#StrongerTogether
PCOE & PUSD - Summer Newsletter, Staff edition
Summer 2020, Weekly Communication
Special Board Meeting, Tuesday, August 4th
Link to board agenda and attachments:
Zoom link Note: Zoom link will not be live until 8/4/20 at 5:00 pm
Please note that additional attachments may be uploaded prior to the publishing deadline 24 hours prior to the start of the meeting.
Board Updates/Superintendent
Update from Governor's Message
As a result of the Governor’s announcement on July 17, 2020 regarding school re-opening and the criteria for returning to in-classroom instruction, I provide you the links below for your review.
CDPH: Reopening In Person Framework Guidance 7/17
CDPH: COVID-19 Industry Guidance for Schools 7/17
At this time, we are still planning to return to school on August 24th providing the three options which were board approved on July 8th:
- Option 1: AM/PM Blended Learning
- Option 2: Plumas Digital Classroom
- Option 3: Independent Study
Please know that the positive test results and active cases in Plumas County can influence our current plans for in-person instruction. Currently, Plumas County is NOT on the Governor’s monitored list. The number of active cases prior to school starting will determine how we begin school. Other factors may also be considered over the next five weeks, but I will keep you informed as I learn more.
I will continue to meet with Public Health and other state leaders on a weekly basis. In addition, negotiations with CSEA will take place on July 23rd and PCTA is scheduled for July 30th. There will most likely be a Special Board Meeting in the near future so I will keep you informed as I learn more details.
Terry R. Oestreich
PCOE & PUSD Superintendent
Board Meeting Policy
PCOE and PUSD develop the Schedule of Regular Board Meeting at the annual organizational meeting each December. At this time, the Board meets on the second Wednesday of each month with some exceptions. This schedule is posted on our PCOE website under About/Plumas Governing Board. These agendas require 72 hour notice prior to the meeting date/time.
A Special Meeting may be called at any time, and require 24 hour notice prior to the meeting date/time.
An Emergency Meeting is allowed in the case of an emergency situation involving matters that require prompt action due to the disruption or threatened disruption of public facilities and services. Attempts must be made to notify the media by telephone at least one hour in advance, unless the phones are not working.
20-21 Enrollment Options
Plumas County Office of Education/Plumas Unified School District is committed to reopening school safely. In order to meet social distancing guidelines, all students will be engaged in some level of distance learning. Each family will have the opportunity to make decisions about school that will work best for their home/work/school life, and will also be most supportive of learning for their child or children.
In order to acknowledge the diversity of our families' needs, PCOE/PUSD is able to offer three return to school options for students and families:
1. AM/PM Blended Learning,
2. Plumas Digital Classroom (100% online)
3. Independent Study
The information below describes each option in additional detail.
Department Updates
Human Resources
Check out our vacant positions!
Classified Employees who have been laid off may contact Betsy Webster at bwebster@pcoe.k12.ca.us to get on the classified substitute list.
Curriculum and Instruction
2020-21 Assessment calendar
Is anyone else having fun with bitmoji classrooms? If you are, I'd love to see yours! - Kristy
Mystery Science TK-5 Science
Plumas Unified School District has a membership to Mystery Science! Mystery Science lessons are open-and-go, simply gather a few materials and start teaching right away!
Click here to join your school's membership:
https://mysteryscience.com/start?district_id=1271
If you have any questions, please see our FAQ (http://mysteryscience.com/faq), email support@mysteryscience.com, or call us at 650-550-0670.
Thank you for partnering with Mystery Science!
Mystery Science Team
7-12 Social Studies- TCI Curriculum
Hello Social Studies teachers,
Good news- the TCI order has been processed and activated. If you already had a TCI account, please log in. I have given you access to the grade level curriculum that I have you down for teaching this year. If I have made a mistake or you need additional access, please let me know.
If you have not created a TCI account, please follow the email invite from TCI to do so, or click here. Once you have created your account, I will assign you the correct textbook.
Please don't create class lists at this time, as Michael will assist with rostering and log ins for students.
In order to assist you with learning this new curriculum for 7th and 8th grade, I can authorize one day of training using the TCI self paced course, available here. Please submit your certificate of completion along with your extra duty sheet to Tara Klement.
Thank you for all you are doing to prepare this school year. Let us know if you have any questions or if there is anything else needed to support you.
Hope all is well and we'll talk soon,
Kristy
New CTE Resources Newsletter
What's New at Zoom
New Updates to Web
- Waiting Room now under the Security section when scheduling a meeting: When scheduling a meeting, the Waiting Room setting is now available under a Security heading.
- Meeting and webinar passwords now called Passcodes: Meeting passwords will now be called “Passcodes” and are meant to be shared. Your account or user password, should never be shared.
- Setting to request permission to unmute: As an account owner or admin, you can enable a setting to request permission to unmute, allowing the host to request permission to unmute meeting participants and webinar panelists. Permissions, once given, will apply in all meetings scheduled by the same person. This setting is available at the account, group, or user level and can be locked at the account or group level. This requires client 5.2.0, which is planned for release in early August.
- Configure Waiting Room options without enabling the setting: As an account owner or admin, you can now configure Waiting Room options, such as adding approved domains, without enabling the setting. This allows admins to configure these default settings without forcing Waiting Rooms for all users. Users can enable Waiting Room with these admin configured options at the user or individual meeting level.
- Setting for webinar passcodes: Account owners and admins can enable or disable a setting for webinar passcodes separately from meeting passcodes. This setting is available at the account, group, or user level. You can lock this setting at the account or group level. If this setting is enabled and locked at the account or group level, it can also be applied to previously scheduled webinars by checking the option below the setting.
- Profile phone number verification with a phone call: In addition to the option to verify with SMS, users can choose to verify with a phone call to successfully save their phone number in the Zoom web portal under Profile.
- Setting to sign in with Apple ID on iOS: Users can sign in with Apple ID on the iOS app on version 5.1.1 or higher. Account owners and admins can disable this feature in the Zoom web portal, under Advanced then Security. The Web setting was released on June 28th, 2020 and the iOS client was released on July 2nd, 2020.
- View toll-number changes in the operation logs: You as an account owner or admin, can view changes to available toll numbers in the operation logs on the Reports page of the Zoom web portal.
4 Steps for Powerful Distance Learning Experiences
Over the next four weeks we will share one of the 4 Steps for Powerful Distance Learning Experiences from this great article from smartbrief.com.
Resist the Urge to Remediate
We have lost count of the number of school districts that have contacted us asking for advice because they believe that students have “fallen behind” and they need to “close the gaps” caused by school closures. Kids are where they are. Spending four weeks -- or 14 weeks for that matter -- on past content is not going to ensure that students learn at high levels.
In fact, studies of other sudden school closures (the disasters caused by the Christchurch earthquakes and Hurricane Katrina) suggest that learning loss is minimal when teachers focus on what students need to learn. Hone in on what’s important for the current year and provide small group sessions, perhaps via video conference, to address students’ needs.
Technology
Update on new laptops for Elementary Teachers from Tarrick Grant:
You are receiving this email because you are on our list to receive a new laptop this summer. We are anticipating that the new ones will be here early July so late to early August we are planning on getting them swapped out.
Many of you have a Dell Latitude 7480 laptop, if you want to know if you have this model flip it over. Those laptops were our first time leasing staff devices and those need to be returned to the leasing company. Those of you that don't have that model we'll still want to collect the laptop from you but those don't need to be sent back.
We can transfer over people's data but if you have everything saved to Google drive or a flash drive this will help the technology department out great. Most of our time spent when we are swapping out laptops is transferring data. In the past it's taken us a few hours just to transfer one person's data. Saving your data will save us time and it's good practice for you to save your own data.
We are hoping to get the laptops collected soon so we can get the ones that need to go to the leasing company back to them as soon as possible.
This is a link to a google sheet where you can put any notes or request.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments at tgrant@pcoe.k12.ca.us.
Canvas Resources
7/2/20
In order to help you plan your utilization of Canvas for next year, please use this checklist for essential, best practices and exemplary elements.
Canvas recordings
6/25/20
Thank you to everyone for your hard work and dedication to Canvas training. There has been a lot to learn with this new LMS! If you'd like to access the training course and your Canvas course over the summer, all log ins and training courses will remain active. In addition, with Canvas having so many users in our state and across our country, I found the following social media resources to have some great tips and ideas, from Canvas and directly from users just like you. Check them out if you'd like!Facebook- Several Canvas groups are on Facebook. Several that I follow are:
- Teachers Using Canvas (3.1k members)
- Canvas for Elementary (6.1k members) So many great examples from teachers using Canvas!
- @CanvasLMS (39.7k followers)- links to some great live sessions
YouTube
- Canvas for Littles - Making Canvas Cute (video posted June 23, 2020) Creating a Button Based Homepage
- CanvasLMS (13.4k subscribers)
From our Instructional Coaches, Susan and Yvonne
Yvonne and I wanted to communicate to you that should you choose to learn more about Canvas and setting up your courses over the summer, we now have access to multiple resources which you will find to be helpful.
First of all, here is a Canvas course checklist to help guide your course development. Several of you have asked to see a document which lists the Canvas implementation components for the 20-21 school year. We hope that you find this to be a useful document as you prepare your courses.
Next, we now can open up the Training Services Portal. When you open up your Canvas account, find the Help question mark (?) on the bottom of the blue strip to the left of your screen (otherwise known as the Global Navigation menu). Click on the question mark, and the Training Services Link will be to the right of the question mark. If a Training Portal window pops up requesting access to your account, click authorize. Once you are in the Portal, you will see a brief tutorial. Next, you have options to take courses, watch video tutorials, and enroll in live trainings. One of the courses we recommend is K-12 First Day Ready.
We would also like you to know that many courses are available for you to adopt from Kern County Office of Education. You may search in the Commons for California Distance Learning Consortium and explore. When you go to your dashboard, you will want to create a blank course separate from your assigned course(s) or class(es). You need to import the Commons course first in order to be able to see all of it and utilize the built in videos, etc.
Here are the steps:
- Select "start a new course" in the dashboard and name it
- Select "import from Commons"
- Search "California Distance Learning Consortium" in the Commons
- Choose a course and import to your newly created course (do not download the course)
In this way, you can pick and choose any components that you may wish to add into your personal courses/classes without adopting the entire Kern course.
Another excellent resource that we just learned about is the FaceBook page Teachers Using Canvas. The tips are outstanding. Some experienced Canvas teachers are also offering to do Zoom sessions with teachers who are new to the system. Ideas presented cover
K-12. Another Facebook page specifically for K-6 teachers is Canvas for Elementary Teachers.
Finally, the Canvas live trainings that we had during the first two weeks of June are now available in Announcements in the training course that we provided to you. The session Power Points are available there as well.
Susan and Yvonne
Elementary Workbooks- Journeys and Eureka Math
Local information
Official Information from County and State Departments
Plumas Unified School District
Website: www.pcoe.k12.ca.us
Location: 50 Church Street, Quincy, CA, USA
Phone: (530)283-6500
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlumasUnified
Twitter: @PlumasUSD