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

Week of September 10th

Hello Awbrey Park Staff,

The last week was a very exciting week for me. It was fantastic to see all of the student faces and the hope in their eyes. Thank you staff for making this week such a positive and hopeful experience for our students. Your enthusiasm, patience, and hard work paid off.

Calendar:

PBIS Meets from 3-4 Tuesday, September 11th

TLT Meets from 3:40-4 Wednesday, September 12th

Licensed Staff Meeting is 3-4 Tuesday, September 18th.

Hot Diggity Dog Event is 6-6:30 in classrooms. Dinner and Bingo follow at 6:30-8:00. Remember this is a meet and greet

There are several topics for the week and a few reminders.

• Some Details about Collaborative Teams:  A few teachers have asked me what is expected during the collaborative  time.  Some examples of collaborative practice are lesson studies, instructional networks, data teaming, action research, and team teaching. If you would like some guidance on the types of collaboration the district is expecting teachers to participate in during our PE/Music time, see the attached overview sheet. For September and October, go ahead and use this time as you choose. I consider it long needed prep time. In November, I could provide a protocol or activity for teams each month, or two, teams could develop their own plan for how to use this time for collaboration. If teams are interested in developing their own plan, one excellent resource for activities besides the ones described in the overview sheet is the National School Reform Faculty website, which has many high quality protocols. Most of the protocols on the NSRF website are designed for larger groups, but would be easily adaptable for smaller teams. More to come on this topic!

• Teacher Leaders wanted!!: Please take a look at the attached to take advantage of this great opportunity. Don’t want to rush you but, this great offer requires quick action on your part, Dr. Saphier will be back on September 20, 2012 ready to engage a teacher leader at Awbrey Park. That’s you! Here is the document sent by the district on Friday.

• Bus Safety Required Training: All students in School District 4J are to receive instruction on bus safety during the first half of the school year (before Winter Break). The intent of the rule is to reach the occasional riders who find themselves on a bus because of a field trip, activity trip, etc… There are videos available on Learn360 and also this on this 4J webpage, which will meet the training requirement if you show them to your class. Another option is to schedule a bus to come out during the school day and for a driver to give your class the training. I’m going to assume people are showing the videos unless you email me that you would like the driver led training. Let me know by Friday if the driver led training is your preference. After you have done your training with your students, please email me the date and method you used to instruct your class in bus safety.

• EEF Grants: I wanted to remind staff that EEF is now accepting grant applications. Schools can submit two $2,000 and two $500 grants, or they can combine grants to create one $5,000 grant. Grants are due to EEF October 15th. Last May Site Council approved the following applications.

The site council team recommended the following in order from highest to least priority.

1. Math site license IXL ($2000)
2.  OBOB ($2000)
3. Elective Program ($500)
4.  Artist in residence ($500)

Please let me know if you have would like to help me write one of these grants or add detail on them. I need to know more details soon to make them great (that get funded) proposals!

• After School Exit Plan: Some teachers have approached me about how best to divide bus riders from students being picked up.  Parents and some children have been a little confused about pick up. I encourage you to devise a class or grade level plan to separate out these students and designate a pick up area for parents near the driveway pick up zone.

• PBIS Lessons:  Just a reminder to go through your PBIS lessons. You can always use the WIKI for assistance if you can’t find a keynote or idea.

• Recess Safety Drill: Sometime early this week we will be running a safety clear drill at recess. This is to help us be ready to assist some of our most medically fragile students and also to be prepared for other emergencies. More details on the date and time to come in email. We will also be conducting our other safety drills soon.

• Common Core in Math:The common core is on everyone’s mind:  Soon we will be going into more depth about this topic and how it will effect classrooms across the district.  Some of you have spent a lot of time  working on Math CC standards in the primary years.  I have asked Chris Castillero, our new math curriculum coordinator from Instruction to lead some PD sessions through out the year. Our first session will be with him on October 5th.   I thought I would share the following clip on Elementary Math CCS. It is a good visual of problem solving in action.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IPxt794-yU[/youtube]

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Special Blog Update: The First Day of School!

Dear Staff,

Today was an excellent day. I could feel the excitement and hope in the air. I am very jazzed about tomorrow and have a little news I need to share with you. Sorry I could not limit my blog to once a week but things have been changing quickly these days.

1st. Recess Before Lunch
2nd. Supervision at Recess
3rd. Staffing Changes
4th. Option Staff Meeting tomorrow about office procedures.
5th. Teachers moving rooms.

1st. Recess Before Lunch

Tomorrow we will begin this new program. Here is what is needed from staff and teachers.
A. Teachers escort students to recess. Lunches should be placed in your lunch tubs and carried to the cafeteria. There is a location for pick up inside the cafeteria near the kitchen. Some of you may have used his space before. Two students should bring lunches to this space and then go to recess.
B. A bell will ring and prompt supervisors to line up students by grade underneath the overhang which enters the cafeteria. Supervisors should have lists of lunch numbers to remind students in line. Also, Larry will place the sanitizer stations underneath the overhang on the sidewalk.
C. Students will sanitize and enter the line to get lunch as usual.
D. All lunch recesses are 15 minutes. All lunches are 20 minutes to provide for transitions.
E. When lunch is completed, supervisors will escort classes organized by teacher for pick up at the double doors at the North of the Cafeteria (by the parking lot.) The students will line up outside the doors and wait for their teacher to pick them up. Teachers: Please be prompt to pick students up since our supervisors will be getting ready for another group to enter the cafeteria.

2nd. Supervision at Recess
Last spring I was told about a possible change to am recess supervision. At this time, we need to have extra help from teachers for am recess supervision and breakfast supervision. The process for deciding this was not very clear to teachers last spring. In fact, many knew little of it. We need to have a discussion/ decision as a staff about AM recess on September 18th. In the meantime, I need volunteers to watch recess/ breakfast for the first two weeks. Please contact me by email if you are willing to keep and eye on students until an agreement is reached by staff.

3rd. Staffing Changes
As you may have read in yesterday’s blog, Kim Chinn’s kinder section has been folded into Sara Grace’s classroom. This was sad news for many today at our Welcome Hour and on our staff. We have also been very worried about Kim moving from our building. The good news is that we were able to keep Kim on in our building as the ESC (Essential Skills Coordinator .44 FTE) and a Facilitating Teacher (.1 FTE) this year. Kim, Kristen, Melissa, Andrew and myself will be working together to create a schedule that supports teachers/staff with interventions, and other instructional supports through some of Kim/ Kristen’s Work. We will share with you clearly defined roles after some working together to define this new position. I am so glad to keep Kim at Awbrey Park.

In other news, our guest interim teacher for Amy Anderson, Nicole Newlon has been recalled. She will begin teaching 5th grade at Gilham next week. We will have a licensed substitute taking her place named Kendra Brummet. If you have a chance to wish Nicole goodbye and say hello to Amy they will both be in Amy’s classroom tomorrow.

4th. Optional Staff Meeting tomorrow about office procedures.
Remember that we will have an optional staff meeting about office procedures at 3:35 in Collaboration Station. It will last less than 15 minutes. By the way, anyone have decorating ideas? I can provide supplies to further decorate this space if you have the inspiration.

5th. Teachers that will be moving rooms.
Lastly, you probably know that we currently have 3 sections of 2nd grade and 2 sections of 3rd Grade. I have requested that Terri Weston and Beth Shersun’s classrooms be moved this weekend to keep 2nds and 3rds together in the building. Terri will be moving her materials out of her room Friday afternoon and I will be helping out with this process. Beth will be moving Saturday at 1:30. I am by no means requiring or asking anyone to help with these moves but I do want you to be aware that this is extremely stressful for both teachers. If you do have any time you can spare in your workday I encourage you to connect with them to see if you can pack a box or two. Every act of caring and togetherness makes us a strong team.

Thanks and good night. Have a great first day.
Joel

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Week of September 4th

Hi Staff,

It was great getting to see everyone last week and I hope you were all able to enjoy your labor day weekend without having to do too much school work.

There are several items to cover in this blog entry, the most important is at the top.

• Enrollment Status and Staffing Issues:

Dearest Staff,

As of Friday we had 423 students enrolled at Awbrey Park.  We are especially low in kindergarten and 3rd grade. The District office has taken some of our staffing back from us. At this time we have lost .5 FTE from kindergarten. We are currently rebuilding our kinder classes to become 2 classes of 28 with Sarah Grace.  Kim Chinn will work in the building as a facilitator for kinder during the upcoming work week. I will keep staff informed about any changes in kindergarten as they happen.

Our 2nd and 3rd grade teacher placements will change as well.  Beth Shershun has joined the 2nd grade team. We will not be running blended 2/3 classrooms this year. We will have 3 2nd Grade classes and 2 3rd grade classes.  There will be class size of 31 each in 3rd grade and 21/20/19 in 2nd grade. This will provide our 2nd grade class with better support in academics.

• Open House (Welcome Hour)

This year we have organized the open house to handle all of the different items families need to complete at the start of the year. This plan is listed in the PDF below. We will need some teachers to help out with this. I have put some suggested schedules in the this document.

• Office Procedures Meeting-

There is an optional staff meeting to find out about changes in the office, office roles, changes in PO procedures, ordering, etc.  This meeting will occur on Wednesday at 3:35 in Room 13.

• Mandatory Policy Review for all Staff –

Attached is the updated Back to School Memo. All staff must review the district policies under section 1 of the memo and return the acknowledgment form to me no later than Friday, September 28th. Please note that that downtown has revised the district complaint form in anticipation of the board approving the new bullying and harassment policy (which is in this memo in draft form). In addition, there is new information for district spending controls, and volunteers. I’ll leave a paper copy of the acknowledgement form in mailboxes for staff to sign and return to me once you have reviewed the policies.

• New Staff in CLCB-

Please welcome our new EA in the CLCB- Jill Carpenter. Jill will be working with us in the behavior classroom and will also support some students in a Title Math group this year.

• Back-to-School Kickoff Survey –

If you would like to give feedback on the Back-to-School Event please use the following Survey Monkey  survey.

• Employee Training – Safeschools –

As a result of recent Oregon law, all school employees are now required to have specific trainings on “Child Abuse: Identification and Intervention” and “Sexual Conduct: Staff to Student (Oregon-specific version in Full course or refresher).” In order to comply with the law, Human Resources has utilized the services of Safeschools.com. All employees should already have received an email from HR notifying them of the assigned courses, and simple instruction on how to log-in. The deadline for completion is the last day in December.

• Student Network Passwords –

In light of the security last school year, the district  is increasing network security. Partially at issue with the breach was that the person involved figured out the username and password pattern involving first & last names and lunch codes, and was able to access the system through multiple network identities. No changes are happening at this point, but I did want staff to know there will be changes coming, which will involve students being prompted to change their passwords after a certain amount of days, with K-2 students using passwords with 4 characters (e.g. 1235 or cat5 or clam) and grades 3-5 using 4×4 character passwords (e.g. 1234-abcd or fred-9999 or 4567-0001). Peter Tromba, the new director of technology, will be implementing these changes.

• Educator Goal Plans for Teachers –

Set a Date for Goals Conference – Teachers should complete the attached 4J Educator Goal Plan. I always want to encourage teachers to think of goals that stretch or push yourself. However, keeping workload in mind, make it something realistic and something you genuinely are working on improving in yourself or your professional practice. All non-itinerant teachers should contact me by Friday, September 14th to set up a goals conference meeting to take place sometime in September or early October. Please let me know if you have any questions.

• PBIS Slide Show Pictures and the Keynote Presentations

Please submit a picture of yourself doing something you enjoy or with a prop of something you enjoy (ie: camping, card making, quilting, etc.) This is replacing the slide show of staff members reading that we presented the last couple of years. This could be a picture you already have or one that you have someone take of you here. Whatever is easiest for you! When you send it please put a small caption of your interest etc. Please send this to Tami by Tuesday, September 4!

Contact Kristen or Tami to get updated keynotes for your PBIS lessons.

Our State OAKS report: Here is a link to the report ODE created about our OAKS Scores:  4J Achievement Compact Report

We will discuss this further in the September 18th staff meeting.

• Site Council Minutes –

Here are the minutes from our Site Council Retreat.

•  Teachers Collecting Parent Emails-  Please create a process in your classroom to survey your parents about emails and online access.  Send the updated information to me in an email and we will use this to update our communication lists with parents. I will use this for building an accurate list

• Back-to-School Prezi –

If for some reason you’d like to see the staff meeting Prezi presentation again, you can find it here.

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Week of August 27, 2012

WHAT’S NEW?

Welcome back Awbrey Park Staff!

I have published several topics in this post to let you know about events and opportunities coming up.  As I mentioned last week, I will be sending a weekly blog entry to inform you, share articles, and  inform you of upcoming events. This will be published on Sundays. I hope staff has time to read it by Tuesday of each week.

Site Council Retreat on Monday Evening 3:30-6:45:  Here is our agenda: 1.Welcome and Team-building. 2. Review SC By-Laws and responsibilities. 3. Clearly define roles and responsibilities for the year. 4.  2012-2016 SIP Writing Year- begin process. 5. List our priorities and ideas. 6. Review 2011-2012 data. 7. Increasing Parent Involvement. We are having a potluck dinner during our session too. We will be meeting in Room 13.

2012 4J Kickoff Conference, “Making Thinking Visible: Creating Pathways to College & Career” – 4J is planning something VERY different this year for the district kickoff event. Instead of the usual welcome speeches, the district has created a powerful professional development conference focused on our key instructional initiatives. All staff assigned to work August 30th are required to attend, although if you are part-time you are only expected to attend for as long as your normal work hours. See Kerry Delf’s email for details about time, location and transportation (I’d be happy to carpool with anyone in South Eugene. I can fit 5 in my car.) and also the agenda for the conference including a list of the afternoon breakout sessions.

CLCB Educational Assistant Interviews–  ESS  and Awbrey Park staff will be working together Wednesday afternoon to interview candidates for the vacancy in the program. I am planning to conduct interviews on Wednesday, August 29th, from 12:30-4:00 in the conference room.  If there are any staff members interested in being part of the interview committee, you are welcome to help out. Jason, Brenda, Amy Tidwell and myself will all be part of the committee. We don’t require additional committee members but I want to extend the opportunity if anyone else wants to participate.

Friday Staff Meeting in “Collaboration Station” 8:00-11:45 in the Room 13

• Be ready to collaborate and team-build. We will be doing a creative building activity at one point in the morning. No smocks necessary.
• Be prepared to share something that you found useful, inspiring or thought provoking from the district kickoff event at the Hilton. We will be having a BBQ lunch after the meeting under the oak tree.
• Please consider ideas on how to decorate/organize our new space;  “Collaboration Station”. This year collaboration meetings, staff meetings, and our data meetings will happen in Room 13. It is my hope that the space will inspire and promote collaborative practice. I look forward to your ideas on how to organize this space to present new ideas and “own it” for the purpose of teaching and learning at Awbrey Park. Please thank Melinda for the long hours she put in to beautify the space and get us off to a great start!

Joel’s Visit to Classrooms – I’d like to visit every classroom sometime during the first couple weeks of school to introduce myself to students. I’d like to read a favorite story to your class and then share a little about myself so kids can get to know me. Teachers, please let me know a good time to come and visit so I can get to know your students. Thank you!  I will be sharing more about my visits to classrooms throughout the year at Friday’s meeting.

Teachers, share your newsletters with me. – Please share copies of teachers’ classroom newsletters. I also encourage you to share them electronically. This helps me keep up to date on what’s happening (or going to happen) in classes. It helps me decide on any class activities that I want to come and see. It also gives me a chance to share events in the parent newsletter.

Teacher Instruction Schedules.– Teachers, please send me a schedule of your weekly plan. I know that these shift in the first couple of weeks as we adjust with the pull out programs in the building.  I’d like to see where core ELA, Math,Writing, Social Studies, Science, other units are taught. This year, I will create a spreadsheet to see where each core subject is  taught. This will help me understand how much instruction is dedicated to each area and also to plan out my walk-through focus each week.

Common Core State Standards and Families. – Chris Castillero, the new Associate Director of Curriculum and Professional Development – Mathematics, shared a resource around the Common Core State Standards for communicating with families that I thought I would also share with staff. The National PTA website has published documents explaining how schools are transitioning to the Common Core. The documents on the website provide some details about grade level expectations in ELA and Mathematics and are available for K-8 and HS (English and Spanish). You might already have this resource, but I wanted to provide it just in case. For future reference, Chris is willing and able present at any parent or community meetings on the Mathematics Common Core, CPM or any other math topic.

Google Permission Forms for 2012-13. – For those of you using Google Docs with students, a yearly permission form must be signed by a parent/guardian for ALL K-8 students using Google Tools. Teacher should collect the signed forms from students and turn them into the office. Once the office has the entire class/homeroom set of forms, the Google permission can be “turned on” via eSIS at the building level. Attached are the Elementary English and Spanish versions of the form.

Edmodo Training. – Last year, quite a few teachers began using Edmodo in their classroom. If you’re wanting to get “up and running” with Edmodo for staff communication and classroom use, on August 30th, Edmodo sessions will be included as one of the choices during the breakout session time at the kick-off conference at the Hilton. Downtown will also be offering other Edmodo workshops throughout the year.

Please take some time to thank Melinda, Larry and Richard for their hard work to prepare our building for school this year. It looks fabulous! ,Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Joel

The week ahead:
8/27 Site Council Retreat 3:45-6:30 at Awbrey Park
8/28  Licensed Staff Furlough Day
8/29 All Licensed Staff Report to Work
8/30 District School Improvement Day at the Hilton, 8:00-4:00
8/31 School Improvement Day, 8:00-11:45 + BBQ + Planning

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Week of August 20th

WHAT’S NEW?

Hello Awbrey Park Staff,

I have published a few upcoming dates on this blog to let you know about a few events coming up.  As the school year gets going I will be sending a weekly blog entry to let you know what is coming up and to share articles and upcoming events.

2012 Kickoff: Staff Back-to-School Event
Date:  August 30, 2012 – 7:30am – 4:00pm
4J is planning a conference-style event for this year’s back-to-school staff gathering on August 30. Mark your calendars! All staff working on August 30 are expected to attend this important professional development. All schools and offices will be closed to allow staff to attend. Guest teachers and classified staff who are not scheduled to work on August 30 are welcome to attend the kickoff on their own time if they wish.

What: 2012 Kick-off
When: Thursday, August 30, 7:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
Where: Eugene Hilton
Who: Keynotes by Dave Conley and Jon Saphier

You will:
• Get a chance to mingle and reconnect with colleagues
• Learn more about the core instructional ideas that will guide every school in our district for years to come
• Choose among afternoon break-out sessions on special topics

A more detailed schedule will be posted later this summer.

4J  Summer Technology Workshops

Summer Instructional Technology Seminars ~ ALL workshops are FREE. Seminars are held in the afternoon at  200 North Monroe in Mozart. To register for these exciting seminars, go to http://www.4j.lane.edu/workshops. Workshop participants will receive a PDU certificate for attending. Class size is limited, so sign up soon!

• World Book Online: Resources for the K-12 Classroom   Aug 23 2012 – 8:30am – 11:30am

• Internet Safety                                                                           Aug 23 2012 – 12:30pm – 3:30pm

• iPad Basics                                                                                 Aug 24 2012 – 8:30am – 11:30am

Coming Up:
8/27 Site Council Retreat 3:45-6:30 at Awbrey Park
8/28  Licensed Staff Furlough Day
8/29 All Licensed Staff Report to Work
8/30 District School Improvement Day at the Hilton
8/31 School Improvement Day

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Hello Awbrey Park Staff!

This blog will be the primary place for posting weekly events in the building and communications from the principal. It’s audience is primarily teachers and staff of Awbrey Park. It will include:

WHAT’S NEW?
FRIENDLY REMINDERS
CALENDAR ITEMS
Principal’s Weekly Schedule (for your convenience should you need to meet)

LOOKING AHEAD…check dates regularly for updates/changes

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