Sunday, January 23, 2022

Week of January 24th

UAI Staff News

Volume IX

Issue 21

January 24th, 2022

Principal Message

Power Up Week. We are in the final week of MP2 and the Fall Semester - putting us halfway through the year.

These last few weeks have certainly been unsteady and overwhelming. However, things are beginning to settle.

Since my last COVID notification email on 17JAN22, we have only had three new reported cases - for the entire week. That is a major, major improvement.

Our attendance is improving. The weather is still challenging, but I expect given that this is the final week of the semester, we can expect increased attendance in classes this week.

A more manageable pattern of teaching and learning is emerging, and that is good news for all!

As we enter into our second Power Up Week, this will be different than the last one. You will undoubtedly have more than a few students with lots of missing work. This is the opportunity to look at all of the missing work and prioritize those assignments which enable our students to have the skills and knowledge that will best benefit them in the unit to come.

Challenge yourself to adhere more closely to a mindset of Competency Based Grading. Rather than focusing on doing the work for sake of doing the work - look at the assignments and prioritize those that best leverage learning or developing competency over key concepts and skills. Those assignments can then be weighted to accommodate for any other missing work, and students can then spend time more effectively - concentrating on a few core skills rather than rapidly smashing through as many assignments as possible.

This is not only a Power Up for students, but also a PowerUp for staff! Reach out to your Instructional Leads for support and definitely bounce ideas around in your planning teams!

Important dates this month.

Week of 24JAN21: Power-Up Week
28JAN21: End of MP2
31JAN21: Chancellor's PD Day (Remote Day)
01FEB21: Lunar New Year - NO SCHOOL
02FEB21: MP3 Begins

Committee Updates

Equity Team. The Equity Team met 1/13/21 to further discuss disproportionality in classroom removal and suspension data. The team identified two problems within the data and then discussed possible root causes of these problems. Please see the meeting agenda and notes to review the highlights of our discussion.

Circles Committee. Our next circle will be via zoom during staff PD pm January 31st. The committee is meeting to plan that circle. Only a couple of folks completed the last feedback form. To make circles optimal, we need feedback. Please COMPLETE THIS FORM to give the team many more perspectives to make this next circle great! FYI - We will be continuing with Circles until an alternate plan is in place. The Circles Committee met last Thursday to develop a plan to engage the full staff in problem analysis and solution around this issue during our January PD day. Please do share your input with the Circles Committee: Nakita, Jean, or Kristina

Consultation Committee. This week's agenda is in the consultation committee notes.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, 20JAN at 3PM in rom 403.

Expectations of Flex Time Use: Should we revert to standard contractual programming (staying in school on Mondays and Tuesdays late)?
Attendance Lift & Consent Form Lift: Should the attendance responsibilities be permanently removed from advisors plates so that staff can use outreach time to focus on academic and social emotional outreach?
Participation in Circles and The Work we Need to Move our School Forward: What should we do to address staff engagement in the work required to achieve our collective goal of making UAI a fully inclusive and anti-racist school?

Announcements

Advisory Lesson & Panoramic Survey. This week in Advisory and Learning Lab, we're asking folks to help us administer the annual student feedback survey for teachers (the NYCDOE Panoramic Survey).

Review PowerPoint in Advisory
If necessary share powerpoint in Learning Lab (for those students who missed advisory)
Student Survey Access Codes can be found HERE

Students receive a Homework Pass or Missing Grade Eraser coupon for each survey they complete. Students have been assigned randomly to evaluate teachers. If students struggle to find their access codes using the Survey Access Code Lookup Tool, teachers can help them using this Alphabetically Sorted List of Access Codes

All Surveys should be completed during Advisory and/or Learning Labs. All surveys need to be completed by Friday, 28JAN22.

January 31st PD Day. This day will be remote for all staff. For this meeting, all staff are expected to engage with cameras on throughout the entire day.

If for whatever reason, you cannot successfully have your camera on throughout the entirety of all PD and planning sessions, please do plan to come in and work from school so that you can use school WiFi and facilities to work with cameras on.

Here's the Agenda

8:30-9:20 - AM Staff Meeting and State of The School Review
9:20-9:30 - Break
9:30-10:15 - Equity Team Presentation on Equity Work & Discipline
10:15-10:30 - Break
10:30-11:30 - Staff Circle
11:30-12:10 - Lunch
12:10-4:10PM - Team Planning Session

Please complete this form to indicate who you are meeting with and when.
ILT leads will be using this information to support and plan with folks.
You do not need to use the full time for meeting. This time can be split between meeting and independent work time. We just need to know when you plan to meet so ILT leads can coordinate their support efforts.

To Do This Week

PAY ATTENTION TO THE YELLOW HIGHLIGHTS
This is the stuff that requires your attention AND it's stuff you need to do!

<<REPOST>> Feedback & Improvement. Now that the outreach team is picking up on attendance outreach, please use this new time to make contact with homes about academic progress for students in your classes. Please use your programmed feedback time to make sure students are receiving timely verbal and written feedback to improve academic performance and social emotional skills in your classes.

All students should have feedback from you about how to improve their performance in your class. HOWEVER - All students who are failing MUST have had a conversation with you about what they need to do in order to pass by the end of MP2 by the end of this week. If you cannot get in touch with a student, please email Kiri directly, and she will provide support. Please document these conversations in Skedula.

<<REPOST>> Grades. With the change in course codes, cumulating MP1 with MP2 is not happening automatically across the board. The best way to make sure MP1 is reflected in MP2 is to use the final MP1 grade as a performance grade in MP2. It will be the teacher's discretion on how much to weight MP1. Is this a method you would like to continue for the year? Share your opinion here.

MP3 ends 28JAN22. MP3 will end on Friday, 28JAN22. Grades will be due at 3PM on 03FEB22. Report cards will distributed digitally to advisors on Friday, 04FEB22. Advisors can print or email report cards home on 04FEB22.

Per Session Postings

Please complete THS PER SESSION INTEREST FORM and email Kiri to let her know that you are applying for a per session position.
Office Hours and Zoom Tutoring. As a reminder, all staff can receive per session hours for tutoring and office hours help to students who are learning at home. Teachers can earn up to 10 hours per week, and can work from home. To receive per session, you must write in your hours and submit the time card along with a screen shot (with date and time) or zoom attendance log of the office hours.

Scheduling Committee (POSTING CLOSES 18JAN). We will begin programming for next year. This committee will review & refine processes used this year for course selection. Committee members must commit to time outside of school hours to train in STARS programming and they will be responsible for actually programming the school in STARS for next year. Committee members will also be charged with integrated constituency voices (students, staff, families, partners) and aligning NYCDOE academic & union requirements to constituency requests. Committee members can expect to meet weekly for 1 hour and put in at least 2-3 hours independently (remote work ok) on work products related to programming and scheduling. Committee members will work in conjunction with Instructional Leadership Team and School Leadership to finalize program options and implement programmatic needs.
Required Skills - Facility with MS Excel required
Preferred Skills - Strong communication skills, someone who likes solving puzzles with multiple variables with multiple outcomes, willing to learn DOE systems and academic/union requirements for programming and scheduling

Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21
Applied: Brodie, Liza, Jelissa, Marsha
Staffed: Brodie, Liza, Jelissa, Marsha
Hiring Committee (Posting EXTENDED to 24JAN). We are forming our hiring committee. During hiring season, members selected to the committee should be ready to spend 1-5 hours per week doing the following activities:

Applied - Kelly, Judy
Staffed - Kelly, Judy
Outreach to colleges and universities - Including NYS & NYC, and also HBCUs,
Researching and finding and attending hiring fairs for people of color
Present at hiring fairs and actively recruit attendees to UAI Interviews
Outreach to communities and community organizations
Leverage Social Media, and current UAI Community Connections to find staff
Develop creative approaches for reaching and maximizing the number of candidates of color applying to work at UAI.
Create a strong presentation of who we are (visual and verbal)
Leverage what makes us special!
Highlight anti-racist work, creative programming, Juneteenth, all-girls, college and career focused, mission as a whole, teacher growth focus, teacher-centered/planned PD’s
Provide content on UAI Website around hiring, staffing, and UAI community to provide a public facing sense of what it is like to be part of our community
Facilitate interviews and demo lessons/debriefs
Conduct panel and individual interviews
Review demo lesson plans, and independently learn any new content to be prepared to conduct comprehensive debrief of demo lessons

Candidates for this Position will be Selected using the following criteria:
Ability to present the school well - focusing on things to highlight
Capacity to remain open and intentionally weigh many factors, and refrain from making quick judgements
Commitment to criteria and the the UAI hiring process
Commitment to anti-racist work and mission of UAI
Effective teachers with a solid understanding of instruction and discipline
Candidate Recruitment
Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 24JAN22

Monday, January 17, 2022

Week of January 17th

UAI Staff News

Volume IX

Issue 20

January 17th, 2022

Principal Message

Keep Moving from This Mountain. On April 10th, 1960, over 60 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech at Spelman College for their Founders Day. In that address, he discusses the hurdles (or mountains) of his day, which still persist for us - racism, segregation, relativism, complacency, and fear.

Today, we continue to struggle with these challenges in the context of a global pandemic. The endless push on our fears and anxieties and the relentless politicization of science and truth that has left us all in a tailspin of what to do and who to believe. It has also pushed the conversation of racial justice and equity to the back burner.

Our conversation at UAI has fallen to the fatigue of constant change and unknown hurdles and structures thrown at us from this pandemic. Despite the hurdles and challenges, we need to take a stand and return to this work. No matter how tired or emotionally drained, moving UAI forward in pursuit of racial equity is a necessity.

In his speech MLK, Jr. quotes Langston Hughes' poem, Mother to Son

Well son, I’ll tell you
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it, splinters,
Boards torn up, places with no carpets on the floors, bare!
But all the time, I’se been a-climbing on and reaching landings
And turning corners and sometimes going in the dark where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you stop now.
Don’t you sit down on the steps cause you find it’s kinda hard.
For I’se still goin boy, I’se still climbing,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair

To which MLK, Jr. said, "Life for none of us has been a crystal stair, but there is something we can learn from the broken grammar of that mother, that we must keep moving If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving."

With all the challenges we have worked through this year, we are far from flying, too tired to run, and barely able to walk, right now. The work is hard, and heavy. That is probably the most commonly shared sentiment in the feedback to our Circles Committee.

However, we must continue to hold each other up and keep moving forward. The work will not be pretty or perfect, but it is work that in the end will place all of us closer to the working in the school we want - one that is fully inclusive and anti-racist.

Keep the fires burning UAI. Every little effort you put forward into examining your own or helping others understand their own implicit biases is a step in the work that will create a school that our students and staff deserve. Don't let yourself put down the work (not all of us have that choice, so be wary of unfairly exercising the privilege to do so). You're not expected to scale the mountain in one day, but you are required to keep the work moving forward.

Staff Circles have been our tool for learning how to interrogate and better understand our own implicit biases so that we can better learn how to recognize with they impact our students in our classrooms.

In the last circle, we did not all show up ready to keep moving forward. In our next circle, we need to fight our way to at least crawl forward. This is a must for ourselves, for each other, and most importantly for our students & their families.

Martin Luther King Jr. closes his speech with,

I do not give you this element of faith and superficial optimism. I do not stand here as a detached spectator. As I say to you this afternoon, have faith in the future, I speak as one who lives every day amidst the threat of death.

I speak as one who has had to stand often amidst the surging murmur of life’s restless sea, I speak as one who has been battered often by the jostling winds of adversity, but I have faith in the future.

I have faith in the future because I have faith in God and I believe that there is a power, a creative force in this universe seeking at all times to bring down prodigious hilltops of evil and pull low gigantic mountains of injustice.

If we will believe this and struggle along, we will be able to achieve it.

We're on in the midst of a seemingly never-ending struggle, but even in the struggle, we will achieve.

Important dates this month.

18JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
21JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
Week of 24JAN21: Power-Up Week
28JAN21: End of MP2
31JAN21: Chancellor's PD Day (Remote Day)
01FEB21: Lunar New Year - NO SCHOOL
02FEB21: MP3 Begins

Committee Updates

Consultation Committee. This week's agenda is in the consultation committee notes. There are three items from this meeting that the staff need to discuss. Damon committed to working with Nina to pull the staff together to discuss prior to our next meeting. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, 20JAN at 3PM in rom 403.

Expectations of Flex Time Use: Should we revert to standard contractual programming (staying in school on Mondays and Tuesdays late)?
Attendance Lift & Consent Form Lift: Should the attendance responsibilities be permanently removed from advisors plates so that staff can use outreach time to focus on academic and social emotional outreach?
Participation in Circles and The Work we Need to Move our School Forward: What should we do to address staff engagement in the work required to achieve our collective goal of making UAI a fully inclusive and anti-racist school?

Announcements

Staff Testing. We will be giving out COVID tests on Fridays so that teachers can test on Sundays before returning to work (or Monday if Monday is the holiday). Please take a COVID test on Sundays and if the test is positive, please complete THIS FORM and immediately reach out to Kiri so that she can walk you through the next steps.

Skedula Outage. Here is the latest message from the Skedula folks:

The IO Classroom system has been restored to a new secure server, and the system will be available for use Monday, January 17, at 9 a.m. EST.

It is important to note that:

All users must reset their password upon login. Instructions on how to first log in can be found here.
The current features available include: gradebook, assignments, attendance, and anecdotals.
At this time, only the website will be available. We will announce when the apps become available.
Our development team is monitoring the site for performance and will be optimizing it throughout the day to improve the user experience.

Please see the status page for details regarding daily progress of the restoration effort as well as templates for messaging to staff and families/guardians. There are a few known issues the team will be addressing, and we have ramped up our support teams to handle the additional volume.

Advisory Lesson & Panoramic Survey. This week in Advisory and Learning Lab, we're asking folks to help us administer the annual student feedback survey for teachers (the NYCDOE Panoramic Survey). Please stay tuned to a separate email with lesson and instructions for students.

Advisors and Learning Lab teachers (because not all kids make it to advisory or vice versa for 11/12th grade students) will have access to lessons to share with students. When you get the email, please make sure you review the lessons with students.

To Do This Week

PAY ATTENTION TO THE YELLOW HIGHLIGHTS
This is the stuff that requires your attention AND it's stuff you need to do!

All students should have feedback from you about how to improve their performance in your class. HOWEVER - All students who are failing MUST have had a conversation with you about what they need to do in order to pass by the end of MP2 by the end of this week. If you cannot get in touch with a student, please email Kiri directly, and she will provide support. Please document these conversations in Skedula.

Per Session Postings

Please complete THS PER SESSION INTEREST FORM and email Kiri to let her know that you are applying for a per session position.
Office Hours and Zoom Tutoring. As a reminder, all staff can receive per session hours for tutoring and office hours help to students who are learning at home. Teachers can earn up to 10 hours per week, and can work from home. To receive per session, you must write in your hours and submit the time card along with a screen shot (with date and time) or zoom attendance log of the office hours.

Scheduling Committee (POSTING CLOSES 18JAN). We will begin programming for next year. This committee will review & refine processes used this year for course selection. Committee members must commit to time outside of school hours to train in STARS programming and they will be responsible for actually programming the school in STARS for next year. Committee members will also be charged with integrated constituency voices (students, staff, families, partners) and aligning NYCDOE academic & union requirements to constituency requests. Committee members can expect to meet weekly for 1 hour and put in at least 2-3 hours independently (remote work ok) on work products related to programming and scheduling. Committee members will work in conjunction with Instructional Leadership Team and School Leadership to finalize program options and implement programmatic needs.
Required Skills - Facility with MS Excel required
Preferred Skills - Strong communication skills, someone who likes solving puzzles with multiple variables with multiple outcomes, willing to learn DOE systems and academic/union requirements for programming and scheduling

Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21
Applied: Brodie, Liza, Jelissa
Staffed: Brodie, Liza, Jelissa
Hiring Committee (Posting EXTENDED to 24JAN). We are forming our hiring committee. During hiring season, members selected to the committee should be ready to spend 1-5 hours per week doing the following activities:

Applied - Kelly (ONLY ONE PERSON APPLIED)
Candidate Recruitment
Outreach to colleges and universities - Including NYS & NYC, and also HBCUs,
Researching and finding and attending hiring fairs for people of color
Present at hiring fairs and actively recruit attendees to UAI Interviews
Outreach to communities and community organizations
Leverage Social Media, and current UAI Community Connections to find staff
Develop creative approaches for reaching and maximizing the number of candidates of color applying to work at UAI.
Create a strong presentation of who we are (visual and verbal)
Leverage what makes us special!
Highlight anti-racist work, creative programming, Juneteenth, all-girls, college and career focused, mission as a whole, teacher growth focus, teacher-centered/planned PD’s
Provide content on UAI Website around hiring, staffing, and UAI community to provide a public facing sense of what it is like to be part of our community
Facilitate interviews and demo lessons/debriefs
Conduct panel and individual interviews
Review demo lesson plans, and independently learn any new content to be prepared to conduct comprehensive debrief of demo lessons

Candidates for this Position will be Selected using the following criteria:
Ability to present the school well - focusing on things to highlight
Capacity to remain open and intentionally weigh many factors, and refrain from making quick judgements
Commitment to criteria and the the UAI hiring process
Commitment to anti-racist work and mission of UAI
Effective teachers with a solid understanding of instruction and discipline
Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Week of Jan 10th

UAI Staff News

Volume IX

Issue 19

January 10th, 2022

Principal Message

Making it Work. Last week was definitely not a smooth return to school from the winter recess. Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks have doubled down on their commitment to keep schools open, and that is exactly what we did.

It wasn't pretty, and "school" was definitely a stretch at times, and now we need to figure out how to adapt (yet again) to a set of circumstanced that we've never encountered before (and hopefully never will again).

We are facing a huge number of obstacles this month. As Omicron sweeps through the country, COVID cases are rising rapidly. As a result, we do not have the consistency we need to be successful in our current lesson plans, and now we have to pivot to a new approach to find success.

That pivot is also an opportunity. Rather than continuing forward in our curriculum, this is a chance to go deep and to use this time to close the learning gaps that were also challenging instruction throughout the fall.

Our choices are not great. We can either get mad about how difficult and unfair everything is and turn to each other to complain about it OR we can find some shred of self-efficacy and turn to each other to find a way through this time.

I will always choose the latter approach.

So, on Monday during PD, subject teams will meet together to collaboratively brainstorm how to best support students (and each other) in closing their foundational learning gaps. Additionally, team members will share ideas and best practices to help one another leverage online resources and in-class structures to optimize instruction in a classroom with low and rapidly shifting attendance.

The goal of this work is to find a rhythm in this chaos that makes our instruction purposeful, and all of our students learn and grow. This work won't be perfect, but it will be worthwhile, and it will also be useful and applicable in the years to come. What you develop over the next couple of weeks will be invaluable resources to use for any future students, in need of resource and support to close learning gaps. One thing we can say for certain, we will be working with students with major learning gaps for some time to come. So taking this pause is not only good for right now, it is also an investment in future instructional plans.

Important dates this month.

10JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
10JAN21: Monthly PD Meeting - Rescheduled Circles (from the cancelled Dec Circle)
11JAN21: Monthly Grade Team Meetings
Week of 17JAN - Principal Advisory Student Group Meetings
17JAN21: MLK Jr. Day - NO SCHOOL
18JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
21JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
Week of 24JAN21: Power-Up Week
28JAN21: End of MP2
31JAN21: Chancellor's PD Day (Remote Day)
01FEB21: Lunar New Year - NO SCHOOL
02FEB21: MP3 Begins

Committee Updates

Equity Team. No Updates this week Please review the meeting minutes.

Circles Committee. Our next circle will be via zoom at 4PM on Monday, 20DEC21.

Consultation Committee. This week's agenda is in the consultation committee notes. Our meeing is scheduled for 12JAN21.

Announcements

New Outreach Team. During this month of January, with so many students out the level of outreach is significant. Jen is forming an outreach team with our counselors and deans to take on the outreach to families this month. This folks will be contacting homes about attendance issues in place of advisors for the month of January. If needed, these folks will ask advisors to follow up with any non-attendance related issues (e.g. social emotional supports, academic needs, etc.). Advisors will need to connect

To Do This Week

PAY ATTENTION TO THE YELLOW HIGHLIGHTS
This is the stuff that requires your attention AND it's stuff you need to do!

Feedback & Improvement. Now that the outreach team is picking up on attendance outreach, please use this new time to make contact with homes about academic progress for students in your classes. Please use your programmed feedback time to make sure students are receiving timely verbal and written feedback to improve academic performance and social emotional skills in your classes.

All students should have feedback from you about how to improve their performance in your class. HOWEVER - All students who are failing MUST have had a conversation with you about what they need to do in order to pass by the end of MP2 by the end of this week. If you cannot get in touch with a student, please email Kiri directly, and she will provide support. Please document these conversations in Skedula.

Per Session Postings

Please complete THS PER SESSION INTEREST FORM and email Kiri to let her know that you are applying for a per session position.
Scheduling Committee (POSTING CLOSES 18JAN). We will begin programming for next year. This committee will review & refine processes used this year for course selection. Committee members must commit to time outside of school hours to train in STARS programming and they will be responsible for actually programming the school in STARS for next year. Committee members will also be charged with integrated constituency voices (students, staff, families, partners) and aligning NYCDOE academic & union requirements to constituency requests. Committee members can expect to meet weekly for 1 hour and put in at least 2-3 hours independently (remote work ok) on work products related to programming and scheduling. Committee members will work in conjunction with Instructional Leadership Team and School Leadership to finalize program options and implement programmatic needs.
Required Skills - Facility with MS Excel required
Preferred Skills - Strong communication skills, someone who likes solving puzzles with multiple variables with multiple outcomes, willing to learn DOE systems and academic/union requirements for programming and scheduling

Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21
Hiring Committee (Posting CLOSES 18JAN). We are forming our hiring committee. During hiring season, members selected to the committee should be ready to spend 1-5 hours per week doing the following activities:
Candidate Recruitment
Outreach to colleges and universities - Including NYS & NYC, and also HBCUs,
Researching and finding and attending hiring fairs for people of color
Present at hiring fairs and actively recruit attendees to UAI Interviews
Outreach to communities and community organizations
Leverage Social Media, and current UAI Community Connections to find staff
Develop creative approaches for reaching and maximizing the number of candidates of color applying to work at UAI.
Create a strong presentation of who we are (visual and verbal)
Leverage what makes us special!
Highlight anti-racist work, creative programming, Juneteenth, all-girls, college and career focused, mission as a whole, teacher growth focus, teacher-centered/planned PD’s
Provide content on UAI Website around hiring, staffing, and UAI community to provide a public facing sense of what it is like to be part of our community
Facilitate interviews and demo lessons/debriefs
Conduct panel and individual interviews
Review demo lesson plans, and independently learn any new content to be prepared to conduct comprehensive debrief of demo lessons

Candidates for this Position will be Selected using the following criteria:
Ability to present the school well - focusing on things to highlight
Capacity to remain open and intentionally weigh many factors, and refrain from making quick judgements
Commitment to criteria and the the UAI hiring process
Commitment to anti-racist work and mission of UAI
Effective teachers with a solid understanding of instruction and discipline
Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21

Sunday, January 2, 2022

Week of Jan 3rd

UAI Staff News

Volume IX

Issue 18

January 3rd, 2022

Principal Message

Happy New Year! Happy New Year UAI! I do hope that you all were able to enjoy fun and loving times with family and friends. I also hope you made time to unplug, recharge and relax over this holiday break!

I know as we prepare to return there are undoubtedly many questions surrounding COVID and returning to school in person. While there are some large districts across the nation (and across the river) that are deciding to remain remote, NYC Public Schools are doubling down on staying open.

While there are still many outstanding questions about the Omicron variant, some initial findings are providing sources for cautious hope. This variant is significantly more contagious than prior variants, BUT it is also significantly less deadly. One hope is that as Omicron becomes the dominant variant, this will usher us from COVID being a pandemic to COVID being endemic (like the flu). Certainly, the wide spread of this virus pushes us more rapidly towards herd immunity, and hopefully with that, we inch our way back to an increased normality.

That said, we still have a hard road ahead - certainly for this next month. We will continue to do our best to protect our students and our community as much as possible, and now more than ever, every single member of our community needs to do their best to do what they can to make sure we are all following protocols to maintain the health and safety of everyone at UAI. Here are some reminders and updates to our COVID protocols aimed at mitigating transmission as much as we can.

Masking: Please make sure you and your students have their masks covering BOTH noses and mouths. Quick unmasks to take sips of water (for example) are ok, but the masks must immediately be put back in place properly. Please expect to remind students constantly. Nearly all of our student comply with easy reminders - even nonverbal points to the face work seamlessly. But we will have to constantly remind them. Please also remind your colleagues to do the same. We are all human and sometimes we forget. It is not an insult or overstep to help one another remember that we all play a part in upholding the health and safety of our school.
Testing: All staff will be provided with at home test kits each week (two tests per week) for the month of January at least. Our in-house testing will continue weekly, but capacity will double. This isn't much, but it is something. Instead of testing about 20-25 students each week, we'll be testing 40-50.

Do students receive home test kits? Yes, but only if

A student shows symptoms OR
A student is in a class with someone who tests positive

PPE and Physical Distancing: Please make sure students remain physically distant and are using appropriate PPE as needed (masks, hand sanitizer, antibacterial wipes). Even during classes you are covering as a sub, please ensure students are not clustered together and remain seated at least 3' apart in their desks. Staff will continue to have access to KN95 masks upon request, and students will continue to be provided with regular surgical masks when needed.
Filtering: Each classroom still has two classroom filters. Please use them. In addition, when it is not too cold outside, please also open the windows for added ventilation. Windows are not mandatory with the filters, but added ventilation is always a bonus when we can make it happen. In the winter, that will be rough, but with our mild days so far with winter temps in the 50s, we should take advantage of those times when possible.
Boosting: If you have not done so already (and are 6+ months away from your 2nd shot), then one of the most effective things you can do to protect yourself is to get your booster shot ASAP.

It is always true that all things must end at some point - even this pandemic. The goal is to get through it as best as we can and to end up in the strongest, best place that we can. We cannot eliminate spread 100%. Even when we were all remote, COVID still spread. However, we can be diligent and work together to minimize spread in our school.

This will be a challenging few weeks, but through our community and our support, we are strong, and we will find ourselves on the other side of these weeks before we know it!

Important dates this month.

Week of 03JAN - Principal Advisory Student Group Meetings
05JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
06JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
10JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
10JAN21: Monthly PD Meeting - Rescheduled Circles (from the cancelled Dec Circle)
11JAN21: Monthly Grade Team Meetings
Week of 17JAN - Principal Advisory Student Group Meetings
17JAN21: MLK Jr. Day - NO SCHOOL
18JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
21JAN21: Lady Eagles Home Basketball Game at 4:30
Week of 24JAN21: Power-Up Week
28JAN21: End of MP2
31JAN21: Chancellor's PD Day (Remote Day)
01FEB21: Lunar New Year - NO SCHOOL
02FEB21: MP3 Begins

Committee Updates

Equity Team. No Updates this week Please review the meeting minutes.

Circles Committee. Our next circle will be via zoom at 4PM on Monday, 20DEC21.

Consultation Committee. No Updates this Week. Please review the consultation committee notes from the last meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for 12JAN21. The agenda will be shared out in the Sunday blog on 09JAN21. Damon will be facilitating, so please do share agenda items with him!

Announcements

New Quarantine Rules. Over the break you should have received an email detailing the updates and changes the DOE released regarding quarantine rules. As a reminder, for folks who test COVID positive, these are the updated quarantine rules:

Any school-based staff who tests positive for COVID may now return to work after isolating for five days (i.e. on day 6) provided that the individual is asymptomatic OR exhibiting only mild symptoms which are improving (e.g. mild cough with no phlegm, no fever for 3 days (unmedicated) and no runny nose). The change comes from the guidance released by the CDC and is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.
Any student who tests positive (either on the home test or other test), must isolate for 10 days.
Any person exposed to COVID no longer quarantines immediately

For staff - this is a continuance of the policy. Staff will receive at home test kits. If the staff person tests positive, they must follow the quarantine rules above.
For students in kindergarten through grade 12, unvaccinated or not yet fully-vaccinated students who were in close proximity to a positive case will no longer have to quarantine and will continue attending school if they do not have symptoms and do not have a positive test result from a COVID test. Instead, all students and adults in that classroom will receive a take-home rapid test kit and take two tests over the course of five days. If the student tests positive, they must quarantine for 10 days (see above)

Outreach, Feedback, Grades & Google Classrooms. Undoubtedly, parents and families will be confused and concerned about the return to school. Many may elect to keep their children home. Unfortunately, this will still count as an absence, but we still need to make sure our students have access to learning and do not fall behind. Please review the To Do list below to follow through on next steps.

Regents Week and Power Up Week. January Regents exams have been cancelled. The DOE has not yet messaged what will be happening that week, but likely, those days will be instructional days. That week was already marked for the middle school PowerUp week, and now it will be the Power Up week for all. In addition, we will be having special programs during that week to

make time for teachers to get ahead in their planning or catch up on grading
administer mock regents/middle school exams to check in on student progress towards mastery of fall content.

<Repost> Dance and Arts Clubs start after Holiday Break. We are partnering with a new organization called Broadway Arts for Education and they will be teaching our dance program beginning January 4th AND they will be offering elective programming for Acting, Podcasting, and Poetry that will take place during learning labs. Students will have a chance to sign up for the spring electives starting this week and will be removed from learning labs for the remainder of the year .

In addition, if any staff would also like to run their clubs during the learning lab time, please email me to let me know. I'm shifting the compensation to pay prep period coverage for that club AND give 1 hour of after school per session (for planning time for the club). After school per clubs will get 1 hour of after school per session). Please email me what you'd like to do!

To Do This Week

PAY ATTENTION TO THE YELLOW HIGHLIGHTS
This is the stuff that requires your attention AND it's stuff you need to do!

Outreach & Attendance. This week, many families may elect to keep their children home. Family emails were sent home last week (the same that staff received) and students received the same email. Please monitor advisee attendance. Please flexibly use your outreach time on Tuesday and during your programmed professional period to make contact with home each day an advisee is absent, especially this week. Listen to families' concerns and reiterate our protocols and efforts to mitigate transmission. Please raise up any outstanding concerns (or issues that you do not know how to address) to Kiri, Annie, or Jen as soon as possible.

Feedback & Improvement. Both students in your classes and students who are at home need feedback on their work (or feedback about how to improve work submission so that you can coach their learning). Marking Period 2 ends at the end of this month, with Power-Up week the final full week in January. Please use your programmed feedback time to make sure students are receiving timely verbal and written feedback to improve academic performance and social emotional skills in your classes.

Grades. With the change in course codes, cumulating MP1 with MP2 is not happening automatically across the board. The best way to make sure MP1 is reflected in MP2 is to use the final MP1 grade as a performance grade in MP2. It will be the teacher's discretion on how much to weight MP1. Is this a method you would like to continue for the year? Share your opinion here.

Google Classrooms. With the likelihood of students being absent this week, please make sure that all students have access to learning via your Google Classrooms. We will be encouraging families to come back to school AND we will be providing students who may have to quarantine with access to learning via Google Classrooms. Please use Monday PD time to update your Google Classrooms this week.

Per Session Postings

Please complete THS PER SESSION INTEREST FORM and email Kiri to let her know that you are applying for a per session position.
Scheduling Committee. We will begin programming for next year. This committee will review & refine processes used this year for course selection. Committee members must commit to time outside of school hours to train in STARS programming and they will be responsible for actually programming the school in STARS for next year. Committee members will also be charged with integrated constituency voices (students, staff, families, partners) and aligning NYCDOE academic & union requirements to constituency requests. Committee members can expect to meet weekly for 1 hour and put in at least 2-3 hours independently (remote work ok) on work products related to programming and scheduling. Committee members will work in conjunction with Instructional Leadership Team and School Leadership to finalize program options and implement programmatic needs.
Required Skills - Facility with MS Excel required
Preferred Skills - Strong communication skills, someone who likes solving puzzles with multiple variables with multiple outcomes, willing to learn DOE systems and academic/union requirements for programming and scheduling

Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21
Hiring Committee. We are forming our hiring committee. During hiring season, members selected to the committee should be ready to spend 1-5 hours per week doing the following activities:
Candidate Recruitment
Outreach to colleges and universities - Including NYS & NYC, and also HBCUs,
Researching and finding and attending hiring fairs for people of color
Present at hiring fairs and actively recruit attendees to UAI Interviews
Outreach to communities and community organizations
Leverage Social Media, and current UAI Community Connections to find staff
Develop creative approaches for reaching and maximizing the number of candidates of color applying to work at UAI.
Create a strong presentation of who we are (visual and verbal)
Leverage what makes us special!
Highlight anti-racist work, creative programming, Juneteenth, all-girls, college and career focused, mission as a whole, teacher growth focus, teacher-centered/planned PD’s
Provide content on UAI Website around hiring, staffing, and UAI community to provide a public facing sense of what it is like to be part of our community
Facilitate interviews and demo lessons/debriefs
Conduct panel and individual interviews
Review demo lesson plans, and independently learn any new content to be prepared to conduct comprehensive debrief of demo lessons

Candidates for this Position will be Selected using the following criteria:
Ability to present the school well - focusing on things to highlight
Capacity to remain open and intentionally weigh many factors, and refrain from making quick judgements
Commitment to criteria and the the UAI hiring process
Commitment to anti-racist work and mission of UAI
Effective teachers with a solid understanding of instruction and discipline
Staffing up to 5 members to begin meeting after posting closes on 17JAN21

UA Institute

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Week of January 24th

UAI Staff News

Important dates this month.

To Do This Week

Per Session Postings

Monday, January 17, 2022

Week of January 17th

UAI Staff News

Important dates this month.

To Do This Week

Per Session Postings

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Week of Jan 10th

UAI Staff News

Important dates this month.

To Do This Week

Per Session Postings

Sunday, January 2, 2022

Week of Jan 3rd

UAI Staff News

Important dates this month.

To Do This Week

Per Session Postings

About Me