Happy Friday Staff! Last one with students here. The end of a school year always seems to sneak up on us, and while I’m not sure that’s how I would characterize this one, it is still hard to believe we are staring down the last week.

As I was in and out of rooms this week, there was a lot of cool, fun, and engaging things going on. Thank you for doing your best with our students right up through to the end! Enjoy this last weekend!

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Calendar Items:

• Monday – Wednesday, June 14-16
  • Regular B rotation classes and schedule
  • Staff meeting in the cafeteria at 9:30 on Wednesday, June 15 to honor staff who have reached important milestones in their school/district service
• Thursday, June 17
  • SIW start and end times but with all 7 classes (10:35 – 2:57)
  • 8th grade students eat lunch on lower field and then stay for remainder of the day
  • Students receive yearbooks during 1st period
  • Staff get together at Debi Alayan’s house after school. Food assignments to follow.
• Friday, June 18
  • Grades posted by 3 pm
  • If you have a new professional pursuit for next fall and you will not be at PBMS, please make sure you have checked in with Kasey or Lisa about getting your Laptop or iPad checked in.
  • Stancliff out in the PM (Nephew’s wedding in Montana, but I will be accessible if needed by cell)
  • Checkout list turned into Heather

Click here for a more detailed outline of the last week.

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To Do’s:

Teachers, please make sure that you have completed your SLGG tasks by Wednesday. See my email instructions if needed.

Please take a moment to fill out this short survey related to professional development, so that Mary and Chad can have some input for planning inservice, SIWs, and other PD/instructional opportunities.

Reminder to all staff, please complete your MAC training. This will be one of our admin checkout items. Please see the email Raquel sent for resources.

For probationary staff, please make sure you get your self-reflection completed in TalentEd by Tuesday, 6/15 or before your summative meeting, whichever comes first.

As you wind down next week, please make sure to remember to clear out any food items (dry goods or refrigerated) as well as making sure that on the last day everything in the room or office gets unplugged, glassboards are wiped clean, surfaces have been wiped down, and chairs are stacked. Here some info from the sustainability coordinator that can also guide you.

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On the Radar . . .

2 ICCL slots open for next year. Here are the forms if you are interested. Chad and Mary will likely work together on this and reach out to interested staff in early August. Here is the description. Here is the recommendation form.

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Shout out’s . . .

. . . To everyone who helped plan for and did not give up on the talent show!

. . . To Mrs. Crosby, who will continue on with us next year as well as Dani Zepplin, from Wisconsin, who will fill in for Aracely who will be working in the DI program at Bear Creek.

. . . To Mrs. Corson on the healthy arrival of her granddaughter Isabella!

. . . To the Staff kickball team that showed no mercy on the students!

. . . To Mr. Goldstein on the timely arrival of the yearbooks – – and what an incredible effort on his and the students’ part to produce a great book under very tough circumstances!

Birthday wishes go to . . . Kasey Cartmill (6/12), Dan Potts (6/15), and Gavin MacFarland (6/17), Enjoy your day!

What a week! Just when we thought it was shaping up to be a relatively quiet Friday . . . I appreciate your patience and quick action to keep our kids safe today! As I am sure you have heard by now, there was a robbery down off of 2nd, but the suspect was believed to have fled this direction. We were initially told to do a lockdown, but that quickly changed, and we tried to update you ASAP. I know there were some tender emotions, so thank you for tending to our kids and each other with care.

Thank you so much, again, for our surprise get together on Wednesday. Over the last couple of days, I was able to spend some time with the book you gave me, and you were very very kind in your well wishes. As I hope I made clear in my ramblings that day, I have so much confidence that our team at PBMS will continue to thrive and do amazing things for kids and for each other.

Speaking of doing amazing things for kids and each other, there is still plenty we will do this year though we are running out of time to do it. The next couple of weeks will not be as packed with activities relative to a normal year because we still have RSSL guidelines to follow, but we will definitely stay busy. A lot of you’ll find below will look similar to the post from Tuesday. In normal years, there was a tradition of issuing a paper copy of “The Last Two Weeks.” This blog post will effectively serve that purpose, though there is also a link below to a more detailed document.

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Calendar Items:

• Monday, June 7
  • Rotation A (last one!)
  • State testing (grades 7/8) during advisory
• Tuesday, June 8
  • State testing (grades 7/8) during advisory
• Wednesday, June 9
  • Touch base with students in quarantine where needed (We had several get bumped out this week.)
  • SIW – Individual/PLC time (if you wrapped up rotation B summatives this week, it would be great to get those entered into Synergy)
  • Finish up SLGG processing (data to follow, but feel free to fill in the reflection aspects of this form.
• Thursday, June 10
  • State testing (grades 7/8) during advisory
• Friday, June 11
  • Talent show assembly (during advisory; 2 assemblies organized by lunch of advisory teacher)
  • Last day for rotation A work to come in (unless you make arrangements with individual students)
  • State testing make-up
• Monday – Wednesday, June 14-16
  • Regular B rotation classes and schedule
  • Staff meeting in the cafeteria at 9:30 on Wednesday, June 15 to honor staff who have reached important milestones in their school/district service
• Thursday, June 17
  • SIW start and end times but with all 7 classes (10:35 – 2:57)
  • 1st period awards recognition slideshow
  • 8th grade students eat lunch on lower field and then stay for remainder of the day
  • Students receive yearbooks during 1st period
  • Staff get together at Debi Alayan’s house after school. Food assignments to follow.
• Friday, June 18
  • Grades posted by 3 pm
  • Stancliff out in the PM (Nephew’s wedding in Montana, but I will be accessible if needed by cell)

Click here for a more detailed outline of the last two weeks.

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To Do’s:

Look for a link from me or Raquel soon for the resources associated with completing our annual MAC training. Please consider this task one of your final check out items for the end of the year, and let the administrator who works with you know when you have completed it.

Several of you checked in to verify that you had connected with your advisory families, but we also did not hear from several of you. If you have not done so already, go ahead and let us know if that has been done.

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On the Radar . . .

Here is some info from the team at Teaching and Learning for teachers:

Greetings Teachers,

Our teaching and learning staff is once again excited to be planning the Innovative Teaching and Learning Conference for this August.  The conference will be held Wednesday, August 25 and Thursday, August 26th, at Pacific Crest Middle School.  Like other years ITLC will be an energizing way to start the new school year!In light of many aspects of our current situation, ranging from unknowns about gathering size, vaccine distribution, and even interest – we are going to scale down and focus this year’s conference on several large topics with the hope of giving those who participate the chance to dive deeper into the areas of equity, grading practices, and social-emotional wellness.  Each day will include a morning keynote followed by afternoon breakouts around these topics. You can choose to attend as much as you’d like.  Mary Ehrenworth will be our featured presenter for Wednesday the 25th and the team from Creative Leadership Solutions will be leading us in work surrounding Equitable Grading Practices on Thursday, August 26th.

Registration is available now in Performance Matters (after logging in you should see it in “Recommended Training”, click there, then select the “sections” tab to register separately for each day).  

Friday’s edition of EdTech Bytes:

•   Tech Tip: How to quickly combine multiple pdfs
•   Reminder:Google Takeout for those leaving the district
•   Learn about Canvas on your own time

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Shout out’s . . .

To all of you! Thank you again for your kindness and thoughtful words!

Birthday wishes go to . . . Kimberly Flanagan (6/9), Have a great day!

Feels strange to have written the date above, and yet, here we are. One of our students recently remarked: “The only thing that was normal this year was the setting on the washing machine.” So astute! I think this definitely goes for our sense of time during the Pandemic. I apologize for the delay in posting. I was waiting on a couple pieces of information from this weekend.

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Calendar Items:

• Tuesday, June 1
  • Rotation B
• Wednesday, June 2
  • SIW (individual or PLC collaboration)
• Friday, June 11
  • Talent show assembly (during advisory; 2 assemblies organized by lunch of advisory teacher)
• Monday – Wednesday, June 14-16
  • Regular B rotation classes and schedule
• Thursday, June 17
  • SIW schedule but with all 7 classes (10:35 – 2:57)
  • 1st period awards recognition slideshow
  • 8th grade students eat lunch on lower field and then stay for remainder of the day
  • Students receive yearbooks during 1st period
  • See schedule

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To Do’s:

Teachers, to the extent possible, please keep your Synergy gradebook updated with summative scores. This will allow you, students, and families to have a clear sense of missing or otherwise unresolved items that will impact their grade. Families will receive communication that all missing summatives need to be completed by 6/11 unless otherwise arranged with a specific teacher. (Obvously, this would not apply to summatives folks have planned for the last week.) Keeping them updated now will also reduce your workload on the last day when it comes time to post grades.

Important: Please make sure that when you are doing attendance you actually have your screen up where you can verify that there are no C19 codes for that period. We have had some students going 2 or 3 classes into their day when they should be at home.

This is the week that middle school staff are beginning to set up two factor identification for signing on to the network. Please see instructions and more information in the email you should have received from Chad Brewer.

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On the Radar:

Over the course of this week, Mary will be working on organizing the remaining state testing make-ups, and she will reach out with what that will look like. We are trying to get most of these done during advisory next week, but we may have a few pull out scenarios as well.

Jim Boen wanted me to make sure that everyone is aware of this resource associated with employees receiving assistance associated with significant life events or changes that happen.

Mary, Belén and I will be working hard on the master schedule, even though we will likely not be totally done by the last day of school, we should have a solid idea of what your assignments will be, and we will communicate accordingly. Please bear in mind that we still have some moving pieces in the staffing plan, and there can always have a bit of a domino effect as they resolve.

We sent home communication today letting families know that students will be holding on to their iPads this summer, and that we are finalizing the process for issuing hotspots for summer programming as well.

Stand by for details on an end of the year staff social on Thursday, June 17 after school.

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Shout Out’s:

. . . to the all of the staff who participated last week in selecting students for awards and recognition! Thank you for your help on this!

When you see Brenda Berg working with our Life Skills students tell her congrats, as she interviewed for, and received one of our EA positions for the fall!

Birthday love goes to Mike LaTorre (6/2) . . . Have a great day!