This and That:
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships: The most common frustration that I kept hearing this past week was regarding students who are not completing the assigned work and/or not during typical school hours. Thank you for caring about the academic success of your students – your persistence for their success will make a difference. With that said (and I can’t say it enough): relationships come before instruction. This is always true, but ESPECIALLY right now. As I have mentioned before, Colt Gill, the Superintendent for Public Education in Oregon has listed the following four priorities (in order):
- relationships/ connecting
- physical needs are met
- emotional needs are met
- instruction/ learning
Instruction is LAST. Think about that. The SUPERINTENDENT for all of Oregon is saying that instruction is last. Please be thinking about ways that you can make a personal connection with each of your students each week (connecting with the parent is NOT the same thing as connecting with the student.). When possible, ask the parents (and/or students) for insights into what their children need right now. For some kids, school work gives them a healthy focus. For others, self-care may be the priority. Thank you for staying flexible and understanding that different students and families have different needs right now.
Link From Coaches: Follow this link to the Friday update from our coaches. If you already read it on Friday, you are up to date.
Instructional Priorities: As you are determining WHAT to teach, how to assess it, and how to provide feedback, be sure to check out these links provided by our coaches (also in the newsletter linked above). These are a valuable resource to support your teams’ planning.
- Priorities for Literacy Feedback and Assessment
- Math Priorities for Math 2-5 with Feedback and Assessment ideas
- Math Priorities for Math k-1 with Feedback and Assessment ideas
Packets for Grades 3-5: Just a reminder that if a family can’t connect or requests paper materials instead of the online platform, we must prepare paper materials for this family. I’m not aware of any situations at Elk Meadow where this isn’t happening, but we’ve been asked to make sure everyone understands this.
Updates for Activities On Hold: Below are updates on what I know about the activities listed below. I will be removing all of the cancelled items for next week’s newsletter:
- Naglieri/ TAG testing – more information soon
- Parent Survey – TBD
- Hiring – more information soon
- QPS/IPS – more information soon
Kindergarten Registration: Kindergarten registration is officially open online. We will be encouraging as many families as possible to register online and will send paper packets to those who are unable to do so. Tentatively, we will be developing some kind of an August event to welcome our new students and families to Elk Meadow kindergarten. Please contact Kelle or April if anyone would like more details.
Meals: The great news is that our nutrition services department has expanded the “grab and go” meal pick up sites to 10 locations, and these meals now include items for breakfast, lunch, and supper. We are well aware, however, that we have numbers of students who are unable to access these meals because of transportation or other barriers. Nutrition
services, transportation, and FAN are working together to see what solutions we can provide.
To Do:
•Packets: Next round of packets should be at the printshop no later than Friday (but I really think you should aim for Thursday).
Important Dates:
- Tuesday, April 21: MAC Survey
- Wednesday, April 22: Webex staff meeting at 1:00
- Thursday April 30: K-2 Packet distribution
- Thursday, May 14: K-2 Packet distribution
- Thursday, May 28: K-2 Packet distribution