Honey-Do List
9/21/20 Add Jodi as a co-teacher to your Google Classroom or Seesaw account
9/30/20 Share your bathroom and handwashing schedule with Jodi
9/30/20 Enter notes from all family meetings and tech and wellness checks into Panorama.
Important Links
Family needs Chromebook repair- Call school
The Neighborhood
There has been a recent uptick in violence in our neighborhood. You may have seen the news stories. This reached a crescendo today when some of our colleagues were outside with families doing their family meetings. I want to thank the teachers who did the right thing and calmly escorted the families into the building and continued like nothing had happened. Today made me realize how useless active shooter drills are. We lived it, in real-time and everyone did exactly the right thing. I am no longer amazed at how great our Lee Academy family is now I am just saying we are blessed to have each other.
Panorama and Family Meetings
You need to log all of your family visits and technology "checks" in Panorama this year by September 30th.
Please check off both the Tech and Wellness Check and Home Visit boxes. Please refer back to the Panorama MTSS presentation if you need support.
Things Left to Do in the Building to Prepare for 10/1
Furniture: All furniture that was left in the hall has been moved to storage. Please do not remove anything from storage unless you ask me. I had asked people to NOT move furniture into the hall because it was a potential issue with the Fire department. We left some furniture in strange places!
Bathroom & Sink Schedule: Over the course of the next two Wednesdays could you please work with the grade level sharing your bathroom to work out a bathroom and sink schedule. I was going to do it but I realized you know your schedules the best when you will have the kids in front of you. The maximum occupancy for most bathrooms is 2 students at a time. This is because of the number of sinks. The number of students in a bathroom should not exceed the number of sinks. Students should not be traveling in the building unaccompanied.
- Grades 1 & K2 Bathroom downstairs by the science room and sink outside of 106
- Grades 3 & 2 Upstairs bathroom
- K0/K1 Yellow Bathroom and sink outside of 103
Signage: I need to create occupancy signs for the bathrooms, directional cues, and one-way signs for hallway traffic patterns. We need to spraypaint the social distancing flowers on the outside surfaces. For socially distanced lines at the playground, there will be plastic circles available that you can place on the ground 6 feet apart for students.
Playground: Given the number of students in each cohort we should be able to safely use the playground. Teachers should bring their bottle of hand-sanitizer with them and sanitize on the way in and again on the way out.
Morning Duty Starting 10/1
Please read this document to see our morning entry procedures and duty stations.
Some Highlights:
- Beginning 9/21 all staff will be required to enter through the front door.
- All people entering the building will sanitize at the station in the entryway.
- Visitors will be stopped prior to entering the building and asked what their purpose is for entering the school.
- During morning arrival Sarah will perform this duty. Zoraida will perform this duty for the remainder of the day.
- Visitors will not be admitted into the building if it is not essential that they do so.
- Visitors will not be allowed in the building beyond the office.
- The central staircase will be for staff use only.
Who Can Go Where and When
We received guidance from the District about how non-classroom teachers could travel within the building. Here is the spreadsheet that details varying roles and people's movement within the classroom environment. This may be helpful for everyone to be on the same page.
Sanitation Stations
Please place your sanitation materials all together in a location near your door where they are visible so the custodian could easily see them if they need to be replenished. If you are running low on any supplies please let Zoraida know so she can inform Bill. Here is a picture of what they could look like:
Fans
John installed fans in everyone's window today they are all in reach of an outlet. All you need to do is plug them in that are all set to on. They are exhaust fans pushing the air out for circulation. You may still use your box fans in your window if you would like to increase air circulation in beyond just having the window open.
Mask Breaks
We are not going to have a formal schedule for mask breaks because they will happen at natural points during the day. Mask breaks should always occur outside of the school building (except for K0/K1 rest time). Lunch, recess, snack, extra exploration outside are all opportunities for students to have a break from their mask.
Clear Masks
Paula made a connection with some enterprising BLS students that have put together a service project of making clear masks. Here is their webpage Paula also passed on a picture of their product so we could see it:
I thought that this might be of interest to many of you!
SeeSaw and Google Classroom Co-teacher
Please add me to your Google Classroom or SeeSaw as a co-teacher by the end of the day on Monday. I am looking forward to seeing kids too!
Seesaw Directions from the District
For Educators:
Teachers should login with Clever and must use the Clever created classroom - This is the most recently added class. Watch video example (CC).
Please re-send any family invitations through this Clever created class. Existing invitations sent from other classes will not link families to the correct class.
Teachers or admins can rename the Clever-created class as needed. Hint - if you are a homeroom teacher (not a specialist), rename your class with a “ . “ before the name.
If you created any classes before September 16, 2020, please archive them. All non-Clever classes will be automatically archived on Monday 9/21 if not done so already.
Teachers can add up to 20 co-teachers to their classes in Seesaw, such as a paraprofessional.
For Families:
All students should access Seesaw through Clever - this will automatically connect them to their teacher and class. Watch video example (CC).
Seesaw Class is the application students will use. This is where they will see assigned activities and respond with their home learning work.
Seesaw Family is for families and should be set up on a personal device, not the student’s Chromebook, if possible. Teachers can send family invites to connect family members to their child’s account. Find out how here.
Other Notes and Resources:
Seesaw Help Doc has captioned videos, slides, trainings, and contact information.
The Office of Special Education will be offering Seesaw to some substantially separate classrooms grades 7-12. More information will be coming in the next week.
Chromebook Assignments
As of 9/15 161 of our 187 students have assigned devices. That is 86% of our students. Way to go team in getting the info out to families. We currently have 12 families on the waiting list. I am hoping that the remaining 15 will reach out to us during your home visits.
From Mark Racine:
There's a bit of misinformation going around that I want to clear up regarding Chromebook numbers. The first delivery that you're receiving this week is the available inventory that our vendor has shipped to us so far. We placed an order for 40,000 Chromebooks (in addition to the 20,000 that were purchased in March) and these are being delivered to BPS in phases.
The manufacturer (Acer) has confirmed that they have the next shipment of 20,000 en route to us and we expect that delivery very soon. I will share an exact date as soon as I have one but there are a lot of variables that could shift dates. You may have read on the news about delays in Chromebook orders that are impacting many districts and these issues may impact our shipments.
We placed our order for Chromebooks early and they are on the way but I know you are all anxious for more! Since we are tracking all assignments in One2One Manager, there's no need to request more devices! We are also tracking your needs within One2One.
Some schools have asked if they can purchase additional Chromebooks - please note that current shipping dates for Chromebooks ordered today will likely be after January. If you hear of staff trying to fundraise for Chromebooks, please let them know that this is not necessary and may not be effective since new orders will be months from now.
As soon as we have a delivery date from our distributor, we'll send an update so you know how many to expect and when!
If you have a family that needs a Chromebook please have them fill out this form. We will contact them as soon as their Chromebook is ready.
Headphones
From Mark Racine: I have some good news and some GREAT news about headphones! Our distributor is providing customized shipping to expedite the process and will start delivering to schools, starting the week of the 28th. This first order is going to be a pair of headphones for each special education and ELL student in your school.
Now for the great news (and the reason why I said that was the first order). We have been trying to find external funding for headphones for all students and I received confirmation today our funding came through! This means that you'll receive a second shipment with additional headsets so that all students can have a headset. I don't have an exact shipping date for the second shipment but I'll send an update when I have more information.
Here is the exact model of headphones but don't pay attention to the price...our pricing is almost half of what is listed on this website.
Balanced Assessment System
From the Office of Data & Accountability:
In Boston Public Schools, we are building a comprehensive and balanced assessment system. This system has the fewest assessments possible, each with a clearly defined and understood purpose, that will allow educators to make informed culturally-responsive instructional decisions. There is an acknowledged tension that educators are experiencing with the need to break down systems of oppression and the fact that assessments can be tools of those systems. We need to both upend systems of oppression and at the same time ensure students receive the skills, knowledge, and understandings that will allow them to become who they want to be.
Therefore, we seek to balance standardized formative assessments, like the BPS interims, with adaptive assessments, like the MAP assessments, and classroom assessments, like authentic assessment, lesson-embedded assessment, and performance tasks. Student performance on these different types of assessment allows for insight into who the student is as a learner. Given the varied academic experiences students have had during school closure, it's important now more than ever that we have a clear picture of what each student knows and is able to do. A comprehensive assessment system is integral to the development of each student's "academic portrait."
Donors Choose
Congratulate Lindsay, Kathryn, and Rose they each had a Donors Choose Project funded with the past two weeks.
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