Primary Division MD Newsletter
August 7, 2020
We Are Grateful
Primary Team,
We hope all you had a pleasant and rewarding PD week. We saw and heard lots of great learning and sharing that you did with your staff. Buckle Up! We are about to embark on a strange and wonderful ride into high level remote learning! Before we do, we want to take this opportunity to wish you the best in the upcoming weeks. We are sure your commitment to excellence, combined with all the good work you have done, will create yet another group of excited teachers and engaged scholars.
Our goal for the Primary Division is that it is a happy, friendly, a safe and encouraging place where everyone feels welcome and valued; a place where achievement is expected and is celebrated; a place where all members of the primary school community care about each other and are kind to each other; a place where adult climate is good, and where success of all kinds are noticed. Leading schools has many personal and professional rewards, but we also understand that it also has distinct challenges. We are here to support you through the distinct challenges.
We know that maintaining and sustaining a dialogue on the importance of education with parents is key to the success of our scholars. The positive support of our parents and the wider community is very important to us all and we must maintain an open and welcoming environment where we can work in partnership for the benefit of our scholars. We continue to be in awe of the work that you do. We are grateful for you.
Our Best,
Yasmin, Priscilla, and Kecia
Ideas Worth Spreading
Here is a Schoology resource teachers can share with parents. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hCTa-6akUkm5WSVk4HMV7_1th-UdEfl7otFVyAEPL2Q/edit#slide=id.g8e952e3ece_0_3
I am having my teachers create a section in Schoology called “ ____ grade Parent Resources” and they will add resources that section.
Important Message From Primary Managing Directors
Team,
It has been brought to our attention that some primary campuses are requiring that their entire academic staff come to campus to work in person. Staffs are doing a myriad of things on campus like watching PD in separate rooms or everyone working on an individual projects. This practice is not in accordance to the guidelines that were sent out by the network in previous communications. Teachers have the option of working from home until September 8, 2020. If teachers choose to work on campus, then an administrator must be present on campus with them. Academic ADs and Deans should work in concert with your Operations Directors when allowing teachers on campus so that we can stay in accordance of our stated safety guidelines. Next week (August 10th), teachers will have scheduled parent/scholar one on one meetings. Make sure Operations has a list/schedule of which staff members will be on campus each day and for how long. It is not an expectation that all staff will be on campus at the same time for these meetings. It is permissible to bring small (10 or less) groups of staff on campus to put together student materials, have a social event, etc., if they are properly social distancing. If you have any questions regarding this information reach out to Kecia or Priscilla.
Our Best,
Yasmin, Priscilla, and Kecia
Uplift Primary Managing Directors
Uplift Infinity Leadership Team
Student Technology
Shared by Aurora Lora
We want to provide support to teams as you think through the first few weeks of school and how to navigate current scholars who have not yet identified that they require technology and brand new scholars who require technology. Our goal is to ensure all scholars have access, enrollment and engagement in the early weeks. When talking about access to learning, technology is a big piece. Once we knew we needed to pivot to all virtual, we increased our Chromebook orders but as you can imagine, some things are on back order. We have to be really creative to ensure access to all scholars in the first few weeks of school. Our IT teams are doing their best to ensure every CB we have is getting into the hands of our scholars, prioritizing those scholars who have expressed need. In the coming week, we will have a better idea as to how many scholars may not have a CB and how we can best support those scholars over the first few weeks of learning. We do not believe this to be an enormous number of scholars.
As we think about enrollment, given we are a charter school of choice and need to confirm our enrollment in the early days of school, we also need our scholars engaging with us in order to confirm their seat. Thankfully, the State has thoughtfully given us grace in the first few weeks of school when it comes to attendance. That being said, we want to balance the flexibility we have on attendance at the start of the year with strong engagement to ensure our scholars are engaging with us in thoughtful ways and have access to learning from the start.
Keeping the above in mind, we have some short-term ways for families who are waiting on access to stay enrolled and engaged.
- For the week of August 10-14, please keep the Schoology activities simple enough so that they can be done by logging in on a smartphone. Families waiting on technology can download the Schoology app for their smartphones and can log in through the app. If they need assistance with downloading the app, the teacher can help them during the parent-teacher conference. We will also be monitoring engagement daily and sharing reports to campuses so that we can do our best to support identifying where we may have scholars lacking access to technology. If you have a family who cannot access a smartphone, an accommodation should be made for the scholar to call the school in lieu of logging on.
After the initial week of school, we need to quickly pivot to allow scholars still waiting on technology some form of access and a strong start on engagement. The team is working on a few potential solutions including opening up some school computer labs at some of our sites. In order for us to figure out what options we can make available, we need to know exactly how many families are still without technology and might need access to our labs to complete their assignments. Please keep a list of any students from your school who need Chromebooks or hot spots and submit the names, grades, and student ID numbers in the following google doc so that we can either re-distribute extra Chromebooks or hot spots that we are able to obtain or identify locations where we might need to open a computer lab. We will make an announcement on Wednesday, August 12th, about what options will be available for families starting on August 17th.
List the names of any students who need Chromebooks or hot spots here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14NDXCT0FEQH4qaxRryDb_fqE0GsVIxruzsoMxnTC4QA/edit?usp=sharing
We will send a follow-up note by EOD tomorrow that provides directions on how to download the app that you can share with new families. Thanks. Please let us know if you have any questions.
House Party!...We Mean House Warming!
Schoology Updates
Scholar Enrollment and Attendance Tracking
Tracking scholar enrollment and attendance the first week of school:
- For scholars with technology (CBs or their own) – we ask that they login to schoology through ClassLink everyday next week to do a small task. This allows us to track enrollment (first touch point) and attendance for that scholar centrally.
- For scholars with no technology (awaiting a CB) – we ask that they download ClassLink on a smartphone and login through ClassLink (these directions will be sent out with the communication going to scholars tomorrow and to school leaders as well)
- For scholars with no technology or smartphone – we ask that teachers confirm contact with the scholar (through phone or conference) and track that in the tracker the State Reporting team has created. The State Reporting team will be training campus ops teams on this process tomorrow and has provided a quick presentation of the process for teachers (including links to the tracker), attached. Teachers and leaders should be able to work with their Ops teams for support.
Parent Communication
Family Engagement Meetings:
Do not forget, every campus needs to have two (one done in Spanish if applicable) Townhall meetings by the end of next week. The meetings should utilize the slide deck created by CMO. We have attached it for your reference.
Looking Good Primary Division
Virtual Learning Guidance
- Virtual Course Guidance: Yay! We’re posting these to Blackboard in every grade’s course in the folder Curricular Resources à Virtual Learning.
- Teaching Moves and Examples for Virtual Learning: This is a document we got from Jonathan that we’ve made some edits to. Some of this content is covered in our virtual course guidance but this document breaks it down in a more step-by-step manner. Before sharing this with leaders though, we’d love your eyes on it. We made some adjustments, but are unsure if some of the language (specifically on page 1) is too compliance-centric.
PYP Action Step
PYP coordinator action step (for authorized PYP campuses only):
Your campus PYP coordinator received an email from Brian Hills (network PYP coordinator) on August 7 with guidance around PYP implementation in a virtual environment for this fall. If you are at an authorized PYP campus, please schedule 5-10 minutes of an upcoming campus leadership team for your PYP coordinator to share out the highlights from this document. Any follow-up questions should be directed to bhills@uplifteducation.org.
COVID-19 Safety
Social Distancing on Campus/ Protocols: When you are on campus, the expectation is that you always wear your mask. The protocol also applies to working alone in your room/office. Please be sure to model this for your staff. For example, if you are on campus and delivering PD, your face should be covered- you can alternate between the mask and shield if you prefer.
Reading Academies
From TEA: Test Development Opportunities
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Pearson are currently seeking Texas educators to participate in an online Item Review Conference for the Texas Educator Certification Examination program. We are currently convening the following two Content Advisory Committees for two online review sessions each, as listed below:
Educational Diagnostician
Session 1: August 17-19, 2020
Session 2: August 24-26, 2020
Early Childhood PK-3
Session 1: August 17-19, 2020
Session 2: August 24-26, 2020
Please Note: Approved committee members will be invited to take part in both sessions; however, individuals will have the opportunity to register for one or both sessions depending on availability.
Meeting Purpose: Each Content Advisory Committee will review draft exam items (for their respective field) to verify that the content is accurate and appropriate for testing educator certification candidates in Texas, according to criteria designated for this program.
How Interested Educators Can Get Involved
- Apply—Click here to complete an application for consideration for committee participation.
- Nominate—Click here to submit your nominations of colleagues who may be interested in participating.
- Share—Forward this message to other educators to share with colleagues.
- Learn more—Visit the Texas Educator Recruitment website to learn more about educator involvement in the test development process, eligibility criteria, and benefits of participation.
- Questions—Contact me at evaluationsystemscrg@pearson.com if you have questions or need additional information.