Thursday Thriller
December 3, 2020
THANK YOU for playing along in yesterday's staff collaboration! A HUGE SHOUT OUT to BETH who coordinated and planned this event. WILL was the behind the scenes director AND to all of our SUSPECTS -Shannon, Agnes, Conor, Nate C, Armida and Caleb THANK YOU!!!
Who would have thought this gentle giant could be our killer?
NUTS-n-BOLTS
1. Virtual Assembly on Wednesday, December 16th. We will 'air' it at 11:30ish depending on once Will has it all together (15-20 mins max).
2. Wednesday, December 9th we will have a staff meeting right after collaboration at 3:00. A few of you have asked for some new strategies and/or tech ideas to 'spice up' what you are doing. We will have quick tutorials from Jen and Sue on a couple of things they are using. We will also discuss student attendance. Finally, we will touch upon weekly progress reports via email through Skyward. Don't quit reading yet :D I have some options and ideas other than weekly, which some of you are already doing, to communicate with families. The goal is twofold:
a) Consistent communication through Skyward as a platform for parents to use. A consistent message that "At GMS, we communicate with our families via email on academic progress every..... weekly, bimonthly, first Friday of every month (whatever we decide) )." Families who do not have email the office will call and find out if they have an active email and if not we mail the report OR we help sign them up for a Google email.
b) Yes, parents can look in Skyward any time they want to but they don't. Let's communicate accurate information. By collectively communicating with families on a consistent basis giving parents steady feedback.
3. Attendance -OSPI has guidelines that we need to adhere to. However, with that being said, I think we could agree that if a student logs in, camera off, muted and DOES NOT respond to MULTIPLE tries from the teacher THROUGHOUT the lesson, then that could be counted as an absence. Be thinking. We all agree we are not trying to be punitive. Rather we just want to hear and/or see students. We can finalize further on the 9th.
4. You are invited to the Lunch Bunch times. Didn't want to leave anyone out. Totally optional. If students ask, the link is in their email the night before. 7th graders should have received the link for tomorrow this afternoon.
5. Beginning on Monday, Reggie, Rigo and Nathan D are going to be 'on call' for families Mon-Thursday 6:00-7:00PM, Nathan Fridays from 3:15-4:15. Cesar is working on a postcard to send home, phone notification and email. Families will have a reoccurring Zoom link as well as Google voice numbers for all three gentlemen. These guys will have access to Skyward and your Google Classrooms to help families navigate. Please spread the word to your students.
6. Those of you participating in the Secret Santa hope it's going well! I got the best snacks on Monday! I ate the licorice in literally one day. Just saying!
7. We are going to communicate out to families again the importance of obtaining the Chromebook insurance. The drawback is the power cords are not covered by the insurance. Cords are $25. Families can do a payment plan. In order to receive a new cord, families have to sign the payment plan and put some money down; even a $1. Please send all inquiries to Kara and Jami. They will work with Armida on the paperwork. We would love to just hand students cords because we don't want them to miss out. However, there are procedures in place that are beyond Garrison that we must adhere to.
8. If students are having difficulty with their Chromebook, please send them to Kara and/or Jami. They will problem solve with the student, ask questions and then determine if they need a different Chromebook.
9. ZOOM BINGO-Amy K and Shannon have each gotten a Bingo!! Anyone else? Blackout? Let me know! I'm excited to award some prizes!
10. We had 50 plus 6th graders show up to Lunch Bunch! They were pretty cute and eager to participate.
SOMETHING TO PONDER
Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations
This is a one pager to ponder and reflect upon. Two that resonated with me were "Keep the gem statement front and center." Agreeing to disagree-the comment that keeps the relationship together.
"Be the midwife." You are influencing action. No matter how hard you try, talking the person through you aren't having the baby. How does this quote, "Be the midwife" help you think about your work with students? Teacher talk vs student talk.
Hope you find a gold nugget.
QUOTE
"Either you run the day or the day runs you." -Jim Rohn
Little Humor
