Harrison Park Post

PAT members thank you for your presence at our staff meeting today. I am confident in our ability to move our students forward. Working at  Title, and now TSI school, is hard. You show up each day and are doing important work. Know that we will do this work together.  On that note, please feel free to ask questions about referrals, etc. As I mentioned, this request made me really take a look at my own practice in a good way. I know when I was writing referrals I often spent a LOT of time adding details I felt were important. As one of my journalism professors said....just the facts, Leah.  I will be in around 12:30 tomorrow as I am going on a walk through/feedback loop at Skyline K-8. If it snows at Skyline I will be here! I have this available for the first one to respond:  Pan Balance Scale

Thank you to everyone who kept things running today. I came in for a bit this morning before heading to NCI training. I will be in tomorrow.  Teacher if you have sub folders floating around your room please turn them back in to the office.  A reminder PAT members have a staff meeting @ 3:30 tomorrow. Please bring your devices. We will split between MS/K-5 at some point.  This was sent out earlier today, but I will repeat it: The parent deadline to apply for TAG is TOMORROW, Nov 29.  After tomorrow, parents will not be able to access the referral form, so if you are expecting a form to arrive, please reach out to those families and remind them it needs to be done TODAY. Teachers have until FRIDAY to complete their forms.  After Friday, teachers will not have access to the forms.    Teachers need to have the parents fill out their form FIRST.  The teacher fills out the teacher form after receiving a ping/prompt. MAP scores CANNOT be used as a w...

 Monday the 28th Leah @ NCI Training  Tuesday the 29th Picture Retake Day Staff Meeting @ 3:30  Wednesday the 30th Leah Out @ Instructional Rounds until around 12:30 ILCT @ 3:30 Thursday the 1st Safety Team Meeting @ 8:00 Friday the 2nd Leah @ Community Partner Quarterly Meeting until 12:00ish Lunch Service - Kempster, Brandt-Lazar, Jarvis I hope you all had a well deserved five days off. It is amazing how fast the time moves once Friday hits. I got up and started cleaning and preparing to host my dad's birthday dinner. I thought I would finish by 11:00, and would get to the Weekly Forecast but alas I am just now sitting down to finish it up. May the next three weeks will sail by! As I was looking over my calendar this week I see I am out of the building for several district obligations. I have noted those here.  Please take a moment to sign the thank you note for our PTA. They worked hard ensuring there was dinner and remained open all conference hours for the Book ...

The first day of conferences is under our belts. I want you to know I had several reasons to smile today! From a Thanksgiving feast, smiling parents and kids, our dedicated PTA and more. I am thankful for all of you.  Please note if you do not work the entire scheduled conference times,  8:30-8:00 today (or tomorrow), hours should be turned in. Monday and Tuesday are 12 hour days for PAT members.  If you have extended hours for last week please be sure to turn them in tomorrow. We are all making an effort to turn them in weekly! I want to give everyone a  big heads up as soon as possible. The building will be closed over Winter Break as they will be doing some work on floors and removing some of our lockers. This work will entail some asbestos abatement. The custodial staff will still be reporting to work, but all other staff should not be in the building after Friday December 16th. I will keep in touch with the contractors and if they finish up early will communicat...

 I hope you are rested up and ready to roll for conferences tomorrow. As I shared, I have a love hate relationship with conferences. They can be a lot of work to prepare for, emotional for all involved, but in the end are worth it.  It is with great sadness I share that Gladis DaRosa's husband passed away this weekend. Please keep her in your thoughts. She let me know she is open to calls, texts, etc. during this time. Feel free to reach out to her if you would like.  We will have a taco bar in the cafeteria starting at 4:00 tomorrow. Clean up will begin shortly after 5:00, so be sure to come between 4:00-5:00. It looks like we are finally getting movement on the heating issues in the building. Apparently, there were some heating elements on top of the roof that were turned off and needed turning on.....crazy that it took THIS long to figure out. They are continuing to work on issues and as I type this people are under the building looking into some other potential fixes....

 I will not be doing a Weekly Forecast for next week. I will send out a Nightly News on Sunday and Monday.  Thank you to everyone who stepped up to help out today. As you know I hate being out of the building.  Final push for conference calls tomorrow. As a reminder we will have dinner on Monday from 4-5. 

Some of you may have been visited by the district TSEL team today. Originally, we were one of many schools working with the district around social emotional learning. As the commitment to this cohort became more clear I made the decision to put this work on hold for the year. Much of this decision was made because I did not want to add additional work to anyone this year and as we make shifts next year some of this work may be abandoned based on leadership. I had the walk through date on our calendar for some time and when I officially backed out two weeks ago was under the assumption this would not take place and that today would be a fairly informal visit.That being said, the entire team showed up and we welcomed them. Emily and I met with the team prior to their classroom visits and met again when they were done for a few minutes.They visited seven classrooms total today.  Please know this work is not evaluative and feedback given will not be  identified by c...

 Thank you Laura Jenness and Xiaolan Zhang for helping out at our DLI Parent Meeting. I also want to thank Xiaolan for stepping in to intepret at the last minute.  Please let me know if you have any burning conference questions. We will work on having finalized info out by Friday before the end of the day.  If you see students coming in without coats in the morning please try to ask if they need one. I know some students have coats, but just choose not to wear one. We do have students who actually need coats and if there is a need there we would like to try and find resources for them. I would appreciate it if we kept our eyes peeled for students who really need a coat. If you feel there is a need please let Ruth Howard, Ana Kennedy or Lindsay Alex know.  I saw there is a Happy Hour planned at the bar attached to the Observatory on Friday @ 3:30. Please take some time to relax this weekend before conferences!

The district sent several people out today to look into the heat issue. I spoke with Dr. Omogbehin this morning as well. I have sent optional spaces for those in the coldest rooms to take their classes, but realize this is less than ideal. Please continue to communicate any concerns to me. Again, I am regularly taking this to the district.   From Kenneth: Hey good afternoon everyone, With thanksgiving week coming up right around the corner. I wanted to ask everyone to please let me know of any lingering tech issues in your rooms, If any. I'm specifically looking for AV issues with our projectors, AV systems, airtames etc... But please let me know of any tech issues you may be experiencing via this Marvelous Form  . Please fill it out whenever you have time Thank you everyone https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8gE_iQNw0g0pknThDgeKBAMC51bVX089lPgTHZjEYggRohg/viewform PAT members should report to the library at 3:30 tomorrow for our staff meeting. Emily and I have ...

Monday the 14th Tuesday the 15th Staff Meeting @ 3:30 DLI Parent Meeting @ 6:00 Wednesday the 16th Garden Thursday the 17th Leah @ Leadership Friday the 18th Lunch Service- Schulze, Cardwell, DaRosa I want to give a huge bow of gratitude to Ron and Valerie for spearheading Apple Harvest. I am so thankful for all of our staff members that showed up on Thursday evening to make this event happen for students and families. There was a large turn out and the night went smoothly. Kids and families were happy and it was a big reminder of the diversity and vibrancy of this amazing community. Director Julia Brim-Edwards stopped by and I absolutely shared this was all my staff. Thank you everyone!  We will meet briefly on Tuesday to go over some items/pointers around conferences. PLCs this week will be time for you to prepare for conferences as well.  K-5 report cards should have gone home on Thursday. At this point all families should have a scheduled conference on the spreadsheet. K-5...

Tomorrow is what may be our last Apple Harvest. This event begins at 5:00 and runs until 7:00. Valerie, Elin and Ron have spent time organizing and we are hoping for a great turn out. All staff are welcome to come and support!  We are looking for a paper cutter. Daniela currently has one in the art room that is hardly functioning. It needs to be retired. I am reaching out in hopes of finding one in the building that is stuffed in a closet or drawer somewhere and could be given to our art room for daily use before  we purchase a new one. Please let her, or me know if you have one you are willing to part with.  Just an FYI I was in meetings pretty much all day. I am behind in responding to emails and will work on this tomorrow as I can and over the weekend. 

Just as a reminder we will have several K-8 principals and Karl Logan in the building tomorrow from 8:30-12:00. We will be using the conference room and visiting several classrooms. I will reach out to those teachers separately, but please note we may stop into other classrooms as well. Emily and I will be available for emergencies only during this time.  Danelle will be out tomorrow.  Bravo to our AVID students who lead tours for prospective students this evening. I was impressed with there professionalism and work. Thank you Ms.Brenner for ensuring the crew was ready to row.  It is supposed to be cold this week. Please remind students to take coats etc. with them to recess.  I am currently not highly mobile. I am making every effort to be here and available to respond to needs, etc. but will be reliant on others a bit more. Thank you for your patience.  Rebecca from OSU Nutrition asked us to share this with you at today's staff meeting, but since we will be in...

 What.a.day. I want to thank you all for your patience and work today. As I have shared, I get anxious anytime I am not in the building and find it hard to focus. Today, I was thankful the training was just down Division and I could get back to the building quickly. The district was very responsive and sent someone from Security Services since Herk was out. The Portland Police stationed a sergeant in the front lot. The police and Security Services communicated with me several times. Shannon was able to get messaging out to parents very quickly and the district followed up with more information later. It was even translated fairly quickly. That being said, I felt we were secure and students and staff were safe in the building. I appreciate you all remaining calm.  The fire alarm was not a pull. A sensor in the cafeteria was triggered. We are not sure of the why, but we do know it was not a student pulling it. In those situations we have the ability to identify the location of t...

Monday the 7th First Day of Quarter 1 Leah Out @ NCI Training SIT 3:30-4:30 Tuesday the 8th Staff Meeting (Cadres) Building Tours 4:00-5:30 Wednesday the 9th Instructional Rounds @ Harrison Park 8:30-12:00 Garden PTA Meeting 6:00-7:00 Thursday the 10th Apple Harvest 5:00-7:00/Cider Making During Day Optional Conference Meeting- 8:00 in Library Friday the 11th No School-Veteran's Day Lunch Service- Schulze, Cardwell, DaRosa After our beautiful October, the cold November rains have definitely settled in. I hope you found Friday productive and it gives you the boost you need to get through the next few weeks.   The report card window closes tomorrow at midnight (Monday). Please be sure you have met this deadline. K-5 teachers report cards should go home on Friday. I would like to have consistency on this so please do not send them out prior to this. Also, please make sure if you have not scheduled a conference time with families that you assign one to them and send it home with r...

 Tomorrow is a work day for all staff . I asked last week for people to reach out if they had any questions.  I will be back in the building after 12:00 after a presentation @ Faubion.  Report card window closes Monday at midnight. Please be sure to have your report cards completed before them. As a reminder K-5 teachers will send these home on Friday. Tomorrow would be  a great day to work on inputting conferences into the conference spreadsheet!

There are only 12 more school days left before conferences. I have asked our veteran teachers to reach out to newer staff members to check in and see if they have questions or need support around scheduling appointments and managing all the tasks associated with conferences. Information went out last week letting staff know that securing translators will be a significant issue this year and we want to secure them ASAP. Looking over the K-5 conference schedules this morning there are many staff members who have either not updated this document or have not scheduled conferences yet. Here is the link for this purpose:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11exDXKs1dusWTeZghCScLFqE55tf0Ut9sKtKKD0zkkI/edit?usp= We will be providing time during PLCs in the coming weeks as well as time at our November 15th staff meeting (approximately an hour) for conference prep.  Normal prep should be utilized for this purpose in conjunction with the additional time provided.  We will hold a...

Please note that Shannon, or I,  cannot use the P-Card to make purchases on anyone's personal accounts. For example if you wanted to order something from Home Depot we could not have you send us your link and pay for it using the P-Card. All purchases have to be made on a Harrison Parks specific account OR the employee can pay for it and be reimbursed .   MS Arts Performance 3-5 Assembly 2:30-3:00 tomorrow. Be sure to review the expectations. As a reminder Emily is out tomorrow.