Week of October 29th

UAI Staff News

Volume VI

Issue 11

October 29th, 2018

(139 School Days Remaining)

Announcements

Spirit Week Success.  School spirit was alive and thriving at UAI this past week.  Many thanks to Ms. Jen for pushing and promoting each day to build our school spirit.  Many shout outs and many, many thanks go to Ms. Kelly for organizing the seniors into creating a fabulous and spirited assembly.  It went smoothly and truly showed how much our students appreciate one another and our school!  As per last week's staff meeting, we will continue to solicit feedback from staff regarding how to better improve our school culture and school events!  Stay tuned for our updates around next month's Advisory activities!

To Do This Week

Monday Announcements. These announcements are driven by your responses to the surveys we send out to you.  Last week, we got 12 of 50 staff responding.  This week we got that up to 15 out of 50.  All staff should feel free to respond!  There's still time so please take a minute to share your thoughts.  The more folks who respond, the more reliable the input!  CLICK HERE.  Please do answer the last question - even if it's just to share what you feel is good!  We can address good things too!

Mission and Vision Statements.  The response to our first Parent-Teacher Workshop around Implicit Bias was overwhelmingly positive.  This Mission Workshop was aimed at revisiting the schools' mission and to study and reflect on our own implicit bias on young women in STEM.   These workshops were conceived of and planned in our School Leadership Team meetings.  Originally, the goal was to bring in an outside organization to facilitate these conversations with our parents and teachers.  Ms. Doris researched Border Crossers, which are a high-quality organization with an equally high price tag.  Mr. McLean then found out through his DOE contacts that we should be able to receive this support via the DOE, but we couldn't organize them in time for our October PD, so Kiri and the Consultation Committee stepped in.   The SLT is looking for volunteers to work together to target these DOE supports and to prepare for our next Parent-Teacher Workshop on December 17th.  Our next SLT meeting is on November 19th, so interested staff should be prepared to present initial plans by then.  If interested, please email Kiri.  

Technology Support.  There have been a couple of questions regarding technology support.  To reiterate, for now, please email me or Brodie directly for any support you may need.  Phil Bertani will be our new tech support person, but the DOE process for onboarding new staff is notoriously slow and laborious.  HR told me they would reach out to me by the end of the day Friday to confirm approval for the position.  I did not hear from them and have to call them again, first thing on Monday.  Once we onboard Phil, we will then communicate with everyone the systems that will be in place to provide tech support for UAI.  In the meantime, please be patient as we transition our new technical support person onto the campus payroll.  Direct emails to me and or Brodie will be the best way you can get technical support until this process is completed.

PD Committee.  As a reminder, we have a standing PD committee that meets to plan PD for the staff all year long.  We meet on Fridays at 11:15-12:10 in room 401.  Rebecca, Marsha, and Jamie are three who have consistently attended all year.  However, the committee is always open to everyone.  In particular, the committee is focusing professional development work this year on lesson planning for student thinking and in-class coaching.  If you'd like to have input on planning PD for the staff, please join us or reach out to Rebecca, Marsha or Jamie so they can hear your ideas and bring them to the meeting!  Here's the Agenda for Monday's PD

• 3:00-4:10:  LDC in Room 305.  Teachers working with LDC meet weekly under the leadership of Marsha & Rebecca with the support of our Generation Ready Literacy Coach, Christine Del Negro.  Announcements will be delivered to LDC group at 4PM  Monday 29OCT18 Agenda.  
• 3:00-4:10  All Other Staff in Room 409.  All other staff report to room 409.  
• 3:00-3:15 Updates from The Survey followed by brief Q&A
• 3:15-3:30 School Goals and Vision for Professional Development at UAI
• 3:30-4:10 Lesson Planning Look Fors - Learning how to plan for thinking vs. planning for doing

Social Emotional Learning This Week

Social Awareness - 6th graders spent time this week focusing on social awareness.  They practiced how to talk to a friend who is disappointing them and how to respond to conflict so that everyone walks away with a "win-win".  If they're having trouble collaborating in class and need to make compromises ask them how they can turn their conflict it into a "win-win"! They also reflected on gossip and how it may impact their lives in and out of school.  They used the 4 question "gossip test" to help decide if the information they receive should be passed on.  Let's hope they use it for real! 

Relationship Building - 9th grade continued to work on relationship building skills. We took an in-depth look at different relationship builders and damagers and how they affect our connections with the people around us. We then began to connect the different damagers we identified to our independent study novel Thirteen Reasons Why. Reading the book alongside our unit on building better relationships has helped us ground our work in the real world!