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| Thank you making our first week back with our students so incredible. Your passionate and purposeful work to build relationships and to bring clarity to routines and procedures will expedite our work together over the course of the year. Here's to a fabulous second week of learning and growing as a team! |
This Week at Brown School
9/13 P2 Character Strength: Curiosity
Maize & Blue Day for P2
Board of Education Meeting 6 p.m. @ Upton Middle School
9/15 Late Start Day
Virtual Math Training (8:15-9:15 a.m.) - links found below
9/17 Protected Blocks Form Due (see information below)
Coming Up...
9/20 NWEA fall testing begins (9/20-10/1)
SEL Visits Begin this week!
Back to School Night
ECDD, 1st & 2nd grade: 5:45 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
3rd, 4th & 5th grade: 6:45 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
9/22 Late Start Day
Virtual Math Training (8:15-9:15 a.m.) - links coming soon
Schedule Updates
Please be sure to update your plans using the following schedules:
Attendance Reminders
Please don't forget to take a.m. and p.m. attendance daily. Bus riders should not be marked tardy as being late is out of their hands. Additionally, if you have marked a student absent and they end up coming in late, PLEASE be sure to change the attendance code or notify Sara prior to 9:30. We have an attendance call that goes out to families and tends to unnecessarily alarm them if the student is in fact present. We appreciate your help with this and recognize there is a lot to balance each morning. Thank you!
Protected Math & ELA Blocks
As a reminder, it is imperative that your building grade level team commits to teaching ELA and Math at the same time each day. These are protected blocks of time, allowing for students to access Tier I curriculum, as well as switching for grouping purposes as needed. Your math block should be 60+ minutes daily and your ELA block (reading and writing workshop) should be at least 90 minutes. Please work with your team to determine these blocks of time and one member per team should enter the information on the form linked here by Friday, September 17th. Thank you!
Common Area Expectations
Please plan to review the common area expectations linked in our slide show here with your students this week.
Gaga Ball is back and it is a HOT choice! Please speak to your class about including others and playing fairly. We do not currently have a grade level schedule, but may develop one if students continue to struggle with patience and kindness.
Positivity Project Mondays
We are not planning to order additional P2 t-shirts this year as those were a gift to celebrate our launch last fall. We will however still encourage all students and staff to wear maize and blue (could be your P2 shirt) every Monday to celebrate the new character strength. This includes jeans or shorts as well.
Math Pilot Information
Your teaching manuals have arrived! Kevin, The Magnificient, delivered them to classrooms this past Friday. Thank you for using IM materials with fidelity as we pilot the program this year. We value and appreciate your feedback. Let me know the joys and challenges you are facing as you teach math using Illustrative Math materials.
Wednesday morning's virtual training begins at 8:15 a.m. Here are the links:
Securly is our new filtering and device management system in SJPS. It replaces GoGuardian and offers the same classroom controls, as well as a parent interface. The tutorials below will get you started. Your T3s are learning more about the features and highlights and will gladly assist you with questions and support.
Our SJPS eLearning resource site has been updated to include helpful information related to this change.
Here is a short video that may be helpful as you get to know Securly:
Football Friday Readers
We are looking forward to welcoming our Varsity Football Team back to our classrooms each "home game" Friday (9/24, 10/8, 10/22) at approximately 3:15 pm. Click here for the reader assignments.
Back to School Night Information
Thank you for all of the work you are doing to preparing for Back to School Night on September 20th. The times for each session are listed below. Here are a few pieces of information that you will want to include in your presentation:
ECDD, 1st & 2nd grade: 5:45 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
3rd, 4th & 5th grade: 6:45 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
*Prepackaged or store-made birthday treats are great.
*We will go on field trips this year and are collecting field trip money again. We ask for $5 per student or $10 per family (max). We would prefer to have families pay this fee using RevTrack. The link can be found here: https://sjschools.revtrak.net/brown-elementary/brown-elementary-field-trips/
If families must pay with cash or check, that's ok. Please have them make the check out to SJPS.
*(From the family blog) Parent-Teacher Conferences are being scheduled throughout the month of October and into November. We have 4 half-days dedicated to conference time, however, your child's teacher may schedule a conference with you anytime between October 10th and November 8th. Families will have the option to schedule this conference as a face-to-face meeting or a virtual connection using Google Meet. Please feel free to contact your child's teacher with any questions.
* As in past years, we are planning on three parties. We will share the themes, dates, and times with families soon. If you plan to elicit volunteers, please ask that they sign up to lead/plan understanding that more details are to come.
*There is no need to print student/family/school compacts or COPPA compliance froms this year. That information will be presented in the student handbook.
Please support our family - teacher partnership by attending a PTO meeting this year. They will be held in-person in the media center with a virtual login option via Google Meet. Thank you for signing up for a meeting by clicking here.
Learning Our Learners
As we learn our students strengths and challenges in the coming days and weeks, please plan to read for one minute with each of your students and complete a F&P benchmarking assessment on new students to our district (or returning from virtual learning) as your Daily Five structure for independent reading allows. Our NWEA testing will also help with this data collection. This will help to guide our next steps.
Interventionists will be pushing in to be a part of your shared learning environment this week during your determined intervention time block(s). Of course, we do not expect that you are beginning inter-richment time yet and there is no need to do anything to do anything special. Megan, Carol, and Stephanie will become a part of your learning community, working with students within the room and participating in classroom learning.
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Don't forget to reset students in Core5 each fall for
the most accurate data and learning progression information. |
Our family blog has important communication from Brown School each week. We know how busy these first weeks are and want to protect your time. Here are the highlights that directly relate to your work:
Lunch Menu for the Week of September 13th
We would like to remind everyone that breakfast and lunch are FREE again this year to every St. Joseph Public School student. Please try to remember to preorder your student’s lunches when they are going to participate in lunch. This helps speed up the morning lunch count process. You will be allowed to order the Friday before the next week using
www.sendmoneytoschool.com.
Due to the supply chain issues we are having with our vendors and food outages we will be providing a one week menu on our website and Principal blogs on the Friday before the next week. This will alleviate us having to make constant changes to a monthly menu and keep you better informed.
9/13/21 – Chicken patty sandwich, sweet potato tots, fruit choice and milk
9/14/21 – Mini pancakes, vegetable choice, sausage patty, fruit choice and milk
9/15/21 – Cheese pizza, corn, fruit choice and milk
9/16/21 – Hot Ham & Cheese, Sun Chips, carrot sticks, fruit choice and milk
9/17/21 – Macaroni &Cheese, green beans, fruit choice and milk
Job Opportunities with SJPS
We are looking for dedicated, passionate individuals to join our
Brown School Team. If you or someone you know loves working alongside students and thrive in an environment where students are put first, please consider reaching out to Kristen Bawks (kbawks@sjschools.org) to express interest in one of the following positions:
Student Support Aide (full time - 7 hours per day, 5 days per week)
Lunchtime Supervisor (2 hours per day, 5 days per week)
Substitute Teachers (apply through EduStaff)
*Staff - if you know of someone who would be a great fit and may have interest, please let me know so that I can reach out directly. Thank you!
We will begin linking your classroom blogs in the family blog next weekend (for the week of September 20th). If your blog is ready this week and you wish to push it out to families via email, please feel free to do so.
Universal Masking Requirement
Our Return to Learn Plan requires that all students, staff members, and visitors wear a mask while inside the school environment, regardless of vaccination status, at this time. This includes our adult-only Back to School Night event. Thank you, in advance, for your adherence to this safety protocol.
Please note that gaiters, face shields, and bandannas are not approved face coverings. For more information, please visit the FAQ guide from MDHHS linked here for more information.
*If a student is wearing a gaiter, please exchange the gaiter with a disposable mask.
Again, it was a GREAT first week thanks to all of you! We greatly appreciate your "all hands on deck" support, as well as your enthusiasm and care for your learners and their families. Thank you for beginning this year's story so powerfully!
