Hawk Highlights

I want to thank everyone for a successful soft landing. In speaking with staff members and students, I understand that, with the exception of some minor glitches and growing opportunities, our Microsoft Teams meetings were successful. On Monday, we begin full-blown instruction. I am excited to witness our continued growth using our new tools in a remote learning environment. Please remember that we are here to support one another. If you need specific instructional/technology support, a link to schedule an appointment with one of our coaches is below. All of our coaches are teaching courses this school year, so please fill out the form if you need assistance.

On the theme of support, I am excited about Tuesday's professional learning on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We will have the opportunity to start working with our partners from DelState University and UCLA (see the agenda for the presenters' bios). Tuesday will set the stage for the work that we will accomplish throughout the school year. We look forward to everyone's involvement as we explore this important topic as a team. Please see the guidelines below and the equity update/PD agenda in the next section.

Guidelines:

- Read the equity update and review the PD agenda

- Make sure you attend the sessions noted on the agenda. We will be submitting attendance to the district office.

- The NCCVT email address you used to sign-up for the Equity and Beyond session will be the address used to grant you access to the Zoom platform where the professional learning will take place. You will not be granted access with any other email address.

- This is an interactive professional learning experience and it's expected that your computer camera is on. Obviously, you can periodically turn it off if you need to take care of something. This is typically not an issue with our team :) There will be a few people tuning in without video because they will be assisting with the book distribution at the school.

Our professional learning on Tuesday, September 15th will focus on equity and is sponsored by our school's Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Please see details below or refer to the staff email sent by Nick Schaefer on Wednesday morning.

• You will receive an email for the session taking place from 8-9 am with The Howard Group. Additionally, just before the meeting starts, the link for the meeting will be posted on the PD Agenda and the St. Georges Exchange.
  
• You must register for the 10:00-11:30 am session HERE. You will receive a ZOOM link to join the meeting on Tuesday at 10-11:30 am via a registration confirmation email. Additionally, just before the meeting starts, the link for the meeting will be posted on the PD Agenda and the St. Georges Exchange.
• We ask you to please take an anonymous survey at Baseline Diversity Equity and Inclusion Survey – St. Georges. Although it is voluntary, your responses will guide the training and inform our improvement goals pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Set aside no more than fifteen minutes to take the survey covering the following topics: 1) school culture and climate 2) staff and teacher recruitment, retention and advancement 3) diverse, equitable and inclusive practices and policies, and 4) student experience and voice. Throughout the survey, "this school" means activities happening in school buildings, on school grounds, on school buses, and at places that hold school-sponsored events or activities. Unless otherwise specified, this refers to normal school hours or times when school activities/events were in session.
• Finally, we have included a critical reading attached below. This reading will help to provide context for Tuesday's professional learning.

Student Attendance: Do you need to learn some tricks for your Google attendance sheets? Katie Todorow, from Howard, shared the resource at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JPkfj1Z-zrIwo294NO3zBJWiT902-GikJqtIAP16pUY/edit?usp=sharing Also, please see the document created by Dr. Connor outlining the complete details of the attendance procedures.

Schoology Assessments: Please watch https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F6SIgcGv6bpSD3S_9I_8AnI5fwD16xZd/view about how to link to an assessment in Schoology. Please see Ry Culver with questions.

Start Strong Survey: Congratulations on completing your first week in a remote teaching and learning environment. We hope the Start Strong Schoology course and PD sessions provided you with guidance and direction. Please answer THIS SURVEY, so Instructional Services can be a stronger partner to you as we progress through this school year.

Cameras on During LIVE instruction: The district is working on procedures/guidelines for requiring students to have on their cameras during live instruction. One major issue that the technology department is working on is establishing a standard background that students can use, so they don't have to expose their living space. You can request students to turn on their cameras, but they are not required to turn on their cameras until the district's procedures and background have been established. I will keep you posted.

Changing Names on Microsoft Teams: A few teachers have reached out about our transgender students requesting their names to be changed on Microsoft Teams. The district is looking into it and plans to get back to me soon. I will keep you posted.

Daily School Schedule: A reminder that we will follow the remote learning daily schedule for the next six weeks.

Video Protocols for Synchronous Learning (From Dr. Jones):
At this time, synchronous learning sessions are not to be recorded. We are working on potential recording opportunities in the near future and are in the process of addressing the issue below:

• Recording just the screen on Teams and not the teacher or students. According to the Teams representative, this is doable. However, we need to get a better grasp of how that is accomplished. Once that information is available and we have worked in conjunction with the union, we can record on a voluntary basis.
• Informing parents of our video recording protocol.
• Housing recorded sessions temporarily and archiving recordings for some students upon request.
• Working with NCCVTEA on crafting a memorandum of understanding regarding lesson recording.

Communication/interactions with students must be ‘observable’ and ‘interruptible.’

• This means that 1:1 breakout sessions (which necessarily have to occur for some jobs, ie. school psychologist) that the staff member should make his/her meeting schedule available to an administrator to enable the admin to 'pop in' at any time; this is the virtual way of leaving a door cracked open.
• Every effort should be made for LSCs to have more than one student in an online learning session. If this is unavoidable, paraprofessionals, counselors, student advisors, supervisors, and other teachers are all possible 'pop in' staff options. Please share your schedule with someone and make the reason clear.

1. First and foremost, despite the original directive that teachers have to provide a negative test result before entering the building, this no longer applies. Teachers do not need to be COVID tested. We would ask that you make the best judgment possible if you are experiencing any symptoms. You must fill out the self-assessment form before entering the building.

2. Teachers are allowed to utilize their classrooms as a workspace during the scheduled school day. We ask that any teacher planning on entering the building must fill out the COVID facilities request form. This form will serve as tracking for maintenance to continue to ensure that our facility is staying safe and disinfected. Additionally, please sign in and out when you enter the building.

3. Anytime you are in the building, all COVID rules must be followed.

Nick Schaefer, Ry Culver, and Christine Schumacher- What can I really say. Thank you so much, again, for working with all of us ensuring our needs were met to enable us to have a successful soft landing/lift-off with students. ~Shanta Reynolds

A special thank you to those staff members that have reached out to me to discuss our equity initiatives. I know we all have the best interest of all of our students at heart. For that, I am very grateful. ~Shanta Reynolds

I want to thank Jamie Williams for preparing very informative and student-friendly virtual Class meetings this past week. I hope the staff/team took advantage of the opportunity to review the presentations and see, first-hand, the work that went into setting up our students for a successful school year. Also, a special thank you to Jamie for creating a welcome back video for the class 2021 and a welcome to SG video for the class 2024. See the awesome videos below. ~Shanta Reynolds

September 15th: We will have professional learning on equity as described above. Students will not attend classes on September 15th.

September 15th: State primary elections taking place at St. Georges.

September 15th-16th: Book/resource distribution including necessary ELA grade-level texts and certain CTE resources identified by individual instructors. The schedule is below.

September 15, 2020 - 11th Grade @ 10:00 a.m.

September 15, 2020 - 12th Grade @ 11:00 a.m.

September 16, 2020 - 9th Grade @ 10:00 a.m.

September 16, 2020 - 10th Grade @ 11:00 a.m.

Building Coverage Schedule: The admin and admin assistants will be covering the building on a rotating coverage schedule.