Morning Minute for December 1st

IT is Friday. I am thankful for this week with you all. 

• ILT met this morning and we decided upon conference dates. The district originally had the 11th and 12th as designated dates and allowed buildings to determine the other two nights. They have changed this to just the 11th as a mandated date with the other three dates being decided by buildings. Conferences will run after a full day of teaching from 4:30-7:30 to allow for a 30 minute dinner break. Please make any arrangements needed in regards to childcare etc. We will discuss this more as a staff next Tuesday. 

• We have not been able to finalize our grades. We hope to do this in the morning. As was sent out yesterday, if a student comes to you and is not on your attendance please send them to the counselors. The counselors will reach out to you to let you know that this may be because they will EVENTUALLY be in your class when we can make changes. We will begin making some adjustments for students who need to be split up, larger classes, interventions, etc. as soon as we can. We will not allow students to make schedule change requests until this work is completed. We will communicate the process for this to students next week. 

• I know there are some HOT rooms and some COLD rooms. I have contacted our FAM (Facilities Area Manager) and asked for this to be addressed. I have asked Tino to have the heat on in the morning and if it we have exceptionally warm rooms we will turn it off for a bit and then turn it back on as needed. Not the best solution, but hopefully it alleviates some extremely warm rooms in the afternoon. On another note here is some information I received from the district:   As many of you are aware, the strike has impacted our contractors' ability to promptly address maintenance requests, particularly related to HVAC systems. While we strive to maintain seamless operations, the contractors have chosen not to cross the picket line out of respect for the strike.

  The contractors have resumed their services, and we currently have eight HVAC technicians actively addressing 275 work orders across our schools. In order to manage these efficiently, we have established a prioritization scheme to ensure urgent issues are addressed promptly. Besides extreme safety issues (carbon monoxide/gas leaks, electrical sparking/arcing), the prioritization is as follows:

  1. Boiler(s) not operational / Entire Building No Heat

  2. Section or wing of a building with no heat

  3. Leaks that can't be contained or pose a safety hazard

  4. Multiple rooms with no heat

  5. Individual rooms with no heat or are too cold, categorized by school level:

  1. K-5/Head Start

  2. CSI/TSI/Title

  3. Middle Schools

  4. High Schools

  6. Entire buildings overheating / Entire wings that are overheating

  7. Individual rooms that are overheating, categorized by school level:

  1. K-5/Head Start

  2. CSI/TSI/Title

  3. Middle Schools

  4. High Schools

•  If you have any extra picture packets you haven't handed out please send them to the office.  We are missing a few student picture packets.  Lifetouch sent them bundled by 1st period classes so it wasn't ideal for distribution.  

• Hot dogs and buns are up for grabs for anyone who would like to use them for your classes for a reward etc. Let Regina know if you are interested. 

• Lanyard expectations will be outlined in a slide on Monday. We will be going over more details on how they can be adapted, worn, etc. Again, our goal was to get them out and then begin to fine tune things. 

• You may be seeing some Panther Pride being doled out by Regina, Spencer me. These tokens of appreciation should be turned in by staff in the box located in the main office. We will hold a drawing December 15th.  Please take a look at some of the prizes listed on said box (i.e. coffee delivery, lunch, coverage for one period). 

• We did not connect that we no longer have a gym available during quarter two for 6th grade recess. We will be working on indoor recess plans for upcoming inclement weather days. 

• There is some dialog taking place around lockers and their usage. This week and next will be part of our soft start. We did ask for input back in early October around whether or not we would expect backpacks to be kept in lockers, if kids had to use them etc. and did not receive a lot of input. With that being said, we will discuss more at our staff meeting Tuesday. We will begin to finalize protocols. I can say I spoke with several other PPS middle schools around their locker protocols and there are some different expectations around the district, but largely usage is not required.