LS Weekly Memo Week 4, August 29 - September 2, 2016

The transformation of the building this week has been amazing.  Thank you for all your hard work. Next week begins with the All School BBQ ( unless you are a department chair or ICC participant) and ends with a teacher work day, with a few faculty meetings in between.  We are almost ready for the new school year to begin.

CONSTRUCTION UPDATES

Keys

I have asked Jon to keep the building locked but the classrooms unlocked this weekend.  The subcontractor who keyed the doors has many locks to change.  Keys are coming but locks need to be correctly keyed first.

FURNITURE UPDATE

Desk chairs

The order is in. The chairs are by the stairs to the 3rd floor.  Come get one if you ordered one.  Any left over will be up fro grabs on Tuesday.

2 Drawer File Cabinets

The order is in, though almost half arrived damaged.  Replacements are being shipped. Come get one if you ordered one.

Hokki Stools

We have 40 Hokki Stools, 10 for each wing of the building.  Note the different sizes and choose those appropriate for your age group.

Student Chairs

We ordered simple black chairs for the 3rd/4th and 5th affinity commons.  Come get them when you are ready.  The wheeled chairs are for the Flex Classroom , Project Rooms and Library. The others are for the Affinity Commons.

Table Delivery Confirmation

Confirmation that the tables for  3rd-5th grade classrooms, 3/4 and 5 commons, Science and Art will arrive on 8/30 in the am.

Personal Furniture Purchases

David only received two requests for furniture needs this week.  He is suspicious that many of you decided to purchase items on your own. If you paid for furniture and would like to be reimbursed please add your purchase to the Furniture Reimbursement list. David will reimburse what the budget will cover. You will need to provide receipt to be reimbursed.

Rugs

Jon got carpet rectangles from our distributor.  Four rectangles are arranged in the main entrance.  Take a look and let me know how many you are interested in on the Carpet Rectangle Interest form.

Classroom Setup

VERY IMPORTANT: PLEASE VIEW THE CLASSROOM SETUP GUIDELINES BEFORE SETTING UP YOUR CLASSROOM! This document contains important information you need to know about safety before you purchase new items or set up your space.

Set-up Reminders

• Remember – All windows need to be fully operable to support cooling of the building. As you are setting up be sure to keep your windows fully operable.  
• The exposed concrete plays a critical role in heating and cooling the building. Keep at least half exposed.
• The building was designed to be our most energy efficient building on campus.  Please limit the electricity demands you are adding to the building:
• Personal refrigerators are particularly inefficient and create significant residual heat. We have a refrigerator available for your use on each floor;
• 1st Floor - Teaching Kitchen
• 2nd Floor - LS Office
• 3rd Floor -   Chris Thompson’s Office
• CFL and LED lights use significantly less electricity and generate significantly less heat than incandescent bulbs
• All building lights, except required emergency lights, turn off automatically. You will need to turn off any lights you add to your classroom or commons

The Move-in Update

• What a transformation of the building you have made this week.
• Good furniture is still available in the Old LS Building 1st/2nd classrooms and commons; trapezoidal tables, rectangular tables, desks, chairs, bookcases, storage, file cabinets.
• Clear storage bins for the new storage area are available in the entry. Please take up to 6. Please do not move the bins to the storage area yet. Maintenance will move the storage boxes into the new Storage area on September 2.
• Huge thanks to Jon von Behren, Rod Maynard and his crew for all they have tended to on the maintenance log. As needed, keep adding to the New LS Building Maintenance Request Log
• We will have a building use/operation training during opening faculty meetings

Unpacking

Any unneeded materials or furniture should be set aside within your classroom for the time being with a:

          Black Sticker – Discard

          Purple Sticker – potential ruse.

Please remember to check the labels on your boxes before unpacking. A number of people are missing boxes or other items.

Cooling in the New Building

The heating and cooling systems in the new building are still being commissioned so the building is significantly warmer than it will be.  Until the system is functional, open windows, deploy fans, come early.

Lacrosse Storage Under Exterior Stair

Jon is working on a athletic bags/ lacrosse stuff storage solution for under the east exterior stairs.

Setting Up Common Spaces

We will need to work together on the set-up of common spaces

• Work with your floor mates to make a plan for setting up your affinity commons
• Take at look at Kristen H’s work in the 1st/ 2nd Affinity Commons
• Thanks to those who helped set up the Production Room/ Office space
• Let’s see how our unpacking goes. We may be able to get additional Assistant Teacher time on 8/31 to help

COMMUNITY

All Employee Welcome BBQ

I hope to see you all at the family BBQ on Monday, 5 - 7 pm.  Jon and David will be offering tours to interested employees.

Community Building Tours

Kirstin, Chris and David will be leading tours of the building from 8:30 - 10:00 on Friday, September 9 and Friday,September 16.

OES Employees Photos

If you’re new or just need a review of the many people who work at OES, including the all-important custodial and maintenance staff helping us get everything ready for the start of school, head to the OES Employees Photos.

Room Assignments:

As you look to reconnect with colleagues or return things that made their way to the wrong room, we thought you’d like to know where everyone is!

First Floor, West Wing:

Room 10: Science Classroom, Jane Kenney-Norberg

Room 11: Kindergarten: Carole Burton

Room 12: Kindergarten: Deborah Bridgnell

Room 13: Kindergarten: Beth Breiten and Megan Graham

Room 14: PreK: Colesie Tharp and Lauren Endicott

Room 15: Primary: Chris O’Toole and Shelley Weiller

Production Room: EC Office, Shelley Weiller’s desk, Kelola and Alfredo’s offices, Kirstin’s office, copy machine

Room 16:  Art Studio:  Laura Foster-Flynn

Second Floor, West Wing:

Lower School Office: Lyn Zenisek, Kathy Finn-Brennan, David Lowell

Room 20: 2nd Grade, Natalie Simms

Room 21: 1st Grade, Katherine McCall Petke and Julie Mulley

Room 22: 1st Grade, Doug Whitmore and Juidi Alongi

Room 23: 1st Grade, Claire Kucera and Donna Komitor

Room 24: 2nd Grade, Jackie Blake

Room 25: 2nd Grade, Janet Schilling

Room 26: Spanish Room, Alfredo Peche and Kelola McCrary

Second Floor, East Wing:

Room 27: 5th Grade, Alysa Williams

Room 28: 5th Grade, Tina Akehurst

Room 29: 5th Grade, Natasha Busick

Technology Office: Jeffrey Sprague and Debra Thomas

Library: Lara Ingham and Heidi Hackenjos

Third Floor:

Room 30: 4th Grade, Asha Sathyaraj

Room 31: 4th Grade, Tracy Arensberg

Room 32: 3rd Grade, Erin Moulton

Room 33: 3rd Grade, Kiah Johnson Mounsey

Room 34: 3rd Grade, Tonya Griffin

Room 35: 4th Grade, Rachel Taylor

Student Support Bank: Chris Thompson, Ari Sternberg, Melanie Clark, Chaplain

Alternate Spaces:

Art Room in the US:  Art, Margaret Synan Russell

Rooms 35 and 36 in the former LS : Music, Amy Rheingans and Kristen Haferbecker

Gym: PE, Scott Corris, Stephanie Rankin and Jessica Wolfram

Sub Hiring

We are starting to look for substitute teachers for the upcoming year. If you know of someone who you think would be a good addition to our sub team, please invite them to send their resume to lsteacher@oes.edu .

Assistant Teachers

Here are the Assistant Teachers and their assignments

Pre-K	Jeanna Bennett-Schultz
K - Breiten	Megan Graham
K - Bridgnell	Paul Wild
K - Burton	Anna Halpin
Primary	Shelley Weiller
1st - Kucera	Donna Komitor
1st - Petke	Julie Mulley
1st - Whitmore	Juidi Alongi
2nd LLI	Shelley Weiller
2nd shared assistants	Donna and Juidi
3rd - 5th	Kate McClellan

PROGRAM

Volunteer Needs

As we did last year, the Volunteer Spot (now SignUp) chair and co-chair (Sarah Ulbrich and Heather Peizner) will enter volunteer needs into SignUp for the first month of school. Please respond to Sarah with your needs via e-mail: supdx05@gmail.com by The end of the day on Friday.  Use the 2015-16 Volunteer Sign-up as a reminder of your needs last year.   The timeframe is September 14-October 7th. Please include: name of activity (i.e., lunch helper); date(s); time of shift (start and end); how many volunteers needed; and description of activity. Attached are documents detailing the volunteer information for each classroom for last year. There are two documents for each classroom: "Scheduled Jobs" and "Projects".  These can be used as a reference to generate volunteer requests for the current school year. Over the course of September, you and your room representative can meet to discuss volunteer needs for the rest of the school year, and the room rep will enter those into SignUp.

Opening Faculty Meetings

Just a note that because of the change to a new space, new schedule and so many new teams, we have a lot to work out together. The more classroom setup/prep you can do before our meetings begin on 8/30, the better focus and productivity we may have together as we work out these important details.

8/30: AS meetings am, classroom setup pm (assistant teachers here for their contracted hours)
8/31: LS meeting am, LS rotating meetings pm
9/1: BY and IY team meetings am, LS meetings pm (assistant teachers here for their contracted hours, including tech training on hours sheets with Lyn and the operations/emergency training in the pm)
9/2: classroom setup and classroom preparation

 

Google Calendars

We will have a session on Google Calendars during opening faculty meetings.

New Lower School Schedule

Here are several useful links for the schedule

LS Schedules - note the tabs at the bottom, one for each class and specialist

Year Long 6 Day Rotation Calendar

Year Long Intensive Specialist Calendar

 

Class Placement

Class lists were sent to parents today. Please send out your welcome letters to families by Tuesday, August 30th.

OPERATIONS

Transitions, Arrival and Dismissal

Please visit the Transitions Document for important information about transitions, arrival and dismissal procedures in the new building.  Feedback can be sent to Kirstin.

Calendar Event Updates

Please add all important dates for your class/team (learning celebrations, field trips, etc.) to the LS Faculty Calendar before August 25th. Thank you!

These are the 2 main LS Calendars:

1. LS FACULTY CALENDAR

2. LS EVENTS WEB CALENDAR

* For security reasons - when submitting a trip event, don't mention the specific location of the trip, rather post it as "2nd grade field trip", etc... you can mention the location of your trip in your classroom website or in your email to the parents.

IMPORTANT: Faculty or Staff hosting an event is responsible for submitting request for posting an event into the LS Web Calendar. This is to ensure accurate event information.

NOTE: this calendar information can also be found in the LS IMPORTANT DOCS.

Your Announcements

Send any announcements you have for faculty to Kirstin, 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 maximize our time to collaborate during meetings.

Archive

Utilize the archive for previous Weekly Memo.