Harwood Staff Blog update, October 27, 2020

Theodore Blog (FYI- his real last name) enters the classroom right when he was supposed to.

“Learning to be in the present moment, without judging it, boosts our resilience.  It can allow us to feel accepting and clear headed about our options for response.  When we’re fully present, we’re more likely to find appropriate levity to moments of challenge and to relieve stress by finding humor in a situation.” 

- Elena Aguilar  

Team Harwood;

On Sunday night my family was playing a cooperative game where we had to beat the clock - cards were being thrown down as one of us quickly flipped the other card and another person called out what we needed to be done next.  Then, suddenly a pause card was thrown and all went silent.  Everyone stopped, took a breath and then we collectively assessed our next step before we started the clock again.  

This weekend, ironically in advance of this moment, I realized the pause button needed to be hit in my life generally speaking.  But it wasn’t until reading Elena Auguilar’s Onward chapter on October that I had my “ah ha” moment.  In this chapter Auguilar writes,  “practicing mindfulness is like hitting an internal pause button on the drama of life.”  The power of the pause = a moment to step back, assess and calmly move forward together.  

As we move through the final week of October we want to acknowledge that the building stress of this year, the ongoing shifts - great or small and the different kind of work required this year is exhausting us all.  

To that end - in the coming weeks between now and Thanksgiving we will work to have our collective staff time be focused on reflection and consideration in order to support us in moving forward in a deliberate, thoughtful and collaborative manner.  

As we do so let’s continue to find moments of humor and gratitude to fill our bucket.  Here are a few gratitudes from this week:

• To Barbara Sax and Lisa Therrien for your work to logistically operationalize the 9th grade ELO extravaganza these last few Wednesdays!
• To Tara, Mel and Erin for your work to plan the 9th grade ELO extravaganza and provide opportunities for our students to be able to reflect, learn and foster news executive functioning skills and familiarize themselves with Harwood during this unique transition.
• To Scott Mead for carrying the summer attire tradition into the winter months.  
• To Rick for making sure the air conditioning is working fine.  
• Another THANK YOU to Stefanie and your ongoing work to create community time with our remote Assembly.
• Middle School teams battled against TA’s during a recent Corn Hole Tounrnamnet for the amazing HUMS spirit trophy - its not the uglu Kilt trophy - but close.  Appreciating the sense of normalacy.  
•  

• Thank you for the continued commitment from the History Department to implement and reflect on the mock election process. 
• To John and Eric for the willingness to fill in where needed when needed!  
• To Mari for the first time in recorded HU history captuing the exact location and seat of every student riding the PM busses.    
• To Chris and Danni for creating an excellent fall sports season for our students and families!  Just Amazing!   
• To Nancy, Peggy, Liz, Susan and Shannon for putting up with all of us and at the same time keeping the HU ship steaming forwards - even in the most challenging of life's seas.    

In continued partnership,

Duane, Meg and Laurie

We’ve had a few comments about our shoes - increase the Harwood Pride - you too can buy them.  See the link here.

Curious  

Topics	Information/Links	Tasks/Point people
If you have more more questions please add to our Q&A	We’re working hard to answer your questions - keep adding as more come up to Harwood MS/HS Q&A.	Laurie, Meg and Duane
HU Guide to the 2020 Election	The day of our HUHS mock election is coming up on Wed Oct 28 during TA! Click here to see the HUHS Ballot   Important considerations for voting:   1) Shannon T will send digital ballots to every student grades 7-12 at 11:40 on  Wednesday,  October 28. The ballot will come in a google form  to their HUHS email address.   2) Students will need to sign in with their HUHS email account in order to vote.They can only vote once :)   3) The voting period will be from 11:40 AM - 3:00 PM. The polls will close at 3:00 pm.   3) If you or if any of the students have problems with the voting procedure, email Shannon T immediately for assistance.   4) Look for a bag of buttons or stickers for your TA in your mailbox on Thursday AM!. Everyone who voted gets a button or a sticker from the history department.   5)   We will share out the results of the election,  broken down by grade and as a school in time for TA on Friday morning, Oct 30.    Remember to take advantage of the resource developed by the history department:   The Harwood History Department Presents:  A Voters’ Guide To The 2020 Election    It will be  important to debrief the results of the HUHS and the Presidential election with tolerance, respect and deep listening for all views. No matter  what the  outcome, there will be  both faculty and students who will be disappointed, upset and/or angry. Here are some suggestions for debriefing the HUHS and the  Presidential election    LINKS    Debriefing the Harwood Election    HU History Guide to 2020 Election	History Dept
Have staff calendar or meeting questions...	Take a look at our fac/staff google calendar - we will continue to update with TA and staff meeting details.	Shannon
Thanksgiving plans	If you are planning to travel out of state for the upcoming Holidays please reach out to let us know and complete ReadySub so we can plan for substitutes accordingly.  This proactive communication will help us ensure we’re proactively ready for our return from break.  Thank you!	Shannon
Picture day logistics	Tentative Student Picture days are:   November 9, 10, 12, 13.	Nancy and Shannon

Topics 

Information/Links

Tasks/Point people 

If you have more more questions please add to our Q&A 

We’re working hard to answer your questions - keep adding as more come up to Harwood MS/HS Q&A.  

Laurie, Meg and Duane

HU Guide to the 2020 Election 

The day of our HUHS mock election is coming up on Wed Oct 28 during TA!

Click here to see the HUHS Ballot

 

Important considerations for voting:

 

1) Shannon T will send digital ballots to every student grades 7-12 at 11:40 on  Wednesday,  October 28. The ballot will come in a google form  to their HUHS email address.

 

2) Students will need to sign in with their HUHS email account in order to vote.They can only vote once :)

 

3) The voting period will be from 11:40 AM - 3:00 PM. The polls will close at 3:00 pm.

 

3) If you or if any of the students have problems with the voting procedure, email Shannon T immediately for assistance.

 

4) Look for a bag of buttons or stickers for your TA in your mailbox on Thursday AM!. Everyone who voted gets a button or a sticker from the history department.

 

5)   We will share out the results of the election,  broken down by grade and as a school in time for TA on Friday morning, Oct 30. 

 

Remember to take advantage of the resource developed by the history department:

 

The Harwood History Department Presents: 

A Voters’ Guide To The 2020 Election

 

 It will be  important to debrief the results of the HUHS and the Presidential election with tolerance, respect and deep listening for all views. No matter  what the  outcome, there will be  both faculty and students who will be disappointed, upset and/or angry. Here are some suggestions for debriefing the HUHS and the  Presidential election 

 

LINKS 

 

Debriefing the Harwood Election 

 

HU History Guide to 2020 Election

 

History Dept 

Have staff calendar or meeting questions...

Take a look at our fac/staff google calendar - we will continue to update with TA and staff meeting details.   

Shannon 

Thanksgiving plans 

If you are planning to travel out of state for the upcoming Holidays please reach out to let us know and complete ReadySub so we can plan for substitutes accordingly.  This proactive communication will help us ensure we’re proactively ready for our return from break.  Thank you!  

Shannon 

Picture day logistics 

Tentative Student Picture days are:  

November 9, 10, 12, 13.  

Nancy and Shannon 

 

Caring 

Topics	Information/Links	Tasks/Point people
Reminders from the Health office	Please help us continue to remain safe and well - if you’re sick - please stay home.  We know often we come to school with a cold and that many COVID symptoms are also cold symptoms.  But, in order to continue our positive success to date please stay home.
High School TA plans for the coming week	For Staff Meeting This week we are supporting our students to consider their wellbeing through the Wellness Wheel and to create a wellness goal for their conference. An important step in this process is to experience what our students will be doing. This week, we will engage in an activity that mirrors what we are doing with our students. We will be making space for you to share with a colleague as an opportunity to share meaningfully with each other. This is an opportunity to give and receive feedback as well as connect.  Here is the guide to the activity: Wellness Wheel Activity Article to Consider... Goal Setting is one of the important skills to build in order to address social emotional wellbeing in the area of Self Awareness (CASEL). Supporting our students requires that we are able to address and receive support for our own wellbeing in all 5 of the core SEL competencies. The article linked below from Understood.org provides a great framework for how we can model our SEL skills for our students as a part of helping them to develop their own. According to the article: “Social-emotional skills not only improve academic outcomes and classroom behavior for students. They can also have a positive impact on our own personal and professional success as educators. To teach SEL, we need to be aware of and continue to develop our own social-emotional skills. Only then can we model and teach those skills to our students.” How SEL Helps You as a Teacher	Ellen Berrings
As we continue our individual and community work to consider our own racism	One of the beautiful gifts of living in Vermont is our ability to enjoy the great outdoors - this article from Outdoor Magazine shares an important perspective to give us pause. “WE DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE YOU’: RACISM AND PROFILING ON KATAHDIN”

Topics 

Information/Links

Tasks/Point people 

Reminders from the Health office 

Please help us continue to remain safe and well - if you’re sick - please stay home.  We know often we come to school with a cold and that many COVID symptoms are also cold symptoms.  But, in order to continue our positive success to date please stay home.

High School TA plans for the coming week

For Staff Meeting

This week we are supporting our students to consider their wellbeing through the Wellness Wheel and to create a wellness goal for their conference. An important step in this process is to experience what our students will be doing. This week, we will engage in an activity that mirrors what we are doing with our students. We will be making space for you to share with a colleague as an opportunity to share meaningfully with each other. This is an opportunity to give and receive feedback as well as connect. 

Here is the guide to the activity: Wellness Wheel Activity

Article to Consider...

Goal Setting is one of the important skills to build in order to address social emotional wellbeing in the area of Self Awareness (CASEL). Supporting our students requires that we are able to address and receive support for our own wellbeing in all 5 of the core SEL competencies. The article linked below from Understood.org provides a great framework for how we can model our SEL skills for our students as a part of helping them to develop their own. According to the article:

“Social-emotional skills not only improve academic outcomes and classroom behavior for students. They can also have a positive impact on our own personal and professional success as educators. To teach SEL, we need to be aware of and continue to develop our own social-emotional skills. Only then can we model and teach those skills to our students.”

How SEL Helps You as a Teacher

Ellen Berrings  

As we continue our individual and community work to consider our own racism

One of the beautiful gifts of living in Vermont is our ability to enjoy the great outdoors - this article from Outdoor Magazine shares an important perspective to give us pause. “WE DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE YOU’: RACISM AND PROFILING ON KATAHDIN” 

Connected 

Topics	Information/Links	Tasks/Point people
11/03 Inservice schedule	Please see the schedule for the 11/03 inservice day here.	Meg, Laurie, Duane
Upcoming Dates	11/03 - NO school for students.  In-service for staff 11/12 - 3-6 p.m. Conferences  11/13 - end of Q1 11/16 - start of Q2 11/17 - 3-6 p.m. Conferences  11/18 - No staff meeting.  Time for teachers to write end of quarter comments. 11/23 - Black cohort day Possible MAP assessment day  11/24 - Gold cohort day  Possible MAP assessment day
Blog update - now coming out on...	We recognize that there is very little time between the staff blog coming out and the staff meeting.  In order to provide more lead time to process the blog - we will begin sending it out on Friday starting 11/06.	Blog Master Duane and future Blog Master Shannon
10/28 Staff meeting	For the 2020-2021 school year staff meetings will be held on Wednesday’s from 3-4.  Please find this week’s meeting agenda here and zoom here. Objectives:  Write our own WOOP goals to support our own well being and prepare for supporting our students in crafting their own.	Laurie, Duane and Meg
Contact information	If you have an emergent situation and need an immediate answer please find our contact information here: Duane - 802.595.5166 Meg -    617.512.5669 Laurie - 802.279.9909	Laura, Meg and Duane

Topics 

Information/Links

Tasks/Point people 

11/03 Inservice schedule 

Please see the schedule for the 11/03 inservice day here. 

Meg, Laurie, Duane 

Upcoming Dates 

• 11/03 - NO school for students.  In-service for staff

• 11/12 - 3-6 p.m. Conferences 

• 11/13 - end of Q1

• 11/16 - start of Q2

• 11/17 - 3-6 p.m. Conferences 

• 11/18 - No staff meeting.  Time for teachers to write end of quarter comments.

• 11/23 - Black cohort day

• Possible MAP assessment day 

• 11/24 - Gold cohort day 

• Possible MAP assessment day 

Blog update - now coming out on...

We recognize that there is very little time between the staff blog coming out and the staff meeting.  In order to provide more lead time to process the blog - we will begin sending it out on Friday starting 11/06.  

Blog Master Duane and future Blog Master Shannon 

10/28 Staff meeting 

For the 2020-2021 school year staff meetings will be held on Wednesday’s from 3-4.  Please find this week’s meeting agenda here and zoom here.

Objectives:  Write our own WOOP goals to support our own well being and prepare for supporting our students in crafting their own.

Laurie, Duane and Meg 

Contact information 

If you have an emergent situation and need an immediate answer please find our contact information here:

• Duane - 802.595.5166

• Meg -    617.512.5669

• Laurie - 802.279.9909

Laura, Meg and Duane