High School Teacher Expectations

High School Specific Homeroom Duties

As a homeroom teacher, you are considered the first line of defense for our students. If they are lost, need help, don't know what to do or where to find information, they will come to you. If you don't know the answer to a question they ask, find out for them. We want our families to receive one-on-one attention from us, and we pride ourselves on keeping our HR ratios low in order to provide more personalized education.

You are their main point of contact, primary cheerleader, and success coach. Our HR model is very successful because of the hard work of our teachers. Working together as a team, we are more successful in helping students reach their goals and pass classes.

While you are the main point of contact for students, please contact the content teacher for anything specifically related to that course. Do NOT change settings (other than the assignment calendar), grade work, clear alerts, or alter any assignments. This is the responsibility of the content teacher.

Welcome to the Team!

Your list of homeroom students is available on the Student Information Sheet and in the SIS. Accessing this information is covered in the next sections of training.

Homeroom Meetings

Teachers a hold a weekly group homeroom meeting with students on Wednesdays at 10am. While students might not attend every one of these sessions, you must have at least one point of synchronous contact with every homeroom parent and student (this is a requirement of the family) each week. Students not meeting progress and attendance requirements will need more frequent individual meetings. Meetings should take place in your Zoom room with both the teacher and student on webcam. If a student is not attending your Zoom sessions a phone call can count as a homeroom meeting, but should not be the norm. It is important that we routinely "see" students via Zoom so we can ensure their health and well being. A student may turn on the camera, wave at you, and then turn it off to meet the minimum video requirements.

• We recommend you structure your meetings as follows:

  • 1. Build rapport (example - find out why they chose CalPac, hobbies, interests, and strengths/weaknesses)

    2. Go over:

       1. • Monthly theme activity, study skill resource, or SEL resource from the homeroom support folder

          • attendance (review attendance policy below)

          • progress

          • grades from EDG

          • fitness logs (if applicable) and the

          • activity log

          • The easiest way to do these is to screenshare and show them their individual progress/attendance reports in EDG/SIS.

    3. Make sure student knows contact information for content teachers (tutoring and office hours) and counselor info (transcripts and credits). See the teacher contact sheet.

    4. General Q & A about how to complete course work.

    5. Set-up a schedule and goals to help them achieve daily and weekly success (example - work through 3 lessons each day). Also, make sure traditional students are going to live sessions! You will be sending them a calendar at the start of the semester to help them remember their schedule.

    6. Go over graduation requirements/credits (if the student is a senior) when needed to help keep the student motivated.

       1. • If a student is in CR, you will need to keep a careful eye on their class progress to determine if they need new classes added. CR students start with 5 classes. When they have completely finished 4 and are 50% finished with the 5th, discuss with them which class they would like to take next. Then, email the counselor to add the course. If there is a lot of time left in the semester, consider adding 2 classes at the same time. We do not limit the number of classes CR students can take in a semester.

*If a student is a no-show or does not respond to outreach, follow up with a phone call, email, and text. Loop in parents on emails and call them if you are not able to reach the student.

See below for directions on how to check all items above.

Best Practices & Weekly Tasks

• Respond to all student/emails within 24 hours

• Be available during office hours to respond to phone calls, emails, and texts

• Monitor weekly students' progress/completion with:

  • • Classwork

    • Activity Log

    • Fitness Log (if applicable)

    • Attendance (minimum of 3 days needed to not get an attendance warning, but they should complete work 5 days a week)

• Engage in at least 1 synchronous contact with all HR students each week. If a student is not on pace, please reach out at least 2-3 times per week.

  • • Review progress in areas listed above.

    • Ask open ended questions to check for understanding of school/course expectations.

    • Help students reach out to content teachers for help, especially tutoring.

    • Change the dates on the assignment calendar as needed to help them pace out their work

    • Check attendance throughout the week to make sure they are logging in a minimum of 3 days (3 days is just to avoid an attendance warning...they should be logging in all 5 days) and completing enough work.

    • Assist in creating a catch-up plan for student who are behind pace.

      • • Follow up with email outlining catch-up plan.

        • Make another contact during the week to check-in.

• Reach out to HR parents to make sure they are aware of their students' progress, announcements, and offer ideas to support student.

• Send weekly HR email with updates and other reminders of school announcements and deadlines.

• Send progress reports (templates below). The frequency is up to you, but we recommend once a month.

• Schedule proctoring and verify students are ready for final exams. During the semester this only applies to credit recovery students. At the end of the semester you will schedule your traditional course students, and any CR students who have not taken their exams during the semester, to take their exams during final exam week. There is more information about mid-semester and end of semester proctoring later in this training in the "Proctoring and Final Exams" section.

• Attend IEPs and other student support meetings (more info in the Special Education section of training)

• Request live session accommodations from Ericka Zemmer for students who have consistent and weekly conflicts with live sessions. We need to know the reason for the accommodation, so ask your student. Most of the time it is for work or full time sports activities. They should only receive accommodations for classes that conflict and attend live any other which do not conflict. If the live session accommodation is approved, please email all content teacher and put a sticky note on the student dashboard.

*Note: You will get students throughout the year. It is your responsibility to help get them started in their classes. If a student does NOT have exit grades, please change the start date of their classes to the current date. If the student has exit grades, it will be noted on the enrollment email. As the homeroom teacher, please be in contact with the family and let them know that the courses are being adjusted by the teachers. Check EDG, and once you see that the date of the course has been updated you know the course is ready for the student to begin working. If the course has not been updated within 24 hours, please check with the content teacher.

Communication

The most important component to HR is COMMUNICATION!

• Communicate with HR students weekly in HR meetings (more on this below), phone call, text, and email. It is required that you have at least 1 synchronous contact (Zoom room meeting or phone call) weekly, but some students will require more frequent contact.

• Call students immediately when they have zero work product for 1 day (review attendance policy above). Missing any days can be very harmful to their success. If you cannot reach the student, call the parent/guardian, and leave a detailed message if no one picks up. It is very important that parents are aware that the student is not attending school.

• If all numbers on file are not working, email student and parent to update their numbers. Contact the counselor and cc all teachers if you receive new contact information from a student or parent.

• After you have tried all methods of contact for 2 weeks and the parent/student is still unresponsive, contact your DC for help and tips.

• Texting is optional, but it can be a fast way to receive and respond to communications. Check with student/parent if they have texting capabilities. Make sure to keep the tone and language profession. You can use your work number through RingCentral to text with students.

• Mass emails must have student/parent email addresses bcc'ed or mail merged. NEVER cc when sending mass emails to students/parents.

• Do not rely solely on emails. Emails are fast and informative, but live contact is key in an online setting.

• Log ALL communications with your HR families in the SIS. Even if you do not make a successful contact, please log your attempt and just mark "no" for whether or not it was a successful contact.

• We highly recommend you use a contact sheet to keep track of all of your students' information (email, phone numbers, end dates...etc), communications made, and to hyperlink to their dashboard and contact page. This will make logged your communications much quicker. Please see the template and directions below.

Progress Monitoring

As the homeroom teacher you are responsible for monitoring your homeroom students' grades and progress in all classes. You will use the dashboard in Edgenuity to help you keep track of student performance. Support student success by helping students reach out to their content teachers for tutoring and reviewing how to navigate their courses. Content teachers are relying on you to keep students informed about their progress.

If you notice a student is struggling, please reach out to the content teacher(s) and see what supports can be used to help the student improve. It is a team effort to get students to succeed and often times building up foundational study skills can make the difference in improvement.

Homeroom Support Resources & Templates

FITNESS LOGS

All students enrolled in PE need to complete a fitness log. It is worth 60% of their grade so they will not be able to pass PE without it. The PE teacher will be collecting and entering grades for the fitness log, but please check a student's log when you meet with them during HR meetings. Below you will find both a teacher guide and a student guide. The student guide also has a video at the top, and feel free to send the document to students if they have questions about how to fill out their logs. Students also have these directions in their PE course.

PARENT PORTAL

Please set-up parent portals for all of your students. This can be done the first week of school so you do not need to do it right now.

• • The first document is directions on how to set-up the parent portal accounts for your HR students.

  • The second document is a template email you can use to send their activation codes and explain how the parent portal works.

  • The last document is a parent guide that you can attach to your email.

Mail merge is a great way to quickly send your activation codes! You can enter all of your codes into an excel document and then mail merge them. If you need a reminder about how to mail merge, look at the "Email" portion of this training.

High School Specific Content Duties

As a content teacher, please help your students understand your content and successfully pass your class. There are a couple of key ways we do this at CalPac.

• Live Sessions

  • • Each week you will be teaching a 1-hour live session for each class you teach (CR classes do not have live sessions). These classes are held in Zoom, and they should be engaging, cover relevant material connected to the course content, and include opportunities for student interaction and participation. All sessions should have an objective and essential question.

      • • Each subject has a day of the week for their live sessions to avoid crossover and student confusion. The schedule is as follows:

          • • Monday - Science

            • Tuesday - Math

            • Wednesday - Social Studies

            • Thursday - English

            • Friday - Electives (these courses may also fit on other days but cannot conflict with the assigned subject on that day)

    • Additionally, we recommend having some kind of notes or exit ticket to demonstrate their learning during the session. Many teachers grade their live sessions on both participation and the completion of notes/exit ticket. Live sessions are worth 10% of a student's grade, and most teachers have 5% be attendance/participation and 5% be submission of an activity. This is at your discretion.

    • You will be recording all live sessions and making them available to students. We recommend using a sheet like this and placing it in your SRF folder for easy access for students.

    • You will be entering live session grades on a monthly basis. You will receive more information later about live session grading sheets and due dates for updated grades.

• Tutoring

  • • Be available 10 hours each week for students tutoring. You are not required to use a scheduling tool, but it does make it easier for students to sign up. There are more directions on how to set-up and use tutoring schedulers later in the training.

    • Most tutoring sessions involve screensharing and reviewing material. Use Zoom for your tutoring so you can utilize the tools available.

• Grading

  • • Please grade all teacher-graded assignments within 72 hours of submission (excluding weekends). Review the grading section of the EDG if you need help with grading assignments.

    • Students are required to submit their written work to turnitin.com. If a student plagiarizes, please follow the plagiarism policy outlined below. Contact your DC with any questions.

• Clear Alerts

  • • Alerts for failed quizzes and tests should be cleared within 24 hours. Reach out to the student about having not passed the quiz and request they submit notes or attend tutoring (follow your department's procedure). If they do not respond within 24 hours after your email is sent, please move the student forward by entering the highest grade earned. See retake policy below.

• Regular Progress Reports (templates below)

  • • Since the semester goes much quicker than students think it will, it is important that students and parents are kept up-to-date on their pace/progress in their courses. Through the parent portal they receive weekly emails from EDG, but many parents do not really understand what they are reading. Getting an email from you that they can directly respond to and ask questions, can make a huge difference in a student's success. Sending this once a month or so can be very helpful.

    • In the progress report section below, you will find some tips, tricks, and templates to help you send progress reports to your students. Mail merge is your friend! If you are not familiar with mail merge or need a refresher, you can get help in the "Welcome Email" section of this training.

• Course Set-up/Exit Grades

  • • All of the courses are already set up for the year, but you will be asked to create new classes for next year during second semester.

    • Students will join throughout the semester, and some of our students enter with exit grades. If a student has exit grades, you will need to cut material out of the course to fit where the student was in their previous class. Please talk to your DC the first time you need to do this so they can assist you with the proper way to handle exit grades. Here is a sheet to help you track your students with exit grades. You will cut their course, enter their exit grade on your sheet, and change the start date in EDG. Changing the start date is YOUR responsibility and it signals the HR teacher that the course has been cut.

      • • How to cut courses video

• Communication

  • • Respond to all student/parent/teacher/admin communications with 24 hours.

    • CC homeroom teachers, or SAI as appropriate, on all important communications to families.

    • Reach out weekly to students who are not passing or are behind pace.

*Please make sure you understand all of the general policies below!

Policies and Procedures:

• Quiz Retakes

  • • Students are automatically given 2 attempts per quiz. If they pass with a 70% or higher, no additional retakes will be given. If they do not pass with a 70% or higher on a quiz, they have the opportunity to submit notes, attend tutoring, or whatever you feel is appropriate to earn a 3rd attempt. (SpEd and 504 students might have special circumstances or settings. Please check with the SAI provider or lead if you have questions about a SpEd student.)

• Test Retakes

  • • Students are automatically given 2 attempts per test. No 3rd attempts are given for topic tests even if they submit notes and attend tutoring.

• Final Exams

  • • Finals can only be taken ONCE. If there is a special circumstance, please contact your DC prior to giving a second attempt. If your course requires a final exam to be proctored, please do not open the final exam under any circumstances. The exam MUST be proctored either by the homeroom teacher, during week 3 proctoring, or during final exam week proctoring.

    • The list of courses requiring a proctor are listed on the proctoring sheet. Students are allowed to use their notes on exams, and they have 3 hours to complete it.

• Live Sessions

  • • For traditional students, live sessions are worth 10% of their grade. Grades are updated each month so that students have accurate grades. The grades are entered in the gradebook view of EDG, and in most classes it counts in the additional category of their grade. There are directions for entering live session grades in the EDG section of this training.

    • All courses follow the same live session make-up policy. Each student is allowed to make-up 2 live sessions for full credit each semester. The make-up must be completed within 2 weeks of the original session date, and they must submit some kind of notes, exit ticket, or whatever else you deem appropriate to show master of the content discussed in the session.

    • Some of our students work full time jobs or are in sports which conflict with live sessions. If your student reports having a conflict, please talk to the homeroom teacher as the student might have conflicts in more than just your subject. From there, the homeroom teacher will request a live session accommodation from Ericka Zemmer. If approved, the student will be able to make up all of their live sessions for full credit. The 2 week rule still applies.

• Bypassing

  • • A student may email you asking to skip or bypass an assignment. We do NOT bypass assignments as it removes it from the course completely. If they do not want to complete the assignment or want to return to it later, have them submit it for a zero grade. That way their grade remains accurate, and you don't have to remember to add the assignment back in later. They can always go back later and ask for your to reset it so they can submit the assignment.

• Course Settings

  • • Settings have already been set, but there are sometimes special circumstances with a student. For example, many of our SpEd students have 3 attempts on quizzes instead of 2. If you see a setting that looks strange, please talk to your DC. Review this sheet to see what the settings for your course should be.

      • • It is YOUR responsibility to make sure that your settings stay correct. Check them every so often to make sure that they are correct.

    • Sometimes students want to move more quickly through a course and would like to adjust their assignment calendar to fit their needs. You can change their target start/end dates in the settings and it will move their assignment calendar. Feel free to do this as it does not affect their enrollment in any fashion. If you do this, hit the "save" button directly under the dates.

    • During final exams there will be some changes to settings, but there are detailed instructions later in the training about this. Do not worry about those changes for the moment.

Content Support Resources & Templates

High School Department Duties

"We're not just a department, we're a family!"

As part of the high school team you are expected to bring a positive attitude, be open to trying new things, and be willing to collaborate on ideas. Since we work so closely with our students as both their content and homeroom teachers it is easy to reach out to one another about individual student needs. Don't be afraid to communicate with your fellow teachers.

And please don't hesitate to share if something is not working for you. There is a lot of flexibility with our department and different approaches to instruction are encouraged. Just make sure students are coming first with any changes and that you let your DC know.

Department Meetings

Each high school department has a monthly department meeting. It is important that you attend these meetings for updates and to participate in discussions on how to better support student success. Calendar invites will be sent for scheduled meetings. We will set our meeting times together during our first meeting before school starts.

Department Tasks

Make sure to notify your department chair when school wide and department specific tasks have been completed. This includes updating live session and PE log grades, entering final grades, etc.