Monday Memo
Week of April 6th- 10th
Greetings, CCE!
What a learning curve we have all had these last two weeks! CCE has definitely gotten its "TECH ON"! The most exciting part is that everyone has been doing such a great job in navigating online learning and taking risks when it comes to using our online platform. Our students and families have had many activities to keep them learning, that is for sure! As Dr. Estrada-Thomas shared in a prior newsletter, our district and our campus leaders "are AMAZED, not surprised" at the work and quality of Hutto ISD staff/teachers! I know that I have the best staff, teachers, and families in all of HippoNation! Yes, you can tell everyone you know that I said that! CCE Rocks!
I am excited as well to revive our weekly newsletter! This helps me to continue to build a sense of normalcy and routine into what we are used to at CCE! The newsletter allows each of us to stay connected and share information that is important and specific to our campus. Aligned with reestablishing normalcy, check out the information below regarding PLCs, Staff Meetings and other need-to-knows items.
As our timeline for return continues to move (fingers crossed that we return quickly in May), the ability for each of us to maintain flexibility and stay connected will be key! We have to stay informed of changes and the best way to do that is to read each of the "All Staff" district memos, weekly memos, and your daily emails. We have to stay on the same page and the more you know about what is going on in the district and at the campus, the more successful you will be in planning and navigating these new "online/tech" waters with us. So grab a BIG cup of coffee, a TALL cool drink, or just PROP your feet on the couch next time one of those items comes your way!
Here is to wishing you and your families a very healthy, safe, and wonderful week! Do the best that you can with what you can, expect that families are doing the same, and support/encourage everyone you interact with! Families and students need to hear that they are doing a good job, too!
Thank you, CCE, for being the best!
Stay Home, Stay Connected, Stay Informed, Stay Healthy & Be Well~
Virtual Hugs & Fistbumps,
Linda
What's Happening at CCE...
Hutto ISD To Be Closed from March 23 - May 3
By executive order of the Governor of Texas, Hutto ISD has suspended normal operations and closed facilities through May 3.
At this time, should health conditions improve throughout the state, we expect to resume classes on Monday, May 4.
4/6: PTA Meeting (Online Zoom) @ 6 PM- Only Board Members Attend (Shara sent invite)
4/8: HISD Kindergarten Teacher PLC @ 1 PM - 2 PM (Required for all Kinder CCE Teachers)
Click on Google Hangout Meet Invite or HERE to join
4/9: CCE Teacher Caravan "Love from the Creek" Drive @ 2 PM (Final Info Coming Soon)
Thank you, Mrs. Kozak for organizing this!
4/10: Bad Weather Day (Staff/Student Holiday) No Staff Office/Virtual Hours Today
Google Classrooms....What exactly is expected at CCE?
CCE has definitely gone "TECH"! Everyone is rockin' and rollin' with google classrooms! There is content on each teacher's page and the majority of our students are accessing the sites and completing assignments! That's great!
As we build upon our learning in google classroom, our goal as an admin team is to continue with our work of providing observation and feedback. It will just look a bit different, since we can't come into your classrooms physically to see all the great things going on :)
Sooo....
Here is the document that Greg and I will use with individual teachers as part of the observation/feedback loop to provide next steps and refinement. Remember that we are all #BetterTogether. Our goal when we begin meeting with teachers to provide feedback next week will focus on organization of items in your google classroom or next steps (depending on what we see). This feedback document will also be linked to your observation/feedback spreadsheet that you already have access to.
What about Lessons? How long should lessons typically last? What should I plan for?
PER DAY- ONLINE Lessons/Activities/Assignments in all COMBINED CORE SUBJECTS should last about:
Pre-K- 30 min
K-2nd - 1 hour
3rd-5th: 2-3 hours
These guidelines should make it easier to plan, grade, check in with students at other times, and manage your own lives/families during this time as well. Don't overplan, think quality not quantity.
Remember, we are providing an educational benefit. The idea that we will be able to teach all the TEKS (including new content) for the remainder of the year is a DREAM and not a REALITY in most instances. Teachers, please focus on things kids can do (prior TEKS) with minimal help which necessarily reduces the amount of new content we can put out. MINIMIZE/NO NEW CONTENT UNTIL MORE GUIDANCE IS RECEIVED FROM OUR SCHOOL SUPPORT TEAM. You have plenty of data i.e. TPRI/TEJAS Lee, RSK, IA DATA, etc to help you drive your instruction.
Note: the key word is guidelines (sometimes some subjects/activities may take a bit longer, but that should not be typical for a teacher or a subject).
Pass/Fail....What does that mean for me as a teacher?
Currently, the pass/fail option for individual assignments and how they will be incorporated into our grading system is being ironed out by our district elementary school support team. Do not "FAIL" students at this time because they haven't turned something in, there are many family factors that are going on for many, if not all, of our families. Extend grace during this transition time, our goal is not to make online learning at home unrealistic and overwhelming for students and families. Our goal is to help families and support students with the opportunity to learn remotely.
We will move to officially set PASS/FAIL in the actual gradebooks once district can iron out the kinks with gradebook. In the meantime, use your best judgement and reach out to families when you see a concern, look at prior student academic history, but always give the student the benefit of the doubt. Remember they don't actually have us there to teach them, they are doing the best that they can to learn from home. Use google classroom to help with documenting those assignments, let the system help you. You can also go the paper route and keep grades that way. They key is to give feedback to students on what you see with their work. Kudos to all of you for sending messages and replying to students and families.
The goal during this time will continue to be to work with our families in anyway that we can; we ask that families just do the best that they can when trying to balance out assignments. We are asking all of our families to reach out directly to teachers if they need support with explaining a concept and/or providing more specific support via the online platform or through email.
One of the ways that we are working to support our families and students is to transition to having weekly activities for each content area (Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts), but only having one required (pass/fail) assignment to complete per week per subject. That will give our families more flexibility and manageability when completing activities and assignments rather than having too many assignments to complete and turn in daily.
What about RtI for Tier II students?
A message from Greg and the RtI Team~
At this time, it is essential that we focus on refining lessons within our content areas. If students have accommodations or need assignments to be adapted to suit their needs, then work with those students & parents to support their learning.
Do not provide RTI TIer 2 activities/assignments/lessons for tier 2 students at this time. If RTI tier 2 students successfully complete their content area lessons/assignments and need additional practice, then they can utilize online resources approved by CCE or HISD, such as Freckle, Reading A-Z, etc.....
Do not worry about collecting data points for Tier 2 students at this time. Once we receive further guidance from the district about the RTI Tier 2 process, we will let you know.
Keep your focus on creating & refining quality content area lessons in weekly chunks, supporting students in their learning with their work, & making sure instructions provide clarity for students & parents.
Keep rockin'!
PLCs & Staff Meetings....Where did they go?
PLCs-
Last week, our leadership team focused on grade level check-in meetings with teachers! Every grade level had lots of great information to share. Here are the take-aways from the meetings to help you know what we covered and discussed. We were able to touch base with core content area teachers PK-5, met in Sped PLC (thanks, Cargal), and touched base with the base team, office staff, and our specials teachers and interventionists!
This week, Gloria met with all of the grade level teams and helped identify grade level needs and students/families that were still showing to have difficulty with accessing google classroom. Last night, our LT group compiled and streamlined all the data shared in those meeting and Mrs. Baker helped today to make all those additional phone calls to check in on families to see what they needed to get started. Greg and I are making phone calls to harder to reach families to ensure that they don't get behind and know that we are here to support them. Great job, team!
Moving forward, Greg and I will be setting up one-on-one (based on T-TESS appraisal lists) or grade level group meetings with teachers to continue the PLC process. Our goal is to continue to support teachers with google classroom and instruction. We are excited and already know that there is a reason that we are all #BetterTogether. Our PLCs during this remote time will continue to be primarily on Wednesdays, but may include Thursdays and Fridays to allow us to meet with all our folks.
A regular PLC Meeting is scheduled for May 6th (GLL Led) to get us to come together and focus on current needs.
All Updates are still being made on our Buc-ees List.
Staff Meetings-
Currently, we do not have any staff meetings scheduled until April 14th. This is to help support teachers with maximizing their time and adjusting to the "new" temporary normal. On April 14th, we will have our first TEACHER staff meeting, in split groups, to allow for online participation. PK-2nd will join the google hangouts from 3:00 - 3:30 PM; 3rd-5th will join google hangouts from 3:30 PM-4:00 PM. Links will be added to our Buc-ees List. We will alternate group times the following week. Please log-in promptly and sign in prior to the meetings electronically on the agenda as before.
The focus of the staff meetings will be PD centered and geared for our current needs: google classrooms. The first topic we are learning about is Screencastify. Mrs. Hong shared lots of great information recently, but on this day we will all be part of the learning of using this app for instruction in our google classrooms. Those of you that already use it, great! You can help support others that may just be learning about it!
Other News, Reminders & Need-to-Knows
Celebrating Good Things
March
24th- Amanda Savoy
26th- Meghan Klos
27th- Mandy Marsh
27th- Krystle McDade
30th- Vanice Hayes
31st- Allison Amling
April
5th- Tara Fox
7th- Bob Poe
Scholastic Book Fair Is Coming!
CCE will be hosting an online virtual book fair. The Book Fair is tentatively set for the week of April 12th -April 25th.
More information to be shared by Mrs. Dodd & Mrs. Johnson soon!
Launching Us Off!
Be someone's sunshine when their skies are grey.
~Unknown
Check out the Bucket-Filler Challenge below!
Teachers' Corner
Submit a story, success, aha! moment, funny, photo, announcement, etc. that you would like our CCE family all to know about. Email it to me by Friday of each week and I will put it in the next Monday Memo.
Please share any student pics that may have been posted as "assignments" in your online classroom! Brings a smile to my face!
Going on a "Rock" Hunt!
So for those that don't know, our family moved to Hutto at the very beginning of Spring Break. We moved from my childhood hometown, Belton. Belton is about 40 minutes north on I-35. About 4-5 years ago someone created a facebook page for "Belton Rocks." Community members paint all kinds of rocks, some just colors, some pictures, some have inspirational messages and hide them all over town. (Library, HEB, gas stations, parks, walking trails etc). The idea is to inspire families to spend more time together while also becoming more active. The girls particularly love looking for rocks while walking with Papa. You can admire the rock and leave it where you found it, you can re-hide or keep the rock. The girls were very excited to find not one, but 2 rocks in our new neighborhood yesterday. We did re-hide our rocks during our walk so other families can admire it. We plan to start making some over the next couple weeks and hiding them in our neighborhood, and we wanted to encourage other families to do the same!
Students making healthy habits! New Pets!
Sometimes connecting and creating healthy relationships with a new pet is just what students need during this time to maintain a healthy mental state!
I wonder how many students will have a new pet when we eventually return ...
Shelter-in-Place for ...Dogs?
Look who is Learning@Home!
Emersyn Kozak
Milo Althoff
Isabel Marquez
Andrew Marquez
Savannah Graham
Grayson Jeffers
NEED Spanish? (Of course you do!)
If you have parents that need SPANISH tech support...please share:
Parents can now call:
512-759-4770 for Spanish tech support with Mr. Joe DeLeon who will help them troubleshoot
Uh OH! My student's chromebook is broken!!!!
Our fabulous TECH department is already on top of it! See below with the draft plan (More info forthcoming).
Purpose: Provide a simple and easy method for swapping bad hardware or issuing new hardware as safely as possible. Staff for staff devices and parents for student devices would be the customers.
Note: Staff and parents need to use the chat support to schedule an appointment so we will have their device ready to go and so we know what to expect.
Where: TBD (Coming Soon in All Staff Memo)
When: TBD (Coming Soon in All Staff Memo)
Who: The technicians/help desk hourly staff will take turns and be there two at a time
Masks and gloves will be worn by the techs
Process:
Set the appointment:
Staff or parent contacts Technology using the online tech support chat.
Parents will need to fill out the same form and show ID for receiving any Chromebook, same as we did at the handouts.
Staff will be asked to show their work badge as identification at pick up.
The Technology person tells the person in the chat the place and time info.
Day of the swap:
A staff or parent drives up in front of the gym.
Tech collects device to be "swapped" for a good one
Another tech gives them the new chromebook
- Note: If charges need to be assessed, record the details and parent contact info in the tab called "charges to assess’ in the appointments spreadsheet. You can swap devices if needed or give another charger. They will be contacted about the charges when school buildings are opened again. This will be things like a cracked screen or lost charger.