Good morning everyone! I hope that you had a wonderful sunny weekend and were able to spend most of it outside.
This week we will be meeting on Wednesday at 9 in my webex to give updates regarding what you can expect next week upon our move to All-In. There are several bullets listed below that outline much of what we will discuss. Additionally, there are some scheduling updates and conference updates that I want you to know about today.
Scheduling and Class Size Updates: With MS and HS calendars changing slightly, this has affected our Music teachers drastically. As you all know, the success of a HS music course is somewhat predicated on a successful experience in MS. Therefore, in order to continue to allow our students to participate in these courses AND have our teachers teach our students, we have had to slightly change more than 60 student schedules. Obviously at this time of year, this is no small feat and Renee and Christina worked really hard last week to make these changes possible.
While making these changes, we wanted to make sure that students had as many of the same teachers as possible and in most situations we were able to do this. That said, there were some that will have a couple of new teachers and we will communicate with families regarding these changes. This means that in most cases, your class numbers may change slightly from period to period but you will have as many of the same students as you have already has. Where class sizes increased to maximums, we went back and did a second round of balancing and trouble-shooting to try to alleviate number stress where it was possible. We created a new math class to relieve some class pressure as well. All in all, 30 class periods increased in size and 31 decreased in size.
These changes will go into effect on April 12th. If you have questions about the changes specific to you, please connect with me. Please know that we have literally scraped the bottom of the barrel to find options for large sizes and continue to be thoughtful as we place new students into our existing and strained schedule.
Conference Information: Please complete your Take Home Conference with all of your class periods this Thursday and Friday. I will send a conference letter home on Thursday morning to outline our plan for conferences. Families and students will be instructed to go over the Take Home Conference and Reflection, watch classroom/teach videos to clarify any information, and then if they believe they need a virtual conference, they can sign up for this when the site goes live on Saturday morning. We will ask that families make sure to bring their child with them during conferences. This means that teacher videos are due by tomorrow afternoon. Please see Ryan with any questions.
We will begin working on scheduling Invite Only Conferences today. We will take the names that you indicated, contact families, ask for them to confirm with our office, and then we will take off that space within your allotted conference times. If you do not have many Invite Onlys, all of these times will be open for families to sign up for a conference with you. As a reminder, we will have conferences On Wednesday from 8-8:45 and then from 3:15-7:30, and Thursday from 4:45-7:45. If you are part time or teach a quarter class, please connect with Lisa and Renee to determine scheduling.
Classroom measurement: There have been some questions about how two students can fit in a double desk (which are 54 inches wide). There is enough space for two students to share one double desk, provided they are sitting so that each student has a knee on each side of the desk’s leg. Sitting in this way will help us maintain the required three feet of separation, a point that is measured from center point-to-center point in students, and NOT from where one body stops and another begins. Ryan is happy to come talk with you about the specifics of your classroom if you’d like, just let him know.
Other Information:
- Please use this form to indicate if you need anything for your classroom set up. If you have a lot of single desks, please let us know this too as we may need to take some to support other classroom layouts. Do NOT assume that we know what your needs are. Please communicate with us so the custodial team can support you best.
- Please use this guide for Canvas moving forward. See Mandy or Dan with questions. CANVAS EXPECTATIONS
- The Advisory team will lay out what Advisory will look like during Wednesday’s meeting. Each Advisory day will include a check-in/lesson as well as mandatory and designated time for reading and mathematics practice.
- Monday is our first ALL-IN DAY!! Please wear your spirit gear that day and be in the halls to help with 6 ft reminding, etc.
- We WILL be having state testing this year. I will describe this more on Wednesday.
Important Links:
- Advisory Announcements (PLEASE USE THIS FOR CANVAS ANNOUNCEMENT IN ADVISORY!!)
- Staff Meeting Minutes
- Weekly Tech Tips
- Upcoming Meeting Dates
- EBISS Information (updated based on Wednesday’s meeting this week)
- Advisory Contact Sheet (updated Tuesday of each week)
- MS Standards of Practice
- News from the Nest
- ALL-IN Schedule (English)
- BLS District Return to School