Introduction

Staff Newsletter – September 27, 2021

Staff Newsletter – September 27, 2021

Dear YG staff,
I hope you had a restful weekend. I heard from some people that they were very tired Friday afternoon. It felt like a long week, so I really hope you had time to recharge. Even though we have a lot going on this year, please be sure to take care of yourselves.

Changes for this week’s meetings

There will be a few changes to the meetings scheduled for this week.

Tuesday – 3:20-4:00on Zoom. PBiS meeting instead of a staff meeting. See Scott’s email from last week: This is a quick follow-up that we will meet next Tuesday. Please send me any agenda items you are interested in discussing and I will send it out by next Monday.

Some topics to discuss:
 – School wide WOW/red ticket plan for all grades
 – Upcoming fun events
 – Looking at data and/or observations thus far to focus PBIS efforts on ‘problem areas’
Wednesday – Professional Development meeting will be a regular school business meeting.
Friday – The PLC meeting will be delayed again in order to give teachers additional time to plan activities to use for students who are in quarantine.

Picture Day on October 1st, 2021.

Photos will be taken in the gym. No taiko on this day. Laura will send out a schedule early this week. We are trying to get the LifeTouch rep (who is not really our rep) to confirm a make-up date. More information to follow.

Visit mylifetouch.com

Enter your Picture Day ID: EVT6386D6

See Email Flyer – EVT6386D6

DUE: Classified & Licensed Self Assessment & Goals

All staff, both classified and licensed, need to complete a self assessment in TalentEd by September 30th. If you need some guidelines for the self-reflection ratings:

  • 3 is the target. If you’re a 3 (Effective), you’d doing a solid job.
  • 4 (Exemplary) means you should be so good you would be leading trainings to other 4J staff.
  • A 2 (Area for Growth) is not necessarily bad; instead it means there is room for improvement.

Staffing Updates

This week there are some items involving staffing that you should be aware of. See 3 items below:
  • Mariko will be out this week. Nancy will be her substitute all week. More information about Mariko to come. Check your email.
  • Molly Beick (pronounced “bike”) will be filling in as our 7-hour EA who will provide additional supervision for 850 Howard. She will work from 8:15 to 3:45 M-F this week.
  • Interviews for the permanent 7-hour EA were completed Friday. A candidate has been chosen, references checked, and the name was given to human resources. There might be a longer transition to the new position, because this candidate already works in 4J. More information will be shared as it becomes available.
  • Extra hours for EAs – some of our EAs have been working extra hours temporarily in order to help us all get our routines in order and to create materials for the start of school. We will continue these extra hours until October 1st. I am planning to add time to some key EAs in order to make use of our COVID Utility hours. Staff need to be aware that the additional hours must be used for COVID related tasks and supervision, not instructional support. More information to follow.

Guest Teachers for YG This Week

Monday

  • Chastity Doty in for Kelly
  • Nancy Imamura in for Mariko
  • Annie Gilles in for Ashley – PM Only
  • Alison Johnson in for Scott – AM Only

Tues – Fri – Nancy Imamura in for Mariko

COVID & Quarantine Updates

This has been shared in various emails and conversations with staff, but I’m putting here in hopes of having it all on one place for easier reference.

Seating Charts – I need copies of  your seating chart as soon as possible. This also goes for PE, Music, Title, and SPED groups. Paper or electronic copies are fine.

Do staff quarantine after a close contact? – If a staff member is fully vaccinated and was identified as a close contact, they DO NOT need to quarantine unless they are presenting COVID symptoms (Fever > 100.4, cough, shortness of breath, chills, difficulty breathing, or new loss of taste/smell) and continue work as normal.

How long do students quarantine after a close contact? – When kids are quarantined individually either through exposure at school or at home, they cannot return for 14 days.

What happens when an entire class has to quarantine? – The full doc explains What happens when a positive case has been identified?

In summary:

  • Day 1 – Asynchronous lessons from classroom teacher
  • Day 2+ (if necessary) – Synchronous lessons from classroom teacher, following the K-5 Connect Schedule
  • Day 3 – Students NOT identified as close contacts return for in-person learning

What happens when individual students have to quarantine? –  The What happens when a positive case has been identified? doc provides a full explanation, but here is the short version:

  1. Teachers send parents the Family Quarantine Letter (edited to fit how you are sharing lessons).
  2. Teachers provide students lessons by either Option A: Send the essential components of your daily in class learning and activities as a Seesaw assignment or Option B: Until Oct 15, assign students the pre-made lessons created by TOSAs (linked on the above doc).
  3. Students may access a district teacher (not their brick and mortar teacher) during office hours (links and times are in the above doc).
  4. Communicate and collaborate with case manager for any student on an IEP or 504 or ELD.

Student Quarantine Extended Absences K-5 – Refer to the more detailed Grades K-5 Student Quarantine & Extended Absence Process I shared last week. This includes the linked Teacher Quarantine Flow Chart has also been created to assist teachers with this process. The flowcharts includes details on preparing students now before a quarantine, what happens for a whole class quarantine, and for individual student quarantines.

How do I know if a student is on quarantine? – I shared this earlier, but as a reminder, if a student has a little grey house next to their name on your Synergy seating chart, that student is on quarantine. District contact tracers are sometimes slow to update this, so just ask myself or office staff if you’re wondering about a particular situation.

Hand Sanitizer – READ ENTIRE ANNOUNCEMENT

We are expecting a delivery of 16 small hand pumps ordered through Amazon. These can be filled with the sanitizer used in the automated machines.

  • Other sanitizer liquids may NOT be used.
  • Staff may use these ONLY for distributing sanitizer to students during transition periods.
  • Staff will need to squirt sanitizer into the hands of students, but they may not let students handle the bottles themselves.
  • Any sanitizer found in classrooms that are not 4J approved need to be put away out of sight of students.

This should make the transition periods quicker. Let me know if you want a small bottle of hand sanitizer on Monday.

Site Based Safety Committee

4J has been out of compliance regarding state requirements for building Safety Committees for a long time. For your information, see the Safety Committee email from Brooke Wagner with a description of committee and committee member obligations. Since YG and Kelly share the same building, I have proposed that our two schools share one safety committee. Safety Committees need to have at least three members. One administrator from Kelly (John or Sarah or both) and I need to be on the committee. It would make sense for a custodian or a secretary to also serve on the committee. However, if anyone would like to serve on the committee let me know by the end of the week if you’d like to join or if you have any questions.

Licensed Subs

HR sent an email to principals reporting that they hired 5 “rover” guest teachers for the purposes of filling unfilled jobs every morning. They plan to hire 5 additional guest teacher. If there are days where there are no unfilled licensed sub jobs, they’ll be assigned to any unfilled classified sub jobs. See 5 Rover Subs email for details.

Second Step Tips

4J Behavior Specialist Shasta Quigley shared the following Second Steps resources:

VIDEO: Program Walkthrough Overview of the teacher dashboard, how to create classes and online resources and lessons

Other Links:

K-5 Digital Scope & Sequence
Pacing Guide for a 20 week sequence. Includes information on length of lessons

REPEAT – TOSA Updates

Eric Anderson sent this email on TOSA Updates a couple of weeks ago. I suspect some teachers missed it. See below for a list of the current TOSAs in the Instruction department.

Instructional Collaboration
K-5 STEM (Math, Science, Technology Integration) Jamie Tait @ tait_j@4j.lane.edu 
K-5 Humanities (Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Art) Sarah Knudsen @ knudsen_s@4j.lane.edu 
K-3 Literacy, SIA Katie Stiles @ stiles_k@4j.lane.edu
Reading Specialists, SIA Sara Justice @ justice@4j.lane.edu

Leah Willow @ willow_l@4j.lane.edu

Eileen Fisher @ fisher_e@4j.lane.edu

K-5 Health, Social-Emotional 

K-12 TAG

Jocelyn Mendelssohn @ mendelssohn_j@4j.lane.edu
Early Learning Gretta Sagolla @ sagolla_g@4j.lane.edu 
Teaching & Learning

Staff Development Specialists

Heggerty support

Rebecca Boyd @ boyd_r@4j.lane.edu 

Stacy Dilworth @ dilworth_s@4j.lane.edu

Dena James @ james_d@4j.lane.edu

Mentor Supports Emily Kemp @ kemp_e@4j.lane.edu

Edith Gomez Navarrete @ gomeznavarrete@4j.lane.edu

Hillary Galloway @ galloway_h@4j.lane.edu

Steve Korin @ korin_st@4j.lane.edu

Kara Whipple @ whipple@4j.lane.edu

Rebecca Medley  @ medley_r@4j.lane.edu

Technology Supports 4jdesktop@4j.lane.edu or call x7777

 

REPEATS

The following items are repeats, but included here as a reminder.

EEF 2021-2022 Grant Applications DUE OCT 1st

EEF Grant Applications are available on their website and are due October 8th. No one has brought a grant to me yet, but before you submit one, let me know your grant title and idea so Site Council can rank order grant submission if we get multiple grants.

easyCBM Fall Benchmark Testing Window

ODE guidance has been exceedingly clear on schools providing “Care & Connection” with students and families for the first two weeks of school. Schools should plan on starting the 1-minute 1:1 assessments the week of September 20th and the whole group measures starting the week of September 27th (my birthday!). The window will be open through October 14th.

Easy CBM benchmark windows

  • Fall: 09/20/21 to 10/14/21
  • Winter: 01/04/22 to 02/11/22
  • Spring: 05/09/22 to 06/10/22

Classified & Licensed Self Assessment & Goals

All staff, both classified and licensed, need to complete a self assessment in TalentEd by September 30th. Licensed staff need to also complete a Goals Development Form by October 30th, which later next month we can develop some optional building goals people can use.

SELCO’s Educator Grants, Due 9/30

SELCO’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grant Program is now accepting applications for projects up to $1,000 that inspire curiosity, make learning accessible, and spark something new. Applications are due September 30.

How to Teach Students to Manage Their Own Conflicts

Rather than settling disagreements and conflicts for students, aiding them in resolving their own problems can bolster a foundation of crucial conflict resolution and problem-solving skills. This brief video, “How to Teach Students to Manage Their Own Conflicts,” includes some strategies that you might find useful.

Find more social and emotional learning strategies on Edutopia.org: https://www.edutopia.org/social-emoti…

Teaching Writing Through Landscape Paintings

When students focus on what they can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in a work of art, their imaginations—and their essay-writing skills—take flight. Using landscape paintings, teacher Lori Brenneise turns essay writing into a fun activity. Every day, students build on their essays, guided by the five senses.

 

Upcoming Events

September 27 (M)
8:00-11:00, Scott at Counseling Meeting
8:00-12:00, Alison Johnson Subbing for Scott

9:00-10:00, Tom to Elementary Principals Meeting
3:00-4:00. No Admin Initiated Meetings for Licensed Staff

September 28 (T)
3:15-4:00, PBiS Meeting on Zoom

September 29 (W)
3:30-4:00,  Professional Development in Room 14

September 30 (Th) – SELCO Educator Grants Due
TalentEd Self-Assessments Due

October 01 (F) – Picture Day
2:00-3:00, Teacher Planning for Asynchronous Learning – No PLC

October 04 (M)
9:00-11:00, Tom to Elementary Principals Meeting
3:00-4:00. No Admin Initiated Meetings for Licensed Staff

October 05 (T)
3:15-4:00, Staff Meeting in Room 14

October 06 (W)
3:30-4:00,  Professional Development in Room 14

October 07 (Th)
6:30-7:30 – Note Kelly Parent Group Meeting

October 08 (F)
2:15-3:00, PLC in Room 14

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