New Family Orientation Night
I have taken the liberty of scheduling a New Family Orientation Session on Thursday October 8th from 6PM – 7:15PM (ish?). I am HOPING that everyone can make this, but I know that, since I didn’t review this day/time with you all that there may be a conflict or two…. I am keeping my fingers crossed!
I think this year we can get away with doing this new parent session and doing a “Senior Night” focused on graduation and college/career info. I am working with Jen on the format and schedule for this one. Last year we did a “returning parent night”… I think we can skip that!~
I am envisioning something SIMILAR to what we have done before at school, but on WebEx. Agendas from last year are below and would probably need a little tweaking.
- Welcome and Intro From Roger
- Head to Breakouts for a short Crew session with families
- Then head to breakouts on standards based assessment, “thriving in CDL (?)”, curriculum @ RHS
STAFFING FOR THIS: If you teach a 9th grade class OR a 9th grade Crew I would like you to attend. I’d like that our whole staff team attend and facilitate if possible. There are only two folks who DON’T have freshman in one way or another this trimester (ZH, AT) and AT has them 2nd tri!
COMP TIME: Because this is outside of the contract day, you will “bank” some comp time. Because we are in CDL, it is simpler… you have the opportunity to flex some time during that week (or the week after) and take some time for yourself during the work day. The meeting will probably last 90 minutes.
PLANNING: I suggest we re-use past agendas with tweaks/improvements. I will set aside some of our current “staff meeting time” for you to do some co-planning as necessary. Stay tuned.
Student Announcements
Do we need daily announcements again?? Seems like it might be useful? I would like to hear from you on how important/useful this is.
Three options:
- Review them with students each day in Crew. Crew is short, is this a good use of time?
- Review them in the 1st period of each day (Per 1 and Per 3, depending on the day). How does this feel?
- Post them as an Announcement on their Crew dashboard and let them be self serve. They could also be emailed automatically to students each day.
This is really a teacher level decision and I’d love to try and streamline the decision process on this one, please just register your preference here.
Your ICCL team will review the results of your votes and follow up with the decision and plan!
SICK DAYS AND SUBS (District and Union Versions)
Substitute Guidance for CDL directly from our District (Katie Legace):
- If a teacher is sick for one or two days there are a couple of options. One, the teacher can do his/her best to get information and work out to students. If a teacher attempts to teach, then the teacher doesn’t need to take a sick day. If the teacher is sick and can’t do any work, then that teacher needs to take a sick day.
- If a teacher is sick for more than two-three days, then the teacher and administrator need to try and get information out to students the best way possible. This will probably mean having someone that works closely with that teacher help get information out to students. If this happens, please have the teacher that helps complete a timesheet for the work.
- Long-term substitutes. We will continue to use long-term substitutes for teachers that are out long-term, on FMLA, etc.
Substitute Guidance for CDL directly from the BEA Union:
- If you are unable to perform any job duties: You need to communicate with your families that all live events are cancelled that day. You need to communicate with families what is expected that day. Can students continue to work in canvas? Do you have content on Goggle Classroom ready to go? Is all learning cancelled for this day? You need to inform your principal and office manager that you are taking a sick day so they can documents this and ensure your sick hours are used. There will not be subs available for single day.
- If you are able to do some job duties (Answer emails, push content out, give feedback on work completed, etc.): You need to communicate to parents how the day will be different due to your illness. What will be cancelled and what can they expect from you on this day? You’ll need to let your principal know you are feeling under the weather but will still be working.
- If your illness continues past a few days: You or your administrator can check with colleagues to see if any of them are willing to help support your students while you recover. If they are willing to step up and help they will be time sheeted for their time.
STANDING DESK EQUIPMENT
I have a few pieces of equipment that might help those who are looking to improve their screen/work situation. Some belongs to RHS, some to RW (happy to loan out for good use!!). ALSO, we can purchase more but this equipment is expensive, so we need to be selective. KNOWING that we don’t have enough for everyone, I suggest that this equipment get prioritized, for now, for staff who are primarily working from school… that way it can stay on campus and be maximized. If you are interested in one of these for using at school, please reach out to me with an email. This is NOT A RACE – if we need to look at investing in more equipment we will do so!!
Here is what we have:
- 1 black adjustable standing desk unit that plugs in. Can be used in conjunction with a pictured monitor or not.
- 1 Mac desktop. Can be used as a second screen for your laptop or as a stand alone machine
- 1 “bolt on” monitor with laptop tray that attached to a desk or table and is used in conjunction with your laptop.
- 1 small portable and adjustable laptop stand that adjusts in about 10 different ways/heights/angles
11th GR CREW HEALTH SURVEY – DURING CREW
Here is the description letter – it explains the what/why of the survey (state level) and the HOW for you as teachers – please read it! I have sent the “passive permission opt out letter” to families already.
Here is the actual student survey link – customized link for RHS 11th graders.
Please give the survey on either Monday October 5th and/or Thursday Oct 8th when Jen Rule has the 12th graders for college/career. THANKS!
EL EDUCATION PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
We will have several “off site” PD opportunities through EL Education this year that are paid for through our District support EL contract. The 1st is a “Virtual National Conference called What Matters Most: EL Education 2020 Virtual Summit.
After careful consideration and input from the ILT we would like to invite the following team members to attend this two day PD Institute: Anita, Yen-Ling, Roger, Heidi, Aaron. These folks need to email me with a YES PLEASE or NO THANKS ASAP and then get themselves registered (also ASAP) using the link above. If there is a NO THANKS in the crowd we will find (easily I suspect) a willing replacement. As with all of our off site PD, there is an “ask” to bring back usable material to our whole staff – this takes some thinking, time, and a willingness to share afterwards (more to come on this).
OTHER EL EDUCATION OPP’s COMING: There WILL be other “off site” institutes. This year EL is offering a series of “1 day institutes”:
Assessment in Daily Instruction – 1 day institute! October 19th – I am thinking this might be a great fit for Brad Horn (who did not get into the Virtual Summit list above) and some other folks too – we have multiple slots possible! STAY TUNED ASAP!
STAFF MEETING DRAFT PLAN FOR FALL
This is COMING ASAP!!!
We got NEW NEWS regarding a fresh, hot off the presses, union negotiated deal for more teacher directed planning time last Friday that is causing me to re-configure. This is not something we have had to work with in this particular way before, and I want to be sensitive to teacher needs for private and individual planning time balanced with our students/schools needs for us to collaborate and calibrate! I have a draft that the ICCL has had a little input on and I want to share it with you VERY SOON – stay tuned by email!!
STUDENTS OF CONCERN TRACKING
We will begin using an SOC Tracker modified from last year. Hoping to keep it CLEANER and more usable/accessible than our tracker became last Spring!
Here it is. We will begin using it tomorrow in our TUESDAY SOC 4:00 meeting. Please populate in advance if you can!!