Harwood Staff Blog Update, September 19, 2021

 Team Harwood;

After our first full “normal” week of 21-22’ our focus going into the next few weeks is to create stability and consistency for our community .

To that end, our staff meeting times for the next 2 weeks will be time to “choose your own adventure” in order to catch up or ensure clarity.  You can:

• Join a Q&A session re: attendance procedures with Jon and Melody

• Finish your mandatory trainings

• Take part in a session to consider how to maximize your time when booking students for ELO

• Complete Chapter 3 “What if I talk about race wrong?” in order to prepare for our next book club session on 10/19

• Wrap up Conference action steps  

• Practice for the community discussion during TA next Wednesday

• Read the handbook and review

• Middle School Core meeting (Tuesday - 21st - 7:55 - zoom) 

• Middle School core/shared staff short meeting (Tuesday - 28th 7:55 - zoom) 

Please meet in the Cafeteria at 7:30 for a few announcements first.

With ongoing gratitude and in partnership,

Meg, Laurie and Duane

Important Information 

Due to recent acts of vandalism, theft and destruction please remember to:	Be vigilant in ensuring students sign in and out of your class when leaving and returning Lock up your personal items Keep your rooms locked when they are not in use
To Do:	As we continue to try and prioritize our task lists - feedback from the Collective leadership team led to the following decision to NOT complete the surveys.  Please submit your final Conference schedule to Meg & Laurie by 9/23. You do NOT need to complete the google survey for all your conferences (if you have not yet done it.) Instead - please submit any concerns to the EST referral HS - EST referral  HS  7th - EST referral 7th  8th - EST referral 8th

Calendar Update

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri
Morning		Staff Mtg  HUHS Assembly
Afternoon				Harkness PLC
Evening	HUUSD Board Meeting

Appreciations: 

Staff Member	Appreciations
Becky Allen	For using Kate’s garden as a space to hold class and circulating to each small group to prompt and support while also allowing students both time for natural light and a mask break.
Sally Ji & Genevieve	For providing an after school supervision option to our students.
Kristi	For being highlighted by a student as a teacher he felt safe with.  And, for reaching out to support our community in addressing the destruction, theft and vandalism issues from this week.
Middle School Team/Maggie/Skyler	For the courage and energy  to organize and host a full school assembly at the Waterbury Reservoir - which was a first in a long time.  Hopefully everyone comes back to work tomorrow.. See some of the pics below!

Curious

Topics	Information/Links	Contact(s)
TA plan for next week	Welcome Meetings: Welcome meetings should be wrapping up this week for the most part. I know that Beth and I needed to extend into next week to meet a family member’s schedule. This may be the case for some of you. Here are a few points of clarification regarding the google form: If you have reached out to families and they have expressed that they don't' feel the need to meet now - you do NOT need to complete an EST referral. If you have reached out to families without any response please note in the google form. If you have concerns that arose during the conference - please capture in the google form *****You do NOT need to complete a form for students with no concerning issues.*****  Here are the links to the google forms Middle School 9th Grade 10th Grade 11th Grade 12th Grade Connection Activity of the Week Try one or more of these connection questions in your advisory circle: Who’s one person in your life you're feeling appreciative of at this moment? Who’s someone who has taught you an important lesson? (What did they teach you?) Who is someone you admire and why?  What is one thing you look for in a friend? What is your favorite activity to do with friends? Choose someone in your life you love, and tell us something you love about them. Who is someone you would like to talk to more this week and why? What is something nice someone has done for you recently? Community/Team builder Activity Are you looking for a quieter community building activity? Try this one out! Fear in a Hat Materials: paper for each person, pen and a hat (a bag will do!) Instructions: Give each person a piece of paper and pen/pencil Let them know that this activity will be 100% anonymous! Each person should anonymously write a fear or worry that they have. Tell them to be as specific and as honest as possible, but not in such a way that they could be easily identified. After everyone is done writing a fear/worry (including the group leaders), collect each sheet into a large hat (or bag). Shuffle and distribute a paper to each person, making sure they don’t have their own. Take turns reading one fear aloud, and each reader should attempt to explain what the person who wrote the fear means. Do not allow any sort of comments on what the reader said. Simply listen and go on to the next reader. After all fears have been read and elaborated, discuss as a whole group what some of the common fears were. This activity helps build trust and unity, as people come to realize that everyone has similar fears.	Ellen & TA leads
ELO & Flex updates	Thank you to everyone for your hard work and attention to detail to pull off our first ELO Wednesday! A few points as we head into this week (new info highlighted): All classes should have at least 5 students pre-booked - this should be done by teachers by 3pm on Monday. Jess’s unsolicited advice on adjusting the capacity of your ELO:  Always adjust your capacity (by choosing “edit session”) unless you want 40 random students to show up to your room!  If you book your whole class, adjust your capacity to the total # students in the class. If you book a smaller number of students, adjust your capacity to a few more than that number, to allow other students who want to see you to book to you. If any student books and shows up who shouldn’t be there (i.e. not a student of yours), send them to me at the podium in front of the library and I’ll book them somewhere else. Use “open season” booking between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning to book non-course students. Please ensure that ALL of your TA students are booked for ALL of their blocks in TA on Tuesday. Students should do their own booking, but TAs need to check. Note - some new students and 9th graders cannot schedule themselves; we are working with Adaptive Scheduler to get this fixed, but if it is still the case on Tuesday please help them book their open blocks. Please remember that the purpose of ELO is to provide support and extension for students in their current courses. All teachers should have a specific plan for each ELO block for how you plan to work with the students who are booked. For tips and tricks on how to quickly book full classes and smaller selections of students in Adaptive Scheduler, come see me for our “Choose your Own Adventure” faculty meeting Tuesday morning! There are 11 sessions remaining for quarter 1 Flex Block (two of these have assemblies for part of the block). Bright pink scoring sheets will be in your mailbox by Monday afternoon. Tuesday (either before or after the assembly) might be a good time to introduce scoring on 10.02 and have students self-assess their engagement so far.	Jessica
09/21 Assembly	Assembly Schedule  Please plan for the assembly to run from 11:00 - 11:30 a.m.  Students should sit in the same location they were at the last assembly.	Steve & Molly
Students email passwords	Please find the schedule for Tech support at Harwood below:     Remember: Need tech support? Please submit a ticket.

Topics 

Information/Links

Contact(s) 

TA plan for next week

Welcome Meetings:

Welcome meetings should be wrapping up this week for the most part. I know that Beth and I needed to extend into next week to meet a family member’s schedule. This may be the case for some of you. Here are a few points of clarification regarding the google form:

• If you have reached out to families and they have expressed that they don't' feel the need to meet now - you do NOT need to complete an EST referral.

• If you have reached out to families without any response please note in the google form.

• If you have concerns that arose during the conference - please capture in the google form

*****You do NOT need to complete a form for students with no concerning issues.***** 

Here are the links to the google forms

• Middle School

• 9th Grade

• 10th Grade

• 11th Grade

• 12th Grade

Connection Activity of the Week

Try one or more of these connection questions in your advisory circle:

1. Who’s one person in your life you're feeling appreciative of at this moment?

2. Who’s someone who has taught you an important lesson? (What did they teach you?)

3. Who is someone you admire and why?

4.  What is one thing you look for in a friend?

5. What is your favorite activity to do with friends?

6. Choose someone in your life you love, and tell us something you love about them.

7. Who is someone you would like to talk to more this week and why?

8. What is something nice someone has done for you recently?

Community/Team builder Activity

Are you looking for a quieter community building activity? Try this one out!

Fear in a Hat

Materials: paper for each person, pen and a hat (a bag will do!)

Instructions:

Give each person a piece of paper and pen/pencil

Let them know that this activity will be 100% anonymous!

Each person should anonymously write a fear or worry that they have. Tell them to be as specific and as honest as possible, but not in such a way that they could be easily identified. After everyone is done writing a fear/worry (including the group leaders), collect each sheet into a large hat (or bag).

Shuffle and distribute a paper to each person, making sure they don’t have their own. Take turns reading one fear aloud, and each reader should attempt to explain what the person who wrote the fear means. Do not allow any sort of comments on what the reader said. Simply listen and go on to the next reader.

After all fears have been read and elaborated, discuss as a whole group what some of the common fears were. This activity helps build trust and unity, as people come to realize that everyone has similar fears.

Ellen & TA leads

ELO & Flex updates 

Thank you to everyone for your hard work and attention to detail to pull off our first ELO Wednesday! A few points as we head into this week (new info highlighted):

• All classes should have at least 5 students pre-booked - this should be done by teachers by 3pm on Monday.

• Jess’s unsolicited advice on adjusting the capacity of your ELO: 

1. Always adjust your capacity (by choosing “edit session”) unless you want 40 random students to show up to your room!

2.  If you book your whole class, adjust your capacity to the total # students in the class.

3. If you book a smaller number of students, adjust your capacity to a few more than that number, to allow other students who want to see you to book to you.

4. If any student books and shows up who shouldn’t be there (i.e. not a student of yours), send them to me at the podium in front of the library and I’ll book them somewhere else.

• Use “open season” booking between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning to book non-course students.

• Please ensure that ALL of your TA students are booked for ALL of their blocks in TA on Tuesday. Students should do their own booking, but TAs need to check. Note - some new students and 9th graders cannot schedule themselves; we are working with Adaptive Scheduler to get this fixed, but if it is still the case on Tuesday please help them book their open blocks.

• Please remember that the purpose of ELO is to provide support and extension for students in their current courses. All teachers should have a specific plan for each ELO block for how you plan to work with the students who are booked.

• For tips and tricks on how to quickly book full classes and smaller selections of students in Adaptive Scheduler, come see me for our “Choose your Own Adventure” faculty meeting Tuesday morning!

There are 11 sessions remaining for quarter 1 Flex Block (two of these have assemblies for part of the block). Bright pink scoring sheets will be in your mailbox by Monday afternoon. Tuesday (either before or after the assembly) might be a good time to introduce scoring on 10.02 and have students self-assess their engagement so far.

Jessica 

09/21 Assembly 

Assembly Schedule 

Please plan for the assembly to run from 11:00 - 11:30 a.m. 

Students should sit in the same location they were at the last assembly. 

Steve & Molly 

Students email passwords 

Please find the schedule for Tech support at Harwood below:

 

 

Remember:

Need tech support? Please submit a ticket.

 

Caring 

Topics	Information/Links	Contact(s)
After School Supervision	If you have an after school co-curricular activity - the library will NOW be open on Monday - Friday from 3:30 - 5:00pm for you to do homework and wait for your after school commitment to begin.	Genevieve & Sally Ji
Student Support Team Update	Gratitude to Skylar Bradley and Bernadette Bloom for their incredible support of all of our students 7-12! Their responsiveness to challenges, helping with attendance, and following up with teachers has been superb! Gratitude to Jon Berliner for his efforts in EST, attendance, ELO/Support Block, and supporting our families around EST/504s! Gratitude to Vicki Hummer for leading the special education department, maintain a steady and stabilizing presence.  Thank you to Mari for working with our students who might not be where they need to be, and for supporting our CVCC students when they return to HU! Thank you to our special educators who are continuing to provide incredible services and supports to so many of our students.   Consequences: This week, student athletes will be hearing about missing practices, and any student may be hearing about potential for losing driving privileges for tardies and cut classes. We had to wait to clear the PowerSchool stuff (seniors, uptime, CVCC, first days of school) to ensure validity of our reports! Thank you for your continued efforts in stabilizing our attendance procedures, and communicating with us!	Melody Frank and Jon Berliner
Attendance Updates	Gratitude to Liz Hepp - our incredible front desk extraordinaire who is managing not only attendance (and all that goes with that) but all the other things on a day to day basis. First and foremost, being able to start a day with a Liz greeting is incredible! Thank you to the Nursing Crew - Phil and Maggie: their support of students and helping keep our school safe with physical health decision making - and ensuring we are following up accordingly and around attendance! Thank you to Shannon for fielding community phone calls related to attendance!  REMINDERS:  Please fill out the blue passes with a last name - this will help when we review at the end of the day.  For passes you write - please also indicate if excused (the exception will be those early morning directly from the Office from the office as we won’t know and will flip based on forms) Based on staff feedback (Thank you!!) - If you would like - at the beginning of the blocks, INSTEAD of calling Liz with missing students, you may EMAIL (Liz, Bernadette, and Skylar) instead. Up to you - either call or email list of names! Thank you.	Melody Frank and Jon Berliner
Update from the Health Office	This coming Monday, 9/20, testing will be conducted for STAFF only. This first  trial week will allow our newly operationalized system to work out any glitches, ensuring we are best prepared to roll out testing for all students and staff the following Monday, 9/27.  Click here to sign up for a general time that you will be able to come down.  Students and staff who are symptomatic or who have been identified as close contacts may not participate in this testing at school. If you have tested positive for COVID-19 on June 29, 2021 or later, please let the health office know.  Students and staff who have tested positive may participate in surveillance testing after their 90 day window has passed.	Magge & Phil

Topics 

Information/Links

Contact(s) 

After School Supervision

If you have an after school co-curricular activity - the library will NOW be open on Monday - Friday from 3:30 - 5:00pm for you to do homework and wait for your after school commitment to begin.

Genevieve & Sally Ji

Student Support Team Update

Gratitude to Skylar Bradley and Bernadette Bloom for their incredible support of all of our students 7-12! Their responsiveness to challenges, helping with attendance, and following up with teachers has been superb!

Gratitude to Jon Berliner for his efforts in EST, attendance, ELO/Support Block, and supporting our families around EST/504s!

Gratitude to Vicki Hummer for leading the special education department, maintain a steady and stabilizing presence. 

Thank you to Mari for working with our students who might not be where they need to be, and for supporting our CVCC students when they return to HU!

Thank you to our special educators who are continuing to provide incredible services and supports to so many of our students.  

Consequences: This week, student athletes will be hearing about missing practices, and any student may be hearing about potential for losing driving privileges for tardies and cut classes. We had to wait to clear the PowerSchool stuff (seniors, uptime, CVCC, first days of school) to ensure validity of our reports! Thank you for your continued efforts in stabilizing our attendance procedures, and communicating with us! 

Melody Frank and Jon Berliner

Attendance Updates

Gratitude to Liz Hepp - our incredible front desk extraordinaire who is managing not only attendance (and all that goes with that) but all the other things on a day to day basis. First and foremost, being able to start a day with a Liz greeting is incredible!

Thank you to the Nursing Crew - Phil and Maggie: their support of students and helping keep our school safe with physical health decision making - and ensuring we are following up accordingly and around attendance!

Thank you to Shannon for fielding community phone calls related to attendance! 

REMINDERS: 

1. Please fill out the blue passes with a last name - this will help when we review at the end of the day. 

1. For passes you write - please also indicate if excused (the exception will be those early morning directly from the Office from the office as we won’t know and will flip based on forms)

2. Based on staff feedback (Thank you!!) - If you would like - at the beginning of the blocks, INSTEAD of calling Liz with missing students, you may EMAIL (Liz, Bernadette, and Skylar) instead. Up to you - either call or email list of names! Thank you. 

Melody Frank and Jon Berliner

Update from the Health Office 

This coming Monday, 9/20, testing will be conducted for STAFF only. This first  trial week will allow our newly operationalized system to work out any glitches, ensuring we are best prepared to roll out testing for all students and staff the following Monday, 9/27.  Click here to sign up for a general time that you will be able to come down. 

Students and staff who are symptomatic or who have been identified as close contacts may not participate in this testing at school. If you have tested positive for COVID-19 on June 29, 2021 or later, please let the health office know.  Students and staff who have tested positive may participate in surveillance testing after their 90 day window has passed.

Magge & Phil 

Connected 

Topics	Information/Links	Contact(s)
Sub Coordinator Update	Lynda Cummings will be graciously taking over as Sub    Going forward, please text her on her cell - (802)279-5548 with unplanned absences.  My email is lcummings@huusd.org Sub binders will remain in the administrative assistant office as usual. Please make sure they are up to date.	Lynda cummings
Radio Reminders	Friendly reminder that students should NOT have radios for reasons of confidentiality and safety.  Additionally, please remember to return all radios after use as well.  Each radio costs $500 and if lost will mean we have fewer to use.	Meg, Laurie or Duane
Staff Meeting  9/21 7:30 - 8:30 We will start in the cafeteria together	Objective:  To identify clarity and provide stability as we move forward. Staff Meeting Calendar  Given this change in our Staff meeting objective - Support Staff are not asked to join.  We look forward to having you join again for our book club discussion on 10/19	Duane, Laurie or Meg
Friendly reminder	Complete your TA conferences as soon as possible but no later than 9/23 Complete mandatory trainings by 9/23 - please see list here by .  Additionally, you have received an email from HUUSD to prompt you to log in and complete your Safeschools online training.