Post-Election Article: No matter which side of the aisle you stand on Wednesday is sure to be an anxious day for many no matter the outcome or if there is a contested result. It is our responsibility as educators to present a neutral voice on the issues. Please take a look at this brief article on dealing with the day after the election.
End of the School Day: When you are leaving for the day, please close and lock the windows in the classroom you are leaving. If not locked, these windows can open after hours triggering alarms and phone calls. Thanks for your cooperation.
Half Day: Along with the cooler temps, early sunsets, the month of November brings our first half day of the school year. Wednesday, November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving, will be a fully remote day for all staff & students. So that you may plan your curriculum over the month, the schedule will be as follows:
Block 1: 7:45 am to 8:30 am
Block 2: 8:35 am to 9:20 am
Block 3: 9:25 am to 10:10 am
Block 4: 10:15 am to 10:55 am
Yearbook Photos: We are planning to take photos of Fall Senior Athletes in uniform on Tuesday, November 10th, prior to the 9:05 start of the academic school day. A few students may not be available for extra help on this morning. Being November, any leftovers will be taken on Thursday, November 12th at the same time.
Attendance: It will come as no surprise to you that getting students to attend remote classes is our greatest challenge. The red and blue grid clearly shows that students are very likely to come into school, and much less likely to attend remote sessions. The second-grade level bar graphs show the break down by grade level. Grades 10 and 12 are our biggest concerns.
We are all familiar with some reasons students don't come to remote day school:
- home setting, self-monitoring/pacing, apathy, working on academic days, and other.
We are working on communicating information via liaison and counselor intervention, robocall, personal phone call, newsletters, building parent partners through monthly meetings, and as always targeting interventions to individual students. Any ideas you have from the classroom to both incentivize and as needed penalize those who don't attend school as often as they should are welcome. The work habits rubric is a tool for helping with the parent partners who will see the impact of attendance on grades, please continue to use the rubrics weekly, and please do share the positive interventions that are working in your classrooms and shops.
As you know, period attendance is also very important this year. DESE tracks our attendance rate in remote instruction through student attendance by period. Please continue your efforts to take attendance in each class.
From the Vocational Office:
Vocational Staff Meeting- We will be hosting a vocational staff meeting on Monday, November 2nd after school at 2:35 p.m. via google meet. The agenda will include remote attendance, fully remote learning (short term and long term), and open house, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 14th.
Budgets - Please start planning out your needs for next year. As you all know, our funding is most likely going to be tight. So, as in years past, budgets will be zero-based. Please view the current inventory and list only what is needed. In addition, any capital items placed on this year's budget planner should be listed for no earlier than FY24. At this point, all department heads should have received your budget sheet from Wendy.
Fully Remote Lesson Plans: -1 day fully remote lesson plan (Blocks 1-4) for all grade levels, except exploratory was due Friday, 10/30. A 5-day lesson plan (Blocks 1-4) for all grade levels, except exploratory, is due on Friday, 11/6. These lesson plans can be saved as drafts in the appropriate grade level google classroom.
Social Media- We are looking to ramp up our social media presence. In order to do so we need your help. Please send photos of students working on various shop projects and a brief description to socialmedia@ssvotech.org. Before sending please make sure all social distancing and safety procedures are being followed.
Detention - Now that the school year is underway teachers may hold class detentions. The detention hours can run from 7:40-9am or 1-2:25pm depending on when the teacher is available. Please make sure that you have called home and that the student can get a ride in early or picked up for the afternoon detention. As always, please email discipline so we can track the detention hours.
Advisory- You all did a great job with your advisory committee meetings last week, especially given the current circumstances. Thank you for the time and effort you put into your meeting and for all you do for your programs. Please make sure your Advisory minutes are sent to Nicole no later than 11/6.
Inventory and Photos- Please make sure you update your inventory sheets and photos of the new equipment. Any new equipment should have a serial number in the photo.
SkillsUSA -. Please have an internal shop test and report the top four students to Lisa Bellantoni by Thanksgiving. Those top four students will move on to districts.10/26/20
Co-op: As of Friday 10/30, we have 52 seniors signed out on co-op, with several more in the queue. Co-op timecards will be uploaded into the Co-op Timecards shared drive by the end of day on Tuesday of the senior’s academic week. They are being marked as “on time” or “late” as they are received by the Vocational Office. Additionally, please be sure to mark your students on co-op as COOP when doing attendance. Thank you!