10/15/21 Weekly Update

SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T.  and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!

FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!

Staff Shout Outs are BACK! Please fill out when you see/hear about the great things our staff is doing. 

How’s it going?  – Thanks again for your participation with this.  Please don’t skip what’s going well for you and don’t feel like it’s bragging – it’s super helpful!

Highland Culture of Care is looking for teachers and/or grade levels to sign up for assembly videos! You can do that here. Thank you!!!

Our character trait for October is FRIENDSHIP! Look for friendship books coming soon to the library shelf and Heidi will link resources soon to the assembly plan sheet. 

Fall Conferences –Thanks for humoring me with your drumming today!  I am just including a few items as a resource/reminder here;

  •  Fall 2021 Conferences Reimagined 
  • Teachers may conduct conferences from their homes if the following can be guaranteed:
    • A reliable internet connection so that picture and sound is consistent.  Teachers must have their camera on!
    • A professional setting
    • No distractions or interruptions (kids, pets, household noise…)
    • Appropriate attire
  • While conferences can be conducted from home, the teachers are to be in the building during the work day on Wednesday.  Teachers can schedule some meetings during the Wednesday workday, however teachers are still expected to provide evening opportunities for parents who might not be able to attend day time meetings due to work.
  •  Teachers should provide administrators and front office a copy of their conference schedule.  Please ensure there are plenty of evening conferences to accommodate our working families.
  • If you would like met to join a conference for any reason, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Dyslexia information for k/1 – For the past several years (except last year), we have been required by the state of Oregon to send Dyslexia notifications to certain K/1 families.  These were traditionally done at Fall Conferences.  Julie is waiting to hear back from ODE as to whether this year is also on hold for that or if we will be needing to resume this practice.  Long story short, stand by to hear if we will still need to do that this year or not.  

Sharing your classroom with Families

Cami asked the parents in the PTO meeting how teachers can communicate better with parents since they cannot be in the building, so I thought I would share some successes already occurring in our building and provide a reminder of the tools you have within your reach for this;

  • Our Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers still have active SeeSaw accounts.  Several parents have expressed their appreciation for using this tool to keep them in the loop.  (Our use has dropped off significantly since being back in person, but it’s still a very useful tool.)  Every little bit of sharing helps our parents feel more connected.
  • 2-5 teachers still have use of Google Classroom and/or Google Sites which can achieve the same result of allowing students and you to share work from the classroom with home. 
  • We also have some teachers using Class Dojo in very successful ways. I do not have any experience with the program but JJ, Aimee and Cameron (and I believe Erik too) use this with ease and I am sure they are open to sharing if you want to learn.  One of the best examples I witnessed involved students snapping shots of their own work to share.

Check out the resources on BLS K-5 Tech – the videos are great to get you started in several of these programs.

PTO Requests

Just a friendly reminder that requests of the PTO should use the form on their website.  It’s on one of the pull-down menus labeled “Teacher Grant Request Form”.  It should also be noted that the PTO budget is structured with priorities for funding.  Priority 1 items are Storyline-related items and make up approximately $34,500 of the $50,000 giving campaign goal.  So far the Giving Campaign has collected approximately $27,000, so we are not yet at a point where all priority 1 items can be covered.  It’s difficult to justify asking for items that are not under the priority 1 list until the goal is met, so my feeling is we should hold off on asking for anything that is not Storyline-related.

Another complication to consider is $9600 (of the 34,500) is set aside for our release time for Storyline Planning & Development.  The district is not permitting any PD that requires subs for obvious reasons, so this line item presents some challenges.

Indoor versus Outdoor Lunch:

  • K-8 students will come inside for meals at 45-degrees. 
  • If outside temperature + windchill is lower than 40-degrees, move meals inside. For example: If the air temperature is 48 degrees and there are sustained winds at 25 mph, then the wind chill temperature is 40 degrees = Meals inside
  • Encouraging students to dress in layers will be important as well on days where it will be close to the minimum threshold.

Lockdown Drill – Monday afternoon we will conduct a brief lockdown drill.  I will provide a brief explanation and heads-up for parents in the Newsletter.  It’s important to keep this low-key and age appropriate.  The key components are listed on the SRP poster.  “Locks, Lights Out, Out of Sight”.  Keep it really simple and flexible.

Earthquake Drill – Thursday afternoon we will participate in the Great Shakeout, an annual earthquake drill.  I will provide a quick announcement indicating that we are experiencing an earthquake, wait approximately two minutes and then signal the end of the drill over the PA.  We will not practice the evacuation for this drill.

TLC Update

From Julie – Educational Assistant training for Elementary will be on October 27th.  Please share this flyer and this link with the schedule with your educational assistants.  Please remind your staff to sign up on Performance Matters so we can get an accurate lunch count.  

Week Preview:

  • Monday 10/18
    • Lockdown Drill – between 1:30-2:00
  • Tuesday 10/19
    • 2:30-3:15 Storyline Team Meeting
  • Wednesday 10/20
    • Staff Meeting 1:15-1:45 – Please be on time so we can keep our afternoon on track.
    • SIW – 1:45- 3:15 Storyline Work
  • Thursday 10/21
    • Picture Day
    • Great Shake Out – Earthquake Drill – around 12:35
  • Friday 10/22
  • First Virtual Assembly!!! – 1:30ish Yahooo!
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