Focus on Excellence and Equity…
“We now have the opportunity not to just reimagine schooling or try to reform injustice but to start over. Starting over is hard but not impossible; we now have a skeleton of a playbook. It starts with creativity, teacher-student relationships, and teacher autonomy.”
This quote is from the article Mary Ehrenworth mentioned that was written by Bettina Love. Here’s the link to the full article.
Safety Updates and Return to School Information
Info for parents (priority) – Some of you inquired about a district communication that describes for families our back to school practices and procedures. You should include in your newsletter a link to this website. It should provide the necessary information a parent will need. We will also be sending a district letter to all families on Friday. Between now and the end of next week, you need to send out a family newsletter that includes what lunches and breakfasts will be looking like at your schools. Included in that letter will be that all students will be eating lunch outside in assigned spaces with 6 feet distancing. You also need to include what it will look like in your school on inclement weather days when you will be eating inside. Emphasize that students will be in assigned spots, 6 feet apart, and other mitigating strategies that you will deploy to reduce the spread of covid. We would like to preview your message and plan before you send it to parents.
Safety teams – Once again a reminder to start up your safety teams and use them to help create safety practices at your schools. As you make those decisions, make sure you are referencing the latest RSSL document and aligning decisions with practices and procedures specific to our district. Here is the 2020/21 Return To School Cheat Sheet For Administrators to help guide some of the areas to review and focus on (remember, this is from last year so things have changed). Here is the updated 1 pager based on current RSSL guidelines.
Targeted Remote Learning – the Ready, Set, Go document for Targeted Remote Learning is still in DRAFT form but it should be ready by Monday. Next week it is important that you share it with your teachers so they have time to plan for it and start following some of the recommendations.
Sign in and sign out – Please ensure approved district visitors, ESD staff (including all subs), and approved essential volunteers are using a paper sign-in/out form located in your office. These are critical for contact tracing purposes.
Proof of Vaccination and Vaccine Opt Out – I know you have many questions about the opt out of vaccines for medical and religious reasons. HR will be getting out a document soon with the steps to follow. For now, just hold tight and tell anyone who is inquiring about opting out that directions from HR are coming soon. Same goes with when and how we will be collecting proof of vaccination status.
Coming to work sick or symptomatic – pure and simple, DON’T! On day one with staff this needs to be communicated very, very clearly. This was a topic heavily discussed today, as there have been several cases already in which adults have come to work with “allergies” or a “cold” and eventually found out it was really Covid, unknowingly spreading it to others. This has to be a tight practice.
Department News…
From Instructional Tech – Here is resource page that you can forward to your new teachers and even your veteran teachers. And remember, we will have the premium version of SeeSaw for k-2 students again. The contract for this should be wrapped up this week.
From Michele Oakes – The Mentor Program likes to double-check that we have all of our beginning teachers (in his/her first or second year of their career) enrolled in the program and supported by our amazing mentors. If you have a beginning teacher please send the name to Michele Oakes. We are especially trying to catch those educators hired in the last few weeks.
From Dave Vanloo – Please send Stephanie Bent the email addresses of any staff to include on our district’s assessment and accountability email listserv. These communications will contain information necessary to coordinate and support any essential district or state assessment activities and data collections.
From Jackie Wilson our Sustainability Coordinator – Cheers, to the start of the school year. I am the District Sustainability coordinator.With a new sustainability plan, there will be updates, shared metrics, and other positive strides the district is taking to be nation-wide sustainability leaders. I do understand with the growing Covid numbers and schools starting, there is tons of information coming in. I will try to keep things as brief as possible.
- The District is in the process of adopting the new 5-year sustainability plan. As teams are planning the return to school, Jackie Wilson, District Sustainability Coordinator can present a brief synopsis to staff and will have additional information about the goals for all teams as we begin the school year.
- Here is the Sustainability Advisor description. In 2019 we had sustainability Advisors in 22 of our schools and are hoping to have one in place at all schools for the coming year. This staff member is the liaison for all things sustainable and works as a leader of the student green team. The staff member will be compensated for this position for 40 hours at their curriculum rate. Please make sure that all administrative staff see the position and reach out to staff to find someone interested in this great position.
- Idling information for the first newsletter-As office managers and Administrative teams are preparing for the first of many newsletters, it is important to get out some information to parents about idling. This fall there will be campaigns at several schools about idling. Part of the program is to educate parents and staff and driving students about idling. Here is that information. Schools can choose what to add to newsletters, but the hope is all schools share some information with parents before school starts.
More from Jackie Wilson our Sustainability Coordinator – Could you please share with your staff that I am running a school team challenge to learn more about sustainability? A small team of staff can join or the whole school as a team to complete challenges. It should not take more than an hour to complete.
If the school is interested, the game runs from 8 am August 30 – 12 pm September on 3. It is through a mobile app called GooseChase. The winning team will receive a great prize.
Participants can join the game by following these simple steps:
1. Download the GooseChase iOS or Android app.
2. Choose to play as a guest, or register for a personal account with a username & password of your choice.
3. Search for and select the Elementary School sustainability Challenge game, or search by game code ZM8BKQ.
Please let me know the name of the staff member interested in serving as the sustainability advisor. Our first virtual Sustainability coordinator meeting will be Wednesday, September 22.
From Sean – Suicide Prevention and Intervention Trainings
QPR:
Due to COVID, we are a little behind in our 3 year rotation for the Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) 3 year training rotation. Please check the link below to see if your school is due for a training this year. If, yes, you can then click the link to find a Wednesday that will work for your building. I have taken the liberty to combine a few schools that share the same SIW times which are in RED. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks
| Question, Persuade, Refer1.5 hour training where participants learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. Offered on Wednesdays | All building/district staff | Every 3 YearsLook HERE to see if you need to sign up this year. | Sign up HERE |
ASIST:
Please save the date for Oct. 21-22 for this fall’s ASIST training. Each build needs at least two ASIST trained staff. Further, all new school psychologists and school counselor will need to attend this training, as they are the folks in your building that respond when a student present with suicide ideation and need a screening and safety plan. We are working on updating our list of trained building staff and will share with you shortly.
| Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training Suicide prevention protocol first responder training. Each building has a minimum of twoASIST trained staff to respond. Look HERE to see who is trained in your building. | School counselors/school psychs/student services | Offered 2 times per year | October 21-22Register HERE |
Updates, Reminders, Info and Rants…
Sub situation – The ESD reported that they added some additional subs but the sub situation still is not what it was a couple years ago. We will be hiring 5 additional district subs which will help but it won’t nearly solve the shortage issue. Be prepared with contingency plans within your building.
Power Standards – We are feeling a real need to be better aligned as elementary schools with the Power Standards that we are all using. After hearing yesterday’s questions and concerns around that, we are looking at some potential training opportunities for all ICCL teams to come together and work on aligning those as an elementary group. The admins and ICCL teams at the schools would then take that back to the schools to share out and implement. Time will need to be provided for the grade levels to dig into planning for them. We would not expect or ask individual schools to design or create their own power standards.
Calendar
- August 30 – New Teacher day at Summit–be there between 7:15-7:30 at the latest
- August 31 – All Staff Welcome Back – virtual–8:15–link to come
- September 8 – first day of kids (Celebrate! All kids on day 1!)
And Finally…
Usually I like to put something funny or uplifting in this section of the blog but I need to take a minute to talk about the enforcement of all our practices and procedures during this pandemic. If you happened to watch the board meeting on Tuesday you heard a member ask how we will ensure schools will follow through with all the safety measures we are putting in place? The answer is simple – it’s our job. As school leaders, you know it starts with us and ends with us. We need to set an example with our behaviors, clearly communicate expectations to our staff, and have honest conversations when those expectations are not being met. Your attitude and mindset about things rub off on everyone, so what you project is important. If we have to close down a school because of an outbreak, and if the reason for that outbreak was because of a failure on our part, then that is on us. This means some tough conversations might have to happen. If someone is not following protocol (wearing a mask for example) we need to talk with them ASAP and follow up that conversation with an email. Please don’t think I’m saying you’re not taking our situation seriously (you are) or that you’re not having those tough conversations (you do). But because of the intensity of our situation and the concerns of our community I wanted to make sure I communicated our responsibility as leaders. Tammy and I are always here to clarify things when needed and support you when needed so please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for all you are doing.