Quote to consider:
Kids aren’t known for being great liseners, but they are known for being great imitators. Be worthy of imitating. ~Krista Ward
To Dos:
TAs: Last year, students were required to have a “golden ticket”, which was signed by teacher and parent, to be scheduled as a TA for the 2020-21 school year. We had to reschedule all the TA’s for 1st semester because we were in CDL. Since we are going to hybrid, we are not rescheduling TA’s that were scheduled for 2nd semester. If you would like to opt out of having a TA, please email Gina by Friday, Jan. 29th so we can reschedule these students.
ADMIN TEAM ADJUSTMENTS: As you know (unless you were unable to attend yesterday’s 2pm WebEx meeting), Wendy has been reassigned to be the administrator for the newly created district CDL learning option for the rest of this year. Nole will serve as interim principal and Heather will serve as interim assistant principal (the district is not hiring for the vacant dean position). This adjustment is for the remainder of this school year only; the admin team will revert to their previous roles on July 1st.
Wendy will still serve in a supervisory support role remotely for HDMS during this time. Please continue to email Wendy, Nole, and Heather whenever there is a need to contact anyone on the admin team. This ensures we are able to support staff most efficiently.
STAFF MEETING: Please mark your calendars for an all staff meeting in Nole’s WebEx room on Tuesday (1/19) at 8:00am. (Note: any standing meetings that used to meet in Wendy’s WebEx room will now be held in Nole’s.)
Bits and Bobs:
HDMS HYBRID SCHEDULE: Here is the first draft of the HDMS hybrid schedule. This is still in draft form and therefore not public facing yet. Lunch specifics are still being developed, but as it stands now students who have a class downstairs during 1st period/5th period will have lunch the first part of the period while students who have a class upstairs during 1st period/5th period will have lunch the last part of the period. For your reference, here is the latest district MS Schedule the HDMS schedule was based on.
WEDNESDAYS DURING HYBRID: We are still waiting for more information from the district on what Wednesdays will look like as there is still apparently discussions between the district and the association. We are hearing that there *may* be live WebEx classes scheduled where cohorts A and B both attend virtually for a shortened period of time. We’ll pass on more details as soon as they become available.
TWO WEEKS ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING: As Lora’s reopening email stated, the weeks of Jan. 25th (transition week) and Feb. 1st (orientation week) will be asynchronous learning. Jim Boen, Dean Richards, some MS teachers (including our own Stephanie Morrison!), and the Office of School Support has put together this guidance for these two weeks.
GRADING INFO: Please see and follow the guidelines on this end of the term grading checklist from our Canvas coaches. (*Note: the document has many hyperlinks within it.)
Reminder that gradebooks should not have zeros for any assignment from December 1st on. Gina will making these grading protocols adjustments for the school and we need to ensure that everyone’s gradebook is setup for this shift. The deadline for staff to have this is completed on your end by Thursday, Jan. 21st.
ROVING DISTRICT SUBS: Here is a message from HR: eventually there will be 10 hired floating temp “sub” teachers with BLPSD. At this time we don’t have anyone hired for this quite yet. If you have current certified staff that will need a sub coming up in the next couple of weeks, please continue to use HDESD for subs. At some point, once our float teachers are hired, we will put out to Admin who will be in charge of this task from the District level. Those details are also still being worked out.
Reminders:
YOUTH TRUTH: If you haven’t done so already, please to complete the HDMS staff Youth Truth survey by 1.21.2021. ytsurvey.org/hdmsstaff21
Thanks for having students complete this survey during advisory today. We shared info with families as well as the link to the family survey during last Friday’s weekly communication.
REPORTING BACK TO THE BUILDING: Staff (certified and classified) need to report back to HDMS no later than Monday, Jan. 25th. This is the first day of asynchronous teaching and two weeks before Hybrid starts.
SPANISH INTERPRETER: Consider utilizing our Spanish interpreter system this Wednesday from 1:30-4:00pm to make connections with our Spanish speaking families. These connections can be setup ahead of time and/or cold calls. Use the link on the sidebar of the blog to sign up by Tuesdays at 9:00am.
SAFE SCHOOLS: Reminder that all Safe Schools training were to be completed by 12/31/20. If you haven’t completed these trainings yet, please do so ASAP.