Weekly Memo
Week 25, February 6-10, 2017
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The forecast continues to show great uncertainty for tomorrow. Be prepared for either a remote learning day or a school day. We will see when we awaken tomorrow.
Thanks to all who helped with PreK visit days yesterday. We had many strong PreK candidates. Let’s hope for the same on Thursday when K, P and 1st grade candidates visit.
As we all face the stress of admissions, report writing and the news remember our faculty agreements:
As a collaborative professional community Lower Faculty Employees will:
- Do what is best for the students
- Assume we are all doing our best at the moment and our intentions are positive
- Be present, participate, contribute, include many voices
- Create a safe space that encourages sharing different opinions, ideas, perspectives
- Seek understanding, be curious about what others think
- Express gratitude, joy and encouragement
- Communicate with compassion, clarity and effectiveness
- Demonstrate respect
COMMUNITY
Classroom Agreements and PCL
One of the themes the division heads are sharing at PCL this week is around civil discourse. If you have used your class agreements to help guide civil discourse, please share your agreements with David. He will also be sharing the faculty agreements.
LS Religion Teacher, 2nd Semester
We are working on a plan to have Kathleen Hicks teach yoga and mindfulness to the Beginning Years and Jenny Cleveland to teach religion to Intermediate Years. We are still ironing out some details. In the meantime, ask for help from Chris, Kirstin or me if you need coverage during your religion class time.
State of School
Parents surfaced the essential tension in our school between controlling tuition costs and the desire to increase financial aid and faculty compensation.
Lower School Parent Coffees
Last one
4th and 5th Grade Coffee, Monday, February 2/6
Main Topic: ERB’s, Assessments, Growth Mindset
LS Chapel
2-7-17 - Girls Education
3-1-17 Please note that this 3/1 chapel is on Wednesday to observe Ash Wednesday. There is no Tuesday chapel that week.
Employment Searches
Long Term PE sub (Jessica) - Final finalist visits Monday, then we decide
Long Term 3rd Grade sub (Tonya) - Contract signing in process
Long Term 5th Grade sub (Alysa) - Contract signing in process
2017-18 Hires
LS Chaplain - reviewing resumes
Re-enrollment Contracts out on 1/23. Due back on 2/7
PreK Admissions Day, Saturday, 2/4
Thank you to all who helped with this important work.
Kindergarten, Primary and First Grade Admissions Day 2/9
See communication from Sarah for details on staffing and responsibilities at our upcoming admissions day, which involves the majority of faculty. My expectation is that it is a work day for all faculty, even if you are not assigned a task for Admissions Day.
Admissions Visitors
Specialists, you offer a unique perspective on our admissions visitors. Please take the time to complete a Feedback Form for each visitor you teach. Thanks.
Student Support Team
Check the SST tab or schedule a a time to meet with the team.
PROGRAM
Progress Reports
Virtual Learning
Thanks for all your efforts getting out your virtual learning plans on Friday! There were some great photos and audio circulating of kids engaged in their home learning experiences. Please take some time at your next team meeting to reflect on what went well, what you’d continue, and what adjustments you might make next time. Keeping an updated plan ready to go will help you easily meet the 9 am deadline for any inclement weather closures.
For your reference, here’s the screencast Chris made of how to save your Google Doc so people outside OES can view it. Please let Chris, Kirstin or the tech team know if you need any support with the technology end of your plan and distribution.
Extra School Days
The Administrative Team has reclaimed 5 days. See the letter days below. Any additional missed school days will be made up with a combination of remote learning days and added school days.
Days Added to All Divisions
- Monday, February 20th – President’s day – F
- Monday, April 3rd – PGD Day – C
- Friday, April 14 – Good Friday – D
Division Specific Days Added
- Thursday, June 15 – A
- Friday, June 16 – F
February Rotating Calendar
A reminder that the rotating days in February are not always in order. Make sure you review the google calendars for the rotation each day. Due to bending calendars with all three divisions, the rotation starts to shift as each division has different days off for report writing and other events.
- Monday, 2/6 - Playground Design presentation. 3:15, LS Library
- Thursday, 2/9 - Admissions Day, no meeting
- Monday 2/13 - LS Faculty Meeting, 3:15 LS Library
- Thursday, 2/16 - LS Report Proofing
Reporting Timeline
(Feb. 9: Admissions Day)
Friday, Feb. 10: Report Card Writing
Tuesday, Feb. 14, 8:00am: Reports due to colleagues for proofing
Monday, Feb. 20, 8:00am: PCR Locks. Reports posted reports to PCR.
Friday, Feb. 24: Reports go out to parents, ERBs sent via US mail.
Thursday-Friday, Mar. 2-3: LS Conferences
Assessment Reminders
We’ve seen many of you working hard on student assessments! For most of you this will look like a DRA/IRA, spelling assessment/inventory, monthly calendar checkpoints, Bridges unit assessment, writing samples, and various other assessments as needed. Please contact Chris, Kirstin or Ari if you need assessment support or have questions about assessments at your grade level.
2/6 Assistant Teacher Meeting Rescheduled to 2/27
The Feb. 6th Assistant Teacher Meeting has been rescheduled to Monday, February 27th to accommodate a hiring visit. This is still a D day--the change has been made to the calendar.
Gatherings
Friday 2/10 - no school for report writing
Thursday and Friday 2/16-17 - Akehurst Class will share their class play
Friday 2/24 - All LS Love Assembly
SST meetings are available on Thursdays from 3:15-4:00 for anyone who would like a whole team approach to supporting a student or students. Please contact your Assistant Head to request a Thursday afternoon SST. Also let us know who you’d like to request to attend.
OPERATIONS
Flex Classroom
When a group uses the Flex Classroom for a meeting that they need to put the room back in order and ready for teaching. I have drawn a map on the whiteboard for reference.
Fire Drill in Chapel
Thank you for your cooperation. In the future, if there is a drill during Chapel, I would ask the front two pews to use the back door ( to the right of the altar when facing it) to speed our exiting from the Chapel.
Early Dismissal Plan/ Emergency Dismissal Plan
All LS employees are expected to remain for at least 30 minutes after the scheduled dismissal time to help with student management. We will plan for the dismissal of faculty after assessing how many students we have remaining.
Employee Resources
A helpful tool is created in the OES website for employees to save time searching different sites when you need to access the basic forms like check request, catering, maintenance requests and other resources. Check out this link:
ADP Tutorial
For help on any ADP related matters: login or registration, password retrieval, or time card approval process, please view this beautiful presentation that Ed Cecere put together. This is a helpful guide and should answer your ADP related questions. If you still have problems after using Ed’s helpful guide, please let Veena: iyengarve@oes.edu know. There is a plan to put the ADP resource link in the LS Employee Resource page for future reference. Stay tune.
Your Announcements
Send any announcements you have for faculty to Kirstin, Chris or David 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.
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