A focus this year is staff wellness. Dr. Harrison and the Wellness Committee want each staff member to be healthy and balanced. Review the four balance quadrants below. Reflect, journal, and discuss the quadrants with colleagues answering the following questions.

1. When was the last time you fed a passion of yours? What was it and how long ago?

2. Do you have a passion you have refused to let go or a passion you have missed and want to reclaim?

3. Which quadrant do you think might be lacking the most attention in your life currently? Why do you think focus and effort in this quadrant are lacking?

Although this week's challenge does not involve a submission, you will need to complete this challenge to submit for next week.

• Open House staff assignment information can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JKtfQJzjY84VezDWkkhXEn92nBlvUzw4n0a856yYaXI/edit?usp=sharing (job description) and https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qF3wDhd_2DME8mGH_0f2aR6Kboqf1stt2otjDFSTuY4/edit?usp=sharing (job list). District-wide, open house is scheduled for Sunday, November 3rd from 12pm -3 pm. Staff should park in the west side parking lot (closest to baseball diamond) enter the doors closest to Room B114, and sign-in by 11:30 a.m. on the board in the main office. Name tags/badges for each staff member will be picked up in the main office. A light lunch will be served in the principal’s conference room for staff members signing in by 11 am. Dress code is professional/business unless the career area dictates otherwise. Be ready and willing to participate and market St. Georges Technical High School to prospective students and parents.

• A reminder to teachers to read the 504 plans and providing the accommodations listed for each student.
  

• Please contact an administrative assistant or submit a technology work order if the copier needs to be repaired in the teacher center. After you make contact, please place a note on the copier noting that you have put in a request for repair.

• Please review the Equity Professional Learning Catalog and select your professional learning session(s) offered by our very own staff members. The catalog provides a brief overview of the sessions and registration information. We are looking forward to staff members having positive experiences and growing their professional knowledge and skills within the equity framework. A special thanks to all staff members facilitating the sessions. A reminder that snow hours will be awarded to after school facilitators and participants. Visit the catalog at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V-2zlxFef2o7S8COaeS0D2NgTfuh45PNTB0sknmtPYQ/edit?usp=sharing

• This Wednesday's after school session will define trauma and what it looks like in the classroom. We will begin with an overview of trauma, trauma-informed practices, and the state and national move toward creating trauma-informed schools. We will look at classroom management practices you can begin practicing now that can provide an environment where students that have experienced trauma (and all of those that have not) can and will thrive. The session is designed to be an introduction to the work the school will begin delving into during our December PD. Working together, we can help create neighborhoods, communities, and a world in which every child can thrive, and ways to help students to be resilient and experience safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. Please RSVP below and snow hours will be awarded!

• Monday, October 28th during third period, students will view the ALICE presentation in their regular assigned classrooms. Third period teachers should be prepared to show the presentation and have a follow-up discussion with your students. Please review the presentation in advance at https://1drv.ms/v/s!AtJRGCPmrgnjpEQCOFiMhWXBCVg3?e=tigKli. Total allocated time for the training is thirty minutes. Parents have been notified about the training. If a substitute is in your classroom third period on Monday, the 28th, please review the presentation with them the following day.

• We are planning on using the RAVE Panic Button in conjunction with our fire drills moving forward. Please have your app downloaded and up-to-date. If you have any questions, please see Dr. Harrison.

I enjoy meeting our students that are selected for the Growth Mindset award and want to thank the individual departments and clusters that nominate students for the award. This past week's winners are pictured above.

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Good Morning Mr. Kozar,

This is Ajaira from class of 2018. How have you been? I’ve been thinking about shop a lot lately, and how much I learned. Being in Athletic Health Care, it helped me a lot with being able to know more about the human body and making me confident enough to one day potentially save someone’s life. Coming into High School, I was afraid that I wasn’t going to pick a career path that I would be interested in. Being able to rotate in AHC, I was happy to find a career that I actually loved, you helped me with that. AHC was always a great time, whether everyone was worried about a check off or failing a test, you never gave up on us. You pushed everyone to do better and to never settle for anything less than what they deserved. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done over the years. Being in this shop for three years and meeting new people and building relationships with everyone was one of the best experience I’ve ever had. Even after we finished our senior year, you were still there through every step of everyone’s journey. You pushed us to do so much our senior year for the big reward at the end of the year. Being able to play bad mitten and having a big barbecue with everyone will always be the highlight of my school year. Finally, graduation came right along and I remember the moment I looked back and you looked at me with the biggest smile and I knew I made you proud. As you know, Madison and I were pretty close in shop, we were always together even when you would try to separate us. We are still pretty close to this day. We wanted to know if there was anyway that we could come back and visit you and your class one day to share our experiences.

Have a good day,

Ajaira Anderson

“ I want to give a shout out to Dr. Robert Ferrell for showing his HAWK PRIDE while

presenting a module he developed as a part of an NSF grant with UD, UH, UNL, and GMU. Thank you, Robert, for taking a risk by presenting your module at the NSTA conference in Salt Lake City and for always showing your HAWK PRIDE.”

~Shanta Reynolds

" We would like to extend a huge thank you to Frank Hanson, Tenika Jean-Paul and Tairen McCollister for their compassion during an emotionally difficult IEP meeting. Although this student can behaviorally be quite a challenge, your support for him does not go unnoticed. He stated after his IEP meeting “I feel thankful to go to a school where people care about me and want me to succeed. I just need to get out of my own way so I can make it to the Bob in May.” How powerful it was to hear this. Thank you for making a difference!"

-Jacky DiMascio and Hilary Rickner

"A special thanks to Mrs. Burnett and our guidance team for an outstanding college and career readiness fair. The recruiters remarked that they were able to speak to many interested students that had genuine and intelligent questions about life on their campuses." ~Shanta Reynolds

"I want to give a shout out for all the teachers that opened their doors for our Principal for a Day, Dr. Kathy Janvier, on Wednesday. She had an outstanding time and provided plenty of compliments to our staff on the quality of the instruction taking place and the high expectations that we have for our students." ~Shanta Reynolds

"I want to thank Pat Atkinson for delivering a stellar professional learning session last Wednesday afternoon. I know that each participant gained something from Pat's passion and knowledge about living a better life and left us thirsting for more from him. See Pat's intro video below." ~Shanta Reynolds

"I want to recognize our Spanish Department for being one of the first four schools in the State to earn the title of Proficiency Champion. For a school to earn the title, every world language teacher in that building must be a Proficiency Champion which means that he/she has completed a rigorous online course focused on teaching for proficiency and have successfully passed an assessment that credentials their understanding of what proficiency means and looks like in their student work." ~Chad Harrison

"Congratulations to Linda Wirt and her Medical Assisting students for an outstanding pinning ceremony. Linda invited a guest speaker from the Blood Bank of Delmarva to speak to the audience. The ceremony was dignified and was a positive reflection on her career program and our school." ~Chad Harrison

The University of Delaware is hosting a group of teachers from Saudi Arabia as part of a program called Khbrat. The intended outcome of the program is to enable Saudi Arabian educators to have a positive impact on reform in their education system. With this end in mind, they have sent many of their nation's strongest teachers to study in the U.S. for one year and, as part of the program, participate in an immersion program in local schools for a period of three months. Wafa Alquahtani, pictured above, will be working primarily with James Sekcienski in our IT-Programming & Design career area although we will be providing her exposure to different curriculum within our school. Wafa has been a teacher of computer science for 7 years in her high school in Saudi Arabia. During the immersion she hopes to learn more about American education. She is excited to work with the St.Georges staff. We are confident the program will be a win-win for everyone involved! She starts Monday, October 28th. Please welcome her and introduce yourself this week.

Monday, October 28th

• SG Bookfair in Library (through November 1st)
  
• Picture Retakes in Lecture Hall- 9:00 a.m.
• ALICE Student Presentation- 3rd period classrooms

Tuesday, October 29th

• ACE: ACE A Meeting- 7:35 a.m.
• 10th Grade Parent Ring Ordering Night in SG Cafeteria

Wednesday, October 30th

• MA Fall Blood Drive

Thursday, October 31st

• ECE Preschool Halloween Parade- 9:45 a.m.

Friday, November 1st

• Faculty Meeting- 7:35 a.m.

Sunday, November 3rd:

• Open House: Sign-in by 11:30 a.m.