JME Staff Newsletter
August 16, 2020
Inservice Weeks Schedule
Our inservice weeks will be designed to be productive and to provide you with everything that you need to be ready for students in our new reality. Below you will find an outline of our week. Please carefully read all of the email communications that come to you. You will get emails from SCHED to show your training schedule and emails/calendar invites with the Zoom links for meetings. Virtual Staff Meetings links will be on the JME Staff Calendar. Please arrive at our virtual sessions on time. On-time in a virtual environment is a few minutes before the scheduled time. The majority of our Nuts and Bolts will be communicated via e-mail and on our Staff Hand Page. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask! My cell phone number is 503-545-1598.
Office Hours
The link for office hours can be accessed through our JME calendar.
Upcoming office hours are:
Wednesday, August 19th 3:45pm-4:45pm
Make sure you are connected to the JME Staff calendar
FAQs
1. Will I have time to connect with families? Yes. We are mandated to have at least 4 family interactions this year. One of which will be during our inservice time. Your grade level will offer a zoom orientation for families that will include a survey for families to sign up for individual time with you (zoom or phone). Don't worry! You will be given lots of guidance and support on how to do this.
2. What will my daily schedule look like? There will be a lot of flexibility for working hours. You will be given parameters for how many synchronous lessons, how much teacher facilitated work, and how much applied learning time. If you don't know what these terms mean, don't worry. It will all be covered during inservice weeks.
3. Will I be assigned students? Yes, you will be assigned a group of students that you are responsible for providing feedback to. This list will be much more fluid than it has been traditionally. In an abundance of caution I am telling families to assume that the teacher will change. It is important to know that all students will have interactions with all teachers.
4. Will we be hiring a fourth grade teacher? No, our enrollment is down considerably. We are waiting for teachers to be assigned Option 2 teaching positions for the year. You may be asked to change grade levels. Some changes will happen in the next 2 weeks, but understand there could be more changes made after the school year begins. I understand this causes you stress, but know you will have a team to support you.
5. What curriculum will I be using? We will be using our district adopted curriculum. The reporting standards are being changed this year. You will use your reporting standards to guide your work. This will be provided to you during inservice week.
6. Can I set up my classroom? Can I work from the building? Yes. Dan & Rudy will have the building open from 7am-3pm. You may come and set up your classroom. Children may not come in the building. Everyone must wear a face mask and adhere to social distancing guidelines.
7. What will Instructional Assistants be doing this year? IAs will have a variety of opportunities to provide support and instruction. Tasks can include: teaching intervention groups virtually, offering homework help, co-hosting synchronous lessons, facilitating small groups/break out rooms, organizing materials for disbursement, and much more. Yes, IAs will have a schedule that is flexible to their family needs and our student needs.