MS Admin Weekly Update

This is the final update for the 2023-24 school year. I hope you all have an amazing break and engage in fun and meaningful activities that help you recharge! The next update will be at the end of July.

There are 7 items of note this week...

The end of year goal reflection is key in the evaluation process. Please be sure to submit your end of year goals reflection form in Talent Ed. I know, things are busy and you are wrapping up the school year. I will follow up with you in July to finalize all TalentEd processes for the 2023-24 school year.

Please check out the AVID Coordinator/Admin meetings on the attached link. This should help inform your calendar for when you as the building admin overseeing AVID needs to attend. Please be sure to add these to you calendar.

Over the next three years, the Instruction Department is dedicated to ongoing growth opportunities for administrators with the purpose of fostering instructional leaders within every school building. This multifaceted objective hinges on a meticulously structured training program designed to ensure administrators gain expertise in five pivotal goal areas: Special Education best practices, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Research for Better Teaching (RBT), and school-based equity and inclusion best practices. By instilling proficiency in these areas, the Instruction Department aims to empower principals to effectively guide their teaching staff in skill development and cultivate a culture of continuous growth and improvement.

To ensure the successful realization of this initiative, all principals will actively participate in structured training modules tailored to each of the five key areas. These modules will offer comprehensive insights into best practices, instructional strategies, and the latest research findings, enabling principals to deepen their understanding and refine their instructional leadership skills. Additionally, principals will be expected to engage in ongoing training until they attain a predefined baseline of necessary knowledge in each goal area. This commitment underscores the Instruction Department's unwavering dedication to fostering continuous professional development among our building-based instructional leaders.

Recognizing the considerable dedication required for this initiative, principals will be compensated at the per diem rate for their work outside their regular work hours. This acknowledgment underscores the value placed on professional growth and the pivotal role that instructional leadership plays in driving positive outcomes for students. The ultimate objective of this learning journey for principals is to enhance their capacity to serve as effective instructional leaders within their respective buildings.

The Instruction Department anticipates that attaining the expected baseline of competence will take each principal approximately four to five years. This projection accounts for the varying levels of understanding that principals may possess across the five learning areas. Consequently, the training opportunities will be differentiated to accommodate the diverse needs and readiness levels of individual principals. This tailored approach aims to maximize the impact of the training program and ensure that all principals receive the necessary support and resources to thrive.

Moreover, the Instruction Department will continue to provide training opportunities for teachers throughout the district, with the expectation that all principals will actively participate in these sessions. It is crucial for principals to learn alongside their teachers within each building, fostering a collaborative environment conducive to continuous improvement and shared professional growth. By investing in the development of instructional leaders, the Instruction Department endeavors to create a culture of excellence, equity, and inclusivity in every school building, thereby elevating the overall quality of education and fostering positive outcomes for all students.

Additionally, principals are encouraged to work in cohorts during this learning journey. By collaborating within these cohorts, principals can learn from one another, share experiences, and accelerate their understanding and application of best instructional practices. This collaborative approach not only enriches the learning experience but also fosters a sense of camaraderie and collective responsibility among principals.

Furthermore, the Instruction Department believes that the enhanced knowledge and understanding of best instructional practices gained through this training program will increase the value of principals as they coach and evaluate teacher classroom performance. By equipping principals with a robust skill set and deep understanding of effective instructional strategies, the Instruction Department aims to elevate the quality of teaching and learning across the district, ultimately benefiting students and the broader educational community.

As we increase our focus on Instruction in buildings and in the classroom, we want to reinvest in the previous training that we engaged in as administrators several years ago. We haven't landed dates as of yet and will be sure to share once we do. In the meantime this is an excellent resource that you should start to familiarize yourself with. This specific training is so good with how to anchor a meeting with a teacher around instruction and how to identify claims, evidence and impact on student learning. This is really strong training and we will be leaning on these strategies in this upcoming year. Please sign up your admin team to take this training when we get the dates squared away.

LINK

Most of you are aware that we will be transitioning from using Zoom as the default virtual meeting platform to using Google Meet. This transition has already begun.

While your Zoom account will not be deleted, it will be reduced to a basic Zoom account which limits meetings to 40 minutes and participant count to 100.

https://meet.google.com/ will take you to Google Meet. You can access the platform from the google.com home page, right hand corner 'waffle' icon

Several links have been included below that will be helpful as you become familiar with Google Meet:

Google Meet FAQ and Tutorials

Quicksheet on Google Meet Setup

There is an abundance of self help resources out there, a few are referenced below:

Translation

Breakout Rooms

Google Meet Best Practice

This has already been shared with you but I'm including it here again as an important reminder about affinity group times shifts and other Middle School specific calendar events, i.e. Early Release Wednesdays, Instructional Round hosting, etc.

See the first four tabs of this google sheet: These are still in draft form but a great starting point for future planning.

2024-25 Middle School Calendars

Secondary ELA Newsletter Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eg5du_rFrlkflYxNAZ8XaOMd5ersQMrY/view?usp=drive_link

As we wrap up our final day with students, I want to simply say thank you for your dedication to serving your school communities! You did a wonderful job celebrating kids this week. Additionally, your steadfast leadership was integral in creating nurturing and affirming environments for kids all year long! Although I wasn't able to attend all promotions due to the schedule over the past couple of days, I'm sure every school was able to celebrate their 8th graders' accomplishments in unique ways. For the ceremonies I was able to attend, I observed numerous gestures and messages of appreciation from students and families to you and your staff. I hope everyone is able to take a moment this weekend and reflect on the positive impact you've made on kids' lives. Congratulations on another great school year!

Summer Office Hours in June - Thank you for the feedback via text. These are the middle schools' hours for June. Make sure to share these with your school communities.

• June 17 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 18 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 19 Office CLOSED - Juneteenth Holiday

• June 20 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 21 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 24 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 25 - 28 Office CLOSED for summer

This summer, Facilities is only requesting Custodial radios be collected for preventative maintenance. Other radios needing service may also be submitted, but these must be documented with a work order that includes ID number(s), and a description of the issue, just like always. For more info click here.

Most of you are aware that we will be transitioning from using Zoom as the default virtual meeting platform to using Google Meet. This transition has already begun.

While your Zoom account will not be deleted, it will be reduced to a basic Zoom account which limits meetings to 40 minutes and participant count to 100.

https://meet.google.com/ will take you to Google Meet. You can access the platform from the google.com home page, right hand corner 'waffle' icon

Several links have been included below that will be helpful as you become familiar with Google Meet:

Google Meet FAQ and Tutorials

Quicksheet on Google Meet Setup

There is an abundance of self help resources out there, a few are referenced below:

Translation

Breakout Rooms

Google Meet Best Practice

• We are excited to have over 600 students signed up for SEAL this year. Last year we asked classroom teachers to share any helpful insights about students for SEAL staff. This was a huge success and very appreciated by our SEAL staff. So once again we are asking you to share the spreadsheet with staff and ask if they could take a few minutes to share any helpful insights about their students for our SEAL staff. Below is a link to a spreadsheet with all students who are registered, it can be sorted by school and grade level to make it easier for teachers to find any of their students. If there are questions, please reach out to: Casandra Kamens| kamens@4j.lane.edu|541-790-7536.
  

Student Info for SEAL Staff 2024

Same as our last grading day - Certified staff may work from home on this day, however they need to inform you as the building principal of their plan to work in an alternate location and how they’ll be available to their team members, if needed. Staff that have not communicated a desire to work from an alternate location will be expected to work on site. This is a working day and professional awareness is critical. Please be aware of the perception of community members if you are engaged in activities in the community instead of being at work. Classified staff need to report to the building, or use appropriate leave or trade time.

Linked below are the emails both in English and Spanish for all student results grades 5-7. Please make sure to copy the correct grade level when sending these emails out to all families/guardians who took the math acceleration tests. Remember the green and yellow highlighted sections are differentiated by determination of acceleration, so don't send both 🤪.

Results Emails for Families Grades 5-7

Confidential Score Reports

Middle

Please note that this year, we will not be sending out individual score reports district wide. If parents have specific questions regarding their child’s individual scores, the email asks that they reach out for more information.

It is our goal to work on continuing to streamline this process even more as our hope it to centralize it further for next year, so that you have one less thing on your plates to do each spring. Thank you for your intentionality and focus on this support for our student! If you have any further questions, please reach out to Virginia Seefeld.

• June 17 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 18 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 19 Office CLOSED - Juneteenth Holiday

• June 20 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

• June 21 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

  • COSA Conference Seaside

• June 24 Office open 9:00 a.m. - noon & 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

  • COSA Conference Seaside

• June 25 - 28 Office CLOSED for summer

The final week of the school year is upon us and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate all the hard work, dedication, and resilience that both you, your staff and students have shown throughout this year. It's been a journey filled with learning, growth, and countless memorable moments. Let's make this last week a special one for our students. Whether it's through fun activities, reflective conversations, or simply enjoying the time together, let's ensure we finish the year with a sense of accomplishment and joy.

Additionally, I want to acknowledge the recent updates about transitions for a couple of our colleagues. As you know, Courtney Leonard is stepping into the 4J secondary curriculum administrator position. I'm grateful we'll continue to have the opportunity to collaborate with Courtney and experience her strong leadership skills through the instruction department at the middle school level...ok and high schools too. : ) Thank you, Courtney, for all your contributions to our middle school admin team and for your ongoing leadership. Congratulations!

By Courtney accepting her new position, an opportunity opened up for someone to lead RMS. Congratulations to Mike Yocum on accepting the Interim Principal position at Roosevelt Middle School. Mike is a knowledgeable, thoughtful and empathetic leader. He has deep knowledge of where RMS has been and has the vision and skills to guide them into the future. I'm so excited for him to take this next step in his career. Congratulations, Mike!

Lastly, last week I listed 6 action items to complete. Much appreciation for your efforts in getting those tasks completed.

This week I'm countering last week's task list with 6 self care tips, adapted from the Berkeley Well-Being Institute. : )

I hope you can make a goal of trying at least one this weekend! (My personal goals for this weekend are Numbers 1 and 2).

Six tips for self-care this weekend (and beyond):

1. Get Outdoors

2.Listen to soothing music

3. Practice deep breathing

4. Cultivate positive emotions

5. Research unique self care activities and try out different strategies to tailor your self care needs (popular strategies that people rave about don't always work for everyone).

6. Build Self-Awareness

For more info about any of these strategies see This Article

There are 7 items of note this week...

Same as our last grading day - Certified staff may work from home on this day, however they need to inform you as the building principal of their plan to work in an alternate location and how they’ll be available to their team members, if needed. Staff that have not communicated a desire to work from an alternate location will be expected to work on site. This is a working day and professional awareness is critical. Please be aware of the perception of community members if you are engaged in activities in the community instead of being at work. Classified staff need to report to the building, or use appropriate leave or trade time.

ELA:

New curriculum materials will be arriving soon! Please ensure old materials are discarded, as outlined in Tammy’s previous email. Additionally, Tammy has sent an email with this form needed to be completed by Wednesday, June 5th, to ensure an easy and efficient delivery. If you haven’t completed it yet, please do so asap.

Science:

HS Science Sequencing One Pager FAQ - as the year comes to a close, if any continued questions come up regarding HS science course sequencing, please reference this document.

Chemical Management and Disposal:

Please be sure to check in with your science teams about chemical disposal procedures in the next couple of weeks. A reminder of Chemical Disposal Protocols was sent out earlier this week. If your team is in need of new waste disposal containers for the upcoming year, PLEASE have them fill out this Chemical Waste Storage Container Order FORM by Friday of next week (6/7). New containers will be ordered at the end of next week and will arrive over the summer.

Also a reminder to not send any chemicals through district mail.

Science Adoption set to begin Fall ‘24:

We are beyond excited to announce that, pending board approval, 4J is seeking to adopt standards-aligned, high quality Science instructional materials for grades 6-12. The goal of this adoption is to support teachers in facilitating strong Science instruction for all 4J students for years to come. If you have staff who are interested in joining the adoption team, please share this link to sign up and get more information. Secondary Science Adoption Team Application.

Social Studies:

4J High School Social Studies Course Seqeuence Guidance (Reference Page): Just bringing this document back to the top of your attention. It provides a detailed explanation of the required sequencing of social science courses in Eugene Public Schools 4J aligned to ODE requirements. The sequencing is a guidance intended to display required courses and standards alignment. As Eugene 4J has multiple sites and multiple programs, thus we understand there may be slight variations to sequencing. Furthermore, the courses listed below are basic required courses and do not include Honors or AP options.

• ESY data collection: Must be completed by June 14th
  

• Progress Reports: Must be submitted before June 18th

• Finalize docs in Synergy: Must be completed by June 18th

• For more information on expectations before the end of the school year and important dates on the SSD calendar click here.

It's time for 4J’s annual Special Waste Round-up! This is your chance to safely, efficiently and responsibly dispose of waste items that shouldn’t go into the landfill. We are asking for your help in sharing this info out to staff, and posting the attached flyer around your school. For more information on waste roundup click here.

With the recent administrative changes, we want to take a moment to revisit our safety communication protocol as we head into the last two weeks of school. Below, you'll find the process to follow when reporting safety concerns within your building or workplace.

Clear and efficient communication of safety concerns is essential for promptly addressing issues and taking appropriate actions.

How to Communicate a Safety Concern in Your Building or Workplace Reporting Procedure: staff –> admin / supervisor –> level / dept. director –> 4J critical text group

• Staff should share their safety concerns with their building administrator or supervisor.

• The building administrator or supervisor will relay the necessary concerns to the level director or department director.

• The level director or department director will notify the 4J Critical text group.

Urgent Matters:

• If an immediate response is required and your admin/supervisor is not available, contact your level/department director.

• If they are unavailable, call or text the 24/7 4J Safety phone at 541-780-4000.

• Level/dept. director (or safety phone custodian if they receive the report firsthand) informs the 4J Critical text group.

Immediate Need for Emergency Services:

• CALL 9-1-1 IMMEDIATELY to report any serious medical problem, any type of fire, any life-threatening situation, or to report serious crimes in progress. Stay calm and provide the call-taker with all relevant details when asked. Remain on the phone until released and follow any instructions provided. If emergency services are coming to your building, send someone out to the street or parking lot to meet emergency personnel and lead them to where they are needed.all/text 4J Safety Phone at 541-780-4000 as soon as possible. OR

• If urgent emergency services are not required, call or text 4J Safety Phone at 541-780-4000 as soon as possible.

• Follow-up notifications to admin/supervisor or level/department director.

• Note: When sending a message to families or staff about a safety concern, add or forward a copy to 4j_critical@4j.lane.edu. This will ensure that the district-level staff who need to know about these issues are informed. Thank you for your attention to these protocols to help maintain a safe environment for all.

Monday 6/10

Regular Schedule

Tuesday 6/11

Regular Schedule

Wednesday 6/12 - Early Release- GLT/PLCs

Thursday 6/13

8th Grade Promotions:

Kennedy 1-2:00 pm

Kelly 6-7:00 pm

Madison 6-7:00 pm

Monroe 6-7:45 pm

Roosevelt 6-7:30 pm

Spencer Butte 6:15-7:15 pm

Friday 6/14 Last Day of School - Full Day

8th Grade Promotions:

Arts & Technology 1:30-3pm

Cal Young 6:00-7:15 pm

Monday 6/17

Teachers' Last Day/ Grading Day

NATIVE News

June EdTech

June Library Lowdown

June ECO Experience

Hello Team,

The Golden Apple awards ceremony was a ton of fun! Shout out to Sun and Dana for MC'ing and AJ and team for hosting the event at ATA. Although it's so fun to acknowledge stellar staff during these ceremonies, it's also important to note that the awards are a reflection of the school communities and teams each person represents. Congratulations to all of our recipients, nominees and staff in general for all the critical work they/ you do!

As we are quickly approaching the end of the school year with just two weeks left with students, there are some important *ACTION ITEMS* I'm including this week that we need to get completed at the middle school level. I encourage you to divide them within your admin team to get them completed and please let me know if there is anything I can do to support. The action items are embedded below but to help you easily identify them, I've created the following list:

1. Accept your Wayfinder invitation (email) and Login to WAYFINDER to access your account for Monday's introduction PD.

2. a.Administer Climate Survey

b.Send this Survey to Affinity Group Advisors: Affinity Groups: Year-End Feedback 2024

3. a. Share this with all teachers: Efficient & Effective Classroom Management Strategies:

b. Fill out New ELA Curriculum form: this form

c. Math Acceleration: complete all columns with your student data into this spreadsheet

d. Science: PLEASE have them fill out this Chemical Waste Storage Container Order FORM

4. Have a rotation of teachers to cover sub shortages.

5. Begin drafting Leadership Plan

6. Share out the 3 identified items in your school newsletters

Overall, there are 10 items of note this week...

On Monday, all MS admin will come together to get an introduction to Wayfinder, a key resource for advisory next school year. You'll need your laptop and will also need to be able to access the program. For access be sure you've accepted the invitation already sent by Wayfinder via email. The trainer will be via zoom but we'll need to hold discussions about advisory and Sources of Strength so it's important for us to be together in person.

Where: Ed Center: Tower Room

When: 3:00 p.m. -4:30 p.m.

Who: All middle school admin (I understand if someone needs to stay back to cover issues at the building but please join when you can).

Zimbra invite already sent.

This is a reminder to please complete the 4J Secondary School Climate Survey. It will be open until June 21. As you can see in the attached image only a few schools have completed this.

* English version: http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/4jclimatesecondary

* Spanish version: http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/4jambientesecundaria

To help inform affinity group advisor practices for next year and inform our affinity group schedule, I'd like feedback from each of the advisors. Please share the following survey with advisors for each affinity group in your building.

Affinity Groups: Year-End Feedback 2024

As we head into June this is a reminder about Talent Ed, specifically the end of the year goals and evaluation meetings to have with your staff. If you have not already scheduled these meetings, it would be important to attend this sooner than later. Both your informal and formal observations for staff should be completed by now or be well underway. Attempting to begin these tasks within the 13 days remaining would be ineffective in providing timely feedback and a meaningful evaluation.

For every licensed employee on a summative cycle/year, you are to use information obtained through observations as well as any feedback or communication provided to them throughout the year when writing the summative evaluation. Keep in mind if you were unable to complete the assigned tasks related to the summative cycle/year for an employee, then there would be no information or basis to write an evaluation. In other words, if an employee has not received feedback in any form throughout the year, it would be considered unfair and inappropriate to identify deficiencies given the employee was never informed of needing improvement. In short, summative evaluations should not be a surprise to an employee and the evaluation should be a summary of the employee’s performance based on the 6 domains.

Lastly, the end of the year goal meetings provides the opportunity to highlight this school year while identifying things to look forward to upon the start of the new school year in the fall.

Key points:

1. Schedule end-of-year goal and evaluation meetings with staff soon.
2. Complete informal and formal observations for licensed employees on a summative cycle/year.
3. For summative evaluations, use information from observations and feedback provided throughout the year.
4. Do not identify deficiencies in the summative evaluation if the employee was not informed or given opportunities for improvement.
5. Summative evaluations should not be a surprise, based on ongoing communication and feedback.
6. End-of-year goal meetings are an opportunity to reflect on the current year and look ahead to the next school year.

Middle School:

Resources for upcoming schedule change

Efficient & Effective Classroom Management Strategies: PLEASE SHARE THESE WITH STAFF. With the transition to the new Middle School schedule next year, our curriculum TOSAs have compiled a number of great resources for teachers to explore as they plan for the shorter periods.

In addition, we would like to shine a spotlight on Carmen Duato, who took the time to provide some of her own quality insights in a personalized video! Great job Carmen.

ELA:

All 6-8 ELA teachers attended new curriculum training on May 22nd and 23rd in preparation for implementing Amplify ELA at the start of the school year. Teachers were excited to have access to materials before summer break. Tammy Steeves is planning work sessions with new grade-level literacy leaders who will facilitate collaboration and planning throughout the next school year. More details about this plan will be shared soon. Thank you to everyone who supported our ELA teachers by attending!

New curriculum materials will be arriving soon! Please ensure old materials are discarded, as outlined in Tammy’s previous email. Additionally, Tammy has sent an email with this form that needs to be completed by Wednesday, June 5th, to ensure an easy and efficient delivery.

Math:

Single Subject Acceleration Testing should be coming to an end. If you have not already done so, please complete all columns with your student data into this spreadsheet so that we can get the score reports out to you as soon as possible.

Please remember - For equity reasons, we are obligated to offer this opportunity to ALL students. Historically, we have had families challenge 4J for not having offered the testing opportunity at some schools. If you do not have students/families that want to test, please just enter that the opportunity was given and you had no takers into the spreadsheet. If you need help with parent communication on the opportunities for testing, please reach out to Virginia Seefeld.

Science:

Chemical Management and Disposal:

Please be sure to check in with your science teams about chemical disposal procedures in the next couple of weeks. A reminder of Chemical Disposal Protocols was sent out earlier this week. If your team is in need of new waste disposal containers for the upcoming year, PLEASE have them fill out this Chemical Waste Storage Container Order FORM by Friday of next week (6/7). New containers will be ordered at the end of next week and will arrive over the summer.

Also a reminder to not send any chemicals through district mail.

9th Grade Physics Planning meeting:

The last collaborative Physics Planning meeting will be June 5th at Bailey Hill from 8:15-11:45am. We’re hoping to minimize the need for summer planning for this new(ish) course starting next year.

Science Adoption set to begin:

We are beyond excited to announce that, pending board approval, 4J is seeking to adopt standards-aligned, high quality Science instructional materials for grades 6-12. The goal of this adoption is to support teachers in facilitating strong Science instruction for all 4J students for years to come. If you have staff who are interested in joining the adoption team, please share this link to sign up and get more information. Secondary Science Adoption Team Application

See below in bold.

In the event there are no substitutes or any volunteers to cover, you can assign a staff member to help but you must be sure they are paid for this assignment. Additionally, draft a rotation of teachers you call upon to ensure the same teachers aren't always required to help with coverage. Administration may also cover a class if and as available, too.

Article 10.1.5 PREPARATION TIME: All unit members shall be provided at least one period of preparation time during their workday.

1. 1. Unit members shall not be assigned to supervise or instruct students during their preparation time.
2. 1. Middle and high school unit members shall be guaranteed a preparation period during the instructional day. The total amount of preparation time over the course of a full work week will total no less than three-hundred and twenty (320) minutes.
3. 1. Elementary unit members shall have at least three hundred and twenty (320) minutes of preparation per week, including one 60-minute block of uninterrupted preparation time. Administration will not schedule meetings during this hour of preparation time. No daily portion shall be smaller than twenty (20) continuous minutes. Every effort will be made to make the daily preparation time thirty (30) continuous minutes in length. These three hundred and twenty (320) minutes will include at least one hundred and twenty (120) minutes of preparation time during the student work day each week in blocks of not less than thirty (30) minutes, which time will generally be used for individual planning and/or collaboration at the member's discretion. Elementary SSD members will continue to have 210 minutes of preparation time per week outside the student day including one 60-minute block of uninterrupted preparation time in which no meetings will be scheduled, in addition to the case management time in Article I 3. 7.
   2. When an administrator initiates and assigns unit members to work during their preparation period, they are paid at their prorated per diem rate.

Your district allocation tabs have been populated with district minimum amounts for these teams. At the middle level, each school will receive $11,000 to support the district required teams. When you review your district allocation tab, you will see a sample distribution and team size that is based on one meeting a month. Please remember that these positions are not voted on by staff. You may structure and fund them as you see fit provided the work assigned aligns to the corresponding Stipend Levels. Additionally, when you create your building level positions, be sure to use the stipend calculator (Tab C on the Google Sheet). This was discussed at JCAC as the best and only way to ensure compensation is equitable. The stipend calculator MUST be used.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions about the district allocation tab.

Leadership Landing Page

Please share with teachers and in your newsletters...

SPICE camp is a STEM program at the University of Oregon, serving middle school girl, trans, and nonbinary individuals. Our goal for the past 15 years is to provide STEM opportunities and enrichment to encourage continued interest in math and natural sciences during the time that interest often wanes. Our research shows that when provided a supportive, inclusive environment grounded in curiosity, motivation to pursue degrees in STEM fields increases.

Please share the attached flyer with any interested rising 6th, 7th, or 8th grader. Camps are 2 weeks in duration, 9-4pm weekdays only. No student is turned away due to financial situation.

We have opened a 3rd session of Discovery camp (rising 6th graders) but also have room in our Forensic and Maker camps.

Feel free to reach out to us with any questions or collaboration ideas.

Thanks so much,

SPICE Team

https://www.spicescience.org/

A message from Lisa Kinder-Wehr, program coordinator for Student Alliance Community (GSA)...

Happy (almost) Pride Month!!! Here are some upcoming summer camps & events to support LGBTQIA+ students, caregivers, and families In June! Please feel free to share with students, staff, and families!

Parent Cafe for supporting LGBTQIA+ youth, Saturday, June 1st! (flyer attached)

There will be food and childcare available, and the event is in person at the YMCA.

The Parent and Community Cafe is a strengths-based approach to celebrate the successes and support the growth edge of caregivers and parents all over Lane County. We welcome staff to attend as well. PCCs are always available in both English and Spanish. The June 1 event will be presented in English with Spanish interpretation.

Art Exploration Camp for Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth

link: https://transponder.community/events/event/art-exploration-camp-for-transgender-and-gender-diverse-youth-2/

Transponder & Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Venue: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

See the attached YMCA's flyer for their brand new summer camps:

• Join us for Happy Campers—a camp just for youth with Down syndrome!
• Q Camp at the Y is a vibrant, inclusive haven where LGBTQIA+ youth can make new friends . . .
• STEM IN MOTION FOR FEMALE-IDENTIFYING YOUTH CAMP
• Night Crawlers for youth ntering 9th or 10th grade Night Camp. 6:30 to 10:30 p.m.

Communications will adjust the district calendar to reflect the following for the last day of school for students, 6/14. Please be sure to include this information in your school newsletters.

Elementary: Half day

Middle: Full day

High: Full day

Monday 6/3

3:00-4:00 pm MS Advisory PD Tower Room Principals (and Assistant Principal if possible)

Tuesday 6/4

Secondary AVID Coordinator's Meeting (Zoom Link)

Wednesday 6/5 - Early Release- GLT/PLCs

7 pm School Board Meeting (Zoom Link)

Thursday 6/6

Regular Schedule

Friday 6/7

Regular Schedule

Link to 4J Calendar

Hello Team,

I greatly appreciated everyone's efforts in preparing and presenting your AVID CCI updates yesterday(5/23), especially during this busy time of year. There is such amazing work happening in all of our schools. I share in Laura's sentiment from her follow-up message and am highlighting her remarks because they're true! Remember to access each others' resources to continue to develop within the "Grows" indicators and reach out to each other for clarity. We do our best work together!

Dear Middle School Leaders,

Thank you so much for sharing your afternoon and giving us a peek into the amazing AVID work going on at your sites. As I mentioned, there is a folder in our 4J shared drive where your presentations are stored, and you are all contributors to that folder, so you can add presentations or resources there if they haven't already been shared with me. In case you like digging through Shared Google drives, here's how you get there:

Shared 4J AVID Drive, 2023-2024 CCI Presentations, Middle School, and BOOM....you're in.

In case you like shortcuts, the file can also be accessed through this link. :)

Thanks again for your incredible work this year. I'm humbled and inspired by your commitment and efforts.

Respectfully,

Laura

There are 5 items of note this week...

It was an exciting time for our track athletes who competed in the Oregon Middle School Meet of Champions (State)! Below are some highlights for our 4J athletes. You can find the full results of the meet here.

Jacob Loveless from Roosevelt took first place in the 800 meters and first place in the 1500 meter!

Henry Harner from Roosevelt placed first in the shotput and second in discus!

Liam Reavis from Roosevelt placed first in the high jump!

Amara Brooks from Spencer Butte took second place in the 100 meters!

Isabelle Cherry from Roosevelt took third place in the 200 meters!

Evangeline Johnson from Spencer Butte placed second in the 1500 meters!

Every year we send teams to Summer Institute to get trained up on AVID Strategies. We also know that some of our staff are unable to attend, or we hire late in the season after we have sent teachers to Summer Institute and they need training. Well, AVID provides PATH Training which is Summer Institute without the travel. Usually these PATH trainings are made available at a site regionally. Lucky us, we were able to land a PATH training by AVID Central in our very own district (thank you Laura Queirolo). This is a big deal. On August 22nd & 23rd, we are hosting AVID Path Training at NEHS for any staff that need to get trained up. Extended contract will be made available. This is excellent for any teacher, TOSA, or administrator that needs a different time and place for getting trained in AVID.

See descriptions here.

The following strands are available:

• Academic Language and Literacy: Asset-Based Instruction for All Classrooms
• Enhancing School Community for College and Career Readiness
• Foundations for Secondary Schoolwide Success
• CreatingEngaging and Rigorous Classrooms
• Transforming Literacy through Content Area Reading (Elementary)
• Transforming Literacy through Content Area Reading (Secondary)

Resources for upcoming schedule change ⏰:

Efficient & Effective Classroom Management Strategies: PLEASE SHARE THESE WITH STAFF. With the transition to the new Middle School schedule next year, our curriculum TOSAs have compiled a number of great resources for teachers to explore as they plan for the shorter periods.

In addition, we would like to shine a spotlight on Carmen Duato, who took the time to provide some of her own quality insights in a personalized video! Great job Carmen.

ELA 📕:

5/22/24 and 5/23/24: ALL MS ELA Thanks so much for those that had the chance to attend! It was lovely to experience the thoughtful questions and rich conversations.

Also, as we continue to build structures and resources around supporting the implementation and use of a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum aligned to our ODE mandates, we will be sharing more tools and a building site implementation playbook for admin as we go into summer and in early August.

Math 🧮:

Monday's Meeting with our Adoption team was a productive opportunity to review the final curriculum and dive into collaborative discussions calibrating on the rating of i-Ready. The last meeting of the year will be: Tuesday, June 4th from 4-6:30 pm at Bailey Hill Cafeteria - Final Ratings and Consensus for pilot materials (This is replacing our May 28th session. May 28th is canceled for 6-10).

Science 🪴:

As we continue to work to get back into alignment of the ODE curriculum adoption cycle, the the next adoption that 4j will launch will be Science, early next fall.I know many of our science teachers are eager to see what high quality instructional materials are out there that are better aligned to our new NGSS Oregon standards. Sarah Kirby-Ruggiero, our Secondary Science TOSA, will be sending out an interest form to teachers later this week - so that she can begin to gather initial interests and share some early information about what the 1 year adoption process will look like next year. Again, the Board approval to launch the the adoption will hopefully be in August, but we are doing the ground work so that the Science adoption team can hit the ground running once the adoption is formally launched n the fall. 👏🏼

The 4J Secondary School Climate Survey is now open and it will be until

June 21

. It will take on average, 11 minutes to complete, with one additional question at the end requesting suggestions about how to change the survey next year.

I am attaching the QR codes and these are the links:

* English version: http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/4jclimatesecondary

* Spanish version: http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/4jambientesecundaria

Starting in the 2024/2025 school year we will no longer be using Zoom as a communications platform. We will start using Google Meet to hold virtual meetings. While not as robust as the Zoom platform, we are spending too much on a platform (Zoom) that gets little use.

Monday 05/27-

Memorial Day - No School

Tuesday 05/28-

Regular Schedule

Wednesday 05/29-GLTs/PLCs

1pm -6 pm District/EEA Bargaining- Auditorium

Thursday 05/30-

Golden Apple & Retirement Reception at ATA

Friday 05/31-

4-7 pm 4J Pride Fest at NEHS Football field

Link to 4J Calendar

Our district championship track meet was so much fun! Thank you for your collaboration with coaches and for all the work you've put into making this track season a success! Track is just one of numerous programs you're supporting, on top of everything else going on as we wrap up this school year and plan for the next. I know the spring season is always a super busy time so thanks for all you're doing to support kids and staff!

There are 5 items of note this week...

As the year comes to a close, it's important to review your affinity group balances and determine what you have left to spend as using your affinity balances before the year's end is essential!

If you need a hand in spending these funds don't hesitate to contact the appropriate district program coordinator for guidance and assistance. Let's make the most of these resources before the year's end! If there are funds available in one group that won't be spent (check with coordinator) you may need to shift those funds to other groups who have requests.

Asian, Pacific Islander Student Union Program Coordinator: Mia Lu (APISU)

Black Student Union Program Coordinator: Stefan Williams (BSU)

Gender Sexuality Alliance Affinity Group Program Coordinator: Lisa Kinser-Wehr (GSA)

Latine Student Union Program Coordinator: Josue Honorato (LSU)

Native American Student Union Affinity Group Program Coordinator: PJ Martinez (on leave, please contact Sean Himmelman)

Mind Body Divergent Alliance Program Coordinator: Jene Conrad (MBDA)

Jewish Student Union Program Coordinator: TBD (please contact Scout for assistance)

We have collaborated with 4J Student Wellbeing on providing a district roll-out of launching (or re-launching) Sources of Strength next AY 24-25 in all Middle Schools in conjunction with implementing Wayfinder SEL. Wayfinder is an SEL curriculum that satisfies compliance with our ODE standards; subsequently, we also wanted to offer supplemental resources to provide a comprehensive approach to address the spectrum of high risk behaviors pertaining to suicide, problematic sexual behavior, and substance misuse and abuse. Most pertinently, Sources of Strength is an evidence based initiative to reduce suicide behaviors (refer to the pitch here that Ritu presented on for most current information).

Our goal is to work with each school in how to infuse it with your school culture in a way that is meaningful. Please nominate staff member(s) if you have not done so already. During our June 3rd meeting, we'll discuss more about Wayfinder and Sources connections:

• 4J Sources of Strength Nomination Form: https://forms.gle/MYhsNhyMCqfobT5y5
  
• Sources T4T: Tuesday 8/13/24 - Friday 8/16/24
  
• Grant Funded Staff Stipends allocated from a district fund will be available to participating staff members.
  

Resources for upcoming schedule change ⏰:

Efficient & Effective Classroom Management Strategies: PLEASE SHARE THESE WITH STAFF. With the transition to the new Middle School schedule next year, our curriculum TOSAs have compiled a number of great resources for teachers to explore as they plan for the shorter periods.

In addition, we would like to shine a spotlight on Carmen Duato, who took the time to provide some of her own quality insights in a personalized video! Great job Carmen.

ELA 📕:

5/22/24 and 5/23/24: ALL MS ELA Teachers are expected to participate in ELA Curriculum training (either AM/PM session, by grade level). We are excited to introduce the new curriculum and ask that you do everything in your power to have at least one administrator from each building attend at least one session this week! Thanks so much for those that had the chance to attend today! It was lovely to experience the thoughtful questions and rich conversations.

Also, as we continue to build structures and resources around supporting the implementation and use of a Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum aligned to our ODE mandates, we will be sharing more tools and a building site implementation playbook for admin as we go into summer and in early August.

Math 🧮:

Monday's Meeting with our Adoption team was a productive opportunity to review the final curriculum and dive into collaborative discussions calibrating on the rating of i-Ready. The last meeting of the year will be: Tuesday, June 4th from 4-6:30 pm at Bailey Hill Cafeteria - Final Ratings and Consensus for pilot materials (This is replacing our May 28th session. May 28th is canceled for 6-10).

Science 🪴:

As we continue to work to get back into alignment of the ODE curriculum adoption cycle, the the next adoption that 4j will launch will be Science, early next fall.

I know many of our science teachers are eager to see what high quality instructional materials are out there that are better aligned to our new NGSS Oregon standards.

Sarah Kirby-Ruggiero, our Secondary Science TOSA, will be sending out an interest form to teachers later this week - so that she can begin to gather initial interests and share some early information about what the 1 year adoption process will look like next year. Again, the Board approval to launch the the adoption will hopefully be in August, but we are doing the ground work so that the Science adoption team can hit the ground running once the adoption is formally launched n the fall. 👏🏼

Monday 05/27-

Memorial Day - No School

Tuesday 05/28-

Wednesday 05/29-GLTs/PLCs

Thursday 05/30

Friday 05/31-

4-7 pm 4J Pride Fest at NEHS Football field

Hello team,

There are 6 items of note this week...

Last Thursday I joined Tina Fisher and all middle school PE teachers for a couple of hours to listen to needs and concerns about next school year with the addition of more teachers and students scheduled to ensure we are in compliance with HB5199. The main topics covered centered on safety, equipment, and facilities. I want our team to take a two-pronged approach in our response to support the PE team.

1. I'll connect with district leaders to prioritize field space repairs and service to ensure fields are safe for PE classes.

2. Principals schedule a time with your PE teachers at the building level to:

• Offer building resources to order any equipment needed (if you have a shortage and don't have discretionary funds, let me know).
• Walk your field spaces and discuss facility needs with your teachers. Identify any hazards or improvements needed that require an FIP and submit related FIPs.
• Discuss the plan with your teachers to ensure they understand how classes will be scheduled. (Especially if there is inclement weather or wildfire smoke that doesn't allow classes to take place outside). If multiple classes are needed in a single gym space on any given day, discuss the plan for that scenario.
• Ensure you're being mindful about class size. I understand there may be some bubble classes but in general, PE should be scheduled similar to all other core classes (max of 30 students whenever possible).

Additionally, I'll also work with our PE/Health TOSA, Tina Fisher, on the requests and concerns. She is a great resource so feel free to reach out to Tina as needed as well.

Here are all concerns, needs, and other planning needs PE teachers expressed and recorded: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LFazOhxmJYnxNyaD8-LkY2noE44ilEl5DTsm6gFU9rc/edit?usp=sharing

On Monday 5/20 we meet for our last Learning Meeting of the year. Greg, Rob Hess, Laura Queirolo and I will be leading you in two separate components of this meeting. the first part will be the SCIP Plan for next year and how the Leadership dollars are to be strategized and disseminated. The second part of the meeting Laura and Greg will review the relationship of the AVID Administrator and the AVID Coordinator as they are relevant to the AVID Site Team on each campus. Principals and assistant principals will need to attend this very important meeting. If you need an admin on campus as the day closes out I understand, but please be sure to make this information critically important to your admin team because the information will frame your work for next school year.

AVID CCI Presentations

What: AVID CCI Presentation, 4-6pm

Where: South Eugene High School

Details: Coordinators and AVID Administrators will gather to present their 2023-2024 CCI results. Teachers will receive extended contracts for their time, and dinner will be provided.

AVID Path Training

Every year we send teams to Summer Institute to get trained up on AVID Strategies. We also know that some of our staff are unable to attend, or we hire late in the season after we have sent teachers to Summer Institute and they need training. Well, AVID provides PATH Training which is Summer Institute without the travel. Usually these PATH trainings are made available at a site regionally. Lucky us, we were able to land a PATH training by AVID Central in our very own district (thank you Laura Queirolo). This is a big deal. On August 22nd & 23rd, we are hosting AVID Path Training at NEHS for any staff that need to get trained up. Extended contract will be made available. This is excellent for any teacher, TOSA, or administrator that needs a different time and place for getting trained in AVID.

See descriptions here.

The following strands are available:

• Academic Language and Literacy: Asset-Based Instruction for All Classrooms
• Enhancing School Community for College and Career Readiness
• Foundations for Secondary Schoolwide Success
• CreatingEngaging and Rigorous Classrooms
• Transforming Literacy through Content Area Reading (Elementary)
• Transforming Literacy through Content Area Reading (Secondary)

HeART of Teaching Newsletter: Please share this with your staff! It’s important that they see what updates are happening in and around curriculum and instruction.

ELA:

5/22/24 and 5/23/24: ALL MS ELA Teachers participate in ELA Curriculum training (either AM/PM session, by grade level). More from Tammy Steeves. We are excited to introduce the new curriculum and ask that you do everything in your power to have at least one administrator from each building attend at least one session this spring! Thanks so much!

Math:

6-10 Updated Schedule (as of May 7, 3:10 p.m.)

• Tuesday, May 14th from 4-6pm, Zoom - Review scores from curriculum #3 and Publisher Presentation (not new)

• Monday, May 20th from 8:00 am -4:00 pm at Bailey Hill Cafeteria - Review curriculum #4, re-review all curriculum, and submit final ratings (This is replacing May 16th AND May 22 sessions!)

Tuesday, June 4th from 4-6:30 pm at Bailey Hill Cafeteria - Final Ratings and Consensus for pilot materials (This is replacing our May 28th session. May 28th is canceled for 6-10).

Friendly reminder, for kids on a temporary abbreviated school day program, under SB 819 we are required to hold a Superintendent review for any student who hits the 90 day mark.

If you have any students who are approaching 90 days, please send in the packet when they are approaching day 80 and you anticipate they will get to 90 days. If you missed submitting a packet for a student who already hit 90 days, please send that to Debbie McKim ASAP. Packets should be submitted via district mail or dropped off at the Ed Center for Debbie.

Here are the links to the elementary and secondary versions of the Superintendent Review packets:

SB 819 Superintendent Review Packet Elementary

SB 819 Superintendent Review Packet Secondary

If we have noncompliance, then our superintendent could have his licensed sanctioned, so please help ensure you are monitoring these counts closely and submitting these packets before the 90 day mark hits...and of course, moving students back to full days as soon as possible.

Hello team,

Shout out to Corey and Gina for their SCIP presentation to the school board this past week! They received a lot of questions and were able to inform the board on so much of the great work happening at Madison!

I look forward to our final round of instructional rounds at Monroe on Monday morning. Thanks to all our gracious hosts this school year (Sun, AJ, Chris, Courtney). We'll pick up this practice in the fall, beginning with our schools who are on deck to host. :)

There are 7 items of note this week...

*Added 5/6* Team, thanks for this reminder during our instructional rounds.

May is Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America's history and are instrumental in its future success. Check out resources offered by these institutions at this website for ideas to recognize and honor Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.

May marks Mental Health Awareness Month, a time dedicated to recognizing the importance of mental well-being. Communications has reached out to school secretaries and we want you to have it on your radar as well.

Here are some links with more information:

4J News: Focus on Mental Health in May

Instagram Week 1

Secondary Principal Nuts & Bolts Meeting (Zoom)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://4J-lane-edu.zoom.us/j/8067575489?pwd=MVVhQjBkQnpxSllXN0RTc0FCRWxSZz09

Curriculum - Adrienne & Co.

• ELA adoption
  
• Math Single Subject Acceleration Updates and Q&A
  
• UDL next steps per Andratesha's recommendations
  
• Unified PE

Breakout

-Middle School Advisory Planning for Next School Year

• Advisory Leads
  
• Advisory Resource
• Schools with Mixed Grades vs. Separate Grades

-ISLA and PASS

-Your Items...

Please fill out this survey by 5/8 as the tech department needs to plan accordingly in preparation for next school year. So far 5 of 8 schools have replied, just 3 to go. Thanks!

Middle School Tech Survey For Added Staff

As we're looking forward to staffing for the fall, please designate which staff you'd like to have in the room during the weekly Mentoring Lunch. The School Counselor and Behavioral Support Assistant are both staff that have the relationships and skills to successfully support Mentoring. If neither of those staff are available, any staff member who is enthusiastic and supportive will do. Lunch Mentoring currently includes 86 community volunteers Mentoring 112 students each week, with schools reporting positive outcomes for the students we serve. Kate will continue to work at growing the volunteer base, and with your support in the schools we can surpass our pre-pandemic Mentoring numbers.

Effective Fall 2024

In order to reduce spending we will be using Naviance at the high school level ONLY for the college application process, letters of recommendations, and sending transcripts.

In all Middle and High schools we will be using Oregon Career Information Systems (CIS) for a much more comprehensive (and equitable) career and future planning (as well as college exploration) experience. This is a program that is created by the University of Oregon and is currently free through ODE and used in 80% of Oregon high schools.

Mandy Brookshear (our COSA) will be working with the counselors, college and career coordinators (at the high schools), and an administrator from each school to discuss consistent district wide implementation that will align with our Division 22 District Comprehensive School Counseling Program. You will be receiving invites from her shortly to learn about the program and identify who from your school should help guide the district wide conversation.

With the addition of a Make-Up Day on June 14th, as a result of the winter storm, the Teacher Grading Day deadline has also shifted one day later to June 18th at 8:00 a.m.

Secondary Sources of Strength: All Middle and High Schools are going to be launching (or re-launching) Sources of Strength next AY 24-25. Our Student Wellbeing team in collaboration with your Level Directors have been collectively focused on being intentional in how we offer a consistent, sustainable strategy to our district-wide roll-out which can be customizable for your school culture and play to your strengths. Thus we're collaborating with Lane County Public Health (LCPH) to offer a Sources of Strength T4T for our district.

There are various roles people play in making sources of strength amazing and successful at a school; we want to work with you around feasibility and clarity for identifying Regional Trainers, Adult Advisors, and Student Peer Leaders - which you can learn more about here.

Though the T4T is specifically targeting Regional Trainers, based on capacity, we would also like to offer interested Adult Advisors to attend the training so consider applying. We would ideally be selecting 1 regional trainer and 2 adult advisors per building to attend but would want to diversify the pool to any and all that this would be a good opportunity to loop in. The same person can wear multiple hats, especially if they're already involved in other mental health related initiatives (such as JED), but please bring in anybody who would be interested and able to serve in these roles within your schools (examples of those position options are listed in the nomination form). So, as we finalize all the logistics and gain clarity on some next steps, at this stage we hope you save the dates for Tuesday 8/13/24 - Friday 8/16/24 and fill out the nomination form here for consideration. Staff can self-apply and list the other nominees to consider with their administration approval and support to implement Sources at your school.

4J Sources Overview: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CDMFnjMReFlOi2FDbAO85s0aIVh5MwkQhfUrHLa36fY/edit?usp=sharing

4J Sources of Strength Form: https://forms.gle/MYhsNhyMCqfobT5y5

Teacher Appreciation Week

5/6 (M)-

8:30-12 Middle School Principal Instructional Rounds-Monroe MS

2 p.m.-4 p.m. Secondary Admin Nuts and Bolts (Zoom Link)

5/7 (T)

1 pm to End of Meet: 4J Sub District Track and Field Meets (NEHS and CHS)

6-8 4J Budget Committee

5/8 (W) Early Release Day- PLCs/GLTs

3-4 Middle School Counselor PLC via Zoom

Regular Schedule

5/9 (H)

Regular Schedule

5/10 (F)

Regular Schedule

Link to 4J Calendar