Harwood Staff Blog Update - September 22, 2022

 Team Harwood; 

There was a great learning opportunity for us this week as feedback came streaming in about the Open House schedule after much discussion by Department Heads and the CORE team.  As we work on creating a strong and effective distributive leadership model we must continue to fine tune our communication mechanisms to provide perspective and consideration by all in our community.  Thank you for your patience, support and collaboration as we do this.  Please find the Final Open House schedule below.  For the full schedule see here.  

When  Oct. 13	What	Where
5:30	Arrive; collect your child’s schedule & passing time	Front lobby
5:30 - 6:30	Community Dinner  - made possible by Farm to School club	Cafeteria
6:40 - 7:00	Community Assembly - made possible by Assembly Crew	Auditorium
7:00 - 7:20	Learn more about programming at Harwood *see options/locations below
7:20 - 7:40	Learn more about programming at Harwood *see options/locations below
7:40 - 8:00	Learn more about programming at Harwood *see options/locations below

All are encouraged to join the Community dinner and assembly and expected to be present for the Learn more about programming at Harwood sessions.  

Thank you for your work as teams and departments to prepare to welcome families back through our doors,

Laurie, Meg and Duane.

Calendar:

• 10/07 - Staff Inservice - NO students 

• 10/13 - 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. Open House 

• 10/15 - Homecoming 

• 11/9 & 11/15 - 3:30 - 7p.m.  Family Conferences 

---

Appreciations:

Staff Member	Appreciations
Kate	For her powerful facilitation of student learning.  Your intentional planning and questioning means students say and think more!
Science Department	For using the UDL Framework in their planning for Open House.
Justin and Eric	For immediately jumping in to help clean the water in the gym.
Katie and Peter	For immediately ensuring your students were safe and moved from the water.
Kayla	For being everywhere with a smile today amidst it all.
Skyler, Mary and Mari	For ensuring students were redirected appropriately and safe during the South Entrance shut down.
EVERYONE	For keeping calm and carrying on.

Safe - seen, heard, respected & understood:

Topics	Information/Links
Out of the building	Please note - On the 1st and 4th Thursday of each month from 7:30 - 9:30 Meg, Laurie and Duane are at Watisfield Town Hall for our Administrative meeting.
Health Office Updates	Waterbury Ambulance is coming on-site to administer flu and bivalent covid vaccine to staff on October 7th and 14th from 11-2. Location TBA. Please note, they are unable to give flu vaccines to those 65 and older.    Please sign up for a time slot here: October 7th (Inservice day) October 14th Fall harvest fun fact: Did you know? Eating one cup of pumpkin provides 87% of your daily vitamin A. Here is an amazing pumpkin soup recipe: Whole Pie Pumpkin Soup
Student Support	IMPORTANT We want to hear from you.  Please take a minute to complete the following google form to provide feedback to our Student Services Support Team.  We value your input and will make adjustments to our system to strengthen our process and interventions.    Student Services Feedback Link:  https://forms.gle/E7iUn7r8Xmi9w3HDA  HU Student Support Email - This is the only active Student Support team email  Log Entries and Detentions:  Our student support team attended a training that focused on staff being able to review past log entries.  We are getting close to a roll out of a way to review past log entries as promised at the beginning of the year.  Updates coming soon.   Any log entry titled class cut will result in a detention. Student Support will email home with date of detention.  Any non class-cut behavior that you want to result in detention, please include the word Detention, in the Title.  Ex Title: Yellow: Inappropriate Behavior - Detention Ex Title: Orange - Repeated Refusal Reasonable Request - Detention NOTE: GREEN or RED should not have detention. Red = more additional follow up and steps needed
School Safety Update	Digital Safety Poster:  HUUSD Safety Poster 22-23 sy  Behold The ID poem   Wear your ID This is a plea It is for the safety of all of us  We don’t want to cause a fuss  So please let's just see  You lovely face  On Thee  d.p. poet laureate (If you need a replacement - contact rdaigle@huusd.org)   (NY Times Review states -d.p is one of the best upcoming poets for our time - one to read)  FIRE DRILL UPDATE Drill Date:  Fire Drill Sept 30, During TA  Fire Drill Location:  FIRE DRILL LOCATIONS/ROLES  updated  Sept 2022

Rigorous & Robust Academic Program:

Topics	Information/Links
Staff Meeting	Objectives:  To identify why the move to the Marshall evaluation & supervision process and how it aligns to our Harwood beliefs Staff Meeting Calendar  Where: Library  When: 3:30 - 4:30
ELO	Thank you to everyone for your efforts in helping our new ELO schedule run smoothly! One question that makes its way to my inbox a few times a week right now is: What do I do when I know I’m going to be out on an ELO day? Please don’t cancel/block your own ELOs because then we can't keep track of numbers or know if we have enough options available on a day when a lot of teachers might be out. Please do put in for a sub and still pre-book students and put together a quick sub-plan of what they should be working on. April will try to get coverage for the block, but if she can't, they will likely be sent to the cafeteria. For this reason, don't put too much work into the sub plan, but try to point the students toward what they could work on to support them in your class.
10/07 Inservice Schedule	Please find the Inservice schedule here.   We are excited to Welcome Starling Collaborative to facilitate some of our work as we move forward.  Check out their website to learn more.  Our work with them will focus on the intersection and UDL and SEL and support us in our continued work towards our goals.

Positive school climate and culture:

Topics	Information/Links
Assemblies	The new assembly crew is excited to present their first assembly together next Tuesday, Sept. 27th at 2:45! Molly shared the assembly dates for the year in an email earlier this week, and they have been added to the facstaff Google calendar. Important reminders:  Students should go to their TA at the start of ELO T2 (2:30) and come to the auditorium to be settled at 2:45. We are starting the assemblies at 2:45 to allow a few minutes of set up time for the assembly crew. Students will then return to their TAs to collect their belongings after the assembly.  Students should leave their backpacks (and preferably phones) in their TA spaces.  Please no food or drink (other than water) in the auditorium.  It's helpful for teachers to sit in the same section of the auditorium as their TA grade to help manage any behavioral issues that may arise.
VEHI Path	VEHI (Vermont Education Health Initiative) is a nonprofit, member-owned trust providing member school districts and their employees access to high quality and affordable health and dental plans. VEHI provides access to PATH (Planned Action Toward Health), an employee wellness program. PATH works with districts to create and sustain healthy work environments. This program is FREE for ALL employees, even if you are not on the health insurance plan! All you need to do is sign-up!   By signing up, you have access to a variety of FREE resources including the Annual Wellness Adventure, a Health Risk Assessment, telephonic Health Coaching, Exercise/Activity Tracking, Intuitive Eating course, Mindful Nonviolent Communication courses, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) - short-term or crisis counseling, Peer Coaching Course, and MANY more! We will be highlighting all the PATH programs in each of the blogs throughout the year.   As a PATH participant, you'll earn points for actively engaging in these program services. If at the end of the school year (June 30th), as an eligible PATH participant, you've earned 200 points, you'll be rewarded with a $100 L.L. Bean gift card! Login and sign up: HERE OR reach out to one of us if you need help signing up today!    Earning Points is easy! - 200 points = $100 L.L. Bean Gift Card Tracking Your Activity (very easy if you connect a Fitbit/Garmin/Apple Watch/Strava) Know Your Numbers (Doctor's visit) - 25 points (Bring these to Nick Gordon in the Middle School or drop them off in his mailbox in the Middle School office) Show Your Smile (Dentist Visit) - 25 points (Bring these to Nick Gordon in the Middle School of drop them off in his mailbox in the Middle School office) Other PATH Events (Perhaps golf? Fill out THIS form by Wednesday 9/28 to help us decide on what events we offer this year!) Questions or need help signing up? Please reach out to any of us, as we are your Building Leaders, and we will help you out! Nick Gordon, Meghan McCarthy, and Tara Cariano
Have pictures to share to promote the amazing work and school culture at Harwood?	Please email HU-Socials-SL@huusd.org or drop in the Instagram pics shared drive.
Staff Resource doc.	Have a question or need quick access to a doc - look no further than *here. This can also be found on the Harwood Website if you pull down the staff tab. *This is a good link to bookmark! Including Leadership agendas if you want to see recent or future agendas. Teaching & Learning Collective Student Support Collective Department Head
	A reminder to please complete all tasks for the start of the year!  Start of Year Checklist PLEASE NOTE - after our Department Head meeting yesterday morning it became clear that more time was needed for Emergency sub plans  and that 3 days was not necessary at this time.  Emergency sub plans are now due by 10/03.  In the meantime Departments will work together to provide support if needed or a study hall will be held in an emergent situation.     Mandatory Trainings are due by December 15th.
Suggestion Box	Sometimes the little things we need have the biggest impact on our mindset.  So, while there is much outside our locus of control we will do our best to address that which we can!   PLEASE NOTE:  In response to an ask from our Suggestion box.  We recognize that some of our clocks are not reporting the right time.  Given our facilities staff crisis please take inaccurate clocks down for now until we have the staff to support.