Week of May 3rd

UAI Staff News

Volume VIII

Issue 39

May 3rd, 2021

Principal's Message

Staff Appreciation.  This week I want to celebrate the amazing work that each and every single UAI staff member has put forth in this historic year.  Last year, we honored our staff for all of the amazing work you did in 6 weeks of learning online.  At that time, I still held the belief that we would be back to normal by the following fall.  Little did I realize that we were strapped in for a year + of this work.

In the midst of each one of us upheaving our practices into the digital world and surviving a global pandemic, our world and our own community underwent a racial reckoning that launched a re-envisioning and reforming of our school practices and community.  One thing is for certain - our staff does not shy away from the hard work!

Each day of this last year, I have been continually impressed and awed with how each of you, carrying your own traumas from surviving today's world, put those personal challenges on the back burner to hold our students & their families and help them find pathways through their own traumatic experiences and thrive.  Time and time again, I had the privilege of hearing from both students and parents about how appreciative they are of your commitment to their well-being and to our students' academic achievement. 

On top of the load of just our daily work in pandemic learning, sooooo many of you stepped up to be on the committees that worked to reform UAI into a more just and equitable community.  I want to thank each member of our three steering committees, the SRC, Equity Team, and Circles - each of whom have spent countless hours doing the hard work to heal & reform our community.  Through the work of each member on these committees, UAI has 

• Increased transparency and equity around schools processes (e.g. hiring & staffing, IEP/ENL support, and co-teaching relationships) [SRC]
• Interrogated and corrected for bias in school policies (e.g. grading) [Equity Team]
• Improved community trust and deepening our ABAR work [Circles Committee]

The amount of work and quality of thinking that each member of these teams put into transforming our community into a stronger, better, and more anti-racist institution has been phenomenal and greatly needed & appreciated.  

Finally, to all of the staff who also stepped up to join other committees to bring student life and activities into the remote world (Newspaper, School Culture, Student Recruitment, Peer Mediation, Attendance, Compliance, Data team etc.), your work was also on top of an immense daily load of pandemic teaching.  However, your commitment to helping our students and families have a whole school experience in the face of tremendous challenges does not go unnoticed, and each of you should take pride in the work you put into creating joy and success for our students & their families.

This week to show our appreciation for all that you have already done and all that you continue to do, I will be sharing the messages from colleagues, students, and families that express their individual gratitude to each member of our community.  You can expect to see those shared in the AM announcements each day this week.

In addition, on Friday, I will be giving the gift of fun and time!  On Friday, we will have our usual AM Grade Team meetings to maintain our progress monitoring on our work with students in danger of failing.  Afterward, please put any live classes or small groups you have on an asynchronous work, and either take the gift of time (to use as you choose) and/or gift of fun (join us for games - trivia, jeopardy, pictionary, super superlative voting) that will be planned throughout the day (stay tuned for the schedule)!

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

Birthdays This Week

No Staff Birthdays this Week

Student Birthdays

Monday, 03MAY21: Faiza Q(12)

Tuesday, 04MAY21:  Zepora (9), Joselin (7), Zya B(8)
Imana (8), Maniya (8), Lawzia (6)
              Wednesday, 05MAY21: Aidah (10)

Thursday, 06MAY21:  Keturah A(9)

Friday, 07MAY21: Livia (6), Iyanna (6), 

Saturday, 08MAY21: Gabby R(12), Masani (11)

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

Staff Circles Committee  (Members: Annie, Jennifer, Juelle, Marsha, & Nakita)

No updates this week. See agenda/minutes here.

School Restructuring Committee (Members: Annie, Courtney, Jen, Kiri, Laura, Marsha, Nadine, Nina, and SarahM).  The SRC agendas & minutes are always open for staff access.  The team is working on evaluating the progress of our collective work on moving UAI towards becoming an anti-racist school.  On May 21st, the team will work with staff to collectively assess our progress as a community.  

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).    The Equity Team did not meet this week but will resume meetings next week to continue our work preparing for the Teach-ins this spring and the 10th-grade team piloting the new grading policy.  

Grading Policy Reminder.  As a reminder, for MP4, the Equity Team made updates to the Grading Policy

• Floor Grade of 50.  The floor grade of 50 will remain in place.  Please meet with students and/or use written feedback to help students understand the precises academic content/skills (standards based) or academic behaviors (SEL or study skills) they need to hone in order to improve performannce.
  
  
• No More Participation Grades.  100% of MP4 grades will be based on Progress and Performance only.  Please do not assign participation grades for MP4.

MP4 Log of Support. Continue working on the MP4 Log of Support.   It will take multiple different attempts to find the one (or combo) that works for a particular student, but if you do find that one (or combo), it will be well worth it for both you and the students!  Keep at it.

NYS MS Math Testing.   On Tuesday, 04MAY21, only 9 MS students are taking the Math exam.  So, we will be able to have testing and in-person classes.  All in-person MS students should come to school tomorrow.  MS teachers, please review Jamie's email on MS testing.  Like last week, Natalie and Jake will be proctoring the 9 students, all other classes will be in person as normal.  We'll be providing coverage for Jake & Natalie in the morning.

COVID Testing.  Thursday 06MAY21 is our next round of COVID testing.  They are limiting the amount of people we can test these days.  So we are prioritizing students and folks who are not yet fully vaccinated.  

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.  

Summer School Per Session Post.

We are still looking for teachers, but here are the postings so far.

Please complete the per session interest form and email Kiri 

• 2 Administrators (Must have Admin certification) - Marsha & Brodie

• 1 Teacher Coordinator of Summer School - Kelly

• 4-7 Teachers (subject to student enrollment): Suzannah, Nadine, Cherry, Joey, Kristina

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