Jaguar Journal
Week of April 14th
NCE’s At Home Learning Site:
NCE’s At Home Learning Site: This site is up and running and will be shared with parents on MONDAY. Everyone needs to do the following BY MONDAY afternoon so Lynne has time to link your documents:
“At-Home Learning Plan” Directions Page:
Have your document’s share settings at “ANYONE WITH THE LINK CAN VIEW”
Email JUST your document to Mandy AND Lynne as soon as you finish them. Write “POST THIS” in the subject line so they know specifically what to link.
BE SURE NO PERSONAL STUDENT INFORMATION IS ON YOUR PAGE
Teacher’s At Home Learning Expectations Documents:
Please have any support teachers’ information on your document that will be working with your students/planning with your PLC.
These are already linked into the website. You may want to review them and be sure they are accurate for what you have planned for the next two weeks!!
Spanish version -- Further down on your Teacher’s At Home Learning Expectation Document is the Spanish version of the document. Please also complete this! If you need help, reach out to an IA or Spanish World teacher to help you translate.
- Classroom teachers received this email from Mandy tonight about steps that need to be taken prior to Monday to notify parents about next steps for at home learning. Please see sample parent email here. This will be used to ensure all parents are on the same page. Classroom teachers will adjust for their specific room. If you are a dual language teacher, please work with your co-teacher.
Updates/Information:
NCE Spring Break Reading Challenge - We challenged students to keep reading over Spring Break by asking them to read and complete at least 12 of the activities on this board. If parents/students send you a photo of their completed board, please add the numbers here. If we receive at least 50%, we will send a video of us (Carla/Eddie) being face painted as Jaguars! Thank you for helping to encourage reading!
Packet Pick up Day 2.0 - In an effort to limit exposure we have altered packet pick up again. Eddie, Carla and Paulette will assist families needing a packet from 11:00 - 1:00 in the car rider line. I will share details of the Pre-K through 5th grade packet pick up in the weekly call going out Monday at 6:00 p.m. Please send a personal message to those that requested/need a packet to let them know about the packet pick up time. Any packets that aren’t picked up will be mailed.
We will distribute packets every two weeks to go home with those that do not have internet access. For your planning purposes, our next packet pick up day will be April 28th and we will only hold packet pick up days for those without internet.
Work Intentions: I strongly encourage all IAs and Teachers to work from home as often as possible so we don't expose each other to germs. The more people we have in the buildings the more areas our custodians have to disinfect each day. I would expect most of us will work from home (except in special circumstances). If you are coming into the building, please let those in the office know, it is helpful to know if others are in the building.
Stay at Home Orders - On March 27th, the Governor issued a statewide stay at home order. It would be a good idea to carry your district-issued identification badges while traveling to/ from school if you need to do something essential (handing out laptops, creating/passing out packets,helping with food distribution,etc). We have been asked to limit building entry to only school employees carrying out essential duties. Please talk to Carla if there is a need for anyone else to come into school with you. We are not allowing the public into the building at all. Resuming April 14th, our building will continue to be open for staff from 7-3:30 for those needing to do something essential.
Building Hours/Staff Reporting Sheet - Resuming April 14th, the building hours are 7:00 to 3:30. If you plan to come into NCE, please know that custodians will be alarming the building at 3:25 daily. All staff members should complete this form each day. This form is linked into the NCE Staff page under the At Home Learning Section.
Staff Video We plan to include a video of the staff in the parent call out/newsletter each week. Eddie will reach out to (varied grade level/support staff) groups each week (for the next 6 weeks or so) about filming a short (5 - 10 seconds max) video of you sending well wishes to the NCE community. He has asked that clips (once requested) are emailed to him so he can merge all the clips together. Hope you enjoy segment two of our staff video that will be coming out in the weekly call on Monday evening! Thank you for helping us make this happen!
PLC's for the Week:
PLCs: Carla and Mandy will add any new district/state updates into your PLC agendas as needed, but just as it is during the “normal” PLC’s, the agenda is for your grade level to create/build together! The first Zoom PLC was a lot of sharing but there will not be as many updates to share moving forward, so please remember that it is your PLC and we want you guys guiding the at home learning planning for your grade level! Please work as a group to add items to your agenda each week that we meet.
PLC’s/Zoom Meetings for the Week of April 14th:
Monday - NO SCHOOL
Tuesday:
9:00 - First Grade Zoom PLC
10:30 - Kindergarten Zoom PLC
12:00 - Fourth Grade Zoom PLC
Wednesday:
10:00 - Fifth Grade Zoom PLC
12:00 - Second Grade Zoom PLC
Thursday:
9:00 - Specials Zoom PLC
10:00 - Third Grade Zoom PLC
12:00 - Pre-K Zoom PLC
Friday:
9:30 - Classified Staff Zoom Meeting (Eddie will be sending information about this meeting after Spring Break.)
Technology/Privacy:
Zoom and Class Management: Holding a Zoom meeting at least once a week with your class as a whole group or in small groups is an expectation. This expectation will probably increase as we move deeper into these weeks of At Home Learning. As we do more and more Zoom with our students, the novelty will wear off and behaviors will increase. Therefore it is essential that you think about, create, emphasize, and reinforce your behavior expectations for your students while you are in a Zoom meeting. In addition, you need to think about positive reinforcement. How often are you providing specific praise to individual students and the group? Here are some excellent CHAMPS resources specifically designed for video conferencing and teaching. Please look through these resources linked below and decide how you can incorporate classroom rules/positive reinforcement, and CHAMPS into your online class meetings.
At Home Learning and Technology Privacy: Navigating at home learning and collaboration with technology will be challenging as we move into online learning these next few weeks. Emma Braaten, CCS’s new Executive Director of Digital Teaching & Learning,
has created a helpful document called the At-Home Learning Guidance for Student Privacy. This is a good resource to help you prevent, monitor, and stop different types of inappropriate online behaviors that could occur while students use the tools provided by the district. This will be linked onto the staff page. See the privacy updates for Zoom and Seesaw below:
Zoom:
Direction Sheet for How to Change Settings on Zoom for Privacy. This is linked onto the staff page too.
Be careful about posting Zoom photos of the class on social media. Ensure the students’ first and last names are not seen in your picture. The host and/or the students can change their names when they first log on.
TURN OFF the private chat setting. Students should only be able to send a chat to “Everyone”.
Do NOT share your meeting link or meeting ID on social media.
There are FBI warnings all over the media about Zoom, if parents bring up concerns to you please let them know, “Our technology division has been working closely with Zoom for Education, the license we have, and it is HIPAA compliant. The free accounts and normal business accounts have a very different user agreement and user data sharing/privacy agreement than Zoom for Education.”
Please be mindful of which students have permission to have photos taken and used. If you have questions, please check with Lynne Crankshaw.
Change your settings: Tap wrench icon > scroll down and turn OFF 'Students can see each other's work'.
At Home Learning Codes: This will slightly change the way students will log into Seesaw so you will need to inform students and parents. If you choose this option, you will want to keep your explanation to families as simple as possible. Carla or Mandy can help you navigate that situation.
Potential Work from Home Options:
Here are more At Home Work Opportunities - see the opportunities that were shared from the district.
Resources: Here are possible ideas and resources you could incorporate into your online planning for students or PD for yourself.
https://ell.brainpop.com/ - Brainpop for ESL students
web.seesaw.me/training - Weekly differentiated Seesaw trainings you can register for. You can earn CEUS and help improve your understanding and use of Seesaw.
Easy to Load Screencastify Videos - If you have students that have internet but it is really slow, here are directions from Matt Miller on how to change your settings in Screencastify so your students can more easily load the videos you send them to watch.
https://www.smore.com/corona - Free S’more accounts. These can help in how you deliver your at home learning information or class newsletters
Curriculum Associates/Ready grade level packets. You can download and use some or all of these packets with your students if you’d like. Use the link to access English and Spanish ready made At Home packets for each grade level for math and ELA.
go.ncsu.edu/ficonnects - The Friday Institute is associated with NC State and works on advancing education through innovation in digital-age teaching, learning and leadership. They are offering Role-alike discussions for elementary and secondary school educators on Wednesdays at 2 pm ET. They’ll share best practices and resources, but also spend time facilitating opportunities to collaborate, share, and ask questions of your colleagues from around our nation.
Living History Idea - Help your students journal, create a blog, or talk on Flipgrid about what is going on right now as they participate in “living history”.
CEUs and PD: We know many staff members are completing Professional Development while working from home. Please remember that if you are certified staff and are participating in PD that is NOT hosted by PTEC, NCEES, NCASCD, DPI, or CCS, then you MUST use the Prior Approval form in the Frontline learning management system. If the PD IS from PTEC, NCASCD, DPI, NCEES, or CCS you can just enter an historical PD record form in Frontline and upload the proof that you completed the course. Here is the Frontline CEUs Cheat Sheet for directions on how to do these steps. This is also linked on the staff page.
Google Proficiency: As we move further into the weeks of at home learning, knowing how to proficiently use your Google Drive will become more and more of a necessity. One of your first steps in this process is to start using the Chrome browser instead of Safari. Start making this the primary browser you use for everything you do on your computer. Practice with it and understand how to navigate it. All things Google tend to work best with the Chrome browser. Next, there are a lot of ways you can learn about your Google Drive. You can set up a time to meet and work with Mandy, or you can watch videos and practice independently, or you can become a Google Certified Teacher. However you choose to learn, it is a great idea to start learning soon!