Mr. Browne's Precept
Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise. ~ Horace
Appreciation
I cannot find the words to convey how much I appreciate the role every one of you played in the smooth opening of school. In 25 years in education (darn I am old) I have not encountered people, as individuals and as a collective, that are as passionate, driven, committed, dedicated, determined, warm-hearted and open-minded as you are. What would have been catastrophic in some settings has been a blip for you. You are single-mindedly focused on your students. I see it when I am in your rooms.. watching you facilitate lessons. I observe it as you thoughtfully prepare your rooms thinking about what will work just right for your kids. You are special. Our learning community is special.
I can't wait to welcome our smallest bumblebees next week.
Book Recommendation
My commute is long and I listen to a lot of books. This week I am listening to "How to be an Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi. In many ways, this book is a counterpoint to my last recommendation "Between the World and Me". I find the blend of Mr. Kendi's personal stories, history lessons, logical assertions and arguments to create a compelling case for being an anti-racist.
Goals and TeachPoint
We have identified the CLT time the week of 9/16 as an opportunity to work on your goals and action plans in TeachPoint. If you have any questions about the platform please do not hesitate to come to see me. I have had several years of experience using the tool. I really think once you get used to it you will prefer it.
Huddles
It is my intention to use our Huddle time for operational issues and shout-outs. was brought to my attention that the team had discussed changing the time of Huddles when you were working on your EWTA. I have created a form so that you can share your opinion with me. Please complete the form by Friday 9/13/20.
Health Office- From BPS Health Services
BPS Health Services has made the following requests of how we access the health office:
- Please do not use the water in the health office. That should be reserved for students taking medication only. There are several water coolers on the first floor that are accessible to all.
- Please do not use the refrigerator in the health office. That should be used only for medication storage. You can store items in the refrigerator in my office. Fair warning, I will throw anything left in there out on Fridays.
- Please do not use the bathroom in the health office unless it is an emergency.
- We will move the microwave that is currently in the health office to the teachers' lounge.
- Please limit the amount of traffic in the health office so that its use is limited mainly to student foot traffic.
I also want to be clear that these requests are not coming from our new nurse Samantha who will be starting soon. They are coming directly from BPS Health services.
Central Office Point of View
The central office has been buzzy. They have provided me with a few items that they would like you and me to be aware of. I am linking those here:
Time off Requests
We are changing the way that we are handling your requests for time off. We will now be handling them electronically through ESS rather than completing the paper form as you have in the past. They have worked out the bug that would have made me hesitant to not have the paper redundancy. If you are sick we will continue to handle that the way it is outlined in the staff handbook. You will be expected to enter the time into ESS as soon as you are feeling up to it.
Required Reading
Please do not forget to complete your required reading of mandated items and the sign-off sheet to acknowledge that you have completed your homework.
Reading for Fun
I LOVE reading to classes. Please invite me in to read a story to your students. Though I have an awesome selection of children's books, I would ask that you choose to that it is one tied in with the curriculum and relevant to the learning that you are facilitating.
Literacy Reminders
BAS Guidance
It's BAS time again. Here is the 19-20 BAS Guidance document that lives on the drive. As always, please see Sarah if you would like to see an assessment modeled, do a side-by-side assessment, or talk through the scoring of an assessment. Don't hesitate to reach out!
Book Room
Thanks to the help of loads and loads of people, the book room has moved! It is now located in the Literacy Office in Room 201. The guided reading book bins are still organized by level against the wall as you walk in. The check out system is the same and the clothespins labeled with room numbers are by the door.
The guided reading bins are still under construction (lots of strays and some new sets to label and organize), but books are available for use and will be fully stocked and labeled by 10/4.
Additionally, our school big book collection is now in 201 and organized and labeled for school-wide use. We have quite a robust collection that includes storybooks, traditional literature, social studies and science topics, math concepts/counting books and some songs/rhymes books. There is also a collection of level A-I books that are GREAT for teaching early literacy concepts and some print features - everything from 1:1 matching, return sweep, dialogue, speech bubbles, bolded text, high-frequency words, etc. We also now have a "Professional Lending Library" with lots of great resources for literacy instruction. Included in that is a copy of "Read it Again!: Revisiting Shared Reading" by Brenda Parkes with has tons of great ideas for shared reading purposes and activities. There are also tons of Keri's old classroom poems in the literacy office that can be used for shared reading. For both the professional library and the big book collection, there will be a clipboard and sign out sheet to record what you've borrowed and when you return it. See Sarah with any questions!
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