Week of August 18th

UAI High School Staff News

Volume II

Issue 2

Week of August, 2014

Announcements

The Weekly Newsletter is Back! After a brief summer hiatus, the UAI staff newsletter is back in action.  This year's issues will be separated into separate Middle and High School letters.  This letter is specifically for High School news.  Like last year, you can expect this letter to be issued weekly on Sunday afternoons to prep you for the week ahead.  This particular issue will be longer than usual because it's been a while and we have some catching up to do!

(ignore the 2013)

Summer School is Over! Another session of summer school wraps up tomorrow as we finish grading the high school regents exams.  Many thanks to our summer school troupers Mike, Michael, Jamie, Doris, and Damon who stepped up to help our young women have a second chance at regents and grade promotion. Also many thanks to our returning coaches Marianna & Darby who worked with summer school teachers during summer residencies to deepen their learning of this type of PD support while providing aid and support to the summer school staff.  Martine and Danielle, two of our new rising coaches, also stepped up to support the Learning Cultures Institutes in creating lab spaces for our newest LC teachers to learn the formats.  It was a fruitful and busy summer! Please enjoy these remaining days of summer. You deserve every minute!

3rd Annual Learning Cultures Institutes.  Each year, the Learning Cultures schools come together to have two series of professional development institutes.  The first being for returning LC teachers and school leaders to hone and deepen practice.  The second being to introduce teacher new to LC to the formats and theories underlying the model.  This summer, the first 2 weeks of August had over 40 teachers, school leaders, and coaches from four different schools participating and networking.  Many thanks to Sarah Dennis and Sabina (of the Unison School) for coordinating and planning these wonderful experiences and perspective shifting discourse!

Gearing up for Next Year.  Understandably, many of you are looking forward to getting into your classrooms.  Officially, you will have some time on both the 2nd and 3rd of September to set up your rooms.  Coaches and leads will meet on August 25th & 26th to finalize agendas, but you will have some time to do room set up. However, if you're interested in getting in sooner, the building will be officially open to you from 8:30-4PM starting on Monday 25AUG through Friday 29AUG.  The building will also be open on Saturday, 30AUG for you.  I will be in the building Monday through Friday of that week, and classrooms will be open.  Additionally, elevators will be open so you won't need your passes.  Like last year, you will receive your DOE teacher's choice ($77 this year) plus $250 from UAI High School to spend on whatever you'd like for your classrooms.  For the UAI $250, you will be reimbursed up to $250 for any supply for which you submit receipts.  ALL RECEIPTS for the UAI teacher's choice MUST BE SUBMITTED TO DEL NO LATER THAN 31OCT14.

Next week - Look forward to the brand new and super fancy UAI Staff handbook!  This digitized reference will serve as an excellent resource for all policies and logistics that you need to know at UAI.  

Looking for Last Year's Blog.  CLICK HERE

Upcoming Events (and Per Session Opportunities)

• Monday 25AUG14:   Training Rate Per Session will be offered for both sessions.
  10AM-12:30PM - Cabinet Meeting (UAI Leads & Chairs).  This meeting will be for Grade & Subject Team leaders as well as LC Committee Leaders.  This meeting will launch the vision and goals for the school year and the objectives of the teams & committees for the year.
  
  12:30 - 3:00PM - Professional Development Committee Meeting.  This will be a working meeting to plan and finalize PD for 02SEP and 03SEP and articulate PD offerings for the year. Lunch will be provided for the committee.

• Tuesday 26AUG14:  Training Rate Per Session will be offered for both sessions.
  9:00-12:00:  New Coaches Training with Sarah Dennis.  This will be a refresher and extension of training offered to coaches at the end of last year.  New rising coaches are Martine, Jamie, Danielle, Sarah, Elena, Rebecca, Brodie, and Ilyana
  
  1:00-2:30: Coaches Meeting  This will be the first of weekly coaches meeting to establish expectations, evaluate school needs, and share and norm best practices.  Coaches will be asked to provide set-up support for teachers on Wednesday.

• Wednesday 27AUG14:  Training Rate will be offered ONLY for sessions I & 2
  9:00-10:30:  Introduction to Cynthia's eCourse on Learning Cultures.  We will be viewing the new eCourse on Learning Cultures that Cynthia created and recently published.  In particular, we will be looking at the Foundations of Learning Cultures, Unison & Learning Conferences.  This course is an excellent resource for you to access and refer back to while developing your LC practice.
  
  10:30-1:30:  Classroom Barn Raising. All classrooms will be open and ready for set up (and in fact will be from Monday 25AUG on).  Teams of Teachers will work together to set up classrooms and Coaches will be available to provide support in helping you problem solve and think about set up to optimally launch your class for the year.  Motivational snacks (Yup..Motivational Snacks which are still yet to be definied..) will be provided!
  
  1:30-2:30:  Get your Tech, Schedules, Classlists, Keys, Elevator Passes EARLY.  If you can make it to school on this day at 10:30, you'll be able to pick up everything you'll need to set up your classrooms early.  In addition, you'll get trained on the new Nexus 7s; Lenovo or Chromebook laptops, and get a brief introduction to how to use Google Apps in your classroom.  Once the training is completed, you'll be issued your technology.  Can't make it?  No worries, you'll have another chance at all of these in the afternoon on Wed 03SEP.  Per Session isn't everlasting.  So, the incentive for this workshop is all of these goodies you'll get!

• Thursday 28AUG14: Training Rate will be offered for whole day
  8:30-3:30PM: Cross School Learning Cultures Symposium. All learning cultures teachers throughout the city will gather at UA School for Green Careers to work collaboratively in discipline teams to collectively problem solve around key formats, Unison, Conferences, and delve more deeply into the theory underlying the model.

• Tuesday 02SEP11:  First Day for all Staff
  8:30-2:40:  First Day of PD.  This agenda will be finalized with the PD committee on 25AUG.  On the agenda for sure are:  Breakfast snacks will be available from 8:00-8:30
  8:30-9:30 Kiri's Welcome, Introductions, New Policies & Procedures, and Review of Year's Goals and Expectations
  9:30-10:30 MOSL Introduction and Review of Options (Follow Up on PD Monday 09SEP)
  10:30-12:30 PD Committee TBD (Classroom Ladders & Social Norms)12:30-1:30 New Teacher Working Lunch Orientation (Lunch will be provided)1:30-2:40 Schedula (our new schoolwide grading software) training.  12:00-1:30 Classroom Set Up.
• Wednesday 03SEP11:  2nd Day for all Staff
  8:30-2:40 Second Day of PD.  Again, this agenda is just a draft...final agendas will be available to staff on Wed 27AUG.  Draft Ideas
  8:30-10:30 Grade Team Meeting - Orientation Activities Planning
  10:30-12:30 PD Committee TBD (
  12:30-1:30 Lunch Provided for ALL teachers & partners
  1:30-2:40 - Classroom Set Up (Tech, keys, and program distribution)

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Blog Appendix - This is the part that tells you who is doing what next year.  

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Teams and Committees for 2014-2015.  Here are the teams and committees for the upcoming school year.   All team and committee leaders are part of the High School cabinet which will meet on a weekly basis on Wednesdays from 2:45-3:45 in room 409.  All cabinet meetings are open to anyone who would like to join.  The cabinet is the primary decision making body of the school.

Grade Teams:

9th Grade:  Martine Mercier (ISS teacher & team leader); Kerry Smith (ISS Teacher); Darby Masland (Global 1); Marianna Wiles (Writing); Michelle Babick (Reading); Damon Noland (Living Environment); Jamie Ross (Algebra); Rebecca Bunten (Carrera FLSE); Bree Aitore (Carrera Social Worker); Demetris Ioannou (Carrera Job Club)

10th Grade: Sarah Cooley (Earth Science & team leader); Danielle Romano (Geometry); Michael Stuart (Global 2); Rebecca Candela (English); Elena Brollo (Spanish 1); Kristin Negele (ISS Teacher); Jen Batson (Carrera FLSE); Sara Monsonis (Carrera Social Worker); Demetris Ioanou (Carrera Job Club)

11th Grade: Brodie Crawford (US History and team leader); Ilyana Contreras (English); Hassan Mojtabaeezamani (Physics & NYU Poly Engineering); Mike Somersel (Algebra 2 & NYU Poly pre-calculus); Anna Avino (Spanish 2); Paula Collins (ISS teacher); Wazina Zondon (Carrera FLSE); Lori LIndenbaum (Carrera Social Worker); Ruben Rivera (Carrera Job Club)

12th Grade: Brodie Crawford (Government/Econ and team leader); Ilyana Contreras (English); Noam Pillischer (Math & Science); Doris Twine (Govt/Econ and English and Senior Advisor); Paula Collins (ISS teacher); Elana Green (PE); Wazina Zondon & Jen Batson (Carrera FLSE); Shannon Riley & Marni Brand (Carrera Social Workers); Ruben Rivera (Carrera Job Club)

Subject Teams:

Social Studies: Darby Masland (Global 1 and team leader); Brodie Crawford (11th & 12th Soc Studies); Michael Stuart (Global 2); Doris Twine (12th English & Govt/Econ); Tyasia Harvey (Carrera Academic Support)

English Team:  Ilyana Contreras (11th & 12th Grade English and team leader); Marianna Wiles (9th Gr. Writing); Michelle Babick (9th Gr. Reading); Rebecca Candela (10th Gr. English); Jillian Crowther (Carrera Academic Support)

Language Team:  Elena Brollo (Spanish 1 and team leader); Anna Avino (Spanish 2)

Math Team: Mike Somersel (Algebra 2 and team leader), Jamie Ross (Algebra I); Danielle Romano (Geometry); Noam Pillischer (12th Math): Heather Bezdecheck (Carrera Academic Support)

Science Team: Damon Noland (Living Environment and team leader); Sarah Cooley (Earth Science); Hassan Mojtabaeezamani (Physics & Poly); Noam (12th Gr Science)

Instructional Support Specialist (ISS) Team:  Martine Mercier (9th ISS and team leader); Kerry Smith (9th ISS); Kristin Negele (10th ISS); Paula Collins (11th & 12th ISS)

Committees: Committees are open to any staff member wishing to join.  Members listed below are pre-selected by position (e.g. Grade/Subject team leader) or expressed interest.

• Assessment Committee: Danielle Romano (Chair); Noam Pilischer, Hassan Mojtabaeezamani
• Professional Development Committee: Rebecca Candela (Chair); Marianna Wiles, Darby Masland, Colleen DiGuiseppe
• School Culture & Discipline: Sarah Cooley and Jen Cusa (co-Chairs); Jamie Ross; Elana Green
• Code Blue Committee: Martine Mercier (Chair): Brodie Crawford; Colleen DiGuiseppe
• Curriculum Committee: Darby Masland (Chair); Ilyana Contreras; Elena Brollo; Damon Noland; Mike Somersel

Peer Coaches: At UAI, we believe in collaborative learning and problem solving. To that end, we have invested in our teachers to provide them with the skills necessary to effectively share their talents and support you.  Next year, our coaches are:

• Returning Coaches (have experience supporting teachers in LC):  Darby, Marianna, and Colleen
• Rising Coaches (have strengths in LC and are learning to become coaches):  Martine, Rebecca, Sarah, Elena, Danielle, Brodie, and Ilyana