Week Ahead: April 2-6

| April 1, 2018 | Week Updates | No Comments

Welcome back!  I hope your week off was relaxing, adrenaline filled … basically what ever it was you were hoping for.  My family’s adventure to the Maldives was amazing, and I will strive to restrain my over abundance of enthusiasm for all things Maldivian and only talk about it when actually asked 🙂

This last quarter of the year will fly by.  So let’s all work together to make sure we all stay on top of things for the entire ride.  Please make sure to read the blog all the way through … there is a lot this week, but some of it is review.

Here is what’s up this week:

Monday, April 2
Day 1, ABCD (Adv)
1:30-3 Sr Admin Team

Tuesday, April 3
Day 2, EFGH (DEAR)
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team Mtg (Agenda)

Wednesday, April 4
Day 3, BCDA (DEAR)
9:30-12:50 Gr 8 taking PSAT 8/9 (see below for more info)
3:15-4:30 Schoolwide Action Plan Committee Mtgs

Thursday, April 5
Day 4, FGHE (Adv)
12:55-1:55 HS StuCo Elections, Gr 8 attending (will have short lunch; will miss advisory and a short part of Block E)

Friday, April 6
Day 5, CDAB (DEAR)
9:45-10:30 SRT

Upcoming (on the radar)

  • April 9 – Author Visit (Lauren Stringer) Assembly 8:15-9:15; special schedule
  • April 12 – Career Day and Fair, 9-12:30 (gr 8)
  • April 13 – 20th Anniv. Celebration Assembly 4:30-6 (music students might be off timetable for rehearsal)
  • April 14 – 20th Anniv. Celebration Gala
  • April 17 – Gr 8 Afternoon with the Enlightenment (gr 8 off timetable)
  • April 18-19 – WrAP Testing  Cancelled
  • April 20 – Gr 8 Drama Performance, 8:30-9:15 (volunteer audience needed)
  • April 21-24 – Molly at HS MRISA Soccer Tournament (and likely a hot mess of emotions at the final official soccer tournament after 16 years of being a soccer mom)
  • April 23-27 – Earth Week
  • April 25 – No School, VN Kings’ Day
  • April 27 – MS Dance, 5-8pm
  • April 30 and May 1 – No School, VN Reunification Day and May Day
  • May 3, 8, 9, 10 – CTP Testing
  • May 10 – Special Schedule to support PE Dance Extravaganza (basically run Early Dismissal schedule, lunch, DEAR, then rehearsal from 1:30-3:00); PE Dance Extravaganza from
  • May 11 – Special Schedule (basically early dismissal and then full dress rehearsal from 1:30-3ish) PE Dance Extravaganza 6-8pm

PSAT 8/9:  The grade 8 students will be taking the PSAT 8/9 in the auditorium from 9:30-12:50 on Wednesday, April 4th (they will not be in Blocks C and D).  They will then eat lunch from 12:50-1:35 and rejoin the schedule for Block A.  The test is being administered by Bonnie and proctors include: Greg Jardin, Rebecca Jardin, Helen Thompson, Brian Benck, Dawne Kaba, Mark Crowell, Vaughan Swart, Priscila Schochet, and Erin Lu.  Another set of thanks to Mark Crowell, Gil Legaspi and Brian Benck for getting the students ready for the new test.

HS StuCo Elections and Gr 8:  HS StuCo elections will be Thursday, April 5th from 12:55-1:55.  The HS is running a modified schedule that day – but we can’t mimic it.  Here is how it will work for us:

12:20-12:50 Gr 8 students eat lunch
12:50-12:55 Move Gr 8 students to auditorium for election
12:55-1:55  Gr 8 students in auditorium listening to speeches
1:55-2  Move Gr 8 students to last block
2-3:00 Gr 8 students in last block
I would like to have help from advisory teachers in getting the students to the auditorium; and I’d like E block teachers to assist with getting students into last block quickly.  Thank you all for your assistance with this.

Evals and Meetings:  The past week and in the coming weeks, I have quite a few meetings scheduled into my calendar.  Please be patient with me … and be persistent when you need to talk to me.  If you walk by and the door is closed, ask Ha to set up a time and/or have her  let me know that you need to see me.

Also, thank you to all who have scheduled eval meetings with me.  I’ve gotten off to a great start in meeting my personal goal of finishing evals by the first week of May.  I will be working to schedule the remaining meetings.  One note:  if you are a returning faculty member, you need to let me know what area you are going to focus on for your eval.  Please do not complete the entire eval – just the components (3-4 max) that represent your focus for this year.

Master Scheduling 18-19: We are beginning work on master scheduling for the 18-19 school year.  I have talked with all who are facing a change in teaching assignment (and thank you all for your flexibility).  If you (and your department) would like to consider a different approach to covering all your department sections, please let me know.  My hope is that I will have a master schedule to run by you all for review in about 2 weeks.

Update on Hang’s return: After resolving some miscommunication, we have confirmed that Hang will return on April 9th and will work half days for two weeks.  Ms. Ha will have her last day on April 20th.  At that point, Ha will move to her new job as Events Coordinator!  Yes, Ha will be the new Giang and will be working out the admissions office.  SSIS is so lucky to have her! 

HelpDesk Improvements:  This is a recap of an email from John Nguyen regarding HelpDesk:   We would like to encourage you to start submitting your tickets directly to https://redmine.ssis.edu.vn.  This approach should minimize surprise to you as you transition.

In the not too far distant, we will redirect the http://helpdesk.ssis.edu.vn to Redmine directly and retire the Google doc page.  After the summer, we would also like to discontinue using the email to submit tickets due to the fact that we like to enforce “due date” during the issue creation process.
As you can see, this will help us better manage our projects and provide transparency for the users.  I invite you to explore the Gantt chart to see how tasks are scheduled throughout the issue cycle.  Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact me directly.

NY Times Subscription:  Just in case you missed the email from Lara Keller:

We have begun a one-year online subscription to The New York Times.  Please follow the steps below for unlimited access to the NYT using your SSIS email address (your students can follow the same steps to create their own accounts):

  • Visit nytimes.com/passes.   Create a free NYTimes.com account using your school email address.  If you already have a NYTimes.com account associated with your school email address, log in with those credentials.
  • Check your email inbox for our confirmation message.  Click on the link in your confirmation message to validate your email address and claim your Pass.  If the confirmation email didn’t arrive, check your spam folder. If it isn’t there, send an email to edu@nytimes.com from your school email address to request confirmation. 
  • You have successfully claimed a Pass when you see the Start Your Access screen.  Now you can enjoy seamless, full access to NYTimes.com, INYT.com and NYT mobile apps from any location, on or off campus, just by logging into your NYTimes.com account. You may download NYTimes mobile apps at nytimes.com/mobile. 

HINT: Remain logged into your NYTimes.com account to have seamless access to NYTimes.com and our mobile apps for the duration of your Pass. Visit nytimes.com/passes to view your Pass expiration timestamp at any time.

MS Video – Connections:  If you haven’t seen the newly produced video featuring MS, be sure to take a look.  Thank you to all who helped in getting footage for the video – and thanks to all the rest who continue to do great work in the middle school.  My hope is that we will at some point feature each of you in a segment.

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