Kudos:
What would SST do without Jeff McBurney? He has been a valuable asset to SST for 17 chuck-full years. His commitment to our school, his students, his co-workers, and the entire staff is immeasurable. As busy as he is, he still makes time to serve as VP for our union. He works tirelessly to keep the culinary shop afloat by teaching and mentoring students, creating and cooking fabulous meals for the Brass Lantern with students, organizing and ordering for the CA shop, and serving as a Tech Guru to all that may need a hand or just some advice (only Apple products please).
He steps up for the kiddos and the community by teaching Summer Classes with Mr. Doucet. He's spoken on behalf of our students at the National Honor Society. Prepares, cooks, and serves at after-school events such as the Rockland Stroll and Taste of Whitman Hanson. Participates and represents our school at the annual Day on the Hill event at the State House. Just to name a few. Currently, he’s been updating and evolving the physical CA footprint for future generations. Lastly, he’d stop eating his own lunch without hesitation, to make sure you had yours. It’s been said that he’s actually a superhero at night and the whole chef thing is just a day time disguise. Sounds plausible.
Kudos and high praises with love and appreciation to you Chef McBurney. Again I say, what would we do without you? I choose not to imagine. Thank you for all you do.
Matt Fallano continues to expect excellence in his department. The science dept. is one of the shining highlights at this school and a lot of that has to do with Matt’s leadership and the other lead science teachers (Suzanne Mathisen, Heather Brennen, Greg Stevens) who work diligently to teach every student day in and day out. Matt also has led so many extracurricular activities here at the school, and he continues to influence the involvement of our students to be vested in the culture of the school. Plus he owns a great collection of bow ties that no one else can match.
Matt Doyle recently accepted the trophy for the football team’s small school vocational championship back in the fall. Congratulations to Matt and all the coaches.
(Photo credit goes to Brian Chamberlain)
Rachel Haines - The IT office would like to extend a (belated) congratulations to Rachel Haines on her new role as the Administrative Assistant in the IT office. Rachel has taken on her new role with enthusiasm, positivity and a remarkable ability to learn all the new tasks of this position.
Note: Kudos are staff generated. Want to celebrate a colleague? Submit a write-up to kudos@ssvotech.org
Senior Grades: We are looking ahead to graduation and the choosing of a Validictorian and Sulatorian. In order to do this we need seniors grades entirely up-to-date. Please have your senior grades complete by this Friday, March 24th. We will be capturing grades toward the end of the day.
Advisory: We have over 90 advisors joining us for our Spring Advisory Dinner and Meetings on March 28th! If you’d like to see who has RSVP’d, please check the Advisory Master List.
Vocational Department Heads: Please collaborate with the other teachers in your shop to nominate your most outstanding senior this school year! Please use this form and submit by the end of next week (March 24).
Vocational Instructors: While we work out of issues with Power School and IRC reporting, we will have to do it the old fashioned way. Please use this spreadsheet to enter your student’s IRCs. If there are IRCs not listed, please add them to the list. These must be entered and current as of Friday, April 21st because these numbers will be presented to the school committee. Thanks.
Grade Level SEL Presentations: Kevin Russo, Board Certified Behavior Analyst, BCBA will be speaking with our grade 9, 10, and 11 students in a 30 minute grade level meeting on Tuesday March 21st in the gym. Seniors will not participate. Kevin Russo will be engaging them about appropriate behaviors of a high school student in a school setting. In layman's terms, he'll talk about being nice to one another and being aware that not everyone has the same social skill set or belief structure that you do.
Grade 9 - 8:30-9:00 from shop or related
Grade 11 - 9:15- 9:45 from shop
Grade 10 - 9:45 - 10:24 (or the end of Block 2)
MCAS Update: As predicted, the correct proctor manuals came in the day after our training session. We are currently getting more printed and will get them out to you early this week.
On Friday, you should’ve received your class list with accommodations. Once again, if you have questions please reach out to Katie, Sandy, or Mark.
If you were not able to attend the after school training last Tuesday, and I know who you are, please set up a 30-minute appointment with Laurie to see Mark.
3/15 PD Feedback: Thanks again for your time and work last Wednesday morning. Here is a summary of the feedback with some answers to questions that were asked. As always, reach out to John Scop. if you have any questions!
Field Trippin’- We have 7 field trips over the next week. Please confirm your transportation is in order with Ruth if you have a school bus or a department other than your own if you are using what is traditionally their activity van.
Once again, if you are ever scheduled for a field trip please mark it so in the portal. In the pulldown there is a “Field Trip” option. This helps us keep track of who is in the building in the case of an emergency and where we need coverage throughout the day..
Student of the Month - April
Please click here to nominate an outstanding student for this honor.
Hourly Employees:
Starting this week all timesheets must be completed and ready for your supervisor's signature by Friday at 4 pm. Not completing your timesheet will result in payroll getting processed late and could hold up everyone getting paid. The last few pay week's it has gotten later and later.
Payroll on my end needs to be processed on Wednesday mornings to insure everyone gets paid on Thursday. There is only a short window of time for them to be approved by your supervisor, entered and then approved by Mr. Hickey before being processed. Being held up by even one missing timesheet throws off the entire process.
Thank you for your time!
--
Pam Curtis
Payroll and Accounting Officer
South Shore Regional Vocational School District
476 Webster Street
Hanover, MA 02339
Last week IT sent out an email requesting photos submittals for Facebook. Please know that this is NOT just for shops! Photos from academic classes are requested as well. If you have something going on in one of your classes, (i.e. skills, debate, lab, group work) submit a mojo ticket and someone can assist with photos. We look forward to seeing your students in action.
CyberSecurity
The new year is beginning for our CyberSecurity training! I’ve heard a lot of people saying, “they’ve already done this”, or “why do we need to do this again”. I do understand your frustrations, but cannot emphasize enough the importance of this training. CyberSecurity events are happening every day, with Schools and Municipalities being the largest targets. Many of our member towns and local South Shore Communities have fallen victim to such events. What happens when a district falls victim to a CyberSecurity event?
Often the school has to shut down in order to get systems back to a state where the school can operate (take attendance, use Google, etc).
Costs that easily run into the $$Millions$$ - sometimes consisting of paying ransoms to get data back and also the cost of hiring consultants, working with the FBI to assess the level of damage, rebuilding all systems to insure they are clean, and scrubbing all data before doing restores to insure you are not reinfecting systems when restoring data.
Often, not all data can be restored. This would mean the loss of decades worth of data, lesson plans, employee records, etc.
Sensitive Student and Staff data is often compromised, causing major issues not just professionally, but personally.
This is not an exhaustive list but highlights the massive implications a Cyber event could have on our District. This is simply something we cannot ease up on for a second!
This new year of training will run from March - December and use the same protocols as in prior years – an initial CyberAssessment (pre-test), followed by 4 training modules and then a final CyberAssessment (post-test) at the end. Each assignment will be developed just before they launch it to make sure the assignments are covering the actual security threats that are “in the wild” at that time. So if, for instance, a “popular” phishing scam is using fake Amazon emails, that month’s training will focus on how to identify fake emails. I mention this to point out that the assignments aren’t random - they are developed using data around the most common threats that are actually occurring at that time. This will help you not only at work, but in your personal life as well. I have had MANY staff members stop by to tell me they were *almost* the victim of a cybersecurity event but caught it due to the training.
I’m going to implement some incentives this year, which will be announced at the beginning of each assignment - so not only will you learn some valuable information, but you might also win a prize!
Pasted below is the timeline of the training modules along with a sample of the modules with estimated time for each. Remember this is just a sample, as each module will not be finalized until just before the assignment is released.
