Saturday, October 4, 2014


LS Weekly Memo
Week 9: October 6 - 10
We have 20 presenters and 48 Lower School employees attending the NWAIS conference on Friday.  Thank you for your great support of our organization’s conference. Best wishes to all our NWAIS Conference presenters.  The rest us will be at the ready on Friday to host the 400 educators from around the Northwest.
Thank you to those who have given to the OES Fund. This is one of the most important years for all LS faculty and staff to participate in the OES Fund, however small or large a donation.  Along with the reasons Tasha has told you and that Michelle Tubbs has shared, remember that we are also asking the OES community to donate $16.5 million for the creation of our new Lower School Building.  Your participation in the Fund will help OES this year, and help inspire giving that will impact OES for decades to come.  We are so close to reaching 100% participation in Lower School.


COMMUNITY
Fill Someone’s Bucket
The Green Bucket is awaiting your students’ ideas about how to fill one another’s buckets. See Jenny Cleveland, Sylvie Bissel or Ellie Riser if you have questions.
Student Safety
If a student’s behavior is unsafe for the student or others, Chris or David need to know about it
If a student breaks any of the Major Rules Chris or David need to be informed.
OES Fund - October 1 deadline
Our theme this year is:
  • Every student. Every day. (All students benefit from the OES Fund.)
  • Goal: 100% participation by faculty by September 30.
As we are looking for the community to donate $16.5 million for the new Lower School building, it is an important year for Lower School to be at 100% participation.  Please donate.
Please fill out the form in the LS office or go to the link (that’s the easiest) and make your pledge today!  The link is at LINK TO 2014-2015 Staff Payroll Deduction Form
Last week’s Beginning School coffees were well attended. On to First and Second Grade Tuesday, Oct. 7th and Third through Fifth Grade the following Tuesday. Thanks to all who helped plan and present at our coffees
Students to Watch on the Playground
There are three students we are supporting closely right now, and would love to have all folks on duty to continue  keeping  a special eye on them.
JB in Doug’s First Grade- Can be physical, some teasing, pretend play that is over the top
BK in Jackie’s Second Grade- New student, highly competitive soccer player, gets embarrassed and angry when called on unnecessary roughness. PE team will help supervise games he participates in out on the field.
PG in Tina’s Fifth Grade- Can get physical, unaware of personal boundaries, can go to extremes when teased or in chase games that go ary.
It will be important to document any issues in an Incident Report.  We are working closely  with these students’  families. See their photo in PCR if you don’t know what they look like.
Classroom Agreements
As you finalize your classroom agreements be sure to post them on your website.  Parents appreciate knowing the language you are using with their children.


PROGRAM
NWAIS All Schools Conference
Thanks to our colleagues who put their passions, time and energy into putting together an  NWAIS workshop.  There are so many of you, it will be hard to figure out which workshops to attend. Click on the download below for details about the conference.

Lower School Diversity (LSD) - When Were You the Only One?
Thursday, 10/9 @ 10:50, LS Library. Join colleagues fro the first of 4 discussion on diversity and intercultural competency.

Meetings this Week
LS Curriculum Task Force- 10/8 @ 3:15 - Marty’s Room
Inquiry Design Team - 10/9 @ 3:15 - Janet’s Room
ELL Specialist - Thursday, 10/9/14. See email from Ari for details (Mandatory Reporting Training to be rescheduled).
Student Support Team - Thursday, 10/9/14 @10:50 and 3:10
One of the main topics explored at our Fall coffees is Citizenship and Discipline.  Please take time to read the handbook if you haven’t done so recently. Parents may ask you questions about our policies.
We recently created a document that outlines major rules and levels of response when students present challenging behaviors.  Please know that this is just an i-house draft, a work in progress, meant to be used this year as a tool that will help us clarify our practices and interventions This is not meant to be shared with parents at this time.
Technology Reminders
Reminders about being a good caretaker of your technology tools:  
  • Restart your laptop at least once a week!  How about thinking of Monday morning as (to paraphrase Anne Shirley) “a whole new week… with no mistakes in it yet.”  Your machine will stay more “mistake-free” if you just restart it regularly.
  • Always restart your laptop and open only the necessary applications before giving a presentation.
  • When was the last time you cleaned the keyboard or screen?
  • Have you just been pushing the “Remind me later” button or have you taken the time and responsibility to install those updates it keeps reminding you about?
Field Trip Guidelines Please read!
There are two documents to review: a field trip check list and medical field trip info. Please be sure to post your dates on the Faculty Events Google Calendar and Anne Weston’s calendar (without the destination).

Field trips
  • Be sure to complete forms well in advance
  • Notify specialists when you will be away
  • Specialists are not expected to, though may offer to, make up missed classes due to field trips
PGD Opportunities
  • NWAIS - Narrative Report Writing That Tells The Whole Story: What Can They Do? What Do They Know? 
  • NWAIS - NAVIGATING GENDER IDENTITY, EXPRESSION AND VARIANCE IN EARLY CHILDHOOD AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION: FROM DRESS-UP TO THE MONKEY BARS
  • Mindfulness In Your School and Classroom - October 27, 2014  ~ Seattle Jewish Community School
  • Catin Gabel - Delivering Cultural Competency in Curriculum and Program
Saturday, November 8, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m, Catlin Gabel School


Lower School OpenHouse - 10/15, 6:00 - 8:00
All LS Faculty are expected to attend

Open House Dinner - Open House Dinner RSVP
Dinner will be served from 4:45 - 5:45 in US Room 60.  Please RSVP.
Team Leader Notes
  • Discussed HVAC system for new building
A Query  from Tonya Griffin Regarding Photo Management
Tonya is looking for someone who has an efficient, reliable system for managing photos.  She is trying to avoid the multiple steps of importing, exporting, and then uploading to Google. Anyone out there has a good system?  Tonya would like to speak with you.


OPERATIONS

Benefits Meeting
Benefits Renewal meeting on the afternoon of October 20 and the Benefits Fair on the 21st.
  • If you use our medical benefits, you should attend as you will learn more about benefits, and it is not feasible for everyone to get a one on one with HR so the general, the all school meeting is really important.
  • Supervisors will completely support employees in attending by accommodating schedules and workload. We feel it is really important for you to attend.
Lunch Recess Duty Reminder
A friendly reminder that one person on lunch recess duty should wait up at the top of the covered walkway until the last students have come down from the dining hall.  As I understand it, that same person then goes to the field. Let Chris know if you have any questions.
Please talk with each other and decide who will play this important duty role.
Picture Day - Retakes Thursday, October 9th.
Please remind parents in your weekly newsletter or email communication.
OES Book Sale - Wish List
The book fair is taking place off campus this year at Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village.  We are asking each grade level teaching team and LS Specialists to generate wish lists for their respective classes.  LS parents will have the opportunity to gift these books to each classroom.  The Book Fair Committee would love to make this process as easy and painless as possible!  With this in mind, it would be great if each grade level teaching team would designate one contact person to communicate your wish list to the committee.
A member of the Book Fair Committee will be contacting you to learn the name of the point person you have selected. Your designated point person will then submit the Wish List to their committee liaison in whatever form is most convenient - an email, a wish list created at Amazon.com or Powell's.com, a handwritten list...we simply need the title and author.
If you have questions or ideas, please direct them to Margueritte Kim at kimfamilypdx@mac.com.

Your Announcements
Send any announcements you have for faculty to Chris or me by Thursday each week and we will include them in the Weekly memo.  This should help reduce the number of emails we are receiving, and to maximize our time to collaborate during meetings.

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