Fall planning invitation…
I expect most of you read the email from Lora and the ABC plan. You’re probably also getting a number of calls and texts and teachers. This is to be expected. There are lots of questions and details to work out. To begin this process I would like to invite you to join Paul Dean and me on Tuesday, July 7th from 10-12 in the boardroom to review guidelines from the state and discuss ideas for bringing back students to our building. As you know it’s our goal that all K-5 students be in our buildings next year. However, the maximum capacity of our classrooms is going to be a challenge that we need to overcome so all creative options and alternatives need to be explored. At this July 7th meeting you will be provided with the square footage of each of your classrooms along with the formula for calculating the maximum capacity for each classroom. You will need to bring your most current staffing plan along with the projected number of students for each classroom. If you cannot make this meeting please see if your assistant principal can attend. To make sure we follow social distancing guidelines only one of you need to be there . If attending in person is not an option, we can WebEx you in – just let me know if that is your preferred method and I will send you a link. And if neither WebEx nor in person works, let me know a good time that we can connect.
The goal is that by the end of the meeting Paul and I will be able to report to Lora and Brad the scope of any problems and clearly identify areas that need to be solved.
FYI – we are super fortunate to have Paul in his new role. He is keeping up to date on all the new rules and regulations around reopening and providing us with some great guidance. If I don’t have the answer Paul probably will. It was a great decision to add him to the team.
Favor to ask…
In our conversation about coming back, a very important number we will be using is the maximum occupancy of each classroom. So, having the projected number of students for each classroom is needed. If you haven’t already done so, please go into your staffing plans, click on the second tab, and fill the current number of students for each classroom. I know this will not be 100% accurate but it will at least give us an idea of what we are facing. This is a tab that I will probably be referring to over the summer so thanks for entering this info.
Adding classrooms? Reducing classrooms?
If you are adding a classroom please let Wendy Reeves know so we can start gathering curriculum materials for you. The same goes for reducing classrooms. If you went from four 3rd grades down to three she needs to know. We try to collect excess curriculum materials from those who are reducing and give it to those who are adding.
Required District PD for teachers…
In the past we called this Day 189 but since we don’t know what our year might look like we are not referring to it that way. We could call it “The Day Formerly Known as Day 189” but that didn’t get rave reviews with cabinet so for now we’ll just call it Required District PD. A team of coaches and teachers are designing this PD right now and we are targeting the first part of August to have it ready. I will be sending out an email to all elementary teachers in the next week with details on how to sign up and how to access the course once it’s ready. It will be delivered via Canvas and will focus on systems to support all learners whether we are face to face or in a distance learning situation. It will be a self-paced course that will take approximately 7 hours to complete. There will be two courses available – one focused on primary grades and one focused on intermediate grades. I’ll make sure I ‘cc you on all communications re: the courses and also let you know how you can either fully participate in them or at least audit the them.
Info from Kinsey…
If you are looking for a learning opportunity to dig into equity work, please consider participating in this workshop. We wanted to bring it to your attention, because we have the unique opportunity to work with a nationally-recognized teacher:
August 24-25, we are offering (for university credit or PDUs): Daring Classrooms and Schools: Practicing vulnerability, relationships, and dialogue as a basis for equity leadership. Matt Kay, a nationally-recognized author, equity consultant, and practicing classroom teacher will present and facilitate half of this WebEx/online workshop. The other portion of the workshop will be collective learning based on Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability and courage, as well as some other resources promoting dialogue and relationships (teacher-to-student, and colleague-to-colleague).
Mr. Kay is the author of the book we chose for a recent book study (Not Light But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom). His work was relevant and enlightening to all participants in the book study, including district and building administrators, instructional coaches, specialists, and K-12 teachers, and was firmly rooted in high-quality and tangible instructional practices.
Here is a video sample of Mr. Kay’s message around safe spaces in the classroom–one of many topics from his book. “You have to practice the skills that make people feel safe.”
Join us for this opportunity to learn, talk, and grow together as anti-racist educators!
If you are interested in taking this workshop for university credit, OSU-Cascades requires some paperwork from you by July 6, so register on Performance Matters ASAP (course # 10796).
We are working on making additional copies of his book available–we’ll email registered participants with details soon, for those who are interested in reading the book before the workshop.