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“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.”
- Pablo Picasso
Good Evening Team and Family –
In sticking with our theme of planes and flight, we will all experience turbulence sometime. It's our ability to navigate through it and stay the course that matters the most. Similar to day #2 last week, today was a little bit smoother than yesterday. Sure, there are still large challenges that we will encounter on a daily basis, but it is our approach and mindset to solving these problems that will enable us to experience the “joy factor”. Pablo Picasso was onto something there-I guess it's important to find the joy in every situation you can.
As a heads up, “broken windows” will conclude tomorrow. Your feedback has been instrumental in every way. Our attendance data continues to rise, instruction continues to shine, and our identity as a school that lives and breathes SEL continues to be forged and well-advertised. We cannot say it enough, but, thank you, thank you, thank you, for your honesty! As we enter the middle of the week tomorrow, please refer to the big rocks below:
Schedule – Thank you for suggesting that we identify ways to better explain how synchronous and asynchronous lessons will work to our parents. Mr. Albertorio will spend some time during “Meet the Principal Virtually” to walk our parents through this process.
Systems & Procedures – Our “runway” period has been great at providing high-level customer service to our students and families. In an attempt to sustain this, a new system is in the works, called the “Human Help Desk”. The goal of this system is to identify designated in-building days for our staff to work (ex: Tues/Thurs), so that they can book and respond to appointments that would be mutually created between themselves and parents. In doing so, we would be able to keep an open door of communication to respond to parent technology issues, and/or a plethora of curriculum and materials questions/issues. This idea is still in the infancy stage, and more details are forthcoming (we welcome any and all ideas as well).
Systems & Procedures Pt.II– Just as a reminder, the Admin Team is developing a grading system that will be rolled out in the near future. This system will come with pre-determined grading weights. Please reach out if you have any questions.
Tomorrow, we will continue visiting more classrooms and providing support as needed. Just as another reminder, we have now entered a phase in our observation and feedback cycle where “real-time coaching” has begun. As we inch closer towards teaching content next week, we will need to provide feedback to ensure that we are ready to take off from our “runway” schedule. Please continue to send admin any feedback or thoughts regarding ways that we can best support you. As always, thank you for everything that you do for our students and one another!
Next Steps & Things to Keep in Mind:
STEAM classes will not happen for the first 2 weeks. STEAM teachers place this info in your classroom, and teachers be sure to inform your students
Update roster from PowerSchool
Students who need assistance with accessing their SLPREP student emails should be directed here
SLPREP student emails & phone numbers are located here
Add any missing students directly into your Google Classroom by clicking on ‘People”.
Students will be able to view any teacher-invitation directly in their Google Classroom
Check links, codes, and folders for accuracy before assigning work to students. Direct students who are still having trouble with links to this process
Provide language support, and help teachers who might need an extra person (when possible)
When conducting parent outreach, please make sure to complete our outreach log here
Refer to this document when helping students with questions
Teachers, please use this resource to help students navigate the days on their schedule that are synchronous vs asynchronous (add this to your Google Classrooms)
Here are some scripted answers that you can use in the event you need to begin responding to parent questions about technology Scripted Answers
Rebekah Zayas will provide additional support to Mr. Rodriguez (period 1) and Mr. Follis (periods 6 & 7) for the remainder of the “runway” period
Create a Google Classroom for your breakout/small group sections. Please use this document to send invites to your students
Next week the NWEA MAP testing window will open (9/28/20). For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is a district assessment that tracks proficiency around ELA and math standards during three portions of the school year. I wanted to put this on your radar so that you are not caught by surprise once our students begin this endeavor. There will be more information to follow regarding testing schedules and logistics. We cannot wait to look back in June and see how much progress our students made! One more day of teaching 8th period for the week! #LEVEL-UP
Respectfully,
Dexter Miller
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