Middle School Staff Newsletter

Up a Creek

The above clip from one of my favorite TV shows has been making the viral rounds. A TicTok user by the name of @ProfessorDavis2019 took this scene and added captions indicating that Catherine O'Hara's character represents the US Department of Education, and Daniel Levey's character represent teachers.

We just keep getting told to fold in the cheese, but we don't know how, and no one can show us.

Many staff have been contacting me over the past week asking me for details and guidance in planning. I am glad people are asking, but I can't help but feel like my answers are so generic and unhelpful, similar to saying, "just take this cheese, and fold it in." I wouldn't be surprised if some of you are ready to take off your apron and storm out of the kitchen.

Please don't storm out of the kitchen. I have made this annotated calendar that at least tells us what days to fold in different types of cheeses. Please notice that at the top I have the "date last modified." This is because, depending on what happens with COVID numbers in Dakota County and/ or other factors like when all of the cleaning supplies and plastic shields will arrive at our school, things may change.

6th Grade Orientation

This summer, the 6th graders did a virtual Packer Preview, but were not able to come into the building. I have been working with 6th grade Connections teachers to get a designated orientation to take place in the building. The 6th graders will come into the building on the hybrid schedule the week of September 21. Thank you to the 6th grade Connections teachers, who have already had to change how they are folding in the cheese. I had originally thought we could start the week of September 14, but that was a false start.

Teaching Schedules and Teams

You will be receiving your teaching schedule this week from Stacy Jeffery. Please take note of the grade that you will have for Connections. As we go into Workshop Week (August 31) those are the teams that you will be working on to create a Family Orientation to Distance Learning 2.0 and Hybrid. Family Orientation and Outreach will take place the week of September 8. Eighth grade team, you drew the short straw and have me as a Connections Teammate.

I do have one resource to share with you for Connections activities once we get into the week of September 14. I know that there is an MYP curriculum developed and saved in Google Docs. However this Responsive Classroom guide for the first 10 Days of Morning Meeting during COVID, may give you some ideas about how to do distance learning and make great Connections. The resource is labeled for 6th grade, but I know you will see how to adapt for the older grades.

Hybrid Groups

Families/ Households will be divided into Group 1, Group 2 and Distance Learning Only Group. Group 1 students will attend school on Monday and Thursday. Group 2 students will attend Tuesday and Friday. Students who have families that have chosen to keep their students at home, will not attend school at all. Stacy and I sat down this past week and tried to balance bus routes, number in each grade, and IEP caseloads into the different groups based on family preference.

When you get your class rosters, each student will be marked in Campus as being Group 1, Group 2 or DL. Families will be notified (hopefully) the week of August 31.

Still to Come!

I will finalize the Opening Week Staff Development Calendar and get it to you by Wednesday. I need to put the final touches on the technology components. I am planning on having the opening day Middle School Staff Kick off in the Theater on August 31 at 7:30 am. With the current Governor's Dial, Mark Fenton (Director of Facilities) tells me we can have about 250 people in there. Instead we will have about 60. I will ask that we only sit in the aisle seats that are marked, and use the balcony- I've counted it out and we will fit. My plan is to have that meeting take about 60 minutes. If you feel strongly that you can't come to this meeting in person, please let me know and I can make arrangements for you to see the recording asynchronously.

Thank you.

Again, thank you for all you do. Thank you for continuing to ask how to fold in the cheese. Thank you for making suggestions and guesses on how to do it.

Let me know what you are thinking and worried about.

Sincerely,

Leah A. Bourg

A decision tree is a flowchart-like structure in which each internal node represents a "test" on an attribute, each branch represents the outcome of the test, and each leaf node represents a class label.

Email: lbourg@sspps.org
Website: https://www.sspps.org/secondary
Location: 700 2nd Street North, South Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: 651-503-4846
Twitter: @leahbourg

Website: sspps.org/secondary
Location: 700 2nd Street North, South Saint Paul, MN, USA
Phone: 651-651-6515