Week of 4/20 - 4/24

Hey Panda Family,

Week 32 & Week 5 Online. Although the news from the State was disappointing on Friday, it is what is best to help us fight this pandemic and keep everyone safe. It is our goal to make the rest of the year personal and impactful for our students and families. We have ideas for virtual award ceremonies, virtual field day, and much more. We will keep you posted! Keep smiling, keep loving, and keep working hard. So proud of everyone! 🐼 

Staff Meeting: We will have a virtual Staff Meeting this Friday, May 1 @ 2:00. 

School Closure: In response to Governor Cooper's announcement on Friday that schools will be closed for in-person instruction for the remainder of the year - we will be making a plan and following the school district's guidance in next steps (returning student's personal items, completing end of the year tasks, preparing rooms for summer cleaning, etc.)  

Updates from our Staff Meeting last week:

• Your grade level/department SIT representative will be reaching out to you to work on Action Steps that will help us prepare for next school year (Math Fact Fluency levels, Grade Level at a Glance, Vertical Alignment Slides, Vocabulary/SIOP Strategies, etc.)

• The State is voting this week on procedures for handling teacher evaluations and completing PDPs. More information to come when it is released. 

• There have been some cuts and changes to certain positions. These are decisions that have been made by the district. I will be having conversations this week with staff members that are impacted by these decisions.

• We will begin to have conversations with staff members regarding grade level changes for next year. There will also be some movement of physical classrooms. All of these decisions are based on what is best for our students. 

Updates from District Office:

• Here is an updated list of online Professional Development sessions that you can participate in being offered by the school district. See the list here - Offerings

• Grading Update from the State - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tep75RTXtaU9wStLSMlIDJp8VoF3sIJ6

• Final grades for K-5 will be a narrative report card only.
• See the template below: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19JQ5gRfvPZFF4d9DIpcyXwuwp7IrdudY
• More direction will come from district in the upcoming weeks

Priority Standards: The district wants all grade levels to focus solely on "Priority Standards" for 4th Quarter eLearning. These standards have been selected by the district as the most important standards for instruction as we prepare students for their next grade. Here is a list of the "Priority Standards" for each grade level in this document.

Morning Announcement Links:
Monday (4/27): https://youtu.be/EbjWPfIzZJM  
Tuesday (4/28): https://youtu.be/14ZAO2SkDm8
Wednesday (4/29): https://youtu.be/ytpDVKXPyX4
Thursday (4/30): https://youtu.be/ARmB5Yddt6I
Friday (5/1): https://youtu.be/IZJyeoe5p-4

Work From Home Logs: Please complete and turn in your Work From Home logs to Ms. Willis by the end of the day on Monday. 

Field Trips 2020-2021: As we look ahead to next school year, start talking to your team about field trips. Reach out to organizations to get dates and then let Ms. Gardner know so she can request buses.  Remember, October is a popular month and dates get blocked quickly. Reach out to Ms. Gardner if you have questions. 

Daily Assignments: As discussed, please make sure your PSL page Elearning assignments are broken down into daily requirements (Monday do..., Tuesday do..., etc.). 

FLEX Fridays: Reminder, there will be “FLEX” Friday each week. During the remainder of this school closure, students will only be assigned academic work Mondays-Thursdays, allowing Fridays to be used as a flexible day to engage in fun, leisure, building/strengthening social-emotional connections, and catching up on previously assigned work and/or connecting with teachers for additional support. See the eLearning Instructional Guidance document for FLEX Friday resource to attach to your PSL page.

Staff Spotlight: Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for helping our report cards get completed, stuffed, and delivered on time!

Thank you to all our support staff for finding lots of creative ways to support our students - virtual field trips, recording interventions, tutoring Imprints students, recording read alouds, and so much more! 

We are so proud of everyone! 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: If you have not been in the spotlight, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/ZsPnzqoJEVZQ6pDJ8 and email or text Mrs. Jones the photo you'd like her to use with your post at your convenience. All staff are eligible and this is making a nice collection on Facebook that will all be stored in an album.

IF Updates

PLTs: We will be in touch in the coming week about our next PLT meetings and the agenda for those meetings. 

Upcoming Dates:

May 1 - Virtual Staff Meeting @ 2:00 on MS Teams

Some good tunes below to help us through this. Keep smiling, laughing, and spreading joy 😊

Week of 4/13 - 4/17

Hey Panda Family,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Spring Break! Although most of us had not originally planned to spend Spring Break the way we did this past week, my hope is that it was still rewarding and relaxing for you. This past month has really reminded me to be grateful for all the blessings and small things in my life 😊 And to embrace new ways to stay entertained - like letting your 2-year old paint your finger nails! 💅

Lot of updates for this week. Please make sure to read until the end. Thanks! 

Staff Meeting: Virtual Staff Meeting this Friday, April 24 @ 2:00. Will send out a MS Teams link. 

Grading Update Continued (same info from last week's Weekly Wrap): 

• Teachers may add eLearning work to help improve third quarter grades only, teachers will need to physically change the date of any of the e-assignments to 3/13/2020 for them to count in the calculation for 3rd quarter.  Teachers need to recalculate the grade for 3rd Quarter
• Any eLearning assignments you don't move to 3rd Quarter will count towards 4th Quarter grades

The 2019-2020 3rd Quarter report cards will be mailed to all students. This will help ensure that families receive the feedback from their child’s work during the 3rd Quarter. In addition to report cards, you will need to send IEP progress reports to your EC students in this mailing. If you have students that are at-risk of failing a grade (based on academic performance during the 1st-3rd quarter), please send home your typical communication with these report cards as well. 

All report cards will be mailed centrally through our district mailroom and postage will be paid from district funds. In order to complete this in a timely manner, please use the timeline below:

April 20 Teachers have grades finalized and provide “Grade Verification Report” to Data Manager

April 22 Data Managers complete grades and print report cards, EC Teachers provide IEP progress reports to Data Manager

April 22-23 Essential staff (Principal, AP, Data Manager, etc) who are able to work in schools to stuff envelopes (#10), label, and prepare mailings practicing social distancing guidelines

Letters are delivered by school staff member to mailroom (lower level of Education Building) for postage by 3 pm 4/23

April 24 Report cards are mailed

Grading Updates Info Session: The district will be holding optional information sessions to update and answer questions from staff regarding third and fourth quarter grades on Monday, April 20th. Please find the link below for a Microsoft Team Meeting for these optional sessions. You only need to attend one session. 

9:00 am-  Elementary and Middle School Session -Join Microsoft Teams Meeting

1:00 pm- Elementary and Middle School Session- Join Microsoft Teams Meeting 

Report Card Instructions: Please make sure to check the emails sent last week from Ms. True regarding report cards. She has outlined important directions that she needs each homeroom teacher to follow. 

Priority Standards: The district wants all grade levels to focus solely on "Priority Standards" for 4th Quarter eLearning. These standards have been selected by the district as the most important standards for instruction as we prepare students for their next grade. Here is a list of the "Priority Standards" for each grade level in this document.

FLEX Fridays: Beginning this week, there will be “FLEX” Friday each week. During the remainder of this school closure, students will only be assigned academic work Mondays-Thursdays, allowing Fridays to be used as a flexible day to engage in fun, leisure, building/strengthening social-emotional connections, and catching up on previously assigned work and/or connecting with teachers for additional support. See the eLearning Instructional Guidance document for FLEX Friday resource to attach to your PSL page.

Morning Announcement Links:
Monday 4/20 - https://youtu.be/pXyfW3YV1zQ
Tuesday 4/21 - https://youtu.be/RnVlyk85u7Y
Wednesday 4/22 - https://youtu.be/A1T2M7vOmCY
Thursday 4/23 - https://youtu.be/SadHArmhBdU
Friday 4/24 - https://youtu.be/y4KERONn5kk

Virtual SIT Meeting: SIT will meet via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday, April 21 @ 2:00.

Field Trips 2020-2021: As we look ahead to next school year, start talking to your team about field trips. Reach out to organizations to get dates and then let Ms. Gardner know so she can request buses.  Remember, October is a popular month and dates get blocked quickly. Reach out to Ms. Gardner if you have questions. 

Book It! Registration for 2020-2021: Interested in rewarding students for their reading outside of school?  Pizza Hut's Book It! program allows you to do just that.  Set a goal for your students (either a specific number of books or minutes each month) and reward them with a coupon for a free personal pan pizza when they reach their goal.  Their parents help them keep up with the minutes at home.  Your job is to set the goal and give out the rewards!

You can enroll for the online program or the traditional paper program.  You must enroll yourself in the program this year (in the past one person would enroll those interested).  Sign up here: https://www.bookitprogram.com/bookit_enrollment/form/enrollment

Daily Assignments: As discussed, please make sure your PSL page Elearning assignments are broken down into daily requirements (Monday do..., Tuesday do..., etc.). 

Virtual Career/Transfer Fair (from HR): We want to ensure our students have the very best district employees to support their growth so we are going to move from an in-person to a virtual career fair!  We will host a virtual career fair for teachers, operations and central office staff on Saturday, April 25, from 10am-2pm. More details to come! 

Retention: Any considerations for retention need to be shared with me and Ms. Gardner. I am seeking guidance from our Instructional Superintendent, Mr. Hall, on how retention will look considering the current circumstances. 

Staff Spotlight: Thank you to Ms. Epperley who is working hard to update our school website! It is looking great :) 

Teacher Tuesday Spotlight: Our school Facebook page is highlighting a teacher each week! Our spotlight this past week was Ms. Keller. Check it out! 

IF Updates

iReady webinars are available to help all K-5 teachers learn more about how to use the program during this time.  Check those out here. 

Istation updates: Here is a summary of the new Istation contract that went into affect earlier this month.  I am a member of a listerve that sends out these updates and I am happy to pass along more information if you are interested.  

Upcoming Dates:

April 21 - SIT Meeting @ 2:00 via MS Teams
April 24 - Staff Meeting @ 2:00 via MS Teams
April 25 - Virtual District Career/Transfer Fair 10:00 - 2:00

Thought you and your students may enjoy this. Click the video link below to see a Live Panda Cam from a zoo in China 🐼