From the Lion's Den...
Lincoln Staff Edition
Principal's Message
Hello Lincoln Team,
I hope you are enjoying these last couple of weeks before our Lions come back to us ready and roaring! I know they have missed you and are anxious to return.
I have been thinking a lot about what to say in this first “official’ message that I send you. Of course, the expected stuff…
“Welcome back! I hope your summer was great! I can’t wait to get to know you this year!”
...and I absolutely feel all of those things. But there is something else that I would like to express...Lion Pride. I have had the opportunity to meet with, speak with, laugh with, plan with, learn with, talk vision with, problem-solve with...almost every single member of our Lincoln team over these last several months. It is an honor to be working with such a dedicated, thoughtful, and caring group of people and professionals. It reminds me that the Lincoln Lion spirit, while it may have been quieter in recent years, is still strong, alive, and ready to come roaring back.
As we move forward, I want us to collaborate. share ideas, and find solutions together--especially about the items that follow in this newsletter. We are in this work as a team. We are ALL Lions. I want to support each of you as a professional and I am excited to make this happen as we focus on what's best for our students. I am truly looking forward to the successes and celebrations that our collective hard work and dedication will inspire...for our Lions, their families, and our own Lincoln family.
Let’s get this year roaring!
Laura
#LionPride #LionsGo...ROAR!
Updates
Building Construction & Access for Staff
As you may have read in the community newsletter I sent to families, construction for the building is on schedule to be finished before we start the school year. It will be a mad dash at the end, however. The building will be available to staff beginning Sunday, August 25th from 7am-5pm and then Monday through Friday from 7am-10pm.
Your heart is probably racing after reading that, and I can see you breaking into a sweat from here. I know that is not a lot of time to prepare our learning spaces for our Lions, but we will make it happen. I am coordinating with PTO to recruit plenty of volunteers to help you unpack your classrooms. While we do have training that we need to do on the Institute Days, I will do my best to give you any extra time that I can. If I hear any change in the timeframe as to when the building, or even some rooms become available, I will let you know. I ask that we all pull together and help one another get to the finish line. In the meantime, begin thinking about tasks (e.g. making copies, name tags, priority things to set up in your classroom) that you can start doing ahead of time as well as things you could ask a volunteer to do once we’re in the building.
Supply Drop Off & Meet-and-Greets
In my community newsletter, I included information about a supply drop off event. I want to give families the opportunity to drop off supplies prior to the first day of school. I am coordinating with the PTO to help facilitate this drop off event. While my hope for the future is for this to become an annual “drop off and meet your teacher” event, this year I know you need as much time in your rooms as possible. We will have the general supply drop off on Tuesday, August 27th from 5:30-8:00pm. Volunteers will make sure supplies are well labeled and organized for easy delivery to classrooms the following day.
I know some grade levels and teachers do invite families for a meet and greet. If you want to do that this year, you are absolutely welcome to do so. All I ask is that it happens some time on Tuesday, August 27th between 4:30 and 8:00. Please notify me and the office if you and/or your grade level is planning a meet-and-greet session.
Please let me know if you have any ideas or special considerations for making this a smooth event.
Brainstorming Sessions for the 2019-20 School Year
I want to thank everyone who was able to participate in the brainstorming sessions last week. We had over 30 Lincoln team members jump into the conversations and brainstorming work that will continue to develop this school year. Thank you for coming in and volunteering your time over the summer. The topics we addressed were driven by the common messages and stories I’ve heard as I spoken with each of you, families, and of course, our Lions. The three areas of focus were:
School-wide Behavior & Discipline: Revamping our approach to school-wide behavioral expectations and our coordinated approach to fair and equitable discipline practices
Communication: Creating consistent “school to home” and “classroom to home” communication experiences for all Lincoln families AND ensuring honest and professional communication practices across our Lincoln team to foster trust, clarity, and collaboration
Inclusive Learning Environments and Supports: Improving the access and supports for our most vulnerable Lions...making sure our Lions feel part of their full classroom community and that the supports are provided with consistency and with full instructional integrity
Each team went through rounds of discussion that identified past challenges and vision for where we are heading as a Lincoln team. We will dedicate time on the institute days to further develop this work--especially in establishing and practicing school-wide expectations for influencing behavior and implementing coordinated discipline practices.
Behavior and Discipline -- Almost every individual I spoke with talked about the importance of changing our approach to influencing students’ behavior. I say “influence” because we do not control students’ behavior. We only control our own actions, words, and systems/structures we put in place. With the Lincoln team members who started this conversation over the summer, we started at the beginning---what we expect from our Lions. From there, we began brainstorming actions and structures that we could use to help all lions meet those behavioral expectations. I asked the team members to think of three groups of students when doing this.
Tier 1 - What every student should experience
Tier 2 - What some students who are struggling a little will experience
Tier 3 - What a few students who are struggling a lot will experience
Keeping these groups of students in mind, team members then brainstormed actions the adults could take and add on to support each group of student. We first did this with the whole school setting in mind, then started thinking about specific contexts/locations within the school and started to create more specific tiered plans. I will use these drafts to finish flushing out plans for the beginning of the year. If time allows, I will share the drafts with our full team ahead of institute days. On the institute days, we will revisit our shared, school-wide expectations and well as the adult actions and structures we will begin to implement starting on day 1 with our Lions.
I’ll give you a heads up, after we look these plans over and make any minor adjustments needed, we will ALL need to implement them in a coordinated effort in order to positively influence our school-wide climate. it is SO IMPORTANT that we all start on the same page, with the same message, being communicated with a common language. We will continue to revisit these plans with the intention to improve upon them. But on day one, we need to be ONE Lincoln Team with ONE common voice.
Communication -- We will also discuss common communication practices across our grade level teams. Our discussion and planning on institute days will be focused on finding meaningful and manageable strategies we’ve used in the past, and decide on some common practices that families can expect across the school. All families should be receiving a certain baseline of consistent communication. Currently, families’ experiences fall across a wide spectrum. I want us to be coordinated in some of the communication tools we use so that we can establish a baseline that gives families the information they need and a common experience.
Schedules, Classrooms, & Lists...Oh My!
Schedule and Classroom Assignment Updates
I know you are eagerly awaiting the school-wide schedule and instructional schedules for grade levels as well as updates on classroom assignments. As I mentioned in my previous communications, the adjustments I have made are intended to address the concerns of student safety, creating predictable, academic daily schedules for our Lions, and improving consistent, instructional supports and access to the general education peers for our most vulnerable learners. To that end, the schedule and room assignments reflect the following changes:
Safety - We will be extending the lunch/recess period to TWO periods daily. This will decrease the number of students in our common spaces from ~340 to ~200. I am also actively hiring for *hopefully* five lunch/recess supervisors. There will still be staff positions available, but we will create a rotation with a “back up” supervision schedule. Meaning, if the scheduled staff member needs to cancel their supervision duty, we will have a secondary “backup” person on call that Lee-Ann can reach out to directly.
Predictable Instructional Schedules - I have made changes to the specials schedule so that our Lions have a daily schedule that is as predictable as possible (at this time). If we are committed to helping LIons meet higher behavioral expectations, we need to set them up for success by giving them a predictable picture of their regular day. Also, I will be clarifying expectations for instructional blocks and PEA times. How we organize our space and use our time is the most foundational part of improving learning outcomes for students. Our instructional schedules must maximize core instructional time.
Consistent Support and Access to Grade Level Peers for our Most Vulnerable Lions -
Consistent Instructional Schedule - Students needing intensive academic supports should always be the first consideration when crafting school-wide schedules. The instructional schedule this year is intended to protect the core and supportive instructional time of ALL Lions, including our most vulnerable. While we will have some discussion of how instructional blocks are organized, there are some parameters within the instructional schedule that are non-negotiables. I will be hosting preview and final feedback sessions next week, Wednesday 14th & Tuesday 15th for grade level & specials teams. You will be receiving calendar invites soon. If you would like to help, please let me know by responding to that calendar invite.
Changes to Room Assignments - I know this is a sore spot for faculty, and I acknowledge that the process asked of team members last year to assign classrooms was challenging. While I am not trying to make major changes to room assignments this year, I have had to make some adjustments to better address issues of student safety, predictability, and supports for vulnerable learners. As we strategically plan for future years, I will make adjustments to room assignments that further address those concerns as well as improve professional collaboration and co-teaching models for more inclusive learning environments.
Class Lists & Homeroom Assignments:
Homeroom placements will be emailed to parents on Friday, August 15th. There have been some issues raised regarding privacy rights, so we will no longer publicly post class lists. You will receive your class lists after those emails are sent out. Please do not post or communicate your class list to families. Sharing information about students (e.g. Answering questions such as, “Is xxxxx in the class too?”) to someone who is not their guardian is a privacy violation. If you plan to email the families from your class list, you MUST use the “blind copy” (bcc) address line so that you are not sharing the private email addresses of families with other families. Thank you for understanding and ensuring the safety of our Lions’ and their families’ personal information.
One Last Thing...
Lincoln Team Member,
Your well-being is important to me, and to that end, I would appreciate you talking directly to me or emailing me directly about any questions or concerns that this newsletter raised for you. Your input is wanted and appreciated - I can't promise that I can make magic, but I will do what I can to make things better for you and our students.
Okay, congratulations! You made it through all of that dense information!!
#LincolnTeachersRock #LionsReadtheEnding #UpAt Lincoln!
Now go get your vitamin D (and some vitamin C to boost your immune systems - we’re teachers after all), spend some special time with your special people, and start getting energized for what will be a great school year!
I’ll see you soon!
Laura Zaniolo
(she / her / hers)
Lincoln Lion & Principal
Abraham Lincoln Elementary
Up At Lincoln Challenge!!
Reach out to me if you need anything. See you soon!
- Laura
Email: lzaniolo@op97.org
Website: https://www.op97.org/lincoln
Location: 1111 S. Grove | Oak Park, IL 60304
Phone: 708-524-3110