Friday, February 03. 2017

Dear all,

After a successful Search fair in Cambridge, we can confirm all hiring for the ES is complete!  All of you are now aware of your teaching assignments for next year and you can see the overall picture of where everyone will be on this document.  Andrew will be sending out new faculty bios in the coming week or two and we will be asking different teachers to help out as professional buddies.

You’ll see a slight change to naming conventions of classes - feedback from our controlled release led us to agree that the current A, B, C, D format does not always work in urgent situations.

(*The exact naming for all Early Years/PK-K classes will be determined in our upcoming sessions on Early Years Philosophy)

Farewell:

Next year we will be sadly losing the following teachers and teacher assistants:

Alli Jacobsen (to MS)	Kelly Rusch
Allison Clark	Kristie Nguyen
Anna Van Horn	Lauren Schneider
Barbara Abidin	Lorna Paterson
Beverly Foregard	Meg Jones
Brian Blanck	Nancy Taylor
Ilona Horchler	Pam Thomson
Jonathan Rusch	Rosario Jesudas
Kamini Bridglal	Shireen Lazarus

Obviously we will have many opportunities to say goodbye and share best wishes during the remainder of this year.

More “thanks” to

• Vigna, Lily, Morgen, Deepa, Scott, Dee & Becky who have stepped up to be Grade Team leaders next year.  Congratulations!
• Anna, Lauren and Rachael for spending time giving perspective to incoming faculty (again)
• Ron & Meg for organising the learning celebration today

Emergency Drill next Thursday 9th February

Please be aware next Thursday we will be having a lockdown drill.  Please only share developmentally appropriate information regarding the purpose of these with your students.

• Take cover in a class or the nearest lockable room
• Lock the door and maintain silence
• Close blinds/shades
• Get behind or under furniture (and away from windows or doors)
• Turn mobile phones to silent
• Maintain silence until the “All Clear - Back to Routine” signal is given

Calendar Building 2017-18

Please make note that it is almost time to start building the community calendar for the 17/18 school year.  We are waiting for a few final SAISA/ASIAC dates to come into play but you can begin to look at when you might want to schedule your events.  The window to enter your first choice event dates on the draft calendar will be from February 7 - 20.

A paper copy of the calendar will be available in the ES office for you to pencil in any specific or school wide dates. The Calendar Committee will then analyze and resolve any initial conflicts before releasing a second draft for everyone in the section to review and make changes to. If you are interested in seeing the overall calendar preparation process, click here.

Social Buddy Sign Up

Did you have a good transition to AISC? If so, this is your chance to pay it forward!  We are looking for social buddies for the incoming new teaching class arriving in August of 2017.  

What does being a social buddy entail?

Buddy duty would begin on Saturday, July 29th

Duties include:

• Corresponding with their assigned new teacher once assigned (before the end of the school year).
• Offering to Skype/email over the summer to answer last minute questions and give packing tips.
• Attend parts of the last few days of New Teacher Orientation specifically:
• Lunch and local shopping trip followed by dinner at Andrew’s (Sat, 7/29)
• Coordinating individual shopping trips to Phoenix Mall and/or other places  (Sun, 7/29)
• Coordinating dinner and/or delivery with company if the new person so desires on days when group dinners are not provided (Mon/Tues, 7/31 & 8/1)
• Act as the new teacher’s “go-to” person for non-academic matters throughout the year.

While there is no compensation for coming forward to be a buddy, you will receive the unending thanks of the new person (or people) you befriend and our eternal gratitude!  Of course it goes without saying that your meals are covered on the four days of New Teacher Orientation.  We are also cooking up some other sort of recognition and thank you as yet to be determined.

Interested? If so, please email Dan Love by Monday, Feb 15th.  Dan will then pair up existing teachers with new teachers based on neighborhood, similarity of family configuration and possible shared interests.

Coaching & Meeting Room 3612

Elementary School now has a meeting and coaching space!  Email mrachael@aischennai.org to book room 3612, or to schedule some time to discuss your individual and team instructional goals.  Stop by anytime to say hello!

Substituting Needs

Currently we are very busy with PD in the ES!  Therefore, going forward, we may need to pull co-teachers and/or Learning Support teachers and Coaches to cover homeroom teachers.  We understand this will cause some disruption, and ask your flexibility and patience when our Sub pool is incredibly stretched due to multiple absences on the same day.  

As we depend on our teaching assistants more and more as substitute teachers and as true instructional aides, we would like to elicit your ideas and facilitation skills to start offering some monthly TA trainings, which would take place monthly during sectional meeting times.

Do you have an idea that you'd like to suggest for a session or one that you'd like to facilitate or co-facilitate? Contact Karen Sumaryono to discuss further.

Tom Schimmer

As you may have seen from the schedule, Tom’s overall time with the ES will be less than we had anticipated.  The menu of ideas he provided Dan with definitely had a more MS/HS focus, and so whilst there are drop in opportunities for the ES, the only scheduled times with him outside of the Early Release are for specialist teachers.  You can find his calendar here;

* Tuesday/Thursday afternoon session:  Constructing an Assessment Plan

Join one of these two sessions to learn how to develop an assessment plan for a future unit.  This session will include some learning activities around the Big Ideas in unit assessment planning and unpacking a unit progression.  Then, teachers will engage in supported work time with Tom.  This is a great opportunity to bring forward a unit plan set in the future and develop it ahead of time.  

Teachers should bring: documents, assessments, topics, or standards from a unit that is in need of revision.  Teams or co-teachers are invited to attend together or separately.

Note that the same topic is covered both Tuesday and Thursday.

* Drop-in time:  Individual needs

After attending Tom's Wednesday session, do you have any questions to follow up on, for your own personal situation?  Do you have a nagging question or issue about standards-based assessment or reporting?  Would you like someone to provide more strategies about formative assessment, feedback, and sound assessment practices?  We are happy to provide drop-in time with Tom at the following times.  These times will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.  Please meet Tom in the SHED. Sign up sheet will be available on February 6 for drop-in visits.

Thursday, Feb 9, 8:30 to 10:20

Friday, Feb 10, 11:00 to 12:20

Friday, Feb 10, 2:00 to 2:50

ES Spirit Week - February 20 - February 24th.  More information to follow from Student Council.

Upcoming Dates For Your Calendar

Feb 6-10 Consultant: Tom Schimmer at AISC

Wed Feb 8 Early Release -  
PK-1 Early Years philosophy,  G2-5 and Specialists with Tom Schimmer

Thursday 9 Feb Emergency Drill at 1:45

Saturday 11 Feb Feb Fling

Tuesday 14 Feb ES Parent Coffee 8:45am - 9:45am

Mon 13 - Fri 24 Feb K-2 Art Exhibition

Saturday 25 Feb Design Saturday

Have a wonderful weekend!

Keryn and Lori