Sharing some gratitude…
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!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers. Thank you to Becky H. for signing up to make a video for the February assembly on the 25th Here is the link to our year long assembly plan with a few resources.
Also, we wanted to thank you for sharing your thoughts, ideas and your classrooms during our SIW this week. It felt good to connect together as a group. Please send any feedback from the SIW to Heidi T. and team. I do have a few alternative seating options if you are interested. Also, if you have a student who needs an SOS walk and talk, you can always text me!!! If I am available I will be there. Another thing I often help with is problem solving friendship issues. Just let me know and we can set up an “appointment”. In general, let me know what you need and I will do my best to accommodate.
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.
2021-2022 Staffing Survey: Please take a moment to respond to the survey linked here.
A Note from Safety Team:
Contact Tracing: At the moment the nurses are prioritizing getting in touch with positive cases confirming return to school dates. They are super backed up so please be patient. 🙂
From Tami Pike: Please share with your staff as soon as possible. For staff submitting for retroactive COVID-19 credit, please do not send your school nurse the form for signature. The forms should be sent via district mail (not via email) to Tami Pike. Please include a copy of your submitted leave sheet.
Another From Tami Pike – A friendly reminder that if you are not “up-to-date” with your COVID-19 vaccinations (for most, that means being boosted if your initial vaccines were not in the last 5 months), you will be required to follow the quarantine protocol if you are identified as a close contact to a positive case. You do not need to quarantine, if you have had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis from a lab, health care provider, or health department in the last 19 days. Here is the most current vaccine information.
Attendance:
PVQ: Present Virtually Quarantined (exposed and “working” at home) We are using this code for kids who have a close contact, primary symptom, and waiting on test results
C19: Positive Covid case
If they are on day 6, synergy may still say C19. Go check with Ashley and Stef if it does not feel right.
If they have symptoms, email Steph and Ashley so they can use the correct codes (ie sibling has covid, exposed with symptoms, waiting to see…)
Please turn in attendance by 8:30 at the latest. This really helps to catch the kids on campus who should not be here. Phone calls go out to families at 9:00.
6-10 club masking: We don’t currently have kn95 for kids but the surgical grade masks you have in class will do the trick. We will let you know when/if they arrive.
Time Change Reminder – New Bell Schedule – Starts Monday 2/7:
Please meet your students in line at 7:40 for that first bell. Take a few minutes to greet the few students in line and then head inside. We currently have a lot of students waiting in their cars to see their lines head in, so they do not have to wait in line in the cold. This will probably be a bit difficult for the first week but if we are consistent we can help everyone with the reset.
The end of the day bell will ring at 2:15. There are no changes to the current bus schedule so no need to change up your end of day routine for them. Sending them out in front of the rest of your class and having them meet Heidi Thomas at the NE door is working well.
Morning Meetings: With the additional 10 minutes to your morning, I would love to see everyone commit to using a morning meeting to start your day. A few schools in Bend are already using this best practice and it’s a perfect solution to a lot of concerns that pop up. Morning meetings that are well run and valued will be really important to your students and you will find they want to be there for them, which will help with on-time habits. The consistent time will allow you to address on-going recess issues that are a natural and expected part of any healthy recess. The absence of conflict or confrontation is not the sign of a positive recess.
Indoor Meal Plan: No change yet, still working on putting the plan in writing/drawing/etc. (Although we said we would only announce over the PA for indoor lunch, we made an exception today [Thursday] to create a special moment for one of our students. The pure and genuine joy this created was enough to power a space station.)
Line up procedures:
- Based on our observations with lines here are things you can do to help with the transitions throughout the day;
- Encourage a routine for determining their place in line – try to eliminate the race to be first if you can. (This can be tricky; sometimes a specified sequence works sometimes it doesn’t – do what you think works for you and your students)
- Meet your kids on time. The longer they wait, the more squirrely they get.
- Walk along the line, greet and reinforce the desired behaviors.
- If the energy is high, provide some group stretches/breathing exercises/mantras prior to entry. (The 2/3 did these on Thursday and it worked beautifully.)
- Lead the kids into the building. You can help avoid cutting off other classes and you can control the pace/tone they enter the building.
- Practice – take an afternoon every now and then to come out and practice without everyone else on the playground. Your instructions will sink in and be far more effective.
- Avoid rewards and punishments. To build intrinsic motivation; this behavior just needs to be treated as expected behavior, not a rule with consequences.
- Invest the time now to save time later. I know this can be time-consuming but it can save time later.
- Expect them to be kids, not adults. Even adults will need some re-teaching at times, so of course this needs to happen with kids.
- I will periodically work on replicating these routines with each group for the lunch time line up. (I was able to run through this with the 2/3s on Thursday and I will work on the 4/5 group next week). “Slow [speed] and Low [volume]” is our mantra.
Culminations: If you are interested in exploring the possibility of an in-person [for families] culmination after school hours, please complete the following survey. There is no guarantee we can do these, but there is a process for submitting events to a COVID mitigation protocol that might allow for it. Once we have your plans we can work on approval. If you or your team will not be doing any kind of culmination outside of school hours for this round please email me just to let me know. Culmination Planning Checklist
Print Shop versus Copier – I typically do not share our print shop/copier costs and I trust you to do your best, however the costs for the past couple months is unusually high. Please take this message as a friendly reminder that it is far less expensive AND better for the environment to utilize the print shop over our own copy machine.
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.
PLC Form – I will include this link every week to make it easier to find when needed.
Week Preview:
- Monday 2/7
- Tuesday 2/8
- 2:30-3:15 EBISS – K
- Wednesday 2/9
- SIW – Optional Educator Network Series
- Thursday 2/10
- 2:30-3:15 EBISS – 1st
- Friday 2/11
Please note: I realize the google calendar is out of sorts and I will get it updated soon. For now, please refer to the “Meeting Schedule” sheet in the master schedule google sheet to see upcoming meetings as I will work directly from that document.