April 13, 2020

By gaston_e  

I loved seeing our kids on Zoom last week. While they drive us a little bonkers sometimes, I really do miss all of them, even the naughty ones 🙂 I hope you are finding joy in connecting with our students. I know there are some challenges and none of us asked to teach this way, but we can do this! My biggest mantra when talking with teachers lately is do less. Focus on connection and do less. Small assignments, manageable loads for kids, and keeping it simple are life savers for some of our kids and families. It’s okay, I promise!

At today’s admin meeting, it was shared that Oregon’s usual unemployment rate is about 1 in 20. Right now, 1 in 8 people are out of work. While the work we do is important, so many of our families are struggling. Maintaining those connections, seeking ways to offer support and resources, and just being a steady presence are the most important things we will do over the next 9 weeks. Additionally, DHS says that reports of abuse are down nearly 70% since schools closed. We know the abuse hasn’t stopped – it’s that kids aren’t with the adults who normally would report any problems. Please keep an eye and ear out as you connect with students. They may need us more now than ever. I believe our community continues to see the important role school plays in the lives of our students. You are doing incredible and important work, my friends.      

  • Focus Classes and SEL Content – Please know that Anne and the amazing team of middle school counselors continue to work on creating social-emotional learning lessons. Anne will share these as they become available to be shared if you choose during Focus lessons. Thanks Anne and team!
         
  • Behavior Matrix for Online LearningLinked here is the document Climate team worked on for online learning. Please feel free to share it with students. Please note the link is to a “view only” version. You have access to the editable version in the Madison Climate folder.
         
  • Schedule – Below is our schedule for the next two weeks. 
    • Focus = Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:30-10am
    • Monday
      • Focus Class = 9:30-10am
      • Period 1 = 1-1:25pm
      • Period 2 = 1:40-2:05pm
      • Period 3 = 2:20-2:45pm
      • This time counts as your office hours for the day.
    • Tuesday
      • Period 4 = 1-1:25pm
      • Period 5 = 1:40-2:05pm
      • Period 6 = 2:20-2:45pm
      • This time counts as your office hours for the day.
    • Wednesday
      • Focus Class = 9:30-10am
      • Please set your office hours and publish them to your students. This is not a time to wait on Zoom, but instead a time to be available to answer questions, respond to parent emails, or make phone calls to families.
      • The following times are open for office hours: 9am-10am and 12pm-3pm. You may also choose to do office hours in the late afternoon or evening, but it is not required.
    • Thursday
      • Please set your office hours and publish them to your students. This is not a time to wait on Zoom, but instead a time to be available to answer questions, respond to parent emails, or make phone calls to families.
      • The following times are open for office hours: 9-10am and 12-3pm. You may also choose to do office hours in the late afternoon or evening, but it is not required.
    • Friday
      • Focus Class = 9:30-10am
      • No office hours required today. Please use this time to take and enter attendance and engage in any PD of your choice.
             
  • Reminder of Student Work Time – Please aim for 20ish minutes of instruction and work per class period per day. It’s perfectly fine to assign less. It will take many students a lot longer to complete the work you might normally assign in class. Consider asking kids to let you know about how long the assignment actually took so you can gauge if how long you thought it would take matches up with how long the assignment actually took. 
         
  • Meeting Schedule – We have agreed upon the following times for meetings or “non instructional” time. Please note you won’t have meetings daily at this time, but they’ve been protected so staff is available at these times. 
    • IEPs/504s: 8-9am and 3-4pm
    • Building and District Meetings: 10-11am
    • Student Lunches: 11-12pm 
            
  • Attendance – Starting next week, we will need to keep track of students’ engagement online. On Friday afternoons (starting April 24), students need to engage in at least one two-way connection with you to be counted as “present” for the week. A two-way connection includes joining a Zoom call, submitting an assignment, or sending you an email. If a student fails to do one of those things by Friday afternoon, you will mark them absent for the week in Synergy. The Synergy team is working on reformatting attendance so only have to enter the info once for the week. More to come on that. 
         
    I suggest creating a system for tracking student engagement during the week so you’re not digging on Friday trying to figure out who has and hasn’t connected that week. My brain would prefer a spreadsheet with tabs for each period and class lists so I could just mark an X for the week as soon as a student engages. Peter’s brain prefers paper lists. Please figure out what makes the most sense for you.
         
  • Zoom Reminder – Roseburg just had an incident where someone was able to access an online middle school class, shared their screen, and displayed graphic content. We’ve already had some instances of kids trying to get into classes where they don’t belong or displaying foul language. At a 4J school, a student on Zoom was seated in front of a painting in their home that depicted a nude woman. Please make sure you are up to date on all the Zoom settings that help reduce the likelihood of misbehavior including using the waiting room, muting mics upon entry, and not allowing others to share the screen. 
         
    We might also want to consider the post below. For many of our students, a Zoom background may help alleviate some of the stress they might feel about displaying their home situation to you and their peers.
  • Who Do I Contact?
    • Usernames and passwords = Rechelle
    • Technology (staff) = 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu
    • Technology (parent/kids) = sts@4j.lane.edu or student_techsupport@4j.lane.edu
    • Tech Trainings = Visit the new 4J Tech Google Site for tutorials and guides for online tools including Google Classroom, Flipgrid, and digital assessments.
           
  • 2020-21 Staffing Update Part Deux – Due to the current shutdown, there are concerns the state won’t have the full SIA funds they were expecting. HR asked us to submit our original staffing plan that excludes the additional 0.6 FTE we would have added. This doesn’t affect anyone’s position as we would have hired for that FTE. Hopefully we will get some good news later and be able to add it back, but as of now we are moving forward without those funds.
         
  • Job Expo – Rob Hess sent an email yesterday detailing the Job Expo process. The email opened with this info: “Eugene 4J will hold a virtual (ZOOM) Job Expo from April 28th to May 14th. The Job Expo dates for all secondary level vacancies will be held on Tuesday 4/28 (round 1) and Tuesday 5/12 (round 2). Elementary level vacancies will be held Thursday 4/30 (round 1) and Thursday 5/14 (round 2). Interviews will occur via Zoom from 4:00 to 7:00 pm on the scheduled dates. EEA members who have been displaced, who are returning from a leave, or who wish to transfer to another building will have the opportunity to interview for open positions for which they are endorsed to teach or willing and able to obtain the endorsement.” Please let Peter know if you have any questions about the expo.
         
         
  • Resources for later -I’m working on collecting resources that might be helpful. Eventually I will create a page on our blog to house all this information.  
  • Where’s Erin? – I am so sorry I have been MIA for much of our time together lately. I have been pulled by our K-8 directors to focus on two other projects. The first is getting child care sites up and running at Holt and South Eugene including working with our community partners and neighboring districts. I’m proud to say we have 80 child care spots available and are providing care for the children first responders and essential workers at no charge. My role on the team has been to help district administration, alongside Dana Brummett (AP at Cal Young), to get all the pieces in place to meet state and district guidelines. Additionally, I’ve also been working on the elementary “Distance Learning for All” team. That involves being part of several teams who are interpreting ODE’s guidance, developing guidelines for elementary teachers, creating sample lesson plans and templates, writing guidance documents for teachers, and attending a lot of meetings. Please know if I’m not at a meeting or slow to respond to you, it’s likely because I’m in Zoom meetings or trying to get documents finished for child care or elementary learning. I appreciate how much grace you all have given me during this time. I miss you! My hope is that after next week things will slow down on these two projects and will be able to spend more time with my Madison family.
        
  • Schedule of Upcoming Events:

April 13 (M) 
     9:30am, Focus Class meeting
    1-2:45pm, Office Hours on Zoom with periods 1-3

April 14 (T) 
     1-2:45pm, Office Hours on Zoom with periods 4-6

April 15 (W) 
     9:30, Focus Class Meeting
     10:00, Staff Meeting

April 16 (H)
     Regular day

April 17 (F) 
    Regular day


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