Friends –
Every day I feel like I am taking out loans on your patience. I know I have been even more impossible to reach than normal so thank you for your patience and thank you for troubleshooting issues on your own. As we make this big transition toward in person instruction keep in mind that we know things will happen and mistakes will be made. We are all human and we just have to learn from our mistakes. Meet regularly with your safety team, communicate with your teachers often. Acknowledge the heightened level of anxiety everyone is feeling and show more grace than normal. You are really doing a great job. Keep it up.
Focus on Excellence and Equity…
We have a district admin equity PD with BRYT this next Wednesday from 3:00 – 4:30. We will be meeting in-person at Cascade (same rooms as before).
Don’t forget to comment on your peer’s equity goals within this spreadsheet in the coming days – prior to our next Excellence and Equity PD on Jan. 20. Modeling has been provided to you by our friends at SVMS.
Controversial Topics – With all that has been going on recently, Jim Boen took time to create the following to help guide the discussion of controversial topics. Please share this with your staff. It has some great information and advice. Thank you Jim for taking the time to put this together.
I do not need to tell you that people in our community (staff in our school community as well as families in our broader community) are feeling maxed, anxious, and worn out. While at the same time I believe there is also an element of feeling empowered. Some of this empowerment, I believe, is positive and healthy, while other displays of empowerment are not. Last week’s unlawful event at the US Capital may be a prelude to other unlawful and/or disruptive events that may occur in the coming days. I am asking that each of you share the following information with your staff as it relates to talking about controversial issues (specifically those connected with the current political climate – but any topic that may potentially be controversial). First, talking about tough topics is absolutely something that must be a part of a student’s educational experience. These should not be avoided – if done right. Here is a very helpful checklist for a teacher to consider. (All steps are not required, but are rather meant to be a support when planning, conducting, and reflecting on teaching/dialogue related to equity and anti-racism.) To set the stage for controversial conversations to be productive and not reactionary or isolated, the classroom climate must be developed intentionally over time–our LEAD Cohort’s website has tools for steadily building a climate of equity dialogue. We also have district Administrative Regulation (GBG-AR) regarding Staff Participation in Political Activities. I’d like to highlight the third and fourth paragraphs. In essence, I interpret these as saying that teachers can talk about politics in their classroom, but the keys are to make sure both sides of the issue/topic are presented/represented, and that the teacher’s own viewpoints need to be represented as personal and not that of an official district stance. Finally, it may be helpful to remind staff of this BLS Election Guidance that was sent out earlier this fall. All of these documents should be seen as support for teachers in how to prepare for and facilitate difficult conversations within the classroom learning environment.
Department News…
Attendance info from Becky Rehwalt – Orientation Week is planned at your school next week, beginning Tuesday. Student’s attendance records will continue to automatically get a PV (Present Virtually) attendance code.
We ask that you remove the PV code on the date students are attending Orientation at your school. The absence code (AM and PM) should be blank, unless you’ve been notified that the student will not attend orientation, then insert the appropriate absence code. This can be done on the Daily Attendance view or the Class Daily Attendance view. This also applies to the week of orientations for 4th and 5th graders.
Once you have students (such as your KG-03) attending all day as described on the Implementation Schedule we will exclude those grade levels in the mass update of the PV code. Students attending all day will have a blank absence code (just like the old days!).
Students that move to a Hybrid schedule (such as your 4th and 5th graders) will continue to get a PV code on their set virtual/CDL day ONLY. On their ‘onsite’ or in-person day the absence code will be blank. We will use the Groups that you have been maintaining to do this………..and we will exclude the KG-03 students.
Office info from Scott Bojanowski – We are still restricting all visitors and volunteers from entering schools. We also want to keep exterior doors shut and locked, and maintain the same standard of shutting and locking classroom doors while in classroom instruction. If exterior air is needed, windows can be cracked open.
Some Guidance on Meals from Paul – RSSL recommends that schools “Determine alternate locations (e.g., classrooms, outdoors) for eating meals”. We have discussed mealtime with our health professionals a number of times. Here are the recommendations:
- When feasible, eat outdoors.
- Outside temperature greater than 18 degrees
- Outside surfaces are dry for students to sit comfortably
- No smoke advisory in effect
- Classrooms are superior to cafeterias because they:
- Keep cohorts stable
- Reduce shared air among multiple cohorts
- Limit the likelihood of quarantines for large groups of students
- Best practices for classroom eating
- Increase ventilation with open doors/windows. Closely monitor exterior doors that aren’t within the school’s fenced zones.
- Station adult in the doorway where they can supervise but not be in the middle of the room
- Instruct students to leave masks on until all students are ready to eat. Teach “mask on”, language when the teacher needs to re enter the room while students are eating to address an issue.
- Add face shield to adult masks
- Limit mask off eating to 15 minutes or less
- Cafeteria eating is not a best practice (due to mixing of cohorts) but permissible if:
- Limited to few cohorts
- Substantial spacing between cohorts
- Airflow is increased through open doors/windows
- Admin team has sought input from Safe & Health Schools Administrator about room set up and cohorting rotation.
FAN Updates: FAN Advocates should be working from the building as we all transition to in-person learning. I have asked them to connect with you as they revise their work schedule. FAN Advocates need to be visible and available to students, staff and families on a weekly basis. They are aware that bell schedules have changed, and they will need to change their schedules also. The MAC survey is coming up in the next two weeks. More to come. Mara Stephens will be leaving our district in February. I will introduce our new Homeless Liaison as soon as we have someone on board. As always, please call/email Dana Pedersen if you have any questions regarding FAN or homeless education.
Updates, Reminders, Info and Rants…
Staff in the Building – We are asking all staff to be in buildings beginning Jan 19, including Wednesdays.
Reminder from Amy Stafford – Leave Sheets need to emailed back to me by the end of the day
Friday, January 15th. Dates for these sheets are 12/7/2020 – 1/17/2021. You are required to turn in a Leave Sheet even if no time was taken.
Shared materials – if your teachers need to buy things for their classrooms to reduce the number of things that are shared please help them out by tapping into your discretionary dollars. Now is not the time to save for a rainy day. It’s raining.
Check in and Check out Reminder from Nurse Tami – please remind your staff about the importance of the check-in/check-out process using the QR code system. I have been hearing from some of the nurses that folks are forgetting to do this. (One administrator even told the nurse that they have forgotten to do this over the past 3 days. 😳)
In case you were wondering, here are the start times of all the elementary schools:
Starting at 7:45 and ending at 2:15:
- Elk Meadow
- W.E. Miller
- Silver Rail
- Bear Creek
- Buckingham
- Juniper
- North Star
Starting at 8am and ending at 2:30:
- Highland
- Amity Creek (starting at North Star)
Starting at 8:30 and ending at 3pm:
- Lava Ridge
- Pine Ridge
- Ensworth
- R.E. Jewell
- Ponderosa
- High Lakes
Starting at 8:45 and ending at 3:35:
- Westside Village
Boys and Girls Club bus schedule – When I spoke to you on Monday there was going to be no after school transportation to Boys and Girls club. That all changed on Thursday when Kim Crabtree called and said she could make it happen for almost all schools. This is great news for our families that rely on B&G Club for after school care. It is going to be tight and there are a couple schools that will have to have kids wait a bit but Kim got it done. Here is the schedule. For Pine Ridge and High Lakes a solution is in the works so don’t worry quite yet about your kids.
Park and Rec – Team Up and Kids Inc – In a separate email I will be sharing a spreadsheet with you that list the number of kids for Team Up and Kids Inc. In a conversation today with them it appears that everyone who applied for Kids Inc will have a spot. This is good news. We will however have to identify some spaces for them. In general there will always be a 4-5 Team up classroom used during the day. Then in the afternoon they will need the gym and another flexible space. More details on this coming soon in a separate email.
Students moving from Schools to CDL – For families who are choosing to enroll in the District CDL Program, there will be a gap from when students stop attending their current school to when they begin their new program. The district will be providing activities and lessons to engage students during this time. Click here for a document you can share with staff and can share with families.
And Finally…
