Welcome Back!

Tuesday, 9/5        A Day    First Day of School!!!

• No a.m. recess scheduled - classroom recess expectations to be modeled/shared with students by teacher (15 minutes, whenever it works for your schedule, prior to lunch recess).
• Classrooms may establish lunch seating in a.m., prior to 10:35. Table assignment sheets are in your mailboxes. You can access the shared Google Doc here as well.  Tables will be down.
• Recesses will be covered by support staff for the first week.
• Dismissal 3:48 p.m.  All onsite staff is asked to assist with dismissal procedures during the first week of school.  It is likely that buses will be running late.

Wednesday, 9/6  B Day

Thursday, 9/7 C Day

• Classrooms practice fire drill procedures (on own)

Friday, 9/8  D Day

• Specials schedule change requests due, 8:15 a.m. Our hope is to ensure a solid schedule for the second week of school and beyond

Upcoming Dates to Know
(not all inclusive, just big ones to note)

Sep 12        Elementary Back to School Night
*Walk-a-Thon forms sent home with families

Sept 18 PTO Meeting 12:00pm
Boy Scouts in the lunchroom 11:45-12:35

Sept 20        1 hour Late Start

                 

Sept 27        1 hour Late Start

Oct 2 Walk-a-Thon begins

Oct 4         1 hour Late Start

        Student Count Day

Oct 11        1 hour Late Start

Oct 20 Walk-a-Thon ends

Oct 12 & 13    ½ Days Elementary only (Parent Teacher Conferences)

Please prioritize students who are at-risk academically or social emotionally and those who are new to the district.  The rest can wait until November.

Oct 27    Donuts with Dads 7:15-8:15

Happy New School Year!    

I can't wait for us to get started on our mission to "prepare today's child to meet tomorrow's challenges". Tuesday's building workshop and staff meeting will be just the start! Our time together will focus on developing a strong culture in which we will work collaboratively to ensure that all students learn at high levels. And, the great gift of working directly with Nicole Vagle on Wednesday and Thursday will be the catalyst we've been looking for to propel our standards mapping and rethink assessments. You will not be disappointed!

To protect our times together for conversations about what matters most (our students!), we will use this blog each week to communicate the "nuts and bolts" of our work at Brown. Please consider it our consent agenda - meaning that we've all taken the time to read blog and understand the routine elements that are part of our work together as the Brown School staff. Our goal is to have it updated every Friday so that you can have the information you need to plan for the following week. Don't forget to read the Brown School News blog that we publish every week for families so that you are in the loop.

With that in mind, here's the news and information you need to get our new year off to a great start! Thanks for reading along. They won't always be this long, I promise!


New Faces at Brown
We have several staff changes this year with the addition of:
Hilary Smodic- Kindergarten
Amber Nowicki-Third Grade
Becky Lokey- Third Grade
Ben Jager- P.E.
Jen Berry- Media Center Aide

Our Six Day Cycle

The six day cycle has a new look and feel this year thanks in large part to the work of a joint committee of teachers and administrators who met several times last year to consider the needs of our programs and our staff.    After careful study, it was determined that a six day cycle is still the way to go to ensure continuity and learning equity for our students with regard to the art, music and P.E. curriculums.  The administrators solicited input from the committee members regarding possible areas of improvement to our cycle.  

This year’s schedule is being crafted with these suggestions in mind, including minimizing impact on planning time loss caused by our late starts, establishing common planning time for every teaching team, and spreading sections out more evenly over the six days for itinerant teachers.  While there is never a perfect solution, we believe that this year’s schedule addresses many of the concerns from the past.  We look forward to sharing it with you when you return next week.

ItsLearning Update from Amy Dirlam

Your 2017-18 itsLearning courses will be populated sometime after August 25th.  In the meantime, you can continue to work in last year’s course, updating and changing anything you would like.  Once the new courses populate from Power School, I will send detailed directions on how to move last year’s content to this year.  The process is VERY EASY, so feel free work in your old course if you would like to do so.  

We will continue to use itsLearning as our primary communication tool with parents and students this school year.  Plans are in place to better educate parents on how to access the content, and we will be sharing those at Back-to-School Night.  Expectations for teachers will be the same as last year:  a welcome/class home page and weekly updates via the planner or a link in the planner to your home page.  There are many, many additional possibilities for using itsLearning beyond a communication tool, and I look forward to exploring those with you this school year.  Rest assured, however, we will not be adding any additional expectations for using the program this year, and we look forward to improved usage by our parents and students.

Ice Cream Social

Our students and families are excited to meet you at the annual Ice Cream Social!  The event begins at 6:00.  We will have your grade level area set up and ready for you on the playground.  You’ll need a clipboard and class list - Kathy will have copies in your box for you.  Please keep track of attendance.   At the social, you can anticipate collecting these things from the families:

• Week one transportation forms (please keep these!)
• Emergency contact information forms
• Free and Reduced Lunch Forms

Please do not accept any medication, medication forms or allergy / asthma action forms!  Parents should drop those items off directly in the office and make contact with Kathy.

Yellow Transportation cards and lunch deposits should be handled by the parents. They may need a reminder to drop them off at the respective tables.

Before leaving after the social is over, please alphabetize emergency forms and return them with any other materials to the labeled collection bin in the office.

New Family / Kindergarten Orientation

All of our new students and their families are invited to come to school from 5:30-6:00 for a self guided tour around the building.  With the exception of the Young 5s and Kindergarten classrooms, all rooms should be locked. PTO members will be onsite to help families find their way around.

Field Trips

Field trips must be scheduled according to the district guidelines. Follow the links below to the list of approved field trips and the permission form for parents to sign at Back-to-School Night.   You will notice the only change to this year's list is that the Holiday Concert at the High School has been added to the list for grades 2 –5. We will be asking parents to help sponsor field trips again this year with a suggested donation of $5 / child or $10 / family.  Field Trip Chart     Parent Permission Slip 

Time Cards

Pay periods have been reorganized and are no longer paid two weeks out. Hourly employee time cards are due on Monday of the pay week.   For example, for a paycheck dated Friday, 8/25, for the pay period 8/5-8/18, the timecard would have been due on Monday, August 21st.  If you have questions, please see Kathy.  The payroll calendar for the year is available in Skyward under the district newsfeed.

Grade Book Updates

Great News!  We upgraded to Power Teacher Pro grade book over the summer.  You are going to love the changes they’ve made with teachers in mind.  It’s easier to navigate, functions well on all kinds of platforms and devices, and has a much more robust reporting suite.  You'll find that it’s the perfect compliment to our ongoing PLC work and a natural fit for the work we’re doing to align assessments, too.  To get acquainted with the new interface, please take a minute to watch this video from the folks at Powerschool.    

As part of the upgrade, parents will have access to the parent portal to update their contact information and eventually see the grade book.  Down the road, we'll even be able to send report cards electronically!  WOW!    Anxious to get started??  If so, please log in to PowerSource and take a look – there are several training resources there to help you get acquainted with the updates.

Teachers, please note:  be sure to select do not publish when creating assignments during the first trimester.  This will give us time to help parents get set up and to make some decisions about what and how we are posting grades that parents will see.     Support will be available to help with the publishing settings once school gets underway.

New Attendance Codes

Our attendance policies and reporting practices have been updated to reflect the "best practice" recommendations from truancy officials.    Teachers will have three attendance codes for a.m. and p.m. reporting.  Attendance must be taken by 8:35 in the morning and within 10 minutes of returning from lunch.

AC = Absent, Parent Contact:  meaning you were told the child would not be in school.  The reason the parent gave for the absence must also be reported.  You add that as a comment.

A= Absent: the child isn't in class and you haven't had any contact from parents regarding his/her absence

T = Tardy: The student entered class between 8:30-9:00 or within the first 30 minutes after lunch.

Class Lists

Tentative class lists are being maintained online for you to access from home until school starts. Two copies of your current class list will be in your mailbox on workday.   However,  please be mindful that the lists change almost hourly this time of year!    Powerschool is being updated daily, and we are working to add them as soon as they register.    Class lists should be considered tentative until Thursday, August 31st.  And. . . you may want to wait until the first week of school to assign class numbers, etc. since we often have switches and adds the first week!

Common Area Expectations

The beginning of the year is our primary time to focus on expectations in the classroom and around the school. In addition to your classrooms routines and procedures, it is important that you focus on school-wide expectations.  Please actively rehearse and model expectations for our hallway quiet zones, bathroom procedures (sign-out, "in use", no peeking, and picking up after self), and lunchroom. Setting the stage with clear expectations and modeling will, no doubt, save us all time in the long run.              

Please be sure to review the student discipline rubric with your class sometime during the first week of school.

Emergency Procedures

Be sure you are familiar with SJPS emergency procedures.  A bound copy of the procedures should be available in classroom/workspace at all times.  Please be sure you review the fire drill procedures, in particular, before our first drills.  For those new to our school, a copy of the packet will be arriving shortly. Please be sure to review the entire packet and talk with your mentors about the procedures.

A class list needs to be posted on the wall outside your classroom prior to day one!  And. . . one should always be on a ready-access clipboard inside your classroom door you can grab in case of an emergency.

Leave Requests

All time off requests must be made and approved in Skyward.   Teachers will request subs by accessing AESOP through  Skyward.  Remember to line up your subs as soon as you can for known absences.  All F5 (Discretionary Day) leave requests must be approved before a sub is requested.

Kudos and Thank You to . . .

• Rick and Kevin for the amazing work they did this summer to clean the building! They are still hard at it, so please be respectful of their signage around the building and thoughtful about requests that impact their time.
• Kathy for the many hours she has spent getting the year organized and ordering supplies ready for your return.
• Kelly N., Becky, and Elizabeth for attending the PLC at Work Institute this summer. WOW! Did we learn a lot (directly from Mike Mattos- see our picture on the right). They will have so much to share with you all this year!
• Sandy V. and Beth S. for attending GrapeSeed training. It's a new program that will be perfect for helping our English Learners and struggling students develop. We'll all be learning more about that as the year gets underway.

Reminders from IT

• All documents that you want backed up MUST BE in your stjoebears.com Google Drive account.  Restoring a computer may result in lost data if not stored in Google Drive.
• All email communications with students MUST BE done with the students stjoebears.com account. This is per board policy, no exceptions. http://www.neola.com/stjosephpub-mi/ 7545 sec. D - also note 3213 and 4213
• All sharing of documents and folders MUST BE done with the stjoebears.com email/drive account or through the district LMS.
• Do not Reply to All on group emails unless requested to do so.
• Know who you are opening attachments from and for what.  If you don’t expect an attachment, verify before opening.  This also applies to clicking on unknown links in emails.
• Do not send out or forward a mass email without prior approval. (board policy)http://www.neola.com/stjosephpub-mi/ 7540.05

Help Desk

The IT Help Desk system is the best way to ensure IT has documentation of your issue.  Please use http://helpdesk.sjschools.org or an email to helpdesk@sjschools.org to submit an issue.  The help desk accepts both technology and maintenance requests. Please be as detailed as possible and include location, contact info (email/phone).

This Week at Brown:

Aug 25        New Teacher Induction Day 1 @ Clarke in Media Center, 8-3:30

Aug 28        New Teacher Induction Day 2 @ High School Rooms TBD 8-3:45

Aug 29        Building Orientation & Professional Learning Day **

 

9:15-12:30 Building School Improvement Workshop

12:30-12:45 Break & Lunch Pickup

12:45-2:15 Staff Meeting (All staff)

2:15-5:15 Teacher Work Day / Classroom Time

5:30-6:00 Kindergarten/New Student Orientation - self-guided tour and visit to the bus  

6:00-7:00 p.m. Ice Cream Social (Y5/K only visit classrooms)   

        

Aug 30      District Welcome Back & Professional Learning Day @ High School

 7:30am - SJPS Staff Welcome Back Breakfast - High School

       9:00-11:30 a.m. & 12:15-3:30 p.m. Design In Five Workshop with Nicole Vagle

Aug 31       8:30-11:30am Design In Five Workshop with Nicole Vagle
12:30-3:30 Opportunity for team planning/work with Vagle, but optional

  Last day for garbage pickup and cleaning in classrooms  

before the first day!

Sept 1        Labor Day (non-contract)

Remember to . . .

• Breathe! While it's an exciting time of year it can also be overwhelming! Everything will get done - try to relax and enjoy the "renewal" that comes with having a fresh start each year. Kids will come on Tuesday and all with be well with the world!
• Communicate with Rick and Kevin prior to Thursday if you need additional student desks or chairs in your room.
• Update your voice mail greeting if you've changed rooms or your name.
• Keep your receipts! The PTO is generously sponsoring each classroom with $300 ($200 for itinerants) for supplies and materials this year. It's a reimbursement program so just turn your receipts in to the PTO Treasurer.

A Look Ahead to Our First Week:

Our goal this week . . . get to know thy students!

Listen, observe,  document, reflect
Build relationships
Share expectations

Whew!  You did it!  You read all this information.  Email Kristen to let her know and you'll be entered into our staff door prize drawing - give away at our first staff meeting on