This week’s notes are coming to you a day earlier as I am once again out of town Friday. I’m available by cell or you have several options to call here at the Ed. Center.
Evaluations- It is that time of year again – Summative Evaluation time! For principals this means completing your Self-Reflection in Talent Ed Perform by May 26. I use this as a basis for having a conversation with you and completing your evaluation. I will schedule a time to meet with each of you between May 26 and June 23.
In terms of this year’s principal evaluation, you may recall that the three design buckets will also be added to the Domains that were used for evaluation last year. Please be prepared to share your thoughts and evidence on design bucket domains when we meet. [Gallup Survey results were also planned to be a part of this year’s evaluation, but that will not be occurring. Because of the cost associated with this survey, we will only be distributing this survey – out currently – to 400 of our nearly 2000 certified/classified employees. This translates into a very small portion of our employees and literally just a few folks at our smaller schools that will be polled. This will provide us with some useful district data, but not informative building feedback – hence not including it as part of a principal’s evaluation makes the most sense.]
Let me know if you have any questions regarding this process or summative evaluations in general.
Kindergarten ACR’s- Kindergarten ACR’s were due on May 1. As you know, we have historically met in one place to sign and trade. We have also attempted to approve most if not all of our kinder ACR’s that we receive before the deadline. I’ve had conversations with a few of you and believe that we can try to do this without meeting this year. Please call the other principal before approving a transfer in or out of your building. I realize that some of you may want to be on hold due to not having enough space or worrying that if you lose too many students, you could lose staff. You are fine to do so again this year. It would be great if we could complete the ones we are approving and enter into Synergy by the end of next week so that we have a better idea of kinder numbers (I know they continually change, but up to date numbers are always best). Please let me know if you have questions.
Title I – A couple of Title I pieces to share with you:
- Still no word from the state re: allocations. We’ll move as fast as we can when we get these, but nothing yet. Thank you for your patience.
- Title Principals will have a meeting once we know how much each school will be receiving.
- Please be sure to provide JoAnne with the following for your Title I Parent Night Events: 1) Announcement, (2) Agenda/or presentation, (3) Sign in sheet. Thanks to those of you who have already provided this material.
Horizontal Meeting- We will have our last horizontal meeting of this school year on Monday, May 15 @ 4:00 @ Elk Meadow. Hope to see you there.
SBAC- Many of you probably already have or will soon begin SBAC testing for this year. I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to take these as seriously as possible. While we could all write a book about the shortcomings of our current testing system, they are still important. They are an elementary board end in our Academic Achievement bucket. These scores are used on our state school report cards. For better or worse, these are the scores reported by the media and what many people use to measure the success of our schools. We know that we do so much more with our students each day. We help our kids in ways that don’t often show up on a report card or in a newspaper article. Never the less, like it or not, the public uses these tests more than anything else to measure the success of our schools in delivering the foundational components we are expected to deliver. We put so much into helping our students each and every day. It would be a shame if those efforts are overlooked because we didn’t do our best on these once a year tests. Your presence, participation, involvement and awareness of testing sends a strong message to your students and staff- one way or another. You’ve all done the heavy lifting. Now let’s finish strong and be sure our hard work is recognized. Thank you for all you’re doing every day to help our students succeed.
Buckingham STEM Night- Great event at Buckingham Wednesday night as they held their annual STEM night. STEM professionals from throughout Central Oregon hosted informational booths sharing the ways they used STEM in their careers. If parking is an indicator, this was a very well attended event! Another example of some great work going on in our schools.
As we spend time this week and next celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought I’d share just one of thousands of videos that offer unique perspectives on the powerful impact teachers have in our lives.
Please take some time to remember that YOU play all those same roles. YOU see the possibility in all your teachers before they see it in themselves. YOU enable teachers to make a better tomorrow. YOU motivate and inspire teachers to change lives. YOU instill hope and confidence in our teachers. YOU set the table for teachers so they can do all of their amazing work. Thank YOU for all you do. Have a great weekend.