Lower School Weekly Memo

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Weekly Memo

Week 21, January 9-13, 2017

Thank you to the POCC attendees for an inspiring and heartfelt presentation at the faculty meeting and gatherings. I look forward to the MLK Assembly this Friday. It looks like we dodged the weekend storm. Looking ahead, there is some messy weather forecast for Wednesday. We will see how that develops. Any days we miss from here on out, we will likely have to make up. This week brings two more Associate Head candidates, with the final candidate to follow next week. I hope some of you will find the time to meet the candidates during the afternoon faculty sessions.

COMMUNITY

Plans for 2017-18

Hiring season is upon us. Please let David know if you are considering other professional plans for the 2017-18 school year or if you are interested in changing grade levels in the new school year.

Kiah Job Share

Look for an announcement in next week’s WM.

Employment Searches

We have several long term substitute positions to fill. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Long Term PE Sub - for Jessica’s maternity leave

Long Term 3rd Grade sub - for Tonya’s maternity leave

Long Term 5th Grade sub - for Alysa’s sabbatical

LS Religion Teacher, 2nd semester

Callie let me know this week that she will finish teaching Lower School Religion classes at the end of this semester, 1/27. Her commitments to her US classes and rabbinical work are greater than she anticipated. Phillip Craig and I are discussing possibilities.

Only one hire for next year thus far…

LS Chaplain for 2017-18

Associate Head Candidates

We still have the opportunity to meet three of the four candidates for Associate Head at faculty gatherings. If you’re available, please join us at 3:15 in the DVR on the following days:

Monday 1/9 Halsey Bell

Thursday 1/12 Jon Kidder

Thursday 1/19 Peter Kraft

Admissions Visitors - Specialist Feedback Form

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.

Upper School Helpers - See Robin Schauffler’s email

Beginning this Thursday, January 5, Robin Schauffler will be fielding a new team of Upper School students available to perform all types of on-campus service during our Upper School Activity blocks. They’ll do anything—indoors, outdoors, arts & crafts, office work, classroom work, one-on-one tutoring or mentoring, you name it. Here are the times they are available:

Every Wednesday, 10:20-10:50 (note that this is only half an hour & adjust your expectations accordingly!)

Every Thursday, 10:50-11:50

SST Reminder

This is a great time of the year to dig back into all our students who may need a little extra support throughout the day.

1. Check SST Agenda tab in weekly memo

2. If you have contact time with one of the students mentioned - Check SST site if it is noted as updated

3. If a student you have wonderings about but are not listed - contact the relevant person in SST

Kirstin/Chris - general support, family engagement and behavioral struggles

Melanie - social emotional well being

Ari - academics (as well as other learning coordination: OT, SLP, Testing etc.)

Elaine - health

Heather - Pastoral care, bereavement

David - Issues of significant frequency, discipline or life changes

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Events

Thanks for an amazing affinity Gatherings Friday. We wanted to share our slideshows with you. Claire created this slideshow for 1st/2nd. Chris and Kiah created this slideshow for 3rd/4th/5th (we only shared about ½ of the slides available!) Claire, Kiah and I would be available to share more of our experiences with your class, especially in the Lodge classrooms.

Lara, Dori, and Chris are available to join in or lead class conversations about MLK’s legacy as explore the questions “What words speak to your heart? What words speak to your mind?” next week. As Lara stated in her email, We are hopeful that you can dedicate time during your classes to reading "Martin's Big Words" by Doreen Rappaport and having your students reflect on these guiding questions. Lara has also gathered a large collection of books to continue class discussions about the civil rights movement and other African American figures of that time period.

Friday, January 13th we will have an All LS MLK Assembly. Amy R and Kristen H have collaborated with 3 songs they will review with students. We will listen to part of one Dr. King Jr. speech and kick off an art installation project by handing kits to classrooms. The art project will use some of these words students have generated through their discussions. More details will be shared at the assembly and typed in the art kit for each classroom.

Monday, January 16, No School in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If you know of families doing service, education, or activism in honor of MLK please share this information with Heather W.

Tuesday, January 17’s chapel services will also be honoring MLK and focus on student voices.

See Dori’s emails for resources and activities around Portland celebrating Dr. King and his work.

Student Injury

First Grade student Shai Braun incurred an injury over break that will require some accommodations. Check in with Claire, Kirstin or Elaine if you teach Shai. In the hallways please do what you can to prevent Shai from being bumped or jostled in lines and transitions.

Primary Conferences

The next 2-3 weeks are busy ones for Kindergarten teachers as they meet with families to consider Primary or First Grade placement for their children. Because of the timing of both sets of snow days, specialist and SST input was impacted. Specialists and SST members, if you have any specific feedback about Kindergarten students, please contact Kindergarten teachers with that information this week. Additional conferences make this a full month for Beth, Carole and Deborah; if you can help a Kindergarten teacher with a transition, make a copy for them, or just throw a smile their way this month, please do so!

Chapel

Hanukkah Chapel - Tuesday 1/10
MLK Jr. Focus - Tuesday, 1/17

Recess Alerts

Cold recesses ahead. The forecast calls for more cold wet weather this week, though warmer than last. Students will need to be properly dressed for outside recess - coats, hats, gloves. The gym will need to be open during lunch recess to provide an indoor alternative as needed.

Library Open 7:30 - 7:50 Each Day

PROGRAM

Faculty Meetings: Faculty Meeting Schedule, Faculty Meeting Agenda

Monday, 1/9 - PGD/ FLG meeting 3:15 - 4:30 - See John Holloran’s communication
Thursday, January 12 - BY/ IY/ Department Meetings - 7:35, TBD

Scheduling Team

A scheduling team reunion has been scheduled (!) for Tuesday, January 17th after-school. With the first semester at a close, we wanted to pull together the team behind our new schedule and check in. If you have feedback, please contact a member of the scheduling team: Amy R, Carole, Beth, Chris OT, David, Debra, Kristen, Tina, Tonya, and Tracy.

Playground Update

The Faculty Playground Team met Friday with Michelle Mathis from Learning Landscapes as well as Jon VB, Rudy, Mark, and Rod to review our playground proposal and answer any last questions and concerns. Our next step is prioritize within our budget, then to call our student group back together to discuss how to share out our plan. The snow days in December has delayed our process but construction timelines, we maintain our goal to have a plan approved and shared with the larger community by the end of the month.

SST on Thursdays

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

Early Dismissal Plan/ Emergency Dismissal Plan

In the future all employees will be 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.

Lock Out Drill - See Emergency procedures flipchart (Updated)

The main objective is to secure the perimeter of the building.

Lock all exterior doors
Pull blinds on all exterior windows
Continue learning activities in the classroom
Report attendance to division office by email or phone

How to reserve a room on the LS Faculty calendar

Did you know you can reserve rooms like the Performance Commons and Flex Classroom through Google calendar? You add a new event, and where you would normally invite guests you click the word 'rooms.' If the the name of the room is visible on the list, it's available and you can click on it to reserve it. It will then appear in your 'location' box. If you don't see the room on the list, it's because it's already reserved. If you really need it (for a performance, for example) and are wondering if you can work out a deal with the person who has reserved it, Jeffrey and Debra have access to the room calendars. You do not need to use the faculty calendar to do this reservation--it's preferable for you to use your own calendar so the faculty calendar does not fill up with reservations. Thanks!

Raincoats and Warm Clothing

Remind students that they need a raincoat or coat to play out in the rain. If they come to recess without a coat they need to play under the covered areas. You may need to send reminders to parents this week about warm clothing if you notice children unprepared for the drop in temperatures.

Inclement Weather

If you did not receive closure notifications be sure to check your Honeywell Instant Alert account. In your ‘Alert Setup’ section for your Honeywell account, make sure you have the blue cell phone icon if you want to receive text messages, the brown phone for phone calls and the envelope icon for emails (you can select more than one, or add new devices if needed).
review our policies for weather emergencies

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.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Weekly Memo

Week 20, January 3-6, 2017

Happy New Year. I hope you have all enjoyed your extended Winter Break and are returning well rested and ready for school to begin anew. Do take note of the changes that the loss of four school days have lead to:

No LS Chapel in the morning. All School Chapel starting at 10:00 on Tuesday. Plan to be settled and seated in the gym by 10:00.
a delay in the hiring of the 3rd grade job share position
a reschedule of the primary conversations

COMMUNITY

Welcome Back, Janet Schilling. Thank You Caley Peterson.

Please join me in welcoming Janet back from her medical leave and thanking Caley for her good work teaching Janet’s class. Janet and Caley will be sharing the teaching of the class until Janet is ready to take on full responsibilities.

PreKindergarten

Colesie will be reducing her work hours so she can spend more time with her family and have a better work and life balance. Colesie will be ending her teaching day at 12:30 Monday through Wednesday for the foreseeable future. Sandy Parks, familiar to you as an Extension Teacher, will be joining the Prek teaching team Monday to Wednesday at 12:00 to assist Lauren and Jeanna. Jeanna will be extending her day to 3:30 to help Lauren with planning and preparation.

Kiah Job Share

We have one finalist to reschedule due to the snow and will make our decision shortly thereafter.

Employment Searches

This week we launch four searches. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Long Term PE Sub - for Jessica’s maternity leave

Long Term 3rd Grade sub - for Tony’s maternity leave

Long Term 5th Grade sub - for Alysa’s sabbatical

LS Chaplain

Student Injury

Primary Conferences

LS Holiday Party Thanks

Thank you Chris for organizing the Yankee Swap and adding a new competitive element to our gathering.

Giving Chapel Thanks

Thank you to Heather Wenrick and Kristen Haferbecker for all their work reorganizing and rescheduling Giving Chapel. It was a beautiful and inspiring service project.

Chapel

No LS Chapel on Tuesday,1/3
Variation on St Nick’s Chapel, Tuesday, 1/3 from 10:00 - 10:40, OES Gym
Hanukkah Chapel - to be scheduled

Recess Alerts

Cold recesses ahead. The forecast is for below freezing temperatures and gusty winds. Students will need to be properly dressed to have outside recess - coats, hats, gloves. The gym will need to be open during lunch recess to provide an indoor alternative.

Library Open 7:30 - 7:50 Each Day

PROGRAM

Faculty Meetings: Faculty Meeting Schedule, Faculty Meeting Agenda

Thursday, January 5 - All LS Faculty Meeting, 7:35, LS Library
Monday, January 9 - PGD/ FLG meeting 3:15 - 4:30
Thursday, January 12 - BY/ IY/ Department Meetings - 7:35, TBD

Summer Programs

See Kati’s email. If you are interested in teaching in our OES Summer Program, please fill out one form for each class or idea to the best of your ability. You can access the form HERE.

Admissions Visitors

All field trips or events that would prevent us from having an applicant visitor in your class on a certain day must be on the LS Faculty calendar. Sarah sets up visits dates in September. Relocation families makes plans accordingly. If you need help learning how to add dates to both the LS Faculty and LS Events calendar, please talk to Jeffrey, Debra, Chris T or Kirstin.

Tech Update:

AppleTV troubleshooting/testing: Ruben from IT would like to be the first person on the scene to help you when you have a dropped connection from the AppleTV. This will help make the troubleshooting consistent and he can record where/when/conditions that the incidents occur. This should help clear up confusion as to the cause of the connection loss and speed up resolution. We've already made a number of changes that should improve the reliability of the connection to AppleTV so we are recommending at this time the following path...

Use the LS Tech Checklist over the weekend and Monday morning before start of school.
Have experienced significant disconnect problems before or during conferences? please send an email to oeshelp@oes.edu with ATV in the subject and include the "Device" or Devices used, and roughly when they occurred. Continue to use wired connections to the projector. After Ruben works with you we'll then ask you to start using it again as you feel comfortable, with wired connection as a backup.
Haven't used AppleTV to connect? please start using it again. Report as soon as possible your drop to oeshelp@oes.edu with the information above. Have your wired connection ready as a backup.
Have been connecting with no problems with multiple devices (ipads, macbook etc.) continue to do so and report to oeshelp@oes.edu as necessary, again with ATV as the subject line.

*** Jeffrey will be scheduling room observations over the next few weeks.. for more on "why the heck would he do such a thing" check out the OES LS Technology Google+ Community.