UAI Staff News
Volume IX
Issue 29
April 25th, 2022
Final Weeks. Welcome back from what I hope was a restful and restorative Spring Break. We are now officially in the final weeks of another challenging pandemic year, and hopefully, this year, we will actually wrap up the craziness and have a more solid fresh start in the fall!
We have a solid 5 weeks of instruction over the next month to pull our year to a close. With so few instructional days in June for the high school and our middle school grades moving to working on ELA and Math portfolios in June, May is really our final active learning month of the year.
To capitalize on the change in the weather and in the manageability of COVID right now (she types as she knocks wood), we are planning to make a huge push to rev up our attendance for the remainder of the school year. Jen and the attendance team are working on launching an attendance incentive for the month of May to encourage our young ones to either maintain or improve their school attendance for the remainder of the year!
The first step is to build new habits.
It will not be magic overnight, but we will persist in supporting our students so that they overcome the challenges they face, and reach their academic and social emotional goals.
So.. how do we do that?
- Incentivize Good Attendance - By providing students with things they want (or want to do), we hope to encourage students to make the active choice to come to school on time everyday in the Monday of May. We've seen them do it for the school field trips - we know they can. So, we're pulling this lever in an effort to get more kids in on time.
- Targeted Attendance Outreach - For those students at most risk of course failure will be prioritized for outreach with our Attendance outreach team. The team will work with those students first to begin to rebuild their school attendance habits - which will lead to their path towards academic success.
- Targeted Small Groups - Students who have checked out often do not know how to get back into the groove of learning. They need help. This week, we will launch targeted small groups to provide opportunities for building stronger relationships with their teachers which, in turn, will lay the foundation of trust needed to rebuild and reorient them to academic achievement and success.
Important dates this month.
- Monday 25APR: Full Staff Meeting in the Library at 3PM
- Preparing for Launch of Small Group Intervention
- Friday, 29APR: College Commitment Day!
- Monday, 02MAY: Eid Al-Fitr
- No School
- Wednesday, 04MAY: 8/9/10 Field Trip Day
- Monday, 09MAY: Full Staff Meeting in the Library at 3PM
- Equity Team Presentation
- Monday, 16MAY: Full Staff Meeting in the Library at 3PM
- Scheduling Committee Report Out
- Monday, 23MAY: Full Staff Meeting in the Library at 3PM
- Hiring Committee Report Out
- Monday 30MAY: Memorial Day
- No School
Committee Updates
Scheduling Committee. The scheduling committee will meet Wednesday to review course selections and establish a process of student course selections for the fall. You can see the agenda and notes here.
The Hiring Committee. Our next fair is On March 12, 2022. Please SHARE OUT THIS FLIER to anyone you know who may be looking for a job in teaching next year!
- You can always view our notes and decisions on THIS DOC.
Equity Team. The Equity Team read another passage from Pushout this week to start thinking about which specific policies are causing disproportionality in our discipline data and how we might revise these policies. The team will reconvene to discuss the reading this week. Agenda
Circles Committee. No Updates this week
Consultation Committee. Next meeting is TBD - at 3PM in room 403. See consultation committee notes. Goals for this committee are still TBD
Instructional Leadership Team. No Updates this week
Announcements
Monday Full Staff Meetings. On Monday, we will once again meet in the library to continue our work to build up our general community connections. This will continue each Monday for the remainder of the year. For the upcoming Mondays, here are the topics of the meetings.
- 25APR - Small Group Launch Logistics
- Review the Small Group Assignments
- Review Small Group Logistics and Expectations
- Q&A on Small Groups
- 02MAY - No Meeting (Eid-al Fitr- No School)
- 09MAY - Equity Team Workshop
- 16MAY - Scheduling Committee Presents
- 23MAY - Hiring Committee Presents
- 30MAY - No Meeting (Memorial Day - No School)
- 06JUN - Final Staff Circle
- 13JUN - Regents Schedule Review for HS Staff
Small Group Instruction. Small groups are relaunching on Tuesday. Students who failed 1 or 2 core classes have been placed in small groups with their teachers. Students failing more than 2 core classes have been placed with School Leadership for intervention. If you have not done so already, you need to contact each student assigned to your small group by the end of outreach time on Tuesdays. As an FYI - Small groups take precedence. So if they need to be pulled from a class to be in the small group (e.g. pulled from gym or ENL class), then they will be pulled so that they can receive the support they need to correct course failure. Please call home to discuss:
- Why their child has failed your class
- When their child is slated to meet with you and what they can expect will happen during that time.
- Explain to families what the student needs to do to successfully earn credit for the course
- Explain that if the student is not yet satisfactorily performing in your course by May 30, the student will be assigned to come into school during all student non-attendance days in June.
- Once outreach has been made, please update in the MP4 Small Groups document.
Teachers will be expected to make weekly outreach to each student in their small group and update the document each week. If students are absent from small groups, there must be phone calls home to let families know. Families are very much our partners in this work, and our neediest students require strong and open communication between school and home if they are to fight their footholds for success!
Final Round of Observations. Starting next week, we will be doing our final round of observations. For those of you with formal observations, please look for the calendar invite! There may be a few folks who are in need of another informal observation because we have not had the chance to rate all of the Danielson indicators on our prior visits. Those visits will be drop by visits.
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!
This is the stuff that requires your attention AND it's stuff you need to do!
Do Small Group Outreach. All teachers with small groups must call families on Tuesday to let them know that small groups will launch on Tuesday. Please update the form HERE once outreach is complete. If you have any issues or problems with outreach, please contact Kiri directly!
Please Celebrate Our Students. Jen and her team are working to create a student awards night to celebrate our students' hard work this year. Nothing truly compares to the praise of their teachers. So please take a few moments to COMPLETE THIS DOCUMENT by the end of this week. It will mean so much to each student and their family AND it will make you feel great too!
Per Session Postings
Please complete THIS PER SESSION INTEREST FORM and email Kiri to let her know that you are applying for a per session position.
School Organization. We have received a TON of stuff from our various orders. Also, we have a TON of closets in need of organization. So, if you're interested in joining the UAI organization extravaganza please submit via the per session interest form (link above) and email Kiri. We're looking for volunteers to organize the science closet, the basement closets and any other closet or storage area that we can locate in the building. If you're available to work after school or Saturdays, please let me know. Once we have the team of folks together, we'll put together the plan and get everyone targeted on specific projects!
2022 UAI SUMMER Camp. <STILL OPEN> This summer will build on what we started last summer in our effort to create highly engaging and challenging summer programming for our students. Mandatory make-up programs have been moved into June and we are replacing the punitive form of summer school with programming that is aimed at enriching, exciting, and getting kids thrilled to be in school again!
We are looking for summer school teachers to offer programming this summer. We will offer elective credit to the courses. The courses can be anything that interests you, and classes will be limited no more than 15 students per class.
We are looking for teachers to teach elective classes in:
- Arts: Creative Writing, Art (visual, performing, or movement), Poetry, Storytelling, Photography etc.
- Social Justice: Community Organizing, Protest Art, Social Media Campaigns, Etc.
- STEM: Finance, Engineering, Drones, Rockets,
- EntrepreneurialMedia: Podcasting, YouTubing, Social Media Management, Documentary Film Making
- Open Call: Have an Idea? Submit it!!
Days: 11JUL-29JUL , Mondays-Thursdays ONLYHours (Max) 5 hrs per day
(90 min classes with an hour prep for each class up to two classes a day)Total possible hours = 60 hours Minimum possible hours = 30 hours
(Applied)/ Staffed:
- Jenetta (Summer School Coordinator, Social Justice Course) - Staffed - Social Justice Course
- Kelly (Summer School Coordinator, Regents Prep Coordinator) - Staffed (Summer/Regents Coordinator)
- Jelissa (SYEP, Student Recruitment) - Staffed - SYEP coordinator, Student Recruitment
- Adelle (Student Recruitment) - Student Recruitment
- Freida (Summer Arts Elective) = Staffed Summer Arts Elective
- Nina (Regents Prep) - Staffed - Regents Prep
- Nicole (SYEP, Student Recruitment)- Staffed - SYEP Support,Student Recruitment
- Juelle (Student Recruitment) - Staff Student Recruitment
- Brodie (Summer School Administrator) - Staffed - Summer School Admin
- Shana (STEAM Summer Elective) - Staffed - STEAM Summer Elective
- Rebecca (Pottery with a Wheel)- Staffed - Pottery
- Olympia (Creative Writing) - Staffed - Creative Writing
