Weekly Memo WM  9, October 9-13, 2017-18

The week began with the inspiring rope jumping assembly and ended with the pep rally, high spirited Homecoming parade and the Melodies singing the National Anthem. This week’s highlights include the campus visit by Renee Watson on Thursday and the PGD Day on Friday.

“At its core, the concept of professional learning communities is focused on improving student learning by improving teaching practice.” - Kimberly Rodriguez Cano

LS Faculty Norms

• 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

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

COMMUNITY

The Construction Fence is Up!

The work begins on Wednesday. Look for the new playground to open after Winter Break.

• Keep balls east of the waterworks grate, away from the construction fence.
• Be aware of the tripping hazards around the fence perimeter.
• Climbing can take place on boulders and the climbing wall NOT on the fence.

Assembly Flexibility

Thanks for your flexibility with both of our assemblies last week.

Music Substitute

Amy will be away from school from October 23 - November 17. Clara Baker will be the substitute teacher during her time away.  Clara will be on campus for several days shadowing Amy between now and October 23.

Library Assistant

Lara and I begin interviewing candidates this week.

EC3 Design Center Follow-up from Jeffrey:

Thanks again for attending last Monday's All Faculty Inquiry session. I'm sharing the link to Peter Kraft's presentation from that day, as well as clarifying some next steps for the Lower School specifically.

Requests to use the "Open Campsites" side of the space should come in the form a quick face to face meeting with me. The space, though open, is not "bookable" in the same way as our other Lower School spaces i.e. Performance Commons. Copying Emily Stone and Debra Thomas in any email requests will help with some of the global activities in the space that may conflict and help us keep an up to date calendar.

In the face to face meeting I’ll ask questions about your activity, check on the timeline and occupancy needs and go over whatever follow-up you might want to do as well. This will help in brainstorming any needs you might have and let you know about any tools or supplies that you might be able to access while in the space. Currently it's "Bring Your Own" but more will become available over time. Excited for this Explore phase for the EC3!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7OL6_TCwVgpc0xpbVdmSXVmTVk/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=mspresentation

Assistant Teacher Meetings

Assistant Teacher Meetings this year will take place on the 3rd Wed. of the month, 12:30-1:15.  They have been added to the Faculty Calendar:

Wed. 10/18: D Day, LS Conference Room

Wed. 11/15: B Day, Performance Commons

Wed. 12/13: C Day, Flex Classroom (2nd Wed)

Wed 1/17: A Day, LS Conference Room

Wed. 2/21: A Day, Performance Commons

Wed. 3/21: E Day, Performance Commons

Wed. 4/18: B Day, Flex Classroom

Wed. 5/16: A Day, Performance Commons

Birthday Celebration

We are celebrating August, September and October birthdays with Baker and Spice cake in the Lower School Conference Room on Thursday, October 12th. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

AUGUST

Busick, Natasha	8/8
McAuley, Kirstin	8/19
Baker, Erin	8/26
Synan-Russell, Margaret	8/26
Lamb, Chelsea	8/26

SEPTEMBER

Rheingans, Amy	9/1
Elliott, Elaine	9/6
Sprague, Jeffrey	9/13
Johnson Mounsey, Kiah	9/15
Endicott, Lauren	9/20
Lowell, David	9/20
Moran, Laura	9/27
Sathyaraj, Asha	9/30

OCTOBER

Wolfram, Jessica	10/9
Stenstrom, Kati	10/30

Jump Roping Assembly

Thanks to the PE Team for such an inspiring jump roping assembly. The jumping was amazing, the message even better, and Evan Eden's example for us all about persevering in the face of challenge was the best.

Gathering and Chapel - Please be seated and ready at 8:10

Chapel and Gathering are required. Please plan to attend and avoid scheduling field trips and special events at this time.

Lower School Chapel Schedule for 2017-2018 (Always a draft / living document).

Diwali in LS Chapel on Tuesday, October 24th

Employee Giving to the OES Fund: A Community Endeavor

• consider making a gift to the OES fund
• a gift of any amount is truly valuable as a statement of your support for this school,
• strong participation in annual giving inspires others to join in
• you can designate your gift to a specific area, including Financial Aid, Athletics, Arts and Literature, Science and Technology, or Service and Community
• The OES Fund Form is entirely online this year

Upper School Helpers Every Wednesday and Thursday

• Wednesday’s from 10:15 to 10:45 and Thursday’s from 10:50 to 11:45.  
• Request to include the type of activity, number of students needed, day(s) that you need help We will fill as many requests as we can each week.
• Send “help requests to Sandi Lillevik (lilleviks@oes.edu), copy Ashley (scatesa@go.oes.edu)

PROGRAM

Faculty Meetings

Monday, 10/9 PGB: Professional Growth Block

Thursday, 10/12

No am LS Meeting, consider viewing Safe School videos (see email from HR)

AS Faculty Meeting - 3-5pm w/ Renee Watson

Friday 10/13 PGD

Monday, 10/16: AS Benefits Meeting

Thursday, 10/19: LS Division - PGD share out, Purpose to Practice exercise

Literacy Assessments

Thanks for all the good thinking and work many of you dedicated to the Fountas and Pinnell training these last few weeks.  We know some of you are diving into your assessments--this blog post from the F&P site called Five Tips for Conducting an Assessment Conference Efficiently may be useful! Here is the F&P link to the post “A Level is a Teacher’s Tool, NOT A Child’s Label” in case you missed the link last spring.

Chris and Kirstin compared conversations from Thursday and found both groups had very similar agreements.  We’ve combined them into one document: please read the Common K-5 Agreements for Assessment Use.

Park Academy Visit

On Tuesday, Ari, Melanie and David will be visiting Park Academy, a school for students with language based learning differences.

Harvard Online 2-week classes

Harvard has a number of 2-week online courses that may support some of your professional goals including courses like “Improving Math Instruction Through Feedback,” “Learning Through Discussion and Disagreement,” “The Opportunity of Bilingualism” and “Learning to Talk by Talking: A Developmental Approach to Maximizing Language and Literacy Skills.”  Here’s the link!

Form for sharing your parent communication link--A note from Jeffrey

Thanks again to the teacher's who've filled out this form. If you haven't yet, please fill out the form by pasting the link to your blog/site or whatever you are using to communicate with parents. I tried to make it as short a process as possible. If you don't do that, or don't think it pertains to you (as a few Specialists have indicated) you can put a comment in the blank or don't respond at all. This will be helpful in updating the LS Parent Resources website which many parents are used to using. It will also help us as we look to future solutions in light of changes coming from Google.

*Tip for Blogger users, make sure you share your "site".blogspot.com address and not blogger.com

LINK: https://goo.gl/forms/vnSUTqP5vW1S82GP2

Supporting Research and Inquiry Work: A note from Lara

As we get into the full swing of the year, I would greatly appreciate a quick email about your grade level's anticipated research needs for the next few months. Even a simple list of subjects and general timeline would be terrific. Any info about research projects and focus of study would help me so much as I begin to share databases and resources with your students (especially for 3rd-5th) and as I order materials. Also any documents you are using about the process and outcome can help me design meaningful work for them. So feel free to share generously (thank you, Google Drive!) with me.  A big thanks to all the teams who have already given me an outline of your needs.

Safe Schools Video

You may use any of three open faculty meeting times, 10/12, 10/30, 11/6 to complete the videos or choose to watch the videos on your own time.

You received a message from the SafeSchools system with all the information you need to access this year’s required trainings:

1. Child Abuse Mandatory Reporter - Oregon Full Course -  Approx. 30 minutes
2. Sexual Misconduct Staff to Student -  Approx. 30 minutes
3. Sexual Harassment - Staff to Staff - Approx. 15

New this year: All courses are available in English and Spanish, you will be able to select your preferred language once logged into the system.

PGD Day, Friday October 13

This day is intended to be a day for professional growth and development, different from a planning day. Everyone has a plan. I look forward to sharing learnings at our next faculty meeting. The agenda (and preparation requirements) for the BY meeting can be found here.

Contracted Services FAQ

We've developed a new guide to contracted services like tutoring, speech and language services and OT.  Its purpose is to answer some basic parent questions about how contracted services at OES, but we thought it might be useful to you, too.

Renee Watson Visit

You have three opportunities to engage with Renee Watson,author of Piecing Me Together

• 9:00 - 10:30 Book discussion
• 3:00 - 5:00 Social Justice Framework
• 7:00 - 8:00 In conversation with Renee Watson

4th Grade Field Studies--Chaperones needed

Please consider joining the 4th grade for December 5, 6 & 7 at Mazama Lodge on Mt. Hood! Chaperones will be required to attend an evening training at OES this fall with the Mazama team (date TBD) and to do some teaching with small 'inquiry groups' on the trip.  We just secured these dates and have not yet informed 4th grade parents of the plans.  Please give us a chance to do this before discussing the trip with families. Sign up here!  Thanks for considering!

OPERATIONS

Information Organization

New Shared Folder -  LS Common Forms & other Relevant Information

In LS important Documents. You one stop shopping for important forms.

Room 10 - Last Call

On 10/13 we are doing a final cleanout of Room 10 (the old one, not Jane’s room). The stuff on Extension shelves, the used uniforms and Jane’s science stuff will stay. Everything else will go unless you are interested in:

A collection of tempera paint

Weaving Looms

LLI reading materials

Boxes of books

Buckets of pyrite and ???

Take it if it is yours. Otherwise, on Friday it heads to discard heap.

Calendar Manager

• Are the only one who can enter and edit events in the LS Faculty calendar in your grade or department.
• Can submit events for posting on the OES web calendars. Just to clarify - you don’t ask Sage to submit an event for you on the OES web calendar like the LS Events calendar, RATHER follow this simple Web Calendar submission procedure.
• Safety protocol when submitting an event to the OES web calendars which are publicly viewed – read this LS Calendar information.
• PK – Carole
• K – Beth
• Primary – Shelley
• 1 – Claire
• 2 – Jackie
• 3 – Tonya
• 4 – Tracy
• 5 – Tina
• Music/Service Learning – Kristen
• EC3 – Emily
• PE – Stephanie
• Science/Art/Student Support – Lyn/Chris & Kirstin
• Admissions – Sachiko

Lice Policy

There have been some changes to our Lice Policy inspired by new research from the American Academy of Pediatrics.  If you hear about or notice lice in your classroom:

• Email Elaine to let her know.  She tracks outbreaks so we can send a letter out when there are three or more cases in a grade.
• Elaine and Laura will not be doing class checks because research tells us the most effective intervention is for families to check at home.
• Students stay at school.  If you notice lice on a child, please notify their family at the end of the day. You can ask Elaine or Laura to come do an individual check if you suspect lice in an individual.
• A letter will go out to families from the LS Office if there are three or more cases in your grade level.
• You don’t need to take special precautions unless you have several cases in your class, in which case you should remove pillows for a while and keep clothing separate.

Smart Finder Information

As we head into cold and flu season, here are a few important pieces about how our new Smart Finder system works:

• No calls are made to guest teachers between 10 pm and 5 am.  Reporting your absence in advance or in the late afternoon or early evening significantly improves your chances of your job being filled in a timely way. When it’s necessary to report an absence the same day it occurs, earlier is definitely better.
• Please only use the ‘no sub required’ box if you have made definite arrangements with someone to cover your class for that specific absence.
• You will receive a confirmation email after reporting an absence, and another when the job is filled.  If you don’t receive a message, please double check the ‘review absences’ tab to make sure your job request has been received.

Field Trips

Remember to use the Field Trip Checklist and forms when planning your day trips.

Ordering materials and supplies (NEW)

In place of our current ordering method, kindly use this Order Form and track the status of your order in the Order Tracking List

Amazon orders

OES Amazon Business Account

Please order learning materials and supplies through Kathy by using this Order Form when using the OES Amazon Business account. Don’t use this account to order your personal items. The Business Office will reject orders not related to OES using this account.

Personal Amazon Account

Feel free to order classroom supplies or learning materials through your personal amazon account using your personal credit/debit card. Submit your Reimbursement request and copies of your receipts to Lyn by Tuesday.  It is recommended that all OES related learning materials ordered through your personal amazon account are shipped to OES and not to your home address.

Curriculum, Furniture and Students Services Supplies

·         Contact your division Assistant Head for order proposal

·         An approval from David is needed for larger curriculum, furniture and student services orders

·         Lyn notifies you when your order proposal is approved

Trips around and off campus

Taking a walk around OES campus, take:

·         Red fanny pack

·         Epipen for student/s who has bug/bee sting adverse reaction

Trips off campus, take:

·         Green or blue first aid kit bag

·         Trip binder

·         All prescribed medications including Epipen

Note: Teachers or Assistant Teachers will need to return and file the prescribed medications back to the meds file cabinet after the class walk or field trips. Please don’t ask a student to take the medications, trip binder and first aid kit back to the office.

Disease Prevention

We are having several early illnesses making their way through LS.

The health department is predicting an early  and heavy influenza outbreak

• Wash hands
• Get your flu shot
• Stay home if you are sick
• Send your students to the office if they are sick.

Sub Utilization

I am working on managing our substitute budget more closely

• We will not be offering subs to cover assessments. Classroom teachers will work with teaching assistants to cover class while teachers assess.
• In special situations we will be offering limited substitutes for additional team planning

Field Trip Budgets

In an effort to manage budget increases, field trip budgets are the same as last year, $1500 per grade.

Food From Home

Just a reminder that all food for students is provided by OES in order to support our efforts to be an allergy-aware campus.  Any families hoping to send food for snacks or lunches from home with their child must have approval from the nurse or your Assistant Head.  Please make sure you have obtained such approval before encouraging anyone to bring food from home.

TIME SHEET

• Time sheet is required for nonexempt employee. Fill out your timesheet digitally in ADP and approve it twice a month: 15th and the 30th
• Enter your absences in your digital time sheet – this also means these absences were reported in the Smartfinder.
• If a teacher asks that you work beyond your approved work hours, you need to notify Kirstin (PK – 1 AT) or Chris (2nd – 5thAT) about the request. Kirstin or Chris will submit the Lead teacher request to David for approval. Your division Assistant Head will email you and copy Lyn once the lead teacher request has been approved. The Assistant Heads’ email is Lyn's record on file as a proof for the overtime hours she is going to submit for payment to HR.
• If you were a Lead Sub Teacher – you will need to check in and check out in the Sub time sheet binder in the office.

LUNCH and BREAKS:

• All nonexempt employees working 6 continuous hours or more in a day are required to take a 30-minute unpaid meal, preferably in the middle of a shift – page 17 in the Employee Handbook
• All nonexempt employees receive a 10-minute paid rest break for each 4 hours of work time… Break periods may not be used or skipped to extend a lunch period. Work overtime, arrive late
• 1.0 FTE AT  – may take two 10-minute break: one in mid-morning and one in mid-afternoon
• .75 FTE AT may take one 10-minute break either in the morning or afternoon.

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.