Wildcat Weekly
August 21, 2020
"Life isnt about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain..." Vivian Greene
Happy Birthday!
MEYERS, JEANINE
6-Aug
RAUSCH, STEPHANIE
7-Aug
BORDNER, RICH
10-Aug
LOZANO, DANNY
10-Aug
STUBER, KIMBERLY
11-Aug
BROOKS, JEFFREY
12-Aug
LIU, XINYAN
12-Aug
POOL, ALI
12-Aug
GOW, JORI
16-Aug
SULLIVAN, GARY
16-Aug
WELDAY, BONNIE
16-Aug
FRY, SHAUNA
17-Aug
THOMAS, SHEELA
17-Aug
RECZEK, SHANNON
18-Aug
MENDOZA, MICHELLE
19-Aug
BEERY, MEREDITH
19-Aug
BARBER, LAURA-JANE
20-Aug
WATKINS, SARAH
20-Aug
CHILIVETIS, MARK
22-Aug
HEIDRICK, CATHERINE
23-Aug
HESLEP, BECKY
25-Aug
PETZOLD, LINDSEY
25-Aug
GAMBLE, AUNDREA
27-Aug
O'KEEFE, MEAGHAN
27-Aug
Faculty Council
Plano Senior High is in need of THREE teacher leaders to serve as your campus representative(s) for the 2020-2021 school year. The Faculty Council, comprised of teachers from each campus and central office leadership, meets four times during the year to discuss relevant topics. These representatives serve as a liaison to both bring forward topics from the campus for discussion during the Faculty Council as well as communicating important information back to the campus staff. The 1-hour meetings will take place virtually at 4:30pm on the following dates: October 27, December 1, February 23, and April 13.
Please email Sarah Watkins if you are willing to serve by Wednesday, August 26, at the end of the day.
Adds and Drops
Google Classroom Notifications
When they go into GC, they click on the three lines in the upper left corner and then scroll to the bottom of the list of classes they're enrolled in. Then click on Settings to find and turn off notifications.
When you post an assignment to the classwork tab, it can show up on your stream. To keep it from cluttering up your stream (which is something the parent sees in Guardian Summaries View), go into the settings wheel and remove notifications.
More info about attendance
This is the message that goes out at 6 p.m. if a student is marked absent in any class on a given day:
“This is a recorded message from <<School Name>> to inform you that <<First Name>> <<Last Name>> was absent on <<Date>> for the following periods <<Periods Missed>>. Please send or email a note to the attendance office within 3 days. Your student has the opportunity to reconcile this absence by logging onto the Plano ISD WebDesk and completing a teacher assigned learning activity for each period missed before midnight. If you have any questions, please call <<School Phone>>. Thank you.”
Este es un mensaje de la escuela <<School Name>> para informarle que <<First Name>> <<Last Name>> estuvo ausente el <<%Date%>> a las siguientes clases <<Periods Missed>>. Por favor envie una nota a la oficina dentro de 3 dias. (Insert message about WebDesk). Si tiene alguna pregunta, por favor de llamar al <<School Phone>>.
This will only go out on the day of the absence, not the day after (when you're reconciling) and so could nudge students/parents to get into GC and get work done by 11:59 that night.
Remember to complete the reconciliation by the end of next day for all classes.
You probably saw the updated guidelines in Friday's communication.
Using GC submitted work for attendance --
Alert:
If you have been using Google Classroom (submitted work/tickets/forms, etc.) to take attendance for asynchronous learning, it’s important that you validate your “people” on Google Classroom.
Issue:
If you are using assigned, but not turned in in Google Classroom to mark absences:
You will not have an assigned indicator for any student on your Pinnacle roster, but not registered for your Google Classroom.
Please validate your “people” tab in Google Classroom against your attendance rosters in Pinnacle. If you have someone on your attendance roster who is not also on your Google Classroom “people” list, you may have inadvertently marked them PSH and not A because they did not show missing work/tickets in Google Classroom.
You can make attendance corrections for today and one day prior, any other required changes will need to be requested from the student center.
Wednesday PD
- mandatory meeting specific to your content, typically once a month
- other training you are encouraged but not required to attend
In any case, you can join these meetings from wherever you need to be should you have responsibilities that fall between 4:30 and 5:30.
Plano ISD Education Grants to Educators Applications
The Plano ISD Education Foundation is excited to announce that Grants to Educators applications are now open. The deadline for submission is September 22. Here is the link to the application and the link to view a quick video tutorial (4 min./8 sec.) on how to apply, judging, requirements and dollars available for individual or multi-campus grants. For more information about Grants to Educators including links to last year’s winning grants see the Education Foundation’s website.