Staff Update #16: 4/26/24 – Realms Staff Updates

#rogerstrong Banner

Roger asked that I share this photo and say Thank you!

Many folks have gone to visit Roger at this point, and I facetimed with him this week and can confirm that he is doing WAY better! The conversation was clear, purposeful, and positive 🙂

Upcoming Dates

This week

Mon April 29th – HS Community Meeting (led by Tyler & Lauren’s Crews)
Mon April 29th – Fire Drill 2:30 PM
Wed – Thur – Schedule Review & Input 8:00-8:30 (no MTSS this week) – See Below
Fri May 3rd – TRIMESTER 3 MIDTERM
Fri May 3rd – Staff Crew 8:00-8:20 (Sunshine Committee)
Fri May 3rd – Better World Day (9th, 10th, some 12th)
Fri May 3rd – RMS Dance 6pm-8pm (volunteer sign up here)

Looking Ahead

Mon May 6th – Teacher Appreciation Week!
Thurs May 9th – AP Psychology Exam
Fri May 10th – AP Art Portfolios Due
Sat May 11th – Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show
Tues May 15th – Fri May 19th – RHS Intensives, Round 2
Mon May 20th – Thurs May 22nd: 8th Gr Travel Study
Thur May 23rd – AP Physics 1 Exam
Tues May 28th – Wed May 29th: 10th Gr Newport Overnight Fieldwork
Thurs May 30th – Senior Expo Night 6pm-8pm
Tues June 4th – Thurs June 6th – Tentative 8th Gr Passages
Wed June 6th – Last Day of Classes for RHS Seniors
Tues June 11th – RHS Class of 2024 Graduation, 7PM
Thurs June 13th – RMS 8th Gr Promotion, 6PM
Tues June 18th – Last Day of School, 2:30 Release

3rd trimester fieldwork overview calendar!

SIW Calendar

Big Ups!

Lauren & Jen for prepping and bringing a Realms Team to the COCC Math Contest on Thursday! So awesome! Just look at these smiling nerds 🤓

Main Schedule (no longer “master”) Input

I’ve recently learned that “Master Schedule” is on the way out in an effort to be more inclusive, respectful, and sensitive to diverse perspectives and backgrounds. I will be making an effort to shift to “Main Schedule” or simply “Schedule” going forward.

Gathering teacher input on the schedule is not just a good idea, but also now written explicitly into the CBA as an expectation. This is only step 1 of gathering teacher input… I plan to reach back out later in the year after we have a more robust draft. Most of the schedule design will be done by me and Addy.

I’ve created this spreadsheet to begin gathering input and ideas. Please use the comment feature and don’t hold back! Here are a few notes about it:

High School Schedule is built without considering time of day or periods. You can see on the next tab the number of students that have forecast for each course.
Middle School Schedule isn’t much to look at right now – but it DOES include a first attempt at assigning Crew grade levels which I need your feedback on. If you are more comfortable sharing your Crew grade level hopes and dreams via email you are of course welcome to.
There are separate tabs for each of the Bell Schedules. High School Schedule is currently the same. Middle School Schedule is reworked to have Crew first and shorter with a longer AM break (not sure this is allowed seat-time-wise yet but gonna try!). DEFINITELY need your input on these things!

This week we will have no requirement of teachers to attend MTSS meetings as a “trade” for spending some time to complete this feedback. I’m asking that you provide your feedback no later than Monday, May 6th.

Midterms…

… have snuck up on me! Did they sneak up on you??

Next Friday, May 3rd, marks the midterm for Trimester 3 (5/6 through the year!).

For the high school, that means that it is also the cutoff date for late work from the first half of the trimester (link to late work policy).

For all teachers, that also means that Progress Reports need to be sent home soon. Please plan to send them between 5/6-5/8.

Here are the instructions for sending home those progress reports if you could use a refresher. At midterm it is a good idea to select “Show Assignment Detail” so that families can see what assignments are missing or in need of revision.

Detention Guidance for Teachers (RMS mostly)

Caleb has taken the lead on drafting up some guidance for teachers who want to assign lunch detentions directly. Overall, yes teachers may assign a student detention and/or ask them to spend their lunch in your classroom. My ask is that you consider whether that consequence is logical for the violation. For example, if a student was misbehaving during unstructured time, then removing more unstructured time by assigning detention makes sense! However, if a student is disrespectful or defiant, then the response should include reflection/restoration rather than just sitting in detention. Additionally, several of us are trained in restorative practices and would be happy to help/lead a conversation between student(s) and staff in place of more traditional consequences.

See Caleb’s thinking below for more philosophical guidance:

Lunch detention has not always been a big part of the Realms middle school’s student management plan, but you might have noticed that this year, especially recently, it has been much more prominent! Part of this is because of a high level of challenging and disruptive behavior at our school this year, part of it is because of the huge disruption to our school’s administration team this spring, and part of it is that we’re working on figuring out how to address the student challenges we have now, using the resources we have available now!

One of those resources is Ian White, who has taken on the extra duty of “detention supervisor”, and is awesome at restorative conversations with students, which is part of why we can even give lunch detention as an option right now. Restorative justice is still at the heart of Realms student management, and it’s important that we use the “tool” of lunch detention within the spirit of restorative justice, not just as something we throw at students when we don’t like what they’re doing. That being said, it’s a tool that we want all of the members of our teaching team to be able to access, without necessarily having to go through our often overwhelmed administration.

Here is a flowchart that you can use if you’d like!

RMS-Teacher-Behavior-Response-Flowchart Download

Note on Intensives Preps (RHS)

The intensives prep coverage plan is coming together and can be seen on this document. Please remember that if you have multiple staff members running your intensive then you need to carve out your own prep time.

This spring we really can’t offer timesheets for missed preps. The budget is looking thin. Thanks for understanding.

High School Opportunity: Computer Science

All Oregon High Schools will be expected to have at least one computer science class by the 2027-28 school year. To help us meet that expectation, OSU-Cascades is offering the CS for Oregon Summer Equity Symposium which is meant to train teachers of any background to run a computer science course. No computer science/coding experience necessary, and actually when I spoke with their representative they actually suggested that teachers with less experience are often better at this role! Please let me know if you are interested in this.

A couple more items from the district…

See you at Banff!