“We now have the opportunity not to just reimagine schooling or try to reform injustice but to start over. Starting over is hard but not impossible; we now have a skeleton of a playbook. It starts with creativity, teacher-student relationships, and teacher autonomy.”
This quote is from the article Mary Ehrenworth mentioned that was written by Bettina Love. Here’s the link to the full article.
Start-Up Week Schedule (Please note changes from last update);
- Monday 8/30
- New Teacher Orientation Day
- Tuesday 8/31
- 8:00-8:15 Breakfast – All Highland Staff
- 8:15-???? District Welcome Back Watch Party in Gym – All Highland Staff
- ????-10:00 Highland Team work – All Highland Staff
- 1:00-3:00 Trees Storyline work with Colleen
- Wednesday 9/1
- 8:00-8:30 Coffee Talk – All Highland Staff
- 8:30-10:00 Welcome Back Meeting – All Highland Staff
- 2:15-3:15 Safety Team Meeting – Library – Safety team only
- Thursday 9/2
- 10:15-11:15 K-3 Lexia Workshop – K-3 teachers
- 11:30-12:30 4-5 Lexia Workshop – 4/5 teachers
- 3:00-5:00 Kindergarten Open House – All Highland Staff Invited – See description below.
- Friday 9/3
- Flex Day – See Link below for Work Calendar
Grade Level Meetings – It would be a good idea for me to sit with each grade level to run through the schedule. Please have somebody from your team reach out and give me a couple options that would work best for your team. I would anticipate 30 minutes to complete this task with each group.
RSSL Cheat Sheet – click here to see some details on RSSL guidelines. Tammy put this together for us and it will be updated every now and then.
Speed Dating – In an effort to reduce and control biases, we will discontinue the speed-dating practice. Conversations focussed mostly on the supports needed (AKA student weaknesses) run a strong risk of creating a Golum effect which is the opposite of the Pygmalian effect. Every time we put deficit labels on a child we increase the likelihood of perceiving those deficits in their performance. This well-documented psychological effect applies to academics and behavior and we need to take every step to stop or even reverse it when possible. Trust your colleagues to get to know the students and do what’s best for them in the present rather than the past. Please feel free to come talk to me if you have any further questions about this matter.
2021-2022 Work Calendar for Certified Staff- click here.
2021-2022 Work Calendar for Classified Staff – click here.
Beginning Year Meetings – I will be sharing a link soon to sign up for a beginning year meeting with me. To be prepared for this meeting, think about your own goals in the areas of self-care and classroom instruction. I am also hoping to get our SLGG guidance prior to this meeting so we can get those started off on the right track.
New Team Members:
Emily Jordan will be joining our team this year as an EA. Emily worked at the Montessori setting since 2007 and she’s ready for a change. Her children, Javin and Ruby will be with us as well.
Stephanie Greene (sorry, gecko not included) is another new team member joining us. Stephanie fulfilled a variety of similar roles at Buckingham over the past few years. I am excited for you to meet her.
Also, if you have not already heard, Nicole Kalberg will be rejoining us courtesy of special programs.
Kindergarten Open House
- Kinder families only.
- Food is discouraged for these kinds of events, so we cannot serve ice-cream bars. Sad face.
- Families should plan on attending during a 40-minute window based on the first letter of their last name;
- 3:00-3:40 A – G
- 3:40-4:20 H – M
- 4:20-5:00 N – Z
- 3 canopies will be set up outside to make it easy for parents to find their kindergarten teacher. Then students and parents can meet their teacher at the canopy and then take a quick tour of the building to see the rooms. Hopefully we can enlist the rest of you to help out with these tours. We will need to keep them moving and keep the number limited, so that’s why we need some tour guides.
- Due to the most recent mandate from Governor Brown we will need to hold this entire event masked, but it’s still a great opportunity to connect with our new families.
2021-2022 Master Schedule – click here. I feel like this is ready to be released, but please know I continue to update and tweak it. If you notice something off please feel free to let me know so I can correct it.
Common Elementary Work Hours – 7:15am-3:15pm
Meals – Our students will be eating outside unless we are forced inside by nature. All students will pick up their food in the cafeteria. We ordered enough yoga mats to provide 80 seats on the ground and we can also provide chairs in the courtyard and the area behind the school. If we are forced inside they will be eating in the classroom according to an assigned seating chart. Next week when you have your class lists, please plan on creating a seating chart that seats the majority of the students in your classroom 6-feet apart. Place the remaining students in the hall spaced out 6-feet. We will need a copy of your seating chart in the office when it’s done.
Coming to work sick or symptomatic – pure and simple, DON’T! This was a topic heavily discussed by our Return to School Team, as there have been several cases already in which adults have come to work with “allergies” or a “cold” and eventually found out it was really Covid, unknowingly spreading it to others. This has to be a tight practice.
Sub situation – The ESD reported that they added some additional subs but the sub situation still is not what it was a couple years ago. We will be hiring 5 additional district subs which will help but it won’t nearly solve the shortage issue. We’ve been instructed to come up with contingency plans for coverage.
Targeted Remote Learning – We will take some time to talk about this on Wednesday, but this will be our response if we need to quarantine any classes due to a localized situation. We are putting together a guide with resources to help your teams develop your own response.
Furniture – although the situation is much improved, we still have a lot of excess furniture being moved around and stored in our buildings. If you have any personal (non-school-provided) furniture items that are not being used in your classroom please arrange to take them back home. Our space is simply too limited to store anything that does not belong to the school/district. Please let me know if you need some help getting these items moved out.
K-5 Instructional Tech – One page doc with most important tech tools. Especially useful for our new team members.
From Jackie Wilson our Sustainability Coordinator – A small team of staff can join or the whole school as a team to complete challenges. It should not take more than an hour to complete.
- If the school is interested, the game runs from 8 am August 30 – 12 pm September on 3. It is through a mobile app called GooseChase. The winning team will receive a great prize.
- Participants can join the game by following these simple steps:
- 1. Download the GooseChase iOS or Android app.
- 2. Choose to play as a guest, or register for a personal account with a username & password of your choice.
- 3. Search for and select the Elementary School sustainability Challenge game, or search by game code ZM8BKQ.
- Please let me know the name of the staff member interested in serving as the sustainability advisor. Our first virtual Sustainability coordinator meeting will be Wednesday, September 22.
High Desert Museum Event
Given the rising COVID numbers we’ve made the decision to move Teachers’ Night Out on October 7th to a virtual ONLY experience.
We will be sending out more information nest week. The date for the event has not changed.
Please reach out to me with any questions.
Lexi Morse | She/ Her/ Hers
Museum Educator
(541)382-4754 ext. 320
