Staff Weekly Update
Week of March 4th, 2019
So much is happening this month! We start off "strong" with our Strong In Every Way Convocation on Monday afternoon. We are also participating in the district-wide Disability Awareness Week! Below is a friendly reminder of the details Martha sent out to all of you. And last but not least, March is Women's History Month! Be sure to read the email sent by Chris Squier on Feb. 27th about ideas, resources, and opportunities!
Looking forward to starting off our week together as an SGE Family on Monday afternoon!
With much respect,
Connie
Calendar Items
Mon. March 4th
- Janelle Drisko at SGE - all day
- 8:05 - Morning Announcements + Morning Movement Minute
- 8:30 - 10:30 - Melanie Bowlin at ESC
- 9:00 - SIEW Convocation Practice
- 9:30 - On/Off Task - Wetzel
- 11:40 - HS Peer Mentors
- 1:30 - K-4TH GR. SIEW CONVOCATION - we will start calling classes down at 1:20 PM
- 2:45 - Meeting re: Supply Lists - Largent, Farley, Evans, Skura - conf. room
Tues. March 5th
- Angie Duncan out of the building - 1/2 day AM
- 8:05 - Morning Announcements + Morning Movement Minute
- 8:30 - Elementary LT Meeting - Largent & Farley - EE
- 9:30 - Meeting w/ 3rd gr. parents - Largent, Slonaker - conf. room
- 11:00 - ICC for 1st grader - Largent, Slonaker, Dowers, Clare - conf. room
- 1:00 - USS Team mtg w/ Dr. Slonaker - USS Team, Largent, Farley, Wetzel - conf. room
- 2:40 - Meeting w/ 1st gr. parents - Largent, Wetzel, McDaniel - Kyla's room
- 2:45 - IREAD/ILEARN Test Security Training - Farley & 3rd Gr. Team - Leslie's room
- 6:30 - 8:00 - ZCS Growth & Redistricting Meeting w/ Dr. Robison - SGE Cafe
Wed. March 6th
- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MANDY KELLER!
- Janelle Drisko at SGE - all day
- 8:05 - Morning Announcements + Morning Movement Minute
- 8:15 - 12:30 - Randee Kleeman at SGE
- 9:15 - Counseling Lesson - Wetzel/Nahrstadt
- 11:30 - 1:00 - PTO Spring Fling Meeting - PTO Group - conf. room
- 2:30 - DSST Mtg. re: 4th grader - Largent, Watson, Frothingham, Brown
- 2:45 - Meeting w/ 3rd grade parent - Farley, Wetzel, Lewis - Alicia's room
- 3:30 - 5:00 - Largent/Farley in weekly mtg.
Thurs. March 7th
- 8:05 - Morning Announcements + Morning Movement Minute
- 8:45 - Counseling Lesson - Wetzel/Frobig
- 10:15 - 2:00 - Randee Kleeman at SGE
- 12:45 - Counseling Lesson - Wetzel/Milam
- 1:30 - Staffing for 3rd grader's ICC - Largent, Slonaker, Watson, Lauer-Jones, Kleeman - conf. room
- 2:30 - Speech ACR for 1st grader - Largent, Kleeman, Westin - conf. room
- 2:35 - Speech ACR for 3rd grader - Fure, Wetzel, Brizzolara - Jessica's office
Fri. March 8th
- Largent out of the building - 1/2 day PM
- 8:05 - Morning Announcements + Morning Movement Minute
- K-4 PLC Meetings all day w/ Largent & Farley - conf. room
- 11:15 - Counseling Lesson - Wetzel & Shaw
- 2:45 - Office Team Meeting - conf. room
Weekly Absence At-A-Glance (March 4th-8th)
Upcoming Events . . .
MARCH 2019:
- 11th - Jim McMillan w/ CLASS at SGE - all day
- 12th - LT Meeting
- 13th - PTO Meeting
- 13th - District School Safety Meeting
- 14th - 4th Gr. visits ZWEST + evening parent meetings
- 15th - Irish Dancers Convocation
- 18th - 22nd - Severe Weather Preparedness Week
- 18th - Elem. Principals Meeting
- 19th - K-12 Counselor Meeting
- 19th - Westin's Open Mic Night
- 20th - K-4 SBRC done by 8:00 am
- 21st - Staff Meeting
- 23rd - PTO Spring Fling
- 25th - Welcome back, Abby Andries!
- 26th - District Discussions Mtg.
- 28th - Drama Club's Spring Play
- 28th - Last day before Spring Break
- 29th - April 5th - Spring Break
ZCS and Special Olympics Partnership
ZCS has partnered with Special Olympics to become a Unified Champion School District. Unified Champion Schools is a 12-week program focused on providing different physical activities leading to improved fitness and skills to students in preschool through 8th grade with Intellectual Disabilities. The goal of Unified Champion Schools is for all students to be afforded equality, access, opportunity, respect, and acceptance. Unified Champion Schools focuses on the commitment to all students, throughout the course of their development, to participate in physical education and activity that promotes learning, achievement, and enjoyment.
As a part of ZCS’s commitment to Special Olympics, Zionsville agreed to two items:
- First, we agreed to provide district-wide awareness during Disabilities Awareness Week March 4th through the 8th.
- Secondly, we agreed for each building (elementary and middle school) to participate in a fundraiser to become a Banner School.
The theme for Disability Awareness Week this year is “To Include.” We will have announcements each day during the week to share special messages. The announcements on Wednesday and Thursday provide instructions for students (and staff) to sign banners that remind students of their pledge “To Include.” (The week's announcements are on the document below)
For this coming week:
1. Please send home flyers on Monday, March 4th. They are in your mailboxes
2. Teachers: if you haven’t sent your newsletters please add the upcoming dates announcing that this week is Disability Awareness Week. If you can also include the theme day on Friday (for a donation of $1 to benefit Special Olympics kids can wear a crazy hat or crazy hair) that would be great! Our goal is to raise $250.
3. There will be daily announcements for the upcoming week. Announcements start on Monday.
4. Announcements for Wednesday and Thursday include information about the signing of the banners. We will send more information about signing the banners shortly.
5. Money collected Tuesday- Friday should be sent to the front office with the red folders. Please keep track of students who brought in their dollar. A check will be made out to Special Olympics from SGE (and each of the schools respectfully).
Thank you for supporting our participation in Disability Awareness Week and helping us reach our goal of $250 to become a banner school!
REJECT: A Documentary Film
The Importance of UNSTRUCTURED Play
In this Ted Talk below, Dr. Peter Gray compellingly brings attention to the reality that over the past 60 years in the United States there has been a gradual but, overall dramatic decline in children's freedom to play with other children, without adult direction. Over this same period, there has been a gradual but overall dramatic increase in anxiety, depression, feelings of helplessness, suicide, and narcissism in children and adolescents. Based on his own and others' research, Dr. Gray documents why free play is essential for children's healthy social and emotional development and outlines steps through which we can bring free play back to children's lives.
Global School Play Day
WHAT IS GLOBAL SCHOOL PLAY DAY?
Started in 2015, Global School Play Day is one day set aside for students to do nothing but play all day. NO SCREENS - NO STRUCTURE - ALL DAY LONG
Allow students to spread their toys out around the room or take the kids outside and just PLAY!
Don't organize anything for your students.
Don't tell them how to play with the toys/games.
Don't interfere with your students unless you see something that could physically/emotionally hurt a child (this does not include something that may be physically uncomfortable for a child.)
Don't Leave Them Unsupervised as the day is unstructured by adults, but not unsupervised.
Should SGE Have a Global School Play Day?
Coming Soon to SGE . . .
Filtered Water Dispenser (countertop model) in our Conference Room
Two Upgraded Water Fountains with Filtered Water Bottle Fillers!
ZCS ‘Do Day’ – Friday, March 15 (1:00p) through Saturday, March 16 (1:00p)
We would love to get students and teachers involved in our ‘ZCS Do Day’ initiative, where we are promoting volunteerism within our Zionsville Community Schools over the course of the 24-hour timeframe.
In an effort to include students of all ages, we are starting this initiative during the actual school day, so that if you were interested in participating with your students, teachers could lead their class in one of the suggested activities at the end of the day on March 15. We have numerous organizations around Boone County that have partnered up with us during this timeframe, as our goal is to service a wide-range of places, interests and skill sets.
If your class is interested in participating, here are some suggested activities (though, they can come up with their own ideas too!):
- Write letters to service men and women
- Make placemats for the Boone County Senior Services bi-monthly luncheons at Town Hall
- Collect items for the Boone County Humane Society
- Make ‘adopt me’ bandanas and bow ties for the Boone County Humane Society
- Collect items for the Food Pantry
- Make ‘thank you’ cards to deliver to ZPD, ZFD and Boone County officers
- Make cards for the Zionsville Meadows Senior Citizens
- Help clean up around your school’s campus (pick up sticks, rocks, trash)
All of these can be done within a 30-45 minute timeframe, and Kelly Antcliff can provide more information (supplies needed, when to pick up items, etc.) on any of those activities. We’d love for you to take pictures and know the quantity and variety of activities so we can help spread the good news of why volunteerism and giving back to our community is important to our school district!
Don't forget! This Sunday, March 10th Begins Daylight Savings Time!
Teacher of the Year (TOY) and Someone Special (SOS) Nominations
Please click here to nominate for Teacher of the Year and the Someone Special Award. The deadline to nominate for both awards is Friday, March 15th at 6:00 PM.
Our Teacher of the Year (TOY) has its own unique timeline listed below:
- Fri. 3/15 - Deadline for SGE nominations
- Mon. 3/18 - Announce TOY & SOS recipients
- Mon. 3/18 - Fri. 4/12 - TOY fills out ZCS application
- Fri. 4/12 - Submission deadline for ZCS applicant from each school (nominee application & principal letter of recommendation) to Lynn Kissel at ESC
- Wed. 4/17 – Fri. 4/26 - Committee review of candidates & selection of district Teacher of the Year.
- Mon. 5/13 – School Board Meeting – All 8 nominees honored. One will be named district Teacher of the Year.
- Lynn will communicate w/nominees (photo/bio/awards)
- TBD – ZCS winner submits information for IN Teacher of the Year (Usually early June)
Additional Announcements & Reminders
PTO My Princess & Me Dance
- Please remind parents to RSVP for this event.
- Date of the event is Friday, March 15th
- RSVP LINK: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d44aaa828aafd0-myprincess
PTO Dine for Dollars at Fundae's
- Please remind parents of this fundraiser!
- Date of the event is Tuesday, March 19th from 4-8 pm
- Below is a screenshot of our celebrity scoopers!
PTO Spring Fling
- Please remind parents of this event!
- Date of the event is Saturday, March 23rd from 3-7 pm
Color Printer Reminder
- REMEMBER . . . PC1-Front Office = Color Printer
Please Join Our REMIND Group
- SGE (staff only) has an all-staff Remind text messaging group called: 18-19 SGE (all staff).
- To simply *receive-only* the text messages, please text the number 81010 and in your "message line" type in the code: @k29hfe.
- If you'd like to be able to text back and forth w/ me via REMIND, please download the app or create an online account.
- As a friendly reminder, please do not share this code with non-SGE staff members.
Leaving EARLY afterschool and you've gotten permission from Connie/Martha . . .
- If this is the case for you, please help us by always emailing the entire office team to let them know you've gotten permission and also leave your cell # in the email message, in case we need to contact you.
- Who is the "office team?" Connie, Martha, Angie, Jen, Jessica, Jae, Deputy Todd
Fundae's Celebrity Scoopers
***IMPORTANT LINKS***
Professional Development Requests
- If you would like to attend any type of professional development, please click here.
Technology Work Orders - Reminder from Dan Layton:
- Click here to access this link.
- It is always extremely helpful if you can submit actual technology work orders for any help you need. Please refrain from picking up the phone or emailing a question.
Above & Beyond Nomination Form
- On our ZCS website, any ZCS staff and/or community member can nominate the work of any ZCS employee that has done extraordinary work. If you've experienced professional support that is above & beyond, feel free to recognize them through this nomination! Please click here to nominate.
Marquis Work Orders:
Did your trash not get picked up? Does it seem the carpet didn't get vacuumed? Please help Angie & Jen out by filling out the Marquis work order on your own. Thanks!
1. Go to the Zionsville web site
2. Click on Teachers/Staff tab
3. Scroll down about halfway
4. Look for: Custodial Work Orders by Building
5. Click on Stonegate
Click here to access the Teachers/Staff tab
18-19 PTO Wish List - NEW GOOGLE FORM LINK!
- Click the NEW LINK HERE to access this Office 365 Form
Personal Business Leave Request - NEW GOOGLE FORM LINK!
- Please click the NEW LINK HERE to access this form and then don't forget to SAVE this page under your "favorites."
- Finally, as a friendly reminder of our ZCS Personal Business Leave + good information to know for our newest staff, I have copied/pasted the email about personal days sent by Becky Coffman on 5/8/16. This is per our CBA - Collective Bargaining Agreement
- A. Amount – Each employee shall be entitled to be absent from work three (3) days each school year for the transaction of personal business or the conduct of personal or civic affairs. Such leaves may be used in whole or half day increments. Requests for personal business leave should be made 48 hours in advance in writing to the building principal. In cases of emergency or other similar unforeseen circumstance, requests may be made orally to both the substitute coordinator and the building principal.
- B. Employees are discouraged from using personal business leave on staff development days or to extend a school vacation. If used on a staff development day then the employee remains totally responsible for securing the learning lost from their being absent during that activity.
- C. Accumulation – If an employee does not use all of the personal business leave in a given school year, the remaining personal business leave shall be accumulated for use in later school year, except that no more than a total of two (2) days may be accumulated from earlier school years for use as personal business leave, so that the maximum total personal business leave available in any one school year is three (3) days earned during the school year and up to two (2) days accumulated from earlier school years or a total of five (5) days.
- D. Conversion to Sick Leave – Any unused personal business leave not accumulated for use in later years as personal business leave shall be added to the employee’s accumulated sick leave.