Updates, Reminders, Department Info and Rants…
Staffing Plans – this year’s review of staffing plans are taking a bit longer than expected to review. Our goal is to be done with them by Friday afternoon with feedback coming back to you shortly thereafter. The review is taking a lot longer this year, as we are needing to not just look that your numbers match up, but that staffing is being used in the best way possible. We have to check that the SIA funded SSC and HU is being used correctly for your SSC people, counselors in some cases, and HU for class size reduction first before anything else if you have large classes. Thank you for your patience.
Summer Meals – Alandra is working with Garra in Nutrition Services to communicate changes to summer meals as well as meals for the 2022-23 school year. Watch for that info in English and Spanish next week to share. (If you already shared communication from Nutrition Services, that’s great. This is likely one that we will share multiple times because it marks a significant change for families.)
From Kinsey – Bias Incidents: Curious about next steps with our bias incident work? This timeline shows where we’ve been in recent years (a celebration of our collective efforts, considering the pandemic happening in the ‘background’), and where we’re headed next: short-term actions for this spring, as well as longer-term/ongoing work.
Your LEAD teacher (if you have one) will be trying out a lesson on Bias in their class. Ask them about it and pop in if you get a chance. These will not be taught schoolwide this year (except in the case of HDMS who is piloting it school wide).
Note that the bold items occurring this April and May 2022 (second page) include some action needed on your part. If you would like a mini-PD/calibration activity or protocol for re-visiting this topic with your staff, please reach out to Kinsey. Remember that this tool is as much intended to facilitate partnership in responding to incidents, as it is to track and record data on the incidents themselves. Thank you!
Meet Principal Finalists Wednesday – Students, staff and community members are invited to meet the finalists for our principal position during a virtual forum Wednesday, April 27 at 4 p.m. Attendees will get a chance to see presentations from the candidates and provide feedback about the finalists. Login: https://bls.fyi/ponderosa. Password is PONDO22
The Red Zone – Things to Share or Do or Put on Your Calendar…
Subs – Because of the shortage of subs we cannot have schools bringing in subs for meetings, assessments, or releasing teachers for school business (ie supplemental subs for ECSE meeting, progress monitoring, team planning…). Every day this week we’ve had numerous unfilled jobs so we need to reduce the impact by not scheduling subs for these things.
Summer School Enrollments – this needs to be at the top of your list of to-do’s. Please touch base with all of your teaching teams and ask them to finalize their summer school invitations and give those names to your registrar so they can be entered into Synergy. Remember, May 1st is the date we are targeting to get names to transportation.
Kinder Information nights and Compensating Kindergarten Teachers – if you are requiring your kindergarten teachers to assist with your kinder information event, be sure to compensate them at their rate of pay for any planning they did and for attending the event. This probably won’t be more than a few hours of work but their time and effort is appreciated and needed so let’s compensate them accordingly.
Maypril Site Visit Sign Ups! Sign up here for the last site visit of the year before summative evaluation meetings. We will send the link to self-evaluations later.
Calendar
- SIW schedule – this is the newest version
- Horizontal Meeting Schedule – there have been changes – check it out now!
- Monthly checklist
- April 25 – Horizontal 3:00-4:30, location TBD
- April 27 – Ponderosa principal interviews and community forum
- April and May – Hold a kindergarten info night this week–WebEx or in-person, your choice!
And Finally…
How many of you are feeling like this right about now?
(FYI – none of you are excused)