Weekly Forecast for December 18th-22nd

 Monday the 18th

Fire Drill @ 10:10

Tuesday the 19th

No Staff Meeting

Wednesday the 20th

6th Grade Kid Chat @ 8:20 (See Info Below)

Lunch Provided for Staff

Thursday the 21st

Festivus- Alternative Schedule 

Wear Ugly/Crazy Holiday Clothing &/or Pajamas

Friday the 22nd

Carnival- Alternative Schedule


Everyone take a deep breath. Warn your family that you may be a bit grumpy this week. Let's focus on how we will get through this week with smiles on our faces. I am working to switch my mindset and find joy in little things. Case in point,  I LOVE doing lunch duty because it allows me to talk to kids and get to engage with them in a positive way (most of the time). Anyway, a group of 7th graders  generally have their stuffies out on the table. We discuss them and I move on. Friday, I noticed the stuffies had clothing on. Come to find out a few of them sewed Hamilton costumes for the stuffies and they are working to outfit the entire cast. This is awesome! I love our student's creativity. I wish I had been able to embrace myself at this age. 



This is what I will choose to focus on this week. I want you to know I truly appreciate your presence and adaptability. 

  • We still don't have an answer about the 2nd. We were told Friday we should have an answer early next week. I did receive an email this morning (Sunday) and it is looking hopeful. I believe it is now going to the Superintendent. Stay tuned as you may need to get ready to mobilize. 
  • The new HVAC/Air Filtration system was installed on Friday. It took longer than anticipated, but it was a success. Today (Saturday), several people were working on electrical and HVAC systems. We are making progress!
  • Some teacher elves were in the building on Saturday packing up. Georgie and Elin have put some items that are up for grabs out on the lockers outside Georgie's room. Potential STEM items and more. Take a look. 
  • This week the Admin team will be meeting each morning to look at coverage for the day. As a reminder if you are out solid lesson plans should be ready to go and in the event of an emergency outage you should have those in place at this time. As your peers will likely have to pitch in and provide coverage please ensure you are doing your best to provide the best plans possible. Here are some guiding questions we will be using to determine coverage in the event we do not have a sub.
How many kids are in the class? In the event it is a small number of students we may decide to place kids in other classrooms/spaces for the period.
What periods do we need coverage for? We may parse out coverage to various staff members throughout the day. 
Who is available to provide coverage? PAT members without actual classes will be asked to cover this week. This would include: Dan Carpenter, Brenda Carpenter, Valerie Peacock. Admin will also likely be providing coverage as well. 
What about prep/PLC? As we have cancelled PLCs this week we may ask teachers to cover during their prep or PLC time. Please note you will not be asked to cover in both, but for example we have PLCs largely scheduled for 1st, 2nd and 3rd which would not afford us as much potential coverage in 5th, 6th and 7th. We may ask you to swap your prep period for your PLC time to provide coverage. Bottom line you will not be asked to provide coverage during both periods.
Can I be paid extra? Please note I think this is ridiculous, but we currently do not have a chart field to pay those who provide coverage during their prep etc. If we do ask for volunteers we will need to use general funds for tor this purpose. This adds up quickly. We will do this is we need to. Please let Leah know if you would be willing to forgo a prep period to provide coverage. 
Will we be asked to collapse/combine classes? Depending on student numbers this may happen. We are not going to add 15 kids to a class of 30. We will take into account the subject, the students, and numbers before we make these kind of decisions. 
Other supervision/needs- We do need to take into account that if we put all admin/support staff into classrooms this will mean there is no one to deal with behavior, crisis, etc. Again, our goal is to try to maintain calm and order and make this week as smooth as we possibly can. If all is calm admin will absolutely be in classrooms, but if all hell breaks loose this may not be manageable and we will have to relay on staff to provide coverage. 
Other things to note- I will be taking into account those staff members who are packing rooms and moving. We will do our best to tap into our other resources prior to impacting this group of staff members. Additionally, we will be tracking who we have used, how many times, etc. to spread things out as evenly as possible.  We want to keep at the forefront of our thought the greater good. We are stronger together. 

  • We are not putting any meetings on the calendar this week. The one exception is 6th Grade Kid Chat. We do have kids we need to discuss and make plans for upon our return to the building in January. Please be sure to fill out the form for any 6th grade students of concern in advance of the meeting (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1itlW-uLboDxwkCFfYYC9_hb7D2Itu3-QzPw3vXdkzok/edit#gid=0) . We ask if you put a student on the spreadsheet you attend the meeting. Additionally, we will share said document in the Morning Minute for Wednesday  and ask you to review if any student you teach is on the "docket" for the day. If so, you should attend. With that being said, this week we will start the actual kid chat at 8:40. We will use the first 20 minutes to fill out a SIT referral for a specific student. I will send invites separately for this. 

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