Harwood Staff Blog Update- March 17, 2022

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HUGE thank you to the assembly crew, Molly and Steve for increasing Harwood spirit! 

Congratulations to Sarah Ibson who received a Rowland Encore Grant to work with 3 other Vermont Educators to do the following work:

Disconnect/Reconnect is the proposal's working name and it has a clear focus on how (dis)engagement with technology impacts our students' wellbeing. From the team's proposal: “We started to notice a decrease in attention spans and an increase in anxiety, depression, and challenging behaviors. Behaviors that are not conducive to active learning were also solidified during the pandemic with dependence on screen-based learning. In addition to a decrease in attention span, many students seemed to be losing the ability to persevere when learning became hard or momentarily uninteresting…Outcome: To create safer, happier, more focused school culture and less distracted, more engaged students and broader educational communities.”

Calendar:

• March 24th 7 p.m. - Harwood Band evening 

• March 25th - NO SCHOOL (comp for conferences)

• April 1st - End of Quarter 3

• April 18th - 22nd - NO School - April Vacation 

• May 9th - 13th - Spirit week 

• May 12th - Family Conferences

• May 18th - Family Conferences 

• June 11th - Graduation 

Next week’s schedule!

Because next week is a four-day week with no school on Friday, there will be no ELOs on Wednesday. The schedule will be:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1	5	1	5
2	Flex	2	Flex
3	6	3	6
4	7	4	7

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Appreciations:

Staff Member	Appreciations
Ellen Berrings	For her incredible work to organize the student dialogue on Wednesday!
Jacki and Rob	For being the first staff to take part in “Unmasked Harwood.”
Kristi Mcknight	For being a great advocate for kids in her TA

Safe - seen, heard, respected & understood:

Topics	Information/Links
Student Dialogue	We are looking forward to debriefing with our student facilitators tomorrow to hear the take-aways and consider next steps. There is much work to do ahead as we continue to foster and maintain a community where all feel safe, seen, heard, respected and understood. Thank you for your continued partnership!
Health Office Updates	We are looking for clothing donations. We have plenty of t-shirts, but are in need of sweatpants/leggings, especially larger sizes. We are also looking for new adult sized underwear. Vision and hearing screenings for 7th, 9th and 12th graders began this week.  Please welcome UVM nursing student, Emily, to the health office! Emily will be with us for the next 6 weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Thoughts on COVID….while many recommendations have changed this week, we continue to work to keep our school safe. Rapid antigen tests are available to you for any reason, including weekly assurance testing. Students continue to have access to tests as well. We have plenty of KN-95 masks available to students and staff.  As always, please reach out with questions. –Phil and Magge
Project Kratos Update    Detention Update	Kratos update ---- Link here:   Kratos)  Presence - All administration and Staff will become more present with holding students accountable as well as physically present during identified transitions during and after the school day.   We have noticed a need for more supervision at the end of the day for bus duty.  We are ensuring that at least three adults are out front to help with dismissal wait times.  Student Support Staff - Melody Frank, Jon Berliner, Duane Pierson, Bernadette Bloom, Skylar Bradley, Mari Pratt, Meg McDonough and Laurie Greenberg  Perseverance - Reported and encountered behavioral issues will be addressed in a simple and achievable manner.    We continue to meet as a student support team on a weekly basis to review/adjust our programming to ensure we are creating a safe environment for our community.  When we receive a student complaint or concern we task a member of our student support team to conduct an intake to determine our next steps.   We continue to track discipline infractions, following up on concerns when presented. See information below.   Plan implementation review and adjustment - Weekly reviews and adjustment based on feedback (formal and informal) will guide our forward progress. We continue to hold our weekly Friday morning meetings beginning around 8:00  in the library as a place where staff can create, connect and be curious about how things are going in general.  Please read* IMPORTANT:  Discipline issues that occur during teacher supervision must be logged in powerschool and the teacher must make a call home to indicate that a discipline infraction  occurred and the teacher is requesting a student serve an afterschool detention.  We hope by doing this some of the recent inconsistencies with parents/families not understanding or not knowing their student is to serve a detention will be cleared up.  Detention Update This past week we connected (email and/or phone calls) with families/students regarding behavioral/attendance issues which resulted in afterschool detention for many.  Please note we schedule detentions based on students/grouping and other issues (students who can’t be together, etc)  Going forward we will send out notices to students/families who fail to attend these afterschool detentions informing them if they miss 2 consecutive afterschool detentions they will receive a out of school suspension on the Thursday after their 2nd miss.         Discipline Consequence  Update High School  Suspension issues and served  0 Current Hazing, Harassment, Bullying investigations in process 3 (on going)  The student support team is following a well articulated process for conducting and determining whether or not an offense occurred with appropriate remedies offered and followed  Detentions issued and served  15 issued    11 served  Detentions were issued for late/skipping class Middle School  Suspension issues and served  0 Detentions issued and served  6 Students will serve detention on Friday for being late to class  and one for acting out in class and the rest are for refusals
TA update	APPRECIATION! To: All of the TA teachers! Thank you for your patience and support as we navigated our first all school dialogue on Wednesday. It was not perfect but it was amazing to see 40+ youth facilitators making space for meaningful conversation with their peers SPECIAL APPRECIATION! To: The youth facilitators who have been preparing for this since November. Special recognition to Maisie Franke, Elle Dice, Damien Garcia, Adam Porterfield and Jeswin Antony who planned and delivered the training. AND: Jess “the magician” Deane who magically created and recreated the ELO bookings as things shifted and changed leading up to the dialogue day! WHAT’S NEXT? There is a lot of data to sort through with your notes and the feedback forms. Once we have been able to summarize it we will share it out with the school community. We hope that there were some strong suggestions for future dialogues. I will be sending a feedback form to all of the TA teachers in order to seek your input on what worked and what could be improved for the future.  Don’t forget we are in the midst of Kindness Month.  Each TA is invited to plan a Random Act of Kindness. Here are the kindness resources if you are having trouble finding them! This is an abbreviated list. If you are looking for more; scroll to the bottom of the page for a link to a more comprehensive list. As always, please let me know if I can assist you in any way!  - Ellen B.
	Aspirations Update:   Steering Committee members are composing an Action Plan that will guide Aspirations work for the  2022-23 school year.   To gather student feedback for the action plan, Aspirations steering committee members are hosting student focus groups during upcoming ELO’s. Parent and guardian feedback for the action plan will be obtained on 3/29 during an Adult Focus group hosted by students Chloe Joslin, Grant McCracken and staff member Rachael Potts. VSAC Ellen is partnering with HU staff to offer ELO’s on specific post-high school planning topics such as:  how to compare financial aid awards, how to find the right career fit, how to find the right college fit, certifications and apprenticeships and exploring post-high school options.  Please encourage students in your TA to sign up!

Rigorous & Robust Academic Program:

Topics	Information/Links
Staff Meeting	Over the past two years we have had 6 hours of Anti-Racist professional development with Rebecca Haslam and begun reading Ijeoma Oluo’s “So you want to talk about race”.  This work was intended to challenge us outside our comfort zones and to begin or continue to move us towards being anti racists educators.   Objectives: To identify our learnings to date and consider what’s next.   Where: PLC rooms used throughout the year When: 7:30 (for independent reflection - discussion starts at 7:50) Staff Meeting Calendar  We hope all can join!  Support staff - please complete your timesheet for this meeting and submit to April
Flex Block and ELO	Flex Block: There are five sessions left in Quarter 3 Flex Block! Over the next two weeks, I’ll be working on assignments for Quarter 4 Flex Block… stay tuned!  REMINDER: There is no ELO the week of March 21-25, because there is no school Friday 3/25.

Positive school climate and culture:

Topics	Information/Links
Coffee Chat	Have questions or just want to catch up - join us for Coffee Chat!   *Grab your coffee from the lounge before dropping by  Where:  Library  When: 8:00 a.m.
FY 23’ Hiring Update	This week: Offers out to:  Director of College Counseling Special Educator sample lesson Posted: Restorative Practice Coordinator  Student Support Specialist (reposted) ⅞ Flexible Pathway Coordinator  Next week: Drivers Education Sample lesson
ESSER III	Please find the HUUSD ESSER III plan here.  The focus continues to be student wellness and support of our climate/culture.  Join us in the library on Friday for Coffee Chat if you have any questions or feedback.