Embedded Files
January 29 - February 2, 2024
January 29 - February 2, 2024
Next week we kick off our school wide acknowledgement system with our Burro Bucks. The focus is to recognize the good and motivate students to live the Burro values of respectful, responsible, and safe.
Thank you Katy for your work to make this happen!
You should find the relational scripts in your mailbox that outlines the conversation you can have with your students when things are not going well and work to restore what has been harmed. The purpose is to use common language when addressing conflict and working to find resolution. Asking both the person that has been harmed and the person who was doing the harming, what they thing should happen next can guide us in working towards positive resolution.
Quinn has shared the guidance for restorative reflections which also mirror the questions script. It is important that we start to implement this resource along with the restorative process that he has shared as well.
Celebration
Celebration
Thank you all for your efforts to improve student behavior and engagement at Jenifer. One of the things that we have to remember is that we will ALWAYS have behavior/engagement issues. However, we have to continually work to reduce the significant behaviors and reduce the frequency of the lower level behaviors. We know we can do this by working to improve student engagement and work to improve behavior practices with school wide alignment for behavior approaches. Some of us are new to Jenifer or new to the teaching profession. We have many interns with us. We demonstrate our commitment to support our students by working to move forward with these practices and I am extremely grateful for your willingness to try and continue to grow.
January 31 PD
January 31 PD
We have a professional development day on Wednesday, January 31st that starts at 1:15 and will finish at 3:30. We will continue our work on behavior and engagement. Teaching teams, please come prepared to share your SMART goals for engagement as well as any of the strategies you will utilize to reach goals.
Committee Meetings week after next
Committee Meetings week after next
We have no committee meetings for next week. This is due to the fact that we have Professional Development on Wednesday January 31st starting at 1:15.
However, the following week we will have 3 committee meets:
Tuesday, February 6th - PBIS - Creating Effective Classroom Environment Focus
Wednesday, February 7th - Guiding Coalition - SICA Update + Prep for PD on Feb 14
Thursday, February 8th - Culture and Communication - School Culture Diagnostic
Dates for your diary
Dates for your diary
Friday, January 26th - Fire Drill @10:30
Whole School Advisory on Friday, January 26th
Nez Perce Youth Advisory Board
Wednesday, January 31 - Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Tuesday, February 6th - PBIS - Creating Effective Classroom Environment Focus
Wednesday, February 7th - Guiding Coalition - SICA Update + Prep for PD on Feb 14
Thursday, February 8th - Culture and Communication - School Culture Diagnostic
February 8-9 - Professional Development for Aaron (IPMP)
February 14th - Early Release for Professional Development
February 20-21 - Access Assessment (2 Students)
March 1 - NAEP - Assessment of 2 Student Groups
ELEOT
ELEOT
In February we will have administrators from within our district visit and evaluate JMS using the ELEOT inventory which is attached for your reference.
January 22-26, 2024
January 22-26, 2024
It is the start of a new semester!
This week we have professional development and whole school advisory on Friday. On Friday, we will have the Nez Perce Youth Advisory Board visit with our students in the library during whole school advisory.
Thank you for all your work to have grades completed by 12:00 today (January 22). If you have questions, please let Amanda know in the office or connect with me if needed.
We will not have a staff meeting tomorrow morning as we are having PD today.
Lastly, Katy Helt will run a session on our school-wide acknowledgment system for staff on Thursday, January 25th at 3:00-3:30. This session will be for Instructional Assistants as well as Exploratory/Elective teachers and any others who may have missed the introduction of our school-wide acknowledgment system.
January PD
January PD
January has 2 professional development days dedicated to improving student engagement and student behavior. We have time to review data for student engagement collected from engagement questionnaire disseminated in November and develop SMART goals by team to improve engagement along with integrating some "nonnegotiable" elements for improving engagement like implementation of our school-wide acknowledgment system and additional restorative practices. These should make for some great professional development opportunities.
Please see the outline for January 22nd PD attached below with accompanying guiding resources. Team SMART goal resources as well as additional restorative practices have been attached in Google Classroom.
Class invitation link is here: https://classroom.google.com/c/NjE2OTMyNzU5Nzg4?cjc=l45obva
Class code is here: l45obva
Dates for your diary
Dates for your diary
Friday, January 26th - Fire Drill @10:30
Whole School Advisory on Friday, January 26th
Nez Perce Youth Advisory Board
Wednesday, January 31 - Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Tuesday, February 6th - PBIS - Creating Effective Classroom Environment Focus
Wednesday, February 7th - Guiding Coalition - SICA Update + Prep for PD on Feb 14
Thursday, February 8th - Culture and Communication - School Culture Diagnostic
February 8-9 - Professional Development for Aaron (IPMP)
February 14th - Early Release for Professional Development
February 20-21 - Access Assessment (2 Students)
March 1 - NAEP - Assessment of 2 Student Groups
Committee Meetings this week
Committee Meetings this week
We have our Guiding Coalition Meeting this week - January 24th @7:15 in the Library
Staffing
Staffing
Susan Cimino will no longer serve in the capacity of a special education teacher at JMS. However, she may continue in a different role within our district.
Practicum Students
Practicum Students
LCSC is gathering their list of practicum students, and the district will get them assigned by January 26. This means we need a list of teachers who will be willing to have a practicum student in their classroom this spring. I would like as many teachers as we can possibly get to welcome these students to their classrooms.
Please complete this questionnaire by Friday, January 26th if you would be willing to host a practicum student.
Semester Grades
Semester Grades
You will have seen messages from Jeremy, Mike, and Cheyenne providing guidance for semester grades that are due on Monday, January 22nd at Noon. If not, please have a look at the guidance below:
As we approach the end of the first semester, please be aware of the information below. Attached you will find three files:
Final Grade Setup.pdf
Dropped Students.pdf
Middle School Work Habits.pdf
Important Dates
Grades can be entered in Q2 with dates ranging from 10/30/23 – 1/18/24.
Grades can be entered in E1 with dates ranging from 1/19/24 – 1/20/24.
The date range for S1 is 8/23/23 – 1/20/24.
Grades will get stored on Monday, January 22 at 1:00 PM. Teachers must contact their school’s Registrar/secretary or administrator to make any changes to any grade in Q2, E1, or S1 after January 22. The stored grade can only be changed by the Amanda or Aaron. Teachers must stay out of PowerSchool after grades have been verified. Teachers should not use PowerSchool until later in the day when we get the okay that the storing process was completed successfully. Although this process usually takes 1-2 hours, there is the possibility that this may take several hours. Teachers need to plan on this and access items they may need in PowerSchool (such as rosters and seating charts) prior to 1:00 PM on Monday, January 22.
Grades need to be verified with Amanda (in the office) by 12:00 PM on January 22.
Semester Calculations
Teachers need to choose one of the following calculations for Semester 1:
· Total Points (this is the default setting in PowerSchool)
· S1 = (50%)Q1+ (50%)Q2
· S1 = (40%)Q1+ (40%)Q2 + (20%)E1
Attached are reminder directions on how to set up semester calculations. This should have been done prior to the start of Quarter 2! If teachers are just now setting up semester calculations, they need to verify that PowerSchool is making the calculations correctly.
Dropped Students
A “W” must be placed in Q2, E1, and S1 for all students who withdrew from class. Attached are reminder directions for how to do this.
Students Using Alternate Curriculum
Students using alternative curriculum (typically students with special needs) should receive the comment “Making expected progress.” Do NOT override their grade with an asterisk grade.
Work Habit Grades and Comments (Middle Schools)
Work Habit grades (1, 2, 3) will get entered into S1. (see attachment for directions)
If a student received a Work Habit grade of a 1 or 2, then one or more comments need to be entered.
Do not type the code for the comment. Be sure to click the + button so that the full comment gets added (please see directions in the attachment).
“Positive” comments can be added for any student, but you can only choose from the ones listed in the attached directions.
Due to space constraints on the report that gets generated, we can only use up to 3 comments per student.
Advisory grades for Q2 and S1 will still be P/F. Work Habit grades/comments will not get entered for Advisory classes.
January 16-19, 2024
January 16-19, 2024
I have to admit that this recent snow is pretty great! I've been looking forward to seeing the valley covered with the white blanket of the fluffy stuff. Although, it does mean we have to be extra careful when we are out and about on the roads.
Thank you for all your support with the students on Friday. I still cannot understand why students would choose to continue to wear shorts in this weather? Thank you for helping students find warmer clothes and getting them changed into dry clothes.
Who doesn't love a 3 day weekend? During the the weekend I was able to do some playing in the snow with my family and spend a little more time with my sister. Her flight back to Boston was supposed to fly out of Lewiston on Saturday, but with the weather and recent plane issues with Alaska, her flight was moved to Wednesday. Nice to spend a little more time with family.
Dates for your diary
Dates for your diary
Wednesday, January 3rd - NAEP Planning Meeting
Thursday, January 4th - Culture and Communication Meeting @3:00-3:30 - Library
Monday, January 8th - Go Guardian Training @3:00-3:30 - Cafeteria
Tuesday, January 9th - Pastoral Care/PBIS @7:15 - Room 106
Wednesday, January 10th - Dept Heads @7:15 - Room 101
Wednesday, January 10th - Progress Update/Report Cards - student carry
Monday, January 15th - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Day & Idaho Human Rights Day
Tuesday, January 16th - Read 180 Job-alike 3:00-3:30 - Cheyenne's room
Wednesday, January 17th - Guiding Coalition @7:15 - Library (Canceled for Reporting)
Friday, January 19th - Last day of semester 1/Last day of quarter 2
Monday, January 22nd - Semester/Quarter grades completed + Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Friday, January 26th - Fire Drill @10:30
Whole School Advisory on Friday, January 26th
Wednesday, January 31 - Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
February 8-9 - Professional Development for Aaron (IPMP)
February 14th - Early Release for Professional Development
February 20-21 - Access Assessment (2 Students)
March 1 - NAEP - Assessment of 2 Student Groups
Go Guardian Training
Go Guardian Training
Big thanks to Julian and Karen for their work to get us going with Go Guarding. Please see Karen's attached presentation from Monday's training as well as my outline for expectations for implementation.
Teachers need to complete the training modules by January 31 and start using the basic features of the program by Feb 1st.
When you have completed the modules you will be provided with a certificate of completion. Please share this certificate on Edfolio as an attachment, just like the Vector training certificates.
Access the modules by following the directions below:
Click this link: https://educators-hub.northpass.com/app
Sign up or sign in
Click "Resources"
Click "Go Guardian"
Scroll down to "Go Guardian Teacher Training Course"
Click "Enroll"
Work your way through the modules (You can do this at your own pace).
https://support.goguardian.com/s/goguardian-teacher (Help Site)
Student Interns
Student Interns
You may have noticed some additional teachers in the building since the start of semester 2. We should be proud to know that Jenifer has placed a significant number of student interns this semester. Please make sure you introduce yourself to these folks and make them feel welcome! Take the opportunity to share some educator wisdom with these students as well.
Here are the student interns for second semester and their placement:
Liz Serecero - Lindsay Falkenstein
Kendall Teichmer - Amanda Packwood
Jacob Johnson - Bob Wicks
Lakelynn McComas - Angie Stamper
Julian Washburn - SAC Quarter 3 - Scott Gratz Quarter 4 (April 8th Start)
Shannon Baerlocher - Heather Ohrtman-Rogers
Maria Lacey - Laura Turner
Kaitlyn Green - Amy E McLean
Practicum Students
Practicum Students
LCSC is gathering their list of practicum students, and the district will get them assigned by January 26. This means we need a list of teachers who will be willing to have a practicum student in their classroom this spring. I would like as many teachers as we can possibly get to welcome these students to their classrooms.
Please complete this questionnaire by Friday, January 19th if you would be willing to host a practicum student.
Student of the Month of December
Student of the Month of December
Thank you for nominating the following students for "Student of the Month" for December. Our character trait was Caring and Kindness and the following students demonstrated that character trait well:
board leadership
board leadership
Staci Baldwin is now the Board president and Char Kremer is the vice president. This will strengthen the Board as we move forward. A goal for the spring is for our community to have more information about what the Board is doing. The community needs to know they have a connection with our Board.
Semester Grades
Semester Grades
You will have seen messages from Jeremy, Mike, and Cheyenne providing guidance for semester grades that are due on Monday, January 22nd at Noon. If not, please have a look at the guidance below:
As we approach the end of the first semester, please be aware of the information below. Attached you will find three files:
Final Grade Setup.pdf
Dropped Students.pdf
Middle School Work Habits.pdf
Important Dates
Grades can be entered in Q2 with dates ranging from 10/30/23 – 1/18/24.
Grades can be entered in E1 with dates ranging from 1/19/24 – 1/20/24.
The date range for S1 is 8/23/23 – 1/20/24.
Grades will get stored on Monday, January 22 at 1:00 PM. Teachers must contact their school’s Registrar/secretary or administrator to make any changes to any grade in Q2, E1, or S1 after January 22. The stored grade can only be changed by the Amanda or Aaron. Teachers must stay out of PowerSchool after grades have been verified. Teachers should not use PowerSchool until later in the day when we get the okay that the storing process was completed successfully. Although this process usually takes 1-2 hours, there is the possibility that this may take several hours. Teachers need to plan on this and access items they may need in PowerSchool (such as rosters and seating charts) prior to 1:00 PM on Monday, January 22.
Grades need to be verified with Amanda (in the office) by 12:00 PM on January 22.
Semester Calculations
Teachers need to choose one of the following calculations for Semester 1:
· Total Points (this is the default setting in PowerSchool)
· S1 = (50%)Q1+ (50%)Q2
· S1 = (40%)Q1+ (40%)Q2 + (20%)E1
Attached are reminder directions on how to set up semester calculations. This should have been done prior to the start of Quarter 2! If teachers are just now setting up semester calculations, they need to verify that PowerSchool is making the calculations correctly.
Dropped Students
A “W” must be placed in Q2, E1, and S1 for all students who withdrew from class. Attached are reminder directions for how to do this.
Students Using Alternate Curriculum
Students using alternative curriculum (typically students with special needs) should receive the comment “Making expected progress.” Do NOT override their grade with an asterisk grade.
Work Habit Grades and Comments (Middle Schools)
Work Habit grades (1, 2, 3) will get entered into S1. (see attachment for directions)
If a student received a Work Habit grade of a 1 or 2, then one or more comments need to be entered.
Do not type the code for the comment. Be sure to click the + button so that the full comment gets added (please see directions in the attachment).
“Positive” comments can be added for any student, but you can only choose from the ones listed in the attached directions.
Due to space constraints on the report that gets generated, we can only use up to 3 comments per student.
Advisory grades for Q2 and S1 will still be P/F. Work Habit grades/comments will not get entered for Advisory classes.
January PD
January PD
January has 2 professional development days dedicated to improving student engagement and student behavior. We have time to review data for student engagement collected from engagement questionnaire disseminated in November and develop SMART goals by team to improve engagement along with integrating some "nonnegotiable" elements for improving engagement like implementation of our school-wide acknowledgment system and additional restorative practices. These should make for some great professional development opportunities.
January 8-9, 2024
January 8-9, 2024
Thank you all for a great first week back from the break. It was great to hear all the different experiences peopled had over the holidays. My family have all pretty much left with my mother departing last Friday and my sister flying out on the weekend.
It looks like we are in for some very cold weather later in the coming week, dress warm and please encourage the kids to do the same. Try to push them to collect their lost and found items that are still waiting for their owners in the foyer.
Dates for your diary
Dates for your diary
Wednesday, January 3rd - NAEP Planning Meeting
Thursday, January 4th - Culture and Communication Meeting @3:00-3:30 - Library
Monday, January 8th - Go Guardian Training @3:00-3:30 - Cafeteria
Tuesday, January 9th - Pastoral Care/PBIS @7:15 - Room 106
Wednesday, January 10th - Dept Heads @7:15 - Room 101
Wednesday, January 10th - Progress Update/Report Cards - student carry
Monday, January 15th - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Day & Idaho Human Rights Day
Tuesday, January 16th - Read 180 Job-alike 3:00-3:30
Wednesday, January 17th - Guiding Coalition @7:15 - Library
Friday, January 19th - Last day of semester 1/Last day of quarter 2
Monday, January 22nd - Semester/Quarter grades completed + Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Friday, January 26th - Fire Drill @10:30
Wednesday, January 31 - Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
February 8-9 - Professional Development for Aaron (IPMP)
February 14th - Early Release for Professional Development
February 20-21 - Access Assessment (2 Students)
March 1 - NAEP - Assessment of 2 Student Groups
Go Guardian Training - Library
Go Guardian Training - Library
Today we will have Go Guardian training for all teachers in the library from 3:00-3:30. We will work our way through the training modules so we can start using the system as soon as possible. Julian has shared the link to these modules previously, but here is the directions for you again for you to view:
Click this link: https://educators-hub.northpass.com/app
Sign up or sign in
Click "Resources"
Click "Go Guardian"
Scroll down to "Go Guardian Teacher Training Course"
Click "Enroll"
Work your way through the modules (You can do this at your own pace).
Karen Forsman will join us for the training and provide some basic tutorials and provide support as we work through modules.
IT is working on wireless projection. We will be informed when it is ready to pilot by JoAnne and IT.
Committee Meetings this week
Committee Meetings this week
We have our PBIS/Pastoral Care Meeting on Tuesday, January 9th @7:15 in Rm 106 as well as our Department Heads meeting on Wednesday, January 10th @7:15 in Rm 101.
January 2-5, 2024
January 2-5, 2024
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
Wishing all a great start to the New Year!
I hope the holidays were a great time for us all to connect with our families and friends and have time time to relax and recharge. This was the first Christmas that I have spent in the States in 20 years. My mother came from Egypt to visit and my sister came from Boston. It's nice to spend quality time with family during these special occasions.
The end of the year offers us a chance to reflect on our professional and personal progress. For many of us, we hit goals that we set and now is the time to establish new goals (short and long). We will use these first weeks back to review and refresh school goals.
January provides us with two professional development days to focus on student behavior with pastoral care and PBIS as a focus connected to student engagement initiatives. We will also see the end of the semester shortly.
Looking forward to seeing you all very soon!
Dates for your diary
Dates for your diary
Wednesday, January 3rd - NAEP Planning Meeting
Thursday, January 4th - Culture and Communication Meeting @3:00-3:30 - Library
Monday, January 8th - Go Guardian Training @3:00-3:30 - Cafeteria
Tuesday, January 9th - Pastoral Care/PBIS @7:15 - Room 106
Wednesday, January 10th - Dept Heads @7:15 - Room 101
Monday, January 15th - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Day & Idaho Human Rights Day
Wednesday, January 17th - Guiding Coalition @7:15 - Library
Friday, January 19th - Last day of semester 1/Last day of quarter 2
Monday, January 22nd - Semester/Quarter grades completed + Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Wednesday, January 31 - Professional Development - Behavior and Engagement focus
Lost and Found
Lost and Found
Mike and Tyler have organized all the lost and found from the first half of the year for students to sort through and and find their belongings. Please remind students during advisory to visit these items and take their belongings home. We will decide what to do with remaining items by the end of the week.
In many parts of the world it is a New Year's tradition to clean your homes and workplaces to have a fresh start to the new year. Thank you Mike and Tyler for helping the students reclaim some of their old items.
Stop the Bleed Training
Stop the Bleed Training
On Thursday, December 14th, Chris Jacks from the Lewiston Fire Department provided "Stop the Bleed" training for several staff members.
The following staff members particpated in this initial training and we will plan to get more staff members trained and aquire additional "Stop the Bleed" kits.
Aaron DeLane
Quinn Aldous
Justin Miller
Mike Renzelman
Heather Ohrtman-Rogers
Morgan LeBlanc
Elizabeth Davenport
https://www.stopthebleed.org/training/online-course/ - This link provides initial online training.
One interesting fact that was provided by Mr. Jacks during the training is that our county is one of the most armed counties in the nation. According to https://www.city-data.com/top2/co8.html Nez Perce county is ranked #3 in the nation.
January PD Days Focus
January PD Days Focus
We have 2 days of professional development in January which we will dedicate to developing our Pastoral Care/PBIS approaches along with developing student engagement initiatives.
Please have a look at the selected internal engagement charts we developed from our internal student engagement survey. Next week with department heads we will set our school goal for improving Student Engagement.
Waiting Area for Students at Whitman Elementary School
Waiting Area for Students at Whitman Elementary School
Before the break we had some issues with Jenifer students at Whitman Elementary School. A couple of students who were at the school to pick up siblings got into an altercation with some rocks being thrown ending up with a student needing to receive medical treatment. A few days later students were using inappropriate language at the school and being unruly to the point that required several suspensions.
All students will need to remain off the school site until elementary students are dismissed. Students not picking up siblings really have no business at the school. A joint letter from WHITMAN & JENIFER will be sent to parents this week explaining the same. We will add this announcement to our daily bulletin as well.
Technology integration update
Technology integration update
Next Monday we will have Go Guardian training for all teachers in the cafeteria from 3:00-3:30. We will work our way through the training modules so we can start using the system as soon as possible. Julian has shared the link to these modules previously, but here is the directions for you again for you to view:
Click this link: https://educators-hub.northpass.com/app
Sign up or sign in
Click "Resources"
Click "Go Guardian"
Scroll down to "Go Guardian Teacher Training Course"
Click "Enroll"
Work your way through the modules (You can do this at your own pace).
By this point you should have an email in your gmail getting you access. We will visit with teams before next Monday to make sure everyone will have access.
Additionally, we are working with IT to pilot wireless projection for our Chromebooks.
Security Camera requests
Security Camera requests
If there was an issue that you think needs to be reviewed by security cameras, please send that request through to Quinn or myself. Please refrain from sending these requests directly to Officer Kent.
We have some issues with our security cameras that we have asked IT to review.
Student of the month for december
Student of the month for december
Please nominate your students for the month of December by the end of this week so we can announce our students next Monday. Please remember to add a short description for why they were nominated. December was kindness and caring. Consider selecting students who really pushed with your door decoration competition or the fill the bus campaign.
January's charter trait is collaboration/team work.
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