Once again, welcome back everyone. We hope you made the most of your little four day rest bit over Labor Day weekend. For all of us who were working over the summer, I began a Friday morning ritual of telling dad jokes. At the request of those who participated over the summer, we will be continue this feature through the Monday Message. So, here we go.
Dad Joke: What do you call a chicken that stares at lettuce all day? (Answer can be found later in the document.)
9/11 Remembrance: We will be joining many other schools and holding a moment of silence at 8:46 am on Friday morning, September 10th, in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.
Announcements: If anyone has items they would like to have placed in the morning announcements please email announcements@ssvotech.org.
Staff Acknowledgements: Staff our reminded that they should be signing off on the School Year Opening Materials. Once again, in the intranet under forms, the second link is Staff Acknowledgements. These should be all completed by Friday, 9/10/2021.
School Culture: There are many factors that go into creating a successful high school. Of course, the staff and curriculum play a large role in a student's ability to learn and their eventual success, but equally important is the school's culture. School culture can be defined as the personality of the school, the way we do business including our guiding principles and expectations. I believe this is an area of growth for South Shore Technical. We should all strive to make sure that all staff and students are excited to come to school everyday. To meet this goal,
- We will finish our efforts begun in recent years to visually make South Shore Technical, the home of the Vikings, a building that celebrates vocational education and Viking activities in our hallways, classrooms and cafeteria.
- I have already sent messages to staff about my desire to complete the Viking Hall of Fame and Small Business Owners board in the front hallway.
- I will be working with Graphic Communications to make use of the dead space above the lockers by commissioning a series of murals that highlight student life beyond the classroom.
- Ingrained in a strong school culture is equity for all. Do all students feel like they belong, are their feelings and opinions being heard? Are all student being treated fairly? And we know that fair does not always mean equal. Folks, the same applies to the adults as well. To this end, with the help of Tammie Glass, we are forming a building organization made up of staff and students to discuss the issues at hand in our building, state, country and world and how best to inform community members of the facts about people's experience. I invite you to join us. Please click the link if you wish to do so.
- As many of you know, supporting your students outside the classroom, goes a long way to earning their trust and respect in the classroom as well as building strong sense of community within our building . Please do take the opportunity to support our students in their extracurricular activities be it clubs or athletics. If you wish to help out with athletics in an organized way as a score keeper or such, please reach out to Mike Hernon to find out about procedures and stipends. If you would prefer to support our students as a fan on the sideline please see the list of home games this week below and you have all been given access to the athletic calendar.
- Wednesday, Sept. 8th, Volleyball vs. Tri-County at 3:30 and 5:00 pm
- Thursday, Sept. 9th, Golf vs. Blue Hill at 3:00 pm at Rockland Golf Course
- Friday, Sept. 10th, Golf vs. Upper Cape at 3:00 pm at Rockland Golf Course Friday, Sept. 10th, Football vs. Nashoba Tech at SST at 7:00 PM
I am going to use the School Council, an organization made-up of faculty, parents and students to oversee these initiatives and others as we move through the school year. The School Council also is responsible for developing the School Improvement Plan (SIP), which helps influence the direction of the school in future years. I invite you to join School Council. If interested, please fill out this link. Traditionally, we meet the 1st Monday of the month sometimes virtually and sometimes in person as warranted.
Finally, we, as a faculty and staff, will be discussing some of our own beliefs and expectations when it comes to not only student behavior, but our own as we delve into the district's grading and assessment philosophy.
Thank you,
Mark
Cooperative Education:
- DocuSign for Co-op: We are now using DocuSign for the co-op agreement! The document will begin with the employer and automatically flow to the student, parent, teacher, and finally, Keith. DocuSign makes it easy to review and sign your students out on co-op. Please keep an eye out for these emails and if you run into any issues, give us a call or stop into the office.
- Google Classroom for Co-op: We will be using Google Classroom for co-op this year! Because of the student’s familiarity with google classroom, we felt this would be the best way to communicate important announcements and assign their co-op timecards.
- Co-op Timecards: Timecards are now electronic! In addition to the student submitting a timecard, we are now requiring employers to fill out a timecard as well. Both time cards will be automatically saved in the Class Drive Folders called “Student Timecard” and “Employer Timecard & Evaluation”. They will be organized by co-op week and student name. We understand that the employer timecard is an extra step, but it eliminates the lost paper copies and gives us a more accurate picture of the student’s hours and performance on the job.
Questionnaires or requests: Should you receive a request to complete a questionnaire or survey from a parent about a student, please let Katie know first for review then we can come up with a plan to respond appropriately.
Liaisons: Liaisons are in Power School in the 'alert triangle with the exclamation point' symbol next to the students name.
Kurzweil: We no longer have Kurzweil as our read aloud program at SST. there are many options to support independent read aloud. Use a Google doc to use voice typing for the speech to text tool. Please let Katie know if you need a speech to text headphone for any student. Here is a helpful extension for a read aloud: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/read-aloud-a-text-to-spee/hdhinadidafjejdhmfkjgnolgimiaplp?hl=en Once it's installed, you can use it to read any page and go to options to change language, voice, and speed. I'm a fan of US English Salli.
Student Support Team: SST's team meets on Thursday afternoons. Remember to use studentsupport@ssvotech.org to share a concern about a student.
Student Services Protocol: When a student asks to go to see their counselor, please take a second to check in privately with the student and see if you can tell if it's an emergency or not. Quietly ask 'everything alright?' This can be hard - I know. If you feel it's not an emergency, please encourage them to email their counselor. The counselors will schedule an appointment as soon as they can. If you feel it's an emergency, please call Nancy at x430 or call a counselor so someone expects to see them or meet them. If you are unsure, call us anyway and we'll take care of it. We appreciate anything you can do to support the process!
Dad Joke Answer: Chicken sees a salad.
Finally, please take a moment to signify what you see as the best time to continue our volunteer Q & A sessions between staff and the leadership team we have all found so helpful over the past year and a half.
Volunteer Virtual Staff Meeting Survey - Please fill out your preference so the Leadership Team can choose a time that works best for most. Thank you.