Captured at Ash Creek XC meet at Ash Creek Preserve on September 08, 2018 by Matthew Lasala
Inspiration
Please allow me to be a proud papa and share this image of my son, Mason, running his XC race last weekend in Monmouth. Each week I am more and more inspired by Mason as he finds his place in this big high school environment. We are really fortunate to have a fellow parent with a fantastic eye for photography and he snapped this great pic. Even if this had not been Mason in the picture, I think the image is pretty spectacular and worth sharing so I hope you can enjoy it as much as I do. Thank you for indulging me.
Fire Drill
We will conduct our first fire drill on Monday morning, ideally before the 10:00 recess. I will make a PA announcement first and then give you a couple minutes to provide instructions before we pull the alarm. When the alarm sounds then you may start the evacuation. For this first drill, we will use only the back doors for egress. The line up area will be back to our original location prior to the tent.
Kinder Assessments
Thank you to everyone who is helping get these Kinder Assessments completed. I know this can amount to quite a bit of work (without any reward) which can interfere with your efforts to bond with your students and establish those routines that impact the rest of the year. Please know it is appreciated and I am sorry this is a requirement.
Kinder/1st Grade iPads
We placed a purchase for 22 iPads for our Kinder and 1st grade carts. This will be a huge stretch on the budget, especially this early in the year. You can all help by making an extra effort to utilize print shop as much as possible as this cost often drains our accounts without much warning periodically throughout the year. This also means I won’t be able to say “yes” as often I usually do to requests for funding so I do apologize for that ahead of time.
Parking, Gates and Building Entry
As we get more and more accustomed to our new surroundings, I want to point out that the back gates are not intended for frequent use, especially during school hours. The back doors, especially Brad’s door, are not considered the building entry or exit. Those sliding gates are primarily meant to provide access for deliveries. The design is intended to drive people via the official path of access around the gym to the front office of the school and discourage entry through the back. Please adjust your expectations and habits to be prepared for this change. Also, I’ve noticed we have had 2 to 3 open parking spaces each day in the angled parking area.
Storage/Shelving
Unfortunately I am still struggling to get shelving for our storage rooms covered under the insurance claim. I think we are all aware of how important it will be to maximize our storage safely. If I cannot make any more headway with the insurance claim, I plan to invest some furniture funds over the next few years into heavy duty shelving for these rooms each year to make everything more easily accessible in the long term. Until we get more shelving in place, we will just have to make it work. We are also waiting on some finish work on the under-stage cabinets which will help tremendously.
Design Team Updates
Thank you for all your effort during these initial meetings. From what I gathered, we all some highly productive conversations and planning. Although we will need to do our best to communicate with our teammates about the agendas and upcoming events, it’s not a bad idea to take a quick peek at the different agendas/meeting notes (each linked below) to keep yourself informed.
Academic Excellence
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIX5xASbuI-HJ7TnS0v2X0OjF7gKWlC7yWQESVK61EI/edit?usp=sharing
Thriving Citizen
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GIYh-TzCfV-7swUfiq6bPWazeFz-AgBUDD360QnbgEY
Future Ready
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1idNZUUufycECXwzs90vXetuSqClEGJtmmAR1kn-zvZU
Based on the outcomes of these meetings we should be able to start locking in our SIWs for the year. Your next SIW will be “hosted” by the Thriving Citizen Team. We will be hammering out our “first draft” for our school wide K-5 Social Emotional Learning effort.
Kids Inc. Rec Zone
If and when parents ask about where to go for picking up kids at Rec Zone/Kids. Inc please direct them to the westside door (nearest the angled parking spaces).
We also will have After School Enrichment classes by Bend Parks & Rec primarily in rooms 14 and 17 on Wednesdays. Although we will need to do some work to regrade the field in the near future, the field is now open after school for sports practices.
Mini-Observations, SLGGs and Evaluations
I started getting my classroom rounds in this week . I am sure we (principals) will be given another update on any changes to the requirements on minis, SLGGS and evals, but for now I operate under the assumption we have similar requirements to last year which were the following;
- 3 minis for teachers not in an evaluation year
- 6 minis for teachers in evaluation year
- Everyone does SLGGs, however the matrix on the evaluation is no longer used.
- SLGGs are “recorded” in the Assessment portion of the overall rubric for teachers with evals.
- SLGGs for teachers without evals will be documented in a brief End of Year meeting with the typical form.
If any of these requirements change, I will be sure to share those changes with you in an update.
I will be spending approximately 2 to 3 full days a week in classrooms. These initial days are meant to get the kids accustomed to me moving in and out of the classroom without disrupting the flow (easier said than done for our Kinder classes). Not every classroom visit will equate to a mini-observation, as the visit needs to have a follow up conversation to count as a mini. As always, I really appreciate your assistance in making those follow up conversations happen when they work for your schedule. These follow conversations are meant to prompt you to reflect on the lesson or practices you are putting in place.
Recess Duty
I saw some improvement in this area but it never hurts to keep the friendly reminder; Please remember to be as prompt as possible with your recess duty. Thanks for being there for each other – keep up the great work.
PTO Meeting
The first general meeting was well-attended. The budget was explained and passed unanimously. Some parents asked out of curiosity about the Mindful Educator Course, Mind & Body/Motion (Amy Nary), and the Artist in Residence. I provided explanations for these. The rest of the time was spent explaining the different roles (recruitment for future), Giving Campaign and Fall Festival planning.
2018-2019 SIW Call for Proposals!!!
Here are the District SIW series dates:
- Series 1: October 10, November 14, and December 12
- Series 2: February 13, March 13, April 17
We will not have a District SIW until October 10th.
We hope to offer 20-25 different options for teachers to choose from. The topics for these options will fit into five categories that are considered to be areas of high-leverage instructional focus.
- Cognitively Engaging Tasks
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- Purposeful tasks that are in students’ zone of proximal development that require engagement, higher level thinking, perseverance and creativity.
- Highly Relational Classrooms
- Learning environments in which trust, confidence, risk-taking and communication flourish both amongst teacher and students, and between students.
- High Levels of Collaborative Conversations
- Purposeful conversations, teaching listening and response strategies to engage each and every student by creating a true “community of learners.”
- Clear Differentiation
- All content-area instruction is appropriately scaffolded, so students can demonstrate proficiency in various ways within heterogeneous classes.
- Formative Assessments
- Ongoing monitoring of learning using various formats and multiple measures to inform instructional decisions.
In order to provide choice, your assistance is needed. Teacher expertise is an important part of our district professional learning. If a proposal is accepted, teachers will be compensated for 14 hours at the curriculum rate to prepare and plan for sessions.
Proposals must be submitted by September 14th.
Click here to fill out a proposal!!!
Click below to see the Highland Staff Calendar.