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

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!

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!

<<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.

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