Eagle Express
LHS Staff Newsletter--Year 19, Vol. 2, 8/26/19
Ball Pit & Photo Booth
Info From Friday's Sessions
The teacher handbook (old LiveBinder), all of the information below, and future resources can/will be found in the HLN All Staff Schoology Group resources folder.
PBIS: You can click here to access the presentation. The discipline guide we mentioned can be found here. Be sure to complete the anonymous teacher inventory as well.
Grading: Here is the link to the presentation related to grading practices from Friday morning. Don’t forget that the common course expectations (template here) are due to your AP by 2:30 pm on Tuesday.
Department Meeting: Here is a link to the modified nuts and bolts presentation from the Assistant Principals. Let us know if you have questions.
For Monday: Monday morning, everyone will participate in a special education session. We will all start in the library for a brief opening session from 8:00 – 8:12 am, followed by breakout sessions from 8:15 – 8:35 am and 8:40 – 9:00 am. Each of the breakout sessions will take place during both of the time slots. Please read the descriptions below in advance and choose two sessions, based on your needs and interests.
- Inclusion—The Role of the SPED Teacher (room 125) This session will touch on the role of the SPED teacher regarding small group instruction, accommodation compliance, differentiation (both teacher instruction and student work), instruction, classroom management, role in the PLC, and grading).
- Responding to the Behaviors of Students with IEPs (LMC) This session will review some tips and tricks for responding to the needs of students, as well as explore some aspects of discipline especially important when it comes to students with IEPs. The session will be most helpful for general education and special education inclusion teachers.
- Accommodating Students with IEPs (and 504s) (room 126) This session will consider some of the more common accommodations, why they are important, and best practices for implementation.
- Special Education 101 (room 102) This session will highlight the most important facets of special education for those with limited experience with the process.
- Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) (room 104) This session will explore the importance and methods of providing specially designed instruction (SDI) for students with disabilities.
- Data Collection (room TECH) This session will help all teachers understand their role in the SPED data collection process. The session will be most helpful for core content teachers of students with IEPs and case managers.
Staff Photos & Photo Booth: Please plan to wear your black staff polo with black pants on Thursday at 10:00 am for the staff photo that will be taken in the gym. Departmental photos will be taken afterwards (see schedule below). Feel free to do fun photos as well.
10:30 Math, Science, SPED teachers, SECEP, TAs
10:35 Social Studies, English, World Languages, ESL
10:40 TCE, HPE, AVID, ROTC, Fine Arts
10:45 Library, ITS, TST, Counseling, GRT, Grad Coach, Clinic
10:50 Cafeteria Staff
10:55 Security
11:00 Admin
2:00 Custodial Staff
Clarifications from Department Meetings
Copying & Laminating: We will once again offer this reprographic service. Service request forms are located on the reprographics cart in the mailroom. Please allow a 48-hour turnaround time for copying & laminating. Just FYI . . . the laminator has been damaged and the roller must be replaced. We have had a technician out and he has ordered the new roller, but we aren't sure when repairs will be accomplished.
Schoology: We are all using Schoology this year. Schoology plays very nicely with all of the Google apps (docs, slides, forms, etc.), so you will have access to everything you created in your Google Drive. You will also be learning about some extremely powerful data that can be used through Schoology. We will not be using Google Classroom. Feedback we received from students was that they very much need one place to go to find information. We will also be utilizing the calendar in Schoology for all-school events and announcements.
Dress Code: If you have a suspected dress code violation in your classroom, you should send the student to the office to be seen by an administrator. You do not have to write a referral.
Dress for Inservice Week: Jeans and casual wear are absolutely appropriate for this inservice week. The exceptions are Wednesday (professional dress for Open House) and Thursday morning (staff polo for our picture).
Are you “Schoology Ready” yet? Optional Schoology training sessions will be offered in the library on Tuesday morning.
8:00-9:00am: Come by and work your way through this Schoology Ready Checklist to make sure you are prepared and organized to use Schoology with all your classes this year.
9:00-10:00am: Drop-in PL. Stop in to ask your Schoology questions ranging from anything on to how to connect to Google Drive, organize your courses, create assessments, use AMP, calendars, workload features, and more. The Schoology Champions stand ready to assist!
Sunshine
The Sunshine Committee distributes gifts and cards to staff members on various occasions (marriage, birth, illness, death). They also arrange two all-staff celebrations each year--one at the end of the first semester and one at the end of the year. Monies collected go to fund these gifts and these celebrations.
Sunshine donations are $10 ($7 for TAs and clerical). Please give your sunshine donation to your department's Sunshine Committee representative by Friday, September 6.
Course Expectations & Open House
Once the course expectations have been approved by your AP, we will make 20 copies of your expectations for you to have available for parents on Wednesday evening. If you think you will need more than 20 copies, please let Dr. Askew know via email. We are working on a plan to have everyone's course expectations available on our website for our parents.
Eagle Nation Orientation
We will welcome over 450 Freshman into the Nest beginning at 3:30 on Wednesday. These rising Freshman will meet their advisory mentors, get to know the building and learn some helpful tips that will make them feel more at home on their first official day at school. The Eagle Nation mentors will be the guides for our newest students at Orientation. Chromebooks will also be distributed that day so that students will be ready to begin using them on day one! While most of the duties for that day are covered by the Advisory and Orientation planning team, if you can spare 20-30 minutes that day, we'd love to have as many smiling faces available as we can. Please feel free to check this link for places you can serve. Spots in blue are needed, but if all spots are filled, please feel free to sign up anywhere. We can never have too much help.
All Advisory groups are listed here; please check to see if you have a Freshman Advisory group. If so, you are asked to be in the listed advisory room at the designated time to meet your advisory students. The mentors will be doing teambuilding, but students would love to meet you during this 15 min time period. If you find your name listed as a Freshman Advisor, there is an additional tab specifically for you at the bottom of the form so that you can see more information about your group.
Our rising Freshman will have dinner that night in the cafeteria, and teachers will have dinner as well. Your dinner will be served in the teacher's lounge/workroom located in the cafeteria beginning at 4:45 p.m.
We look forward to a wonderful orientation and open house. Thank you so much for your willingness to make our students' first impressions great ones.
Landstown Gear
Josten's is offering an online pop-up store with Landstown gear. The shop will only be open through September 9th. Proceeds from the shop will be used to help offset the cost of our big Heritage Week motivational speaker. The items will ship directly to you and will take approximately 6 weeks after the online store closes. You can access the Josten's gear shop here.
Advisory Information
We will continue our advisory program this year; however, after listening to feedback from you and students, we have made some changes. In keeping with the idea that advisory was created to provide strong connections, better relationships, and more informed students, advisory will meet weekly this year. While this may seem a bit overwhelming at first, it has been designed to not add more work to your plate. As in the past, for two weeks of every month advisory will have designated topics with question starters and information for you to use to have productive conversations with your students on grade level topics. The other two weeks of each month will be used to check in with your advisory students; use this time to check on grades, discuss work that students might need to complete, allow them time to complete that work, and allow them time to pursue their interests and passions. We will provide you with further information on this in the coming weeks, but some of advisory time will also be used as a time for Eagle Exploration. Students will be provided a guiding question on these Eagle Exploration days, and will use that time to explore topics that may or may not be covered in classes, or that they may wish to explore further. A full years framework has been created for you by the advisory team and will be shared in the coming weeks. Our first advisory will be on September 18 and this will simply be a time to get to know your students.
Another change coming to advisory as a result of feedback from both you and students will be that students in grades 10 through 12 will choose their advisor this year. On the second day of school, a Google poll will open where students will choose from one of 25 grade level advisors. If you signed up to loop with your advisory students at the end of last year, you have been assigned to that grade level so that your students may choose you again. We are asking teachers of advisory groups in grades 10 through 12 to please submit a very short bio on the attached link. This bio asks for your name, what you teach and one of your hobbies or interests. Students will have these bios as they make their advisor choice. We hope that many students choose advisors that they are comfortable with or that have a similar interest as a way to make an even deeper connection. Please complete this form by Wednesday, August 28th at 3 pm. Thanks so much for all you do to make advisory awesome.
Admission to Athletic Contests
All school division employees will receive complimentary admission to any regular season athletic event hosted by a VBCPS high school or middle school by simply presenting a valid VBCPS ID badge at the ticket gate. Complimentary admission will not be offered for post-season events and is extended to employees only. Guests of the employee will need to purchase a ticket to enter the event.
Lunch Duties
As has been true in the past, each teacher will do two duties or activity/club rotations each week during lunch. Teachers can choose: two duties, one duty and one club, or one duty and one activity. The matrix for all available slots is linked here. Please look over the duties, clubs and activity spots and make your selection by Friday, August 30th. Remember to work around your office hours which are listed at the top of the duty matrix. Club and activities that meet during Lunch need to be weekly, recurring meetings. SCA will take on the job of advertising all clubs and activities that meet during lunch this year in one central location to help students plan out their week. Duties, clubs and activities begin on Monday, September 16th.
Melody Cariello's son shows off his support for our "Fearless" theme!
Kudos
Kudos to Tim Wright for stepping up to take on a leadership role on the PBIS team.
LHS had 17 students complete their requirements for August graduation. Thanks to the counselors and teachers who worked so hard to help these students find success. Congrats class of 2019!
Kudos and thanks to Marcus Johnson-Williams for being a thoughtful planner and really focusing on what will help students show their learning in multimodal ways this year.
Kudos to the Latin Dance Team who had a wonderful presentation at Cosmopolitan Apartments at Town Center, Virginia Beach recently.
Congratulations to Ty Swartz in our TCE department who had two images selected for merits at the International Photographic Competition and Images selected during the Virginia Professional Photographic Competition. Ty reports that the graphics he submitted were based on a lesson he designed for students to learn how to create illustrative Graphics. Real-world application at work in our TCE classrooms! Ty shared some of the winning images below.
Heritage Week Speakers Needed
Heritage Week 2019 is set for November 18 - 22. The theme for the week is, "Chase Your Dreams." The planning committee is looking for speakers from the community to present to our students around this theme. If you know of someone who would be a good fit and would be willing to speak to our students, please let Shaylee Laton or Dave Siock know as soon as possible.
Innovative Learning Grants
The application for grants for funding up to $2,000 can be found here. Deadline to apply is October 18. We have so many great things happening at LHS. Please consider applying for one of these grants to fund the innovative learning you are leading.
Additionally, last spring, the Foundation surveyed all principals to determine if there was a need for a larger grant in which our schools for including a community partner in a grant. Based on the results, they incorporated three themes for which you can apply for up to $20,000:
- Learning Environment
- Health and Wellness (to include Social Emotional)
- General Innovation (programs other than the two prior categories)
Here is the link to the online application which is due by September 20, 2019.
Sick Leave Bank Open Enrollment
Open enrollment for all eligible employees begins August 1, 2019, and continues through October 15, 2019.
2019-2020 Professional Learning Program Information
Landstown High School
Email: cheryl.askew@vbschools.com
Website: http://www.landstownhs.vbschools.com/
Location: 2001 Concert Drive, Virginia Beach, VA, USA
Phone: 757-648-5500
Twitter: @LandstownEagles