Weekly Memo WM 4, September 5 - 8, 2017-18

Thanks so much for all of the focus and concentration you brought to our Opening Day meetings...

Dori and ICC team

Rebecca Williams and the Emergency Response Team

Extension and PE Teachers

Thanks to Chris and Kirstin for planning such a thoughtful and meaningful sequence of faculty experiences

Thanks to Lyn, Kathy and Jeffrey for the many hours they put into making our new SmartFinder sub system functional and training us all

We continue our new Weekly Memo format with repeat items in blue and new items in black.

COMMUNITY

Opening Day

Please review the Opening day Assignments

Notice your assignment for 7:30-7:55 will likely differ from your Belltower assignment

All classes will gather at the Belltower (not the gym). We will not use banners this year.

PreK and K stay in the Lodge during the Belltower Ceremony; note this is a change you may want to communicate to your families at Open Classroom or in welcome emails.

Dismissal Duty First Week--Everyone needed

Just a reminder that we need all hands on deck for dismissal duty the first three days of school; BY teachers should all plan to help with transitioning children and Loop Road duty (Lodge at 12:30 and 1st at 2:55), and IY teachers should all plan to help with car pickup.

Classroom Setup

Please review the Classroom Setup Guidelines as you set up your classrooms.

Make sure your emergency clipboard with a class list and your yellow/green sheet for evacuations is located near your door.  If you can’t locate your clipboard or sheet, please contact your Assistant Head.

Room Parents

Room parents for 2017-2018 are as follows:

PreK:  Kristin Deshmukh

Breiten/Tharp: Rachel Young

Bridgnell: Lana Lervick

Endicott:  Shuba Venkatesh

Primary: Ashley Bingham

Kucera: Andrea Nicholas

Whitmore: Kathleen Drinkward

Blake: Wendy Wray

Brauer: Verity Loudon

Schilling: Shauneen Field

Johnson-Mounsey/Lee: Anne Borus

Griffin: Jane Gratteri

Moulton: Stephanie Allderdice

Taylor: Jen Gabrielson

Arensberg: Shaan Devaraj

Sathyaraj: Ann Stone

Akehurst: Deb Pajor

Busick: Kelly Hatler

Duden:  Hilary Day

Classroom Volunteers - See email from Stephanie Knight

September 5 – Teacher/Specialist Responsibility (NOTE DEADLINE)

All classroom volunteer needs for the month of September only should be emailed directly to your classroom parent (exception is Jane Kenney-Norberg and Margaret Synan-Russell who will email their September needs in a master spreadsheet to Stephanie Knight - Stephanie@knight24.com for distribution to RP’s.  See email from Lyn and use attached spreadsheet.

Lower School Office Staff

The LS Office is open 7:30 - 4:00 each day of the school year.

Full Time Faculty Expectation: on campus 7:45 - 3:45  each day

All three divisions are reminding faculty. Please plan accordingly or see David if you have questions. It is not a new expectation, 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: , 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!

We also welcome Paul Wild back to First Grade and Anna Halpin to Deborah’s Kindergarten classroom! Eileen Wali is working with Colesie and Beth while Megan is on leave this September. We are currently searching for a PreK Assistant Teacher.

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.

PROGRAM

You can access the Big Rocks jars from Thursday’s meeting here. If you weren’t with us on Thursday, these represent some of the elements each grade level or specialty considers central to their work and can be viewed full size in the Faculty Lounge (Third Grade utilized flaps you can’t see in the scan). We will return to these posters in future meetings.

Open Classroom Day

We will follow the usual schedule for Open Classroom Day with one exception. I am going to send New Families your way closer to 8:45 so they can find their way before the everyone else.

8:30 - New Family Welcome

8:45 - New Families begin Open Classroom

9:00 - 11:00 - Open Classroom

11:00 - 12:00 - LS Faculty meeting in LS Library

Specialists Open Classroom Day Location

• P.E Team  - The Lobby outside the Library by the glass windows facing the athletic field
• Jane - Science - Room 10
• Laura and Margaret - Art Studio - Room 16
• The Library
• Lara
• Kristen and Amy
• Emily Stone
• Kelola and Alfredo - Spanish Room

Faculty Meetings

Thursday, 9/7 - Open check-in.  LS Library w/ Chris, Kirstin, Melanie, Ari, Phillip, David

We will be ready to provide support.

Monday, 9/11 - BTSN prep. No meeting

Thursday, 9/14 - BTSN recovery. No Meeting

Monday, 9/18 - Professional Growth Block (PGB), look for invitations

Back to School Night, Wednesday, September 13

We will follow a similar format to last year with parents rotating through three presentations; 25 min. with specialists, 55 min. with classroom teachers and 25 min for a State of Lower School. Based on feedback from last year we have doubled the amount of time classroom teachers have with parents.

The Rotation:

Time	Classroom	Classroom	Specialist	State of LS
	Classroom	Classrooms	Dining Commons	LS Library
6:30-6:55	PK, K, P		1st, 2nd	3rd, 4th, 5th
7:00-7:25	PK, K,P	3rd, 4th, 5th		1st, 2nd
7:30-7:55	1st, 2nd	3rd, 4th, 5th	PK, K, P
8:00-8:25	1st, 2nd		3rd, 4th, 5th	PK, K, P

EC3 Design Center

Thank you to all who shared ideas for our new design space. Know the team is looking fro community feedback. The EC3 Team will be looking over your feedback and integrating it into their current research when they meet on 9/5.

The EC3 Team:

• Peter Kraft
• LS - Jeffrey Sprague, Debra Thomas
• MS - Andrea Roselle
• US - Chad Gilton, (Jem Pritchard and Cameron Jack during Chad’s paternity leave)
• Coordinator - Emily Stone

EC3 Team enthusiasts - Asha Appel, Ann Sulzer, David Lowell, Ed Cecere, Jenny Frutrell

Mindfulness

Cindy McEnroe is heading up a mindfulness task force exploring how to create a PreK-12 mindfulness program. Each division has a teacher who is stipended to support this effort;

LS - CLaire Kucera

MS - Becky Tooley

US - Maria McIvor

School Calendar Task Force

David is heading up a task force charged with creating a proposal for a school calendar that better supports the development of our students’ learning and essential competencies. Task force members are:

LS - Claire Kucera, Tina Akehurst

MS - Tessa Daniel, Anna Rossi

US - Liz Weiler, Joel Gray

Staff - Kati Stenstrom

September Author Visit

Author and Illustrator Kathryn Otoshi will visit us in the Lower School Library on Tuesday, September 19th. We will gather around her book "Beautiful Hands" during our Friday, September 15th gathering.  Here is a short article/interview about the book. Once you return to class please have each child trace their hands onto white construction paper (or water color paper-NO printer paper).  Each hand should be painted in your grade level color. (Fourth grade, check with Lara). Your parent volunteer should cut them out over the weekend and return them by Monday morning (9/18) to the Library mailbox in the office.

1) THICKNESS OF PAPER: the weight/thickness of white construction paper or watercolor paper or cardstock can work!

Just not thin ordinary printer paper, or it won’t hold the paint well

2) ONE HANDPRINT PER CHILD - yes!

And please cut out the hand print.

If you’d like, the kids can put their name on the front of the handprint. They will put their commitment to do something kind for someone every day on the back.

8-8:50 1st presentation to grades 3-5

9-9:50 2nd presentation to grades 1-2

10-10:30 PreK-Primary

10:30-11:10 Break and Book signing

11:10-12:00 Lunch with Faculty

12-3:30 Spirit Bird Work (with 2 or more volunteers)

We will provide you with pre-order forms this week to send home with your students.  As always, this is optional.  They need to be returned to Heidi or Lara by September 11th. Questions, see Lara.

Creating Cultures of Thinking--Eight Forces

A few people expressed a desire to dig further into the Creating Cultures of Thinking 8 Cultural Forces we organized our conversations around at our Wednesday faculty meeting: just a reminder that there are resources for your team, organized around the 8 Forces, in the slide resource Kirstin prepared for you last spring--consider choosing a tool to explore at your team meetings!

Student Information

See Ari’s email about accessing student information on the SST site and individual student files.

Admissions Files

• Each classroom will have access to the confidential information about each child through the link Jen Bash has sent you. You will have access until the first day of school.
• David can provide access to confidential files during the school year
• Other information for each child is contained in the public record files in the LS Office files; application, past school records, parent questionnaire.

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.

2017-18 Calendar

OES All School Calendar is updated.  

Please submit changes to the LS Events Calendar by 8/31.

Schedules / Calendars

The 6 Day Calendar is a year at a glance of the rotating days.

Homeroom /Specialist Classroom Schedules have been updated.

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 12/8 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.

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

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

Forms can be  found in LS Important Docs, in the “Summer Stipend” folder.

OPERATIONS

Absence and Change of After School Plan Form

We are using a new form for parents to report absences and change of plans. This form is taking the place of lsattend@oes.edu. Please remind your parents.

Custodians: Ivan Raymond and Guillermina (Gigi) Sanden will be cleaning our building at the start of this year. Please clean-up after your students so they can focus on basic cleaning and sanitizing.

Cleaning, Junk

It is that time again for setting up classrooms, setting out unwanted items and longing for more storage.

• Items you no longer want in your classroom may be thrown out or placed outside of your classroom, clearly labeled for removal. Any and all are welcome to review the discards and pick them up.
• Please do not leave items out for the custodial crew to take to storage. At this point you will need to move items to storage yourself or can fill out a maintenance request for large items.
• While our storage room is huge. All things stored in there should be up on shelves. Please do not pile items on the floor--floor items may be discarded.
• Ben and the custodial crew will be doing a final building clean starting at 3:30 on Friday. They will not be back to clean until Tuesday at 3:30. You will need to clean up any messes you make over the weekend.

Emergency Response Drill

The Administrative Team will be reviewing feedback from our drill on Tuesday and revising our plan. Thank you to all who participated and debriefed. David will bring your feedback to the Admin Team.

Family Emergency Plan

The Department of Homeland Security has an online guide to making a family emergency plan. Please make sure you have one in place for your peace of mind in the event of an extreme emergency.

Emergency Alerts

Honeywell Instant Alert is the system we use to notify parents and employees during an

emergency or school closure.

All new employees please use the link in this tutorial from Rebecca to set up your account so you can start getting messages.

For the rest of us the beginning of the year is a good time to check your settings and make any

changes needed to continue receiving alerts.  This is particularly important if you have changed

cell phone providers.

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:

• Rod is experimenting with different solutions to decrease slipperiness of outside stairs
• Installation of new acoustic treatments for common areas is complete. Let me know if you notice a difference.
• The PA system in the LS is being upgraded. Speakers have been installed in the LS Office, Flex Classroom, Library and outside. You should hear a difference at our first drill.
• Look for guidelines for faculty us of yoga and exercise rooms
• The boys bathroom on the 3rd floor is still being prepared
• Construction of new LS Playground space will begin on 9/11

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.

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.

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:

You may find the Check Request Form (CRF)  in the “Employees” section of our website: www.oes.edu

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

Employee Resources

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.

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.