Harwood Staff Blog Update- September 29, 2022

Team -

This coming week we will spend some of Staff meeting time following up on this week’s meeting by setting our professional goals for the year.  Don’t forget to bring your self evaluation with you.  Here is a folder with copies of the rubrics.    

We are looking forward to this new system in order to:

• Increase time in class

• Increase time spent collaborating on what is happening in class

• Collectively work towards strengthening our teaching practices through reflection, staff wide UDL work and Department time to continue to work of vertical and horizontal alignment.  

 

As a follow up to Adam’s question about the Evaluation Cycle - R5 is being replaced by F5.  This part of the cycle includes - self assessment and goal setting in addition to individual reflection and completing your relicensure work.  

In partnership,

Meg, Laurie and Duane

Calendar:

PLEASE NOTE our 4 day schedule for the next 2 weeks.

• 10/04 - Club Fair 2:30 - 3:20 *See details below.

• 10/06 - Senior Mt. Day @ MRG 

• 10/07 - Staff Inservice Day - NO students

• Flu Clinic 11 - 2:00

• 10/10 - NO school for staff or students

• 10/13 - 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. Open House *more details to come

• 10/14 - Flu Clinic 11 - 2:00

• 10/15 - Homecoming 

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

CLUB FAIR: Where - The Library When - Tuesday 10/4 9th Grade during TA 10th grade during the first 1/2 of ELO T2 (2:30-2:55) 11th and 12th grade during the second 1/2 of ELO T2 (2:55-3:20) Details: Sign students up as you would for ELO. If you are a club leader, students should be at the fair helping out (unless they need to be with another teacher). 9th Grade ELO teachers - Your students will attend during TA so they will be with you for the full ELO block Here is a link to the list of clubs. I plan to email it to students by Thursday this week. TA teachers, please take a moment to alert your students to check the link out. I will have it in the announcements, as well.  Student Government also created a bulletin board in the hallway to the cafeteria with all of the clubs.

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Appreciations:

Staff Member	Appreciations
Scott	For his unwavering support and attention to details regarding students who attend CVCC
Special Education team	For continuing to find a way to balance the needs of our students without enough staff!
Dep’t heads	For your thoughtful feedback, collaboration and collective work to strengthen our system of leadership and thus communication and organization at Harwood
Cullen, Ray, Alex and Kendall	For your tireless work to clean up from the leak last week and continue to keep the building clean while being so short staffed

Safe - seen, heard, respected & understood:

Topics	Information/Links
Health Office Updates	Immunization Clinic: Flu (NOT for 65 and older) and bivalent Covid vaccine. You are eligible for the Covid vaccine if your last booster was over two months ago.  Please sign up for a time slot here: October 7th (Inservice day) October 14th It’s squash season! I love this risotto with butternut squash and kale recipe. Butternut squash is low in calories but high in many nutrients, including vitamin A, vitamin C, magnesium, and potassium.
	Game Masters: Game Master’s students thank you for your support and collaboration. Please look out for procedures and expectations on posters near the games themselves. If you have questions, concerns, comments about what is helpful, what is challenging - please email Melody Frank and Skylar Bradley. We will be creating a Game Master’s Email coming soon including student members, so we can continue to partner and refine our system and enhance opportunities for All. Game Master’s meets weekly during ELO club time! Detentions: If a student comes to you to discuss a detention, please redirect them to responding via email to the student support team. We realize there may be student questions or concerns - the best thing is for them or their caregivers to respond directly to the email. Please do not let them leave class or send them to student support during the school day. Thank you for your partnership! We did hold detentions this week. We will be holding detentions again next Tuesday and Wednesday. Currently, 12 are scheduled for next week.
TA update	Preview of Coming Activities for October: Theme - Wellness! Technology and Wellness- Thanks to the research and creativity of Sarah Ibson and 3 other Rowland Fellows, we have some great Circle conversations and activities for TA that will spark some thinking about our relationship with technology and how it affects our wellbeing. These activities are designed to help us all think about our connection with technology without “shaming” us. The links for this will be located in your slideshows…we are updating them this week! Goal Setting - Preparing for our Student Led family meetings in November will be occurring during October. At our staff meeting on the 4th we will share the focus of the goals (grade-based) and discuss a process to parallel our own goal setting with that of our students. We can walk the journey together! Slideshows: Middle School Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12 Hot off the press!!! Stepping Stones to Leadership: What?  An opportunity for any high school student to be nominated by a teacher or peer or self nominate to participate in a leadership development opportunity. Students will be invited to participate in a Student led retreat on October 19th and November 4th with bi-weekly meetings for the remainder of the year. The goal is to further develop youth/adult partnerships and raise student voice in a meaningful way to continue to make Harwood the best it can be for all of the members of our community! When? Students or teachers can fill out a nomination form at the club fair on October 4th and will be invited to do so during TA on October 5th. Ellen will email the google form to every student and teacher before TA. Why?  It is our goal to have broad representation of the student body in leadership at Harwood. The training will equip students with the tools to lead with confidence.

Rigorous & Robust Academic Program:

Topics	Information/Links
Staff Meeting	Objectives:   To identify our individual professional goals for 22-23’. To prepare as TA grade level teams for the month ahead Staff Meeting Calendar  Where:  Library When: 3:30 - 4:40  *Don’t forget to bring your self evaluation with you!
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.
ELO	Quick reminders from this week’s staff meeting Students who are booked to you for ELO, should remain there the whole time. If a student is not there, please email student support. Please ensure that no students who are not booked to you are in your space. If a student is there who is not on your roster, direct them to where they should be if it is the beginning of the block, or email student support. If a student needs to see two teachers for course work during one ELO block, this should only happen if there is communication between the two teachers (use email and a pass/note!). Thank you to everyone for contributing to an ELO program that supports students’ academics while also providing many other enriching options! Maybe you’ve been wondering: What does it mean when a student is booked to “admin”?  The “admin” booking is being used as a placeholder for when students have an appointment, are out of the building, or are otherwise unavailable during an ELO. If you see a student booked to admin, please don’t unbook them (even if it is not locked). Feel free to reach out to me if you are questioning an admin booking or wondering if it is still possible to see the student.

Positive school climate and culture:

Topics	Information/Links
	The Hannah's House Team has collaborated again with Ana at Mountain Rose Yoga in Waitsfield to provide another 4-week series offered specifically for teachers and staff of our district. It will be drop-in style without needing advanced registration and totally free of charge. See flier below for more information.
Friendly reminder re: Bells	Starting Wednesday 9/28, the bells do not ring during lunches. They will ring at the start and end of block 3/7/6.    Gold Days - Bell will ring at start of block 3 at 11:35 and end of block 3 at 1:20 Black Days - Bell will ring at start of block 7 at 11:45 and end of block 7 at 1:30. 7-Block Days - Bell will ring at start of block 6 at 11:30 and end of block 6 at 12:50.   Classroom teachers who teach during these times will need to keep an eye on the clock to know when to dismiss for lunch.   Lunch Duty folks will have to keep an eye on the clock and make an announcement when it's time to dismiss from lunch.    This is to help with the chaos of all the bells that go off during lunch time between the high and middle schools.    Over the next few days, be on the lookout for a new poster to put up in your space to help keep track of these times.
Staff Resource doc.	Have a question or need quick access to a doc - look no further than here.
Open House Agenda	We’re excited to welcome families back into the Harwood building. Please find the schedule for 10/13 here.  Departments will be spending Tuesday Staff meeting time to prepare for this time.
	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.