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!!!!!
School-Sponsored Events – We are encouraged to provide school-sponsored events after school to provide more opportunities for families to engage with their schools since the volunteer route will be limited. After school hours we have more flexibility for events, however there will be some mitigation strategies for us to follow. This opens the doors to many of our former events, such as culminations as well as any creative new ideas. We can use classrooms after school hours. We still have the cafeteria, gym or outside as options as well. As a global heads up the kindergarten team is going to kick things off early with a Kinder Parent Painting party on Thursday, March 31st at 5:00 (pending approval) – sorry we did not give a longer heads up, but for planning purposes we needed to get this moving now. This also means we can consider events such as our Variety Show and our PTO has a Spring Carnival idea that could be incredibly fun for our community. Last but not least, we can hold a 5th grade promotion ceremony as an after school event. Although this is not how we used to do it, it’s at least an opportunity to provide one event for all the 5th grade families should we choose to do so.
Please remember this is a great time to reinvent and recreate how our culminations look and feel. After a couple of years of disruption, we have an opportunity to try different formats. Let your imaginations run with it and create something that aligns with your current needs as well as highlights the storyline process versus a performance.
Volunteers – Ashley, Steph and I still have some work to do to fully understand how to best use the volunteer-tracking system and process from the office end, but by my estimate there are nearly 50 parents already in the system for Highland. Our goal will be to share a google sheet with your parents listed by noon, Wednesday 3/16. I put a statement in the Piper Post that let’s parents know they are not cleared until we have them on our list on our screen in the office.
Some more key updates;
- You can now meet with a parent in the building, outside the student-contact day.
- Starting as soon as April 4, IEPs may be held in person after student-contact day.
- Also starting as soon as April 4, guest speakers can be allowed on campus as visitors so long as they are delivering instruction alongside a classroom teacher.
- Students/Staff returning from isolation must still mask for days 6-10 and eat in a separate area from the general population.
- Physical distancing – all distancing language changes to the following; “strive to maintain 3-feet to the extent possible”. This applies to all areas including cafeteria*.
*With the new distance expectations we can utilize our cafeteria a little more freely now for indoor lunch. After spring break I have a rotation schedule ready to use to free up classrooms. For the K-1 group we can rotate K in there for one week and 1st on the other. For grades 2-5 we can fit two classrooms in there at a time, so we can rotate the two classes each week. It was mentioned in the safety team meeting that some of you may not want to have your class participate in the cafeteria rotation, so I’d like everyone to respond to this survey to help with some planning. We also will no longer need to have students sitting in the hallways. Allowing all the students to sit in the classroom and watch or listen to an audio book or something entertaining will help keep the energy levels down. While the weather cooperates we will continue with the outdoor lunch, but we now have some more options for indoor lunch.
From Tami Pike – Here’s some updated COVID-19 information from the the Health Service Team
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of March is Empathy. This falls under the SEL competency of social awareness. Here is a link to some resources: Empathy The the questions and topic starters from Jennifer Hauth are also a great resource as we all practice empathy around masking choices.
From the Recess Coaches: As Spring arrives, sometime we see students “forgetting” the recess and lunch expectations. It would be helpful to all of us if classroom teachers could spend a few minutes reviewing our recess video and lunch expectations. The lunch outside expectations are: Stay on your spot until you are released by a lunch coach. Clean up after yourself (this includes putting away a chair or mat if used), no throwing food (or anything for that matter and talking with the people closest to you (as opposed to yelling across the blacktop). Thank you so much!
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
Erin’s Law – the pause button on Anti-Abuse lessons was lifted and we will pick these back up, with the following materials; Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Program. It is recommended that the classroom teacher provide these four 15-20 minute lessons to their students, however Heidi (and possibly I) will still be ready to provide these lessons to your students. We will really need to move quickly to fit these all in, so if your teams could discuss some good dates for us, it would be appreciated. this link shows the curriculum K-5.
Spring Conferences – When we return from spring break we will have two and half weeks prior to conferences. Conferences are to be offered in person, but parents can choose webex, phone or email. To help with coordination, let’s plan on sharing a google sign up sheet from teachers to parents on Tuesday 3/29 at 3:00pm. By providing these sign up sheets to families you can allow them to select times that work best for them (including juggling the times for siblings) and it’s less work on your part to coordinate. The following links are templates for you to make a copy of your own. Once you make your own copy, you can modify it to fit your own schedule and needs (for example, block out times for breaks, lunch, etc.). I can also show you how to share it with parents, so they are able to input their names in the appropriate place.
Summer School Update from Kevin Milner – Programming for summer programs is off and rolling. Kevin Milner is taking the lead on this, with summer learning options looking similar to last year. Programming (Jump Start (Gr. 1-5) and Spark (Gr. 6-8) will target learning and enrichment opportunities for our district’s traditionally underserved student populations (gr.1-8) and help these students to get an early start on learning classroom/school routines, along with strategies that will help them to be successful learners in the year ahead. In addition, we will offer participating students with enrichment opportunities that they normally would not experience during their time when they are outside of school.
The process to select students for Jump Start and Spark will be coming up in April.
Some details:
- Programming Dates: August 1-19, Monday-Friday
Times:
- Jump Start – (8:00-3:30) Day will have two segments: a morning academic focus and an enrichment focus in the afternoon.
- SPARK – (9:00-1:00) Day will include academic, with enrichment built into the schedule.
Elementary Sites:
- Ensworth: Students from Juniper, Silver Rail and Ensworth.
- Pine Ridge: Students from Elk Meadow, Miller, Jewell and Pine Ridge)
- Buckingham: Bear Creek, Ponderosa and Buckingham
- High Lakes: Students from High Lakes, Highland, North Star and Lava Ridge
- Elementary LaPine Site:LaPine Elementary (Students from Rosland, Three Rivers and LPES)
Middle School Sites:
- Pilot Butte (Students from PBMS, Realms,…)
- Cascade: (Students from Pacific Crest and Cascade)
- Sky View: (Students from High Desert and Sky View)
- LaPine Middle School
Postings for Jump Start Students Services and Spark Deans of Students will be coming out soon, with postings for classroom teachers, enrichment teachers, educational assistants, office managers, food service, nurses and other positions to follow in April. (Please share this hiring with staff)
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
High Leverage Teaching Strategies
Week Preview:
- Monday 3/14
- Mask Mandate changes to Recommendation.
- Tuesday 3/15
- Storyline Team Meeting 2:30-3:15
- Wednesday 3/16
- SIW – Teacher Prep
- Thursday 3/17
- Skip visiting 12:30-2:00 – classroom walk-thrus will primarily be 4/5s for this visit.
- Friday 3/18