Upcoming Dates
- Seniors: Oregon Promise Apply Day Thursday during Crew
- Thursday MTSS Staff Meeting, 3:20-4:00
- Staff Crew Breakfast Treats Friday morning
- Community Meeting Friday (during Crew)
- Realms Middle School Students on Campus 2/3, 10-11:45 AM
- EL Education PD Day, 2/4 (No Students)
- 8th Grade Info Night – Thursday, 2/10
- 5th Grade Info Night – Thursday, 2/17 (Brinson Campus)
Updated SIW Calendar
MORE Teacher Directed SIW’s: The District and Union have negotiated for 5 additional teacher directed SIW’s this year in response to teacher planning load and morale/burnout. Here is the new SIW calendar, which reflects the newly added Teacher-Directed SIWs.
We (admin and ICCL) are in the process of reworking our plan to make the best use of the remaining “School Discretion” Wednesdays, so know that the “Topic & Agenda” column is still a work in progress. For now, know that we are looking forward to use our remaining “School Discretion” PD time for more rad EL Education practices!
Major Dates Calendar Update
Thank you all for your input regarding round 2 of our Student-Led Conferences, Comp Time, and Grading Day. Based on your feedback, here is the new schedule for the weeks before and after Spring Break:
Under this plan, the Friday before Spring Break you will have conferences in the morning, then finish up grading from 11-4.
On the Monday after Spring Break you will have the remaining 3 hours of your “Grading Day” for planning (solo/collaborative!), then Comp time for SLCs from 11-4.
We have heard really positive feedback from this plan thus far, BUT if this brings up any concerns for you, PLEASE come talk with Zach or Roger.
YouthTruth STAFF Survey
Here is the link to the YouthTruth STAFF Survey: http://www.ytsurvey.org/realmshsstaff22
Please complete this by next Friday, 1/28. This feedback is extremely useful, so please do answer, and answer honestly! Thank you in advance!
Academic Sessions/Clubs!!
We are hoping to pay some staff to offer academic/study clubs! The District is pushing this with a special pot of money, so we can pay you at your contracted hourly rate (above curriculum rate).
These work best if they are regular and scheduled so students can build the habit of attending. They can be scheduled before school, at lunch, or after school. They can be subject-specific or not! Two folks could even set up a rotating schedule for covering every-other week!
If you are interested, please shoot Zach and Roger an email (including the What and When of your proposed club!). You do not have to commit for the rest of the year.
Syllabi/Course Planning Documents
At the beginning of the year we introduced this folder for Course Planning Documents. This is your Trimester 2 reminder to please add either a Course Planning Document OR your Canvas Syllabus (on a Google Doc) to this folder (we understand that there has been a big push to get your course Syllabi dialed-in on Canvas, so that will be fine in place of a Course Planning Doc for now!). Please get this added to the Drive folder in the next week or so.
Covid Absences, Canvas, & Related Attendance
With so many students out with Covid right now, we are hearing more and more that students are returning having done NO work, and landing cold back in class. This is clearly unfair to teachers and far from ideal for students, so we are hatching a plan. Here it is so far:
- Please continue to keep your Canvas courses up to date and accessible for students at home. We are going to be sending messaging to families (again) about the importance of staying on top of Canvas if they are well enough to do so.
- We are finishing up an internal Covid tracking sheet that we will share with you all. This will include each students’ expected return date (this has been difficult to track with changing policies). Stay tuned for that spreadsheet!
- When students return to campus after an extended Covid absence, Kristin will be meeting with them first thing to begin a priority assignment list. We have not landed on a consistent place for students to work if they need extra support, but if a student is not ready to re-enter class AND they need adult support, I encourage teachers to help students identify a priority assignment or two, then send the student to the Studio where Gregory, Zach, and Kem will help connect them with some support.
Attendance Notes From Lisa:
- You now have 2 options for late students LUN (late unexcused) & LEX (late excused). You will continue to use AUV (absent unverified).
- In addition to C19 you will now see PVQ (present virtual quarantine). This PVQ code will not drop a student after 10 days of being absent.