Weekly Memo
Weekly Memo 2, August 21-25 2017-18
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WM2. We hope you are enjoying your remaining days of summer and that you will have stories to share, eclipse related or not, upon your return. No one will be in the office on Monday as we are either eclipse watching or avoiding. Read this when you are ready or before the opening of school on 8/29, whichever comes first.
COMMUNITY
Lower School Office Staff
The LS Office is open 8:00 - 4:00 each day.
Full Time Faculty Expectation: work 7:45 - 3:45 at a minimum each day
All three divisions are reminding faculty. Please plan accordingly or see David if you have questions. It is not new, but worth reminding.
As stated in the Employee Handbook:
The academic day is defined as 7:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. All full-time faculty are expected to be on campus during these hours. Staff work schedules vary and are assigned by the department supervisor.
New Faculty
A big welcome to Kimie Fukuda (PreK), Suzanne Lee (3rd) and Mary Duden (5th)! Drop by their rooms when you return to say hello. Emily Stone also joins us for work with drama and the EC3 Design Lab. Welcome back to Jessica Wolfram (PE), Alysa Brauer (2nd, formerly Williams) and Tonya Griffin (3rd). Miriam Agron (IY) and Meredith Kruse (BY) join us as Lead Teachers in the Extension program--some of their hours overlap with the regular school day, so look forward to seeing them in LS in the afternoons as well as at faculty meetings. We also welcome a number of teachers and assistant teachers into new roles: Anna Halpin (PreK), Jeanna Bennett Schulz (K), Colesie Tharp (K), Lauren Endicott (K), Alysa Brauer (2), Phillip Craig (LS Chaplain). They may have questions or need resources as they set up their rooms--thanks for offering help as needed!
One handy document for new faculty (and really for anyone) is the Alphabetical Guide to LS Essential Information. Enjoy!
Assistant Teacher Change
Julie Mulley has decided to return this year as a substitute as she looks to have more time to be for family, friends and adventures. We have begun the search process for a new assistant.
Class Placement
There were a number of enrollment changes over the summer due to family relocation. We are doing a final (I hope!) enrollment check this week.
- 8/18 - class lists sent to teachers
- 8/25 - class lists will be released to parents
- 8/28 - 8/29 - teachers mail letters to students
Just a reminder that it is very important all families receive their class placement information at the same time--please take care not to mention or post any placement information before 8/25.
Substitute Teachers
Chris and Kirstin began interviewing candidates for substitute teaching last week and, along with Lyn and Kathy, will be training our subs on September 1st. If you know anyone seeking a substitute teaching position, please direct them to the OES Employment page so they can apply.
Student Helpers
If you are in need of Upper School student helpers to get you ready for the start of the year, please send Kara Tambellini a BRIEF note telling her what you need (classroom set up? Hanging art? setting up displays?)and when you need help. She will help connect you with student helpers in need of on-campus service hours.
Plants
Great thanks to Austin Schock for being master plant tender this summer. He wanted to let you all know that the plants of the LS are vibrant and growing. However, he would also say that all of them will need to be re-potted into bigger pots soon. If you have a plant in the LS--and would like Austin to re-pot it, please bring in the materials before the school year starts.
Nursing Moms
Thanks for offering encouragement, support and possibly coverage of some duties to help our new (or new-again) moms Jessica and Tonya care for Aidan and Drake! You’ll notice that the Teaching Kitchen doubles as our official nursing/pumping room, though alternate locations may sometimes be used. Look for a sign in the window of the Teaching Kitchen to let you know if it’s a good time to enter or if you should return at another time. The small under-counter refrigerator in the Teaching Kitchen is reserved for milk only. Thanks!
PROGRAM
Preparation for Upcoming Meetings
We hope you enjoyed reading Creating Cultures of Thinking and Piecing Me Together this summer. The Piecing Me Together discussion will take place August 29th. We will discuss and work with Creating Cultures of Thinking in our opening Lower School meetings 8/30-31. We’d like you to do a tiny bit of preparation to prepare for this latter conversation: you’ll choose whether to attend a discussion around one of the 8 forces: Expectations, Language, Time, Modeling, Opportunities, Routines, Interactions, or Environment. For the section of the book related to the force of your choice we’ll be using the Final Word protocol, so please mark a few passages that were significant to you in that section. You’ll share one of these passages and your thinking around it, but it’s good to have some backups in case your first passage has already been discussed.
Working with PreK
If you are a teacher who works with PreK students or in the Extension program, you have unique state requirements to fulfill. As our inspection and certification renewal comes up this fall, it’s essential all requirements are met: our goal is that all paperwork will be submitted to ORO by September 8th. If you still need your renewal/fingerprints or your ‘safety set’ it does take time to complete these requirements, so don’t wait until the last minute! Please review this document to make sure all your requirements are up-to-date, and see Kirstin with any questions.
Assistant Teacher Schedule
You can find the annual Assistant Teacher work schedules linked on the right sidebar of the weekly memo. Please note that we’d originally planned for a full day AS emergency training on 8/28, but this has been moved to the afternoon of 8/29 after AS opening meetings. This means 8/28 is a classroom/program preparation day for Assistant Teachers unless they are involved with ICC work, so Classroom Teachers please communicate with your collaborating Assistant Teachers about your plans and goals for that day. If you are new to the Fountas and Pinnell reading assessment there is some preparation work for each assessment box, so this may be one task you add to your list.
Digital Portfolio Course--free, 5 hours or so, online
Jeffrey introduced us to this opportunity, Digital Portfolios with Maker Ed, a free 5 lesson course from KQED Teach. To participate, expect 30 min. of reading time and 4-5 hours of project time as you view existing digital portfolios, dive into documentation of something you create, and then apply those skills to facilitating documentation and portfolios of your students’ work.
Laptops
For those of you who still need to retrieve your laptop for 2017-18 school year and/or return your loaner you should have received an email with a form to commit to the last remaining spots before Opening Meetings. If you don't indicate a time slot indicated for drop-in, or set up a specific appointment with Brad Baugher/Scott Thomas next week there is no guarantee that you will have your 2016-17 Laptop available before the first day of school. Here's a link to the form. https://goo.gl/forms/z7I4FZAcuMXCLBPv1
PS All NEW faculty will receive their laptops at the New Faculty Orientation on Wednesday 8/23.
Opening Days Schedule:
Please see the schedule from Mo for details on our August schedule.
Note:
8/28 - full day for ICC Training Day 1 or 2
8/29 - full day for Opening of School and Disaster Preparedness Drill,
8/30 & 8/31 - LS Faculty Meeting will be 8:00 - 12:00
8/30 - New automated substitute finder training from 1:00 - 3:00
9/1 - Faculty work day
Family and School Emergency Plan
We will be spending 3 hours walking through our school wide emergency plan on 8/29. Please take time before then to work through your own family emergency plan. You will be better able to fulfill your professional obligations on campus if you know your family has a good plan.
2017-18 Calendar
OES All School Calendar is updated.
Please submit changes to the LS Events Calendar by 8/31.
LS Events Calendar
The draft of the LS Events Calendar is in the LS Conference Room. During your stipend days take some time to look at your student’s, parents’ and colleagues’ experience across the year. Adjust your events as you see appropriate. Talk with others as is helpful. Complete updates by 4:00pm on 8/31.
Schedules / Calendars
Intensive Specialist Rotation: 2-5 Intensive rotation blocks.
Duty Schedule 2017-2018: Our new duty schedule! One consistent duty for most people to help simplify things and to allow for duty groups to help with consistency. David, Kirstin, Chris T. and the Assistant Teachers have two duties each rotation. There are a few teachers we have asked to do one additional duty to fulfill all our obligations; a big thank you to everyone who was able to help out with extra duties. Overall, it is a big reduction of duties and we are hopeful it will be beautifully successful!
Rotating Events on the Calendar: This updated document will help you add rotating events on your personal Google calendar. The first sheet has steps and a short video; the following sheets have templates. A new tab has been added titled “LS Rotate.” Many teachers wanted the rotating days listed on their classroom schedule page or professional calendar or elsewhere for their planbook, their class website, etc. So I created a spreadsheet for the rotating days. All you need to do is download this sheet to csv and upload into the calendar you choose.
Google Calendars
Google Calendars have been finished for Homeroom and Specialist Teachers. Chris has reviewed the calendars and the calendars seemed to be in order. That being said, each of the 35 calendars has between 500-900 events, so please double check your calendar. If there is a discrepancy, let Chris know so she can either fix the error directly or help you to fix the problem.
All of the calendars are built off from last year’s calendar, so you can continue to see events and plans you made last year. However, the renaming of calendars is not currently showing on all platforms. Chris is still working on rectifying this situation.
Here are the calendars that still show former teacher names:
PK Burton/Fukuda--formerly PK Endicott/Tharp
KB Breiten/Tharp--formerly KB Breiten
KC Endicott--formerly KC Burton
2C Brauer -- 2C Simms
3C Mounsey/Lee -- 3C Mounsey
5B Duden -- 5B Williams
Chapel and Gathering
Phillip will be coordinating our gathering as a Lower School community. Please note:
- Lower School Chapel will be on Tuesdays, 8:10 -8:40 with the exception of the weeks of Giving Chapel on Friday 12/6 and Ash Wednesday on 2/14 (please note this is also Valentine’s Day).
- Lower School Gathering will be on Fridays, 8:10 - 8:30 ( PK, K, P will join once a month for an all LS gathering followed by buddy time).
- Lodge Strategy Workshop Gatherings will take place on B day mornings with the affinity commons portion of the gathering from 8:50-9:05.
Curriculum Order
Chris and Kirstin have distributed curriculum materials for handwriting and math. These materials are in each affinity common, or in classrooms for BY as indicated in the BY Summer 2017 document.
- Handwriting without Tears for grades K-4. 55 copies for each grade level (15 for Primary).
- Bridges Student books v. 1& 2 55 copies for each grade level.
- Home Connection: Grade 2-5
- Student Bridges: Grades K-5
- Number Corner: Grade 2
Chris and Kirstin have divided up and organized the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kits. There is one kit per grade level. A training has been set up at the end of September for a review of the assessment procedures as well as how to use the data collected to empower literacy instruction.
- September 25th: K-2 Training (all day, subs provided)
- September 26th: 3-5 Training (all day, subs provided)
You can see a basic outline of the training agenda here. Levels may vary but content will be similar.
Beginning Years Resources
BY members received an email from Kirstin in June with access to a Google Team Drive where you can access and add shared documents. This is a great place to add documents you generated in your stipend that you want to share with the rest of BY. Please pay particular attention to the BY Summer 2017 document where she’s added relevant information throughout the summer for you to check at your leisure instead of emailing you everything separately. Feel free to add questions for the BY team regarding setup, materials, etc. We’ll use this document until the first day of school and then switch back over to the BY Odds and Ends.
Summer Stipends
Summer Stipends are wrapping up. As you schedule any remaining days, please enter your schedule for your summer stipends in the linked spreadsheet: Summer Stipend Scheduling. There are two documents you will need to submit to Lyn when you return in August in order to be paid for your time:
- Summer stipend completion form
- Summer report
During your stipend time, we ask grades 1-5 create Year At A Glance (YaaG) plan. A YaaG document helps to think about unit planning and timing for the school year. This is helpful as many of us have experienced a year in Bridges, we can see how the timing has worked and areas where we struggled to stay on target. Hopefully outlining a timeline for the year can help us hit and align all of our academic units and project highlights/milestones as best we see fit. Here are 2 examples of YaaG planning documents I have used: YaaG 1 and YaaG 2.
When we get back together we’ll be doing some work with the metaphor of “Big Rocks” from Creating Cultures of Thinking. You and your team might find this ‘big rocks’ reflection sheet another helpful reflection to guide your discussions.
Your team may also find the Purpose to Practice planning sheet helpful during your stipend. BY began with this form at their last meeting: its intent is to help you distill the most important focus/priorities for your grade level (the big rocks!) and then to plan for your principles, structures and practices around those priorities. Send a copy/photo to your Assistant Heads when you complete one so they know about your thinking and can support your work! We’ll also be working with this form in the fall.
If you missed it or need the link for the resource slides that Kirstin shared at the May LS Faculty meeting, you can access it here.
OPERATIONS
Custodial Update - Summer Camp Ends, Custodial Work Continues
With the end of Summer Camp, Ben Starbuck let us know that the custodial team will be back in LS Monday to finish cleaning. They have the following rooms left and will be working hard to make sure rooms are ready by the end of the week.
1st Floor: Office, Science, Performance Commons, Dining Commons, bathrooms, and commons
2nd Floor: Rooms 23, 25, and 26, Flex classroom, and commons
3rd Floor: Has been completed
- They have a new cleaning system for LS that is a safer, greener, more sustainable product. Use this product instead of outside cleaners. Questions - ask Rod
- During the school year the crew will be on a tight schedule to get each building generally clean each night. If you make a mess, please clean it up so the custodial crew can focus on general cleaning and sanitizing.
Construction Updates
While you have been off Jon, Rod and their crews have been hard at work. Thank them when you see them. Projects include:
- Installation of stairs and a crosswalk to get from the upper parking lot to the LS sidewalk. No more slipping on the rain slicked grass strip.
- Installation of new stair treads on the outside stairs of the LS Building
- Installation of new acoustic treatments for common areas will happen this week
- The PA system in the LS is being upgraded to include additional speakers inside and out
- The roof HVAC system is getting a sound dampener installed this week
- Fariss Hall administrative offices will open on 8/28
- Fariss Hall Design Center will open on 8/31
- The boys bathroom on the 3rd floor had a water leak during the heatwave, the result of a malfunction of the AC unit. Repairs are underway.
- Construction of new LS Playground space is scheduled to begin on 9/11
Maintenance Update
The maintenance crew will be hard at work getting Fariss Hall ready to open next week. They will appreciate your patience while awaiting the completion of your maintrequest@oes.edu.
- The 5th grade patio has 4 new outdoor tables and umbrellas. Umbrella need to lowered after each use and need to come inside at the end of each day.
- Room 10 is getting a final cleaning. If you have anything left inside that you wish to keep, relocate it to our storage area in the new building. Any items left after 8/30 with be thrown out or donated.
LS Storage Room - Prevent Tragedy of the Commons
Please take sometime to straighten up you part of the LS Storage Area. It is beginning to suffer the tragedy of the commons.
Mobile tables for LS Performance Commons
We now have rollable, stackable tables for the Performance Commons. They are stored in the LS Storage Room.
PreK, K, P Dismissal first week
All PreK, K, P students will be dismissed at 12:30 Wed. - Fri. of the first week. Dismissal will happen as usual with PreK being signed out of the room and K, P being picked up from the Loop Road.
Budget information
These are your options when you are ready to purchase your classroom supplies:
- Through Kathy’s Lower School New Order Request 2017-2018
- LS Visa – to be used in the LS Office only so bring your laptop and have your order ready. Always email me or print a copy of the confirmation receipts stating the purchase amount.
CHECK REIMBURSEMENT process:
Download the check request form in your desktop and fill out these sections/cell boxes ONLINE (do NOT print, yet). All other cell boxes not listed (below) don’t apply. Please remember that you will need to enter your receipt individually:
o Name
o Transaction date of your receipt
o Vendor name
o Description or purpose of the expenses
o Amount
· When the CRF is completed, print it!
· Be sure to SIGN the CRF on the “Payee Signature” box.
· SUBMIT the completed CRF along with RECEIPTS to me (LYN) on or before TUESDAY of each week.
Furniture Safety Reminders
OSHA recognizes free standing furniture 4’ or higher as a safety hazard. Furniture 4’ or higher will need to be secured to the wall. Complete a maintrequest@oes.edu.
Maintenance
As you go about rearranging furniture please keep the following in mind:
- shelves and other free-standing vertical elements need to be less than 48” tall. If an item is 48” or tall it needs to be secured to a wall to reduce earthquake hazard.
- We need to maintain clear pathway(s) of 42” or more in the commons.
- Be aware of the carpet trip hazards, so any carpeting with curling potential needs to be clearly out of paths of travel.
Cooling the Building
In an effort to realize the energy efficiency of our building, here are the basics of keeping your room cool. Remember that part of the building design is to provide a wider temperature range, as low as 66 during heating season and as high as 76 degrees in cooling season.
1. Nighttime air flush to cool building down. Automatic, no teacher action required.
2. Open windows in am to cool room further
3. Press green light button, after opening windows, to increase airflow, cooling
4. After green light goes off, close windows and let building manage cooling
Your Announcements
Send any announcements you have for faculty to Kirstin, Chris or David by Thursday each week August-June 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.
A helpful tool can be found 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.
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