be receiving fruit snacks next week. I will have them in my office for pick up on Monday.

• TAG Trainings on Video: You may recall that I asked that teachers watch the TAG Videos. Please make sure you have completed this by April 1st, the day after Spring Break. These can be found in my Teaching and Learning Page on this blog. The required videos are posted on the page. I will put a sign in sheet in the staff lounge this week for completion.

• Social Committee Meeting: Are you on the social committee? It’s time for us to plan a fun activity that we can all enjoy together. We will meet Friday afternoon at 7:30 AM in the staff lounge. If you cannot make the committee send me ideas via email or come by my office. Let’s get this party started.

• Sense-making and Multiplication – Here’s a link to the video that Raquel mentioned at Friday’s training. The goal of the lesson in the video is for students to see how 1 digit multiplication helps with 2 and 3 digits too. It’s a 13 minute video that’s worth throwing up on your classroom screen one afternoon while you’re doing some after school prep work.

• Title I Communication Blog from Suzy Price– This blog contains helpful information pertaining to resources, reminders, upcoming events/deadlines, and more! It can be accessed by simply clicking on the link here. There is a February update post.

• Teaching compassion and empathy– Here is a video about teaching children love and compassion. It is a from a video series called Children Full of Life. The sense of community and trust this teacher has built with his 4th grade class is truly inspirational.

• Resources to teach students about African American history – This blog post includes several resources to help educators address Black History Month(February). Included among the six teaching tools recommended are resources that focus on February’s theme of “At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington.” They suggest interactive resources and timelines that focus on African-American heritage, the Civil Rights movement and other topics. There’s also a good link to a Teaching Tolerance page on the “Dos and Don’ts of Teaching Black History Month.”

• Public Works Day, May 17th – The City of Eugene invites classes to attend Public Works Day on Thursday, May 16th. Open house hours are 8:30 − 3:00 at the Public Works Yard, 1820 Roosevelt Boulevard. See the attached flyer and the link for further information. If you visit their website there is an online registration form, or you can fill out the old fashioned paper version here.

• 3 things that keep poor kids out of the sciences – In this Scientific American post, biologist Danielle Lee describes her experience coaching poor kids in St. Louis on science fair projects — an activity that often becomes a stepping stone to a career in the sciences. But, for the kids Lee met, intelligence and a good idea aren’t enough to overcome the institutional barriers working against them. This is how discrimination happens.
Have a good week!

Joel

Hello Awbrey Park Staff,

I hope you all enjoyed your three day weekend and are ready for a quick day week with students.

Here is our calendar or the week:

Jan. 21 (M)
No School — Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Jan. 22 (T)

Artist in Residence Schedule begins with Jessica Z. Mendoza (Runs through February 28th)
3:00-4:00, TLT Meeting (Room 13)

9:00-11:30, Waggener’s Class to History Museum

Jan.  23 (W) Crazy Hair Spirit Day

8:00 AM -2:15PM, Joel to Learning About Learning Network Meeting (River Road)

9:00-11:30, Gietter’s Class to History Museum

1:45 PM- Science Club Meets in Gym

3:00 PM, Data Team Meeting 3-5 (Room 13)

7:00-8:00 PM, Any interested staff to Public Hearing on Long-Range Facilities Plan (Ed Center)

Jan. 24 (H)

8:00-10:00- Joel to NEOGOV(Edzapp replacement) Training

9:00-11:30, Powell’s Class to History Museum

1:15 PM, Winter Reading Celebration in Gym

4:00-6:00- Melissa, Christina, Terri, and Joel begin Title 1 Collaborative Lesson Study Project (District Office)

Jan. 25 (F)
Grading Day – No Students, Teachers working at Awbrey Park, Classified employees present as assigned.
8:00 AM, Office Meeting- Joel, Melinda, Vicki, Claire

11:30- Joel to meeting in Springfield with professional developer to plan PD for April.

12:45- Joel returns to building to work on paperwork and planning.

• Math Report Card Guidelines – Remember to look on the District Math Server for report card guidelines on how to grade student math skills (since the report card was written for the old standards and we are teaching to the new standards). This year’s report card is unchanged, but next year’s report card, on the new eSIS (Synergy), will reflect the CCSS math clusters. Be aware that you cannot access this website at home unless you’re running VPN.

•TAG Blanket Testing:  TAG_Blanket_test_2013 -Here is the Letter that Kerri Sage wrote about our TAG screening that is coming up. We will be in communication with Kerri over the coming weeks about when this happens at Awbrey Park. The 2nd grade team and those that have referred students to me about testing will compile a list and verify with parents about testing soon.

• School Board Invites Public Input on Long-Range Facilities Plan, Wednesday at 7:00 PM – The School Board is seeking public input on their long range facilities plan. Input will take place at 7:00 PM this Wednesday at the Ed Center during the regular School Board Meeting. Here’s a link to the facilities proposal on the 4J website. I will be there to support other schools in the North Region and Roosevelt who badly need upgrades/ replacements to their buildings. I will also advocate for security upgrades at Awbrey Park.

• UO Track & Field Team – Reading to students – Coach Johnson and the UO Track and Field team are looking for opportunities to read to students over the next few months. We will be incorporating their enthusiasm for reading in our Read to Feed Program

• Doodle for Google Contest – Once a year, Google gives K-12 students across the U.S. the chance to display their own Google doodle on www.google.com through the Doodle 4 Google contest. The 2013 Doodle 4 Google contest launches with the theme “My Best Day Ever…” This contest gives students a blank canvas to exercise their creative imagination and doodle about their best day ever — be that in the past, present or future. Google is excited to see moments or thoughts that range from small and personal to broad and far reaching — maybe even out of this universe. Details can be found on their website for submission rules and also prizes. Every state will have one winner!

• How the Arts Intersect with the Common Core State Standards – When you hear CCSS, you don’t typically think of the arts. This short article from ASCD explores four direct connections between the arts and the Common Core State Standards, and consider how Next Generation Arts Standards focused on media arts can strengthen content-area learning.

• John Wooden, Teacher Extraordinaire – Here’s a good article on how John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, used four key insights on teacher inquiry. He always insisted that everything he did with his highly successful teams from 1946 to 1975 he learned from teaching high-school English in the 1930s.

Have an excellent week!

Joel