The Elementary Team rocks! According to Kevin we have plenty of kids enrolled in our summer Jump Start program. Great job! If you have any last minute families to contact, go ahead and reach out and get them registered asap. If not, check this one off on your list. Thank you!
Updates, Reminders, Department Info and Rants…
From Kinsey re: Student/Family Handbook – As you update your student/family handbook for 22-23 publishing, please make sure to include some key equity-related information:
- Indicate the location and access for all gender-neutral bathrooms in your building
- Check that your dress code language aligns with district policy
- Consider adding information about expectations around bias incidents, to raise awareness on our district policy
- Skim for binary language (“girls/boys”) and replace with neutral options where possible (students, learners, they)
- Review your personal leadership Equity Stance document, and reflect on how clearly that stance shows up in language throughout your handbook
- Track your changes so you can submit the updated portions for translation
- Share other ideas for making handbooks more inclusive!
From Candy Gelatt – Don’t forget to read Candy’s email from yesterday re: ICCL hiring. The goal is to have the ICCL hiring completed by June 30, 2022. HR understands this is a very busy season for all of you. If you are not able to complete your ICCL hires by June 30, 2022, please just communicate that with Candy and let her know what your plan is and your estimated timeline. The stipend for the ICCL’s begins in September.
From Rachel Mavis – The Attendance Workshop on 4/27 was well attended. Administrators, grad coaches and secretaries totaled 28. 10 of the 11 (secondary) schools requested to continue to participate in an Attendance Advisory Team. Here are the meeting notes. The next meeting and agenda is set for May 11 at 2:30 in the Wall St lab. This may be the last meeting for this year. Next school year we will pick up where we left off.
Though this was intended for secondary schools, the issues discussed were more at the district level, hence we will bring in representation from elementary schools. I am also recruiting middle school admins, as they were not represented. The high schools came in with full teams! All are eager to continue. Any questions, please reach out to Rachel or James Colestock.
School ends at 2:10 – Just a friendly reminder that buses do not depart your site until 2:18 so there should be plenty of time to get kids out and on their bus. I know at the beginning of the year we wanted to budget time for our kinders to get situated on the buses and we also wanted to space kids out during dismissal time. However, kinders are very capable of getting on buses now and our spacing requirements have been relaxed so let’s try to recapture a few minutes at the end of the day by not sending kids out early.
The Red Zone – things to share or do
From Lora re: Equitable Schools Training – On May 9th, a special gathering has been planned by other groups for our graduating seniors entering the military. Steve, Katie, and I, along with many of our high school principals, really want to attend this important event. SO…we are rescheduling our final session of preparing to lead equitable schools until Monday, 5/16, from 3:30-5:00 in the board room. I understand this may cause conflicts for some of you. Just let your level leader know if you will be unable to attend. Otherwise, we’ll see the rest of you on the 16th!
A Reminder from Lora re: Personal Days – According to our collective bargaining agreement, certified staff may NOT take personal leave the last two weeks of school (June 6-17), unless there are “unusual or highly extenuating circumstances.” If you have a certified staff member request personal leave during that time, PLEASE MAKE SURE to forward the request to HR. We want to be consistent about what is approved.
Also, on a subbing note, once seniors have graduated, teachers of all-senior classes can be assigned to cover classes if subs are needed. As long as a teacher retains their normal prep period, these assignments do not need to be compensated.
From Instructional Tech – Our BLS summer iPad plan is ready. There’s a one-pager for staff and one for families. When and exactly how this plan is implemented is up to each school. Ideally a staff member at each school will be given time to walk students through end-of-year steps to clean up storage and update the iOS. Doing these things now will lead to an easier launch in the fall and lend to digital literacy in general. Please reach out to Instructional Technology or your school’s site tech with questions.
Evaluation reminder – You should start thinking about your evals and getting them done. As a reminder we are focusing on Domains 1, 5 and standards 3.13, 4.16, and 6.24. Here is the memo on evals from earlier in the year.
Evaluation Reminder #2 – Don’t forget – principal self evaluations are due by May 15th. Please log in to Talent Ed to complete yours.
Calendar
- SIW schedule – this is the newest version
- Horizontal Meeting Schedule – there have been changes – check it out now!
- Monthly checklist
- May 16 3:30 – 5:00 – For Principals – Leading Equitable Schools training. Board room
- June 17 – Last Day of School!
And Finally…
If you weren’t at our last horizontal meeting the image below will not make any sense. Call Heidi at Highland so she can explain.
