Week of May 24th

UAI Staff News

Volume VIII

Issue 42

May 24th, 2021

Principal's Message

Last week of New Instruction.  A year+ of lesson planning for virtual learning is finally in it's last full week.  This week, we will wrap up new instruction to prepare students for teacher-selected and teacher-designed culminating activities that begin next week.  As you plan these final lessons, take a moment for yourself to look back at how much you, personally have grown alongside the growth and achievements of your students.  In your final lessons this week, make time for students to do the same personal reflection in your academic classes so that they, too, can reflect on the amount of growth and achievement they gained in a year of incredible barriers and odds.  

It is true that not one class covered all of the content that learning standards dictate, but that is true of the entire world.  What is also true, is there was a wealth of learning that standards do not name, and it's time to use our new understandings of what schooling should be and it's time to find ways to punch up and make a call on those in power to shift standards & school regulations to reflect true student and larger cultural needs.

End your year of learning proud of what you have all done in collaboration with one another and with your students and families.  Without this unity, we would not have pulled through this pandemic, and as a result of all of our remarkable work, we have the foundations of building a stronger, better UAI for our students, our staff & partners, and our families!

Don't Forget To Scroll To the Bottom to See This Week's Per Session Postings

Birthdays This Week

Marni, Tuesday 25MAY

Student Birthdays

Sunday, 23MAY21: Nusrat (9) Zunara (11)

Monday, 24MAY21: Kameryn (12) Ariana R(10) Victoria (10)

Wednesday, 26MAY21: Hanin (10) Janaye (10)
              Thursday, 27MAY21: Jamilah (11) Krystal (6)

Friday, 28MAY21: Ashley (10) Teanna (11) Kai (11) Phoebe (7)

Saturday, 29MAY21: Cassandra (12) Sylvanna (6)

UAI Committee Updates.  Please see updated dates for Spring 2021 Staff Meetings.

Staff Circles Committee  (Members: Annie, Jennifer, Juelle, Marsha, & Nakita) See agenda/minutes here. No updates this week

School Restructuring Committee (Members: Annie, Courtney, Jen, Kiri, Laura, Marsha, Nadine, Nina, and SarahM).  The SRC agendas & minutes are always open for staff access.  No Updates this week

The Equity Team (Suzannah, Nina, Elana, Kelly, Phillan, Annie, Nakita, Rebecca C, Damon, Ms. King (Kianna’s mom), Ms. Barnes (Alyssa’s mom), Ms. Martuscello (Veronica’s mom), Kianna King, Emily Payamps, Jerlai Tyner, Jamilah Alshawish, Salia Naschel).    No Updates this week

NYC School Survey.  Above are our current school survey results.  Our goal is to complete survey efforts by Friday, but we will have to keep pushing through June 11 (the official deadline) if we don't have enough respondents.  Our Fall 2020 survey numbers were 305 students,  85 families,  and 29 staff.  We have far exceeded staff response rates, and we are well on our way for student responses, but we need family input.  This week, please make a final push to gather family input on those surveys.  Aim to have at least 5 families confirm with you that they completed the survey.  Please refer to these directions for support!

<<REPOST>> Summer Rising.  We have the opportunity to return to school better, and that first opportunity is with our summer programming.   It will be a long path back for our students to return to remembering what in-person school was really like, and we want summer to be the first taste of remembering that school can be fun and yes, it's cool to love learning!  

Please also announce in Advisory and Talk it Up as an opportunity for students!   

For now, all programs are in-person.  We really want kids to come into the building and re-experience how much fun in-person learning can be.  We may have remote options...but that is still very much TBD.  In Person learning is the priority.  It will be safe (all existing protocols in place AND have weekly testing).  

We have three summer offerings for students.

Octavia Project:  A summer STEAM camp for Middle School students (female/female-identified/non-binary) focused on developing their creative inquiry through STEM projects with creative lenses.   In addition the Octavia Project incorporates near-peer leadership opportunities, guest speakers, and leadership development throughout the summer program. This program is open to all current 6th-8th graders and incoming 5th graders.  Visit the Octavia Project to Learn more

PLEASE CONTACT MARSHA for directions on how to apply.

Girls Inc Summer Camp:  A summer empowerment camp for Middle School Students (female/female-identified/non-binary) focused on developing our young people to become Strong, Smart and Bold!  This summer's programs will be "Girl Boss" focusing on financial literacy, "Wellness Lounge" focusing on developing SEL skills, and "Summer Sports" which will be an exploration in various outdoors activities.  In addition, Girls Inc is planning a wide variety of trips, speakers, and career exposure activities. This program is open to all current 6th-8th graders and incoming 5th graders.  
PLEASE CONTACT MARSHA for directions on how to apply.

Schools for Kids by Kids:  This homegrown summer seminar program was developed and will be taught by UAI staff.  In this program, students will be invited to research and study how schools are currently structured, rethink how schools should be structured, abolish the structures that should no longer be there, and create an action project to make the changes they would like to see. You can talk to Rachel, Judy, Joey, or Nakita to learn more about the work!  This program is open to any current 8th (or incoming 9th) through 12th grades

SIGN UP.  https://forms.gle/ERx4r8F9RucKMZyA7

Home & School Visits.  Jen & Kiri are beginning home visits for our students who are most non-responsive to our outreach.  We're hoping that these visits push kids back into school or into your zooms.  We'll share a list with whom we successfully made contact to the grade team with follow up.  Once you receive follow up notes from Kiri or Jen, please make sure you and/or your co-teachers pull the student into a one-on-one conference (in person or in a breakout room on zoom) to FIRST welcome and reconnect and THEN find out what they need to re-engage successfully and FINALLY list concrete things to do (1-2 max per day - and due that same day or the next day...not a week or long view).  We want their first experiences back in class to feel warm, welcoming, and we want them to get the feeling of success and accomplishment.  That way, we'll keep them coming!

MP4 Log of Support. Continue working on the MP4 Log of Support.  

Per Session Postings

To Apply for any of the following per session opportunities, please COMPLETE THIS FORM and email the appropriate point person listed in this posting.  

Per Session Posting  There are several curriculum development opportunities for summer per session.  Please submit your interest via the Per Session Interest form and email Kiri. ELA & Other course offerings will be made available based on budget availability. FY 2021-22 budgets release in about two weeks.

1. NEW POST: English. I want to finalize course scope and sequencing - work that we began touching upon PRE covid this July. Primarily, I want to finalize course text titles, benchmark expectations, and materials lists by July 15th. All ELA and SPED/ENL ELA folks are invited to apply. This would be about 10 hours of work, all zoom, with a mix of meeting time and work time as determined by team. There is also an additional five hours for up to three team leaders of this work that will be selected based on their experience in the classroom, demonstrated expertise in a range of works, and depth of understanding or requirements for global assessments like the NYS Middle School exams, HS ELA Regents, and AP Lang, and Lit.

2. Social Studies.  We need to build a course on African Studies - centering the cultures & histories of Africa in the study of Global History.  This will be a Global History Course for students, leveraging the NYS Global History standards involving the study of African cultures, histories, and achievements on the world stage.  Teachers selected for this Social Studies Course Planning will receive 40 hours to study & develop teacher mastery of African history and to plan and create

1. A Course Overview & Syllabus, with Course and Unit Objectives

2. Detailed Overview of first two units - with daily objectives, rubrics, and assessments.

3. Narrative Lesson Plans for all of of the first unit

2. Math & Science.  Posting Closed Applied: Nina, Nakita, Jamie, Rebecca F Staffed: Nina, Nakita, Jamie, Rebecca F

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