Week Ahead: Feb. 1-5

Happy to share the good news: David made it safely to Australia, through his quarantine!

So one good thing about not having time to post the blog on Thursday night … didn’t have to change anything due to the changing COVID situation :). As of now, the changes for the week include:

• Mandatory masks at all times and in all places
• Cancellation of all field trips and off campus experiences
• Cancellation of on campus events that involved other schools
• Postponement of Tet parties by divisions and departments for local staff
• Change Wednesday’s all school meeting to Zoom format
• Change Friday’s all school assembly format to virtual
• Interesting thing to note: In areas hit with the new breakout, some have been told to quarantine for 21 days … whether this is enforced for all is unclear … but best to know that extension of quarantine days could be possible.

Of course we will provide updates as quickly as possible. So for now – here is what’s up this week:

Monday, Feb. 1
Day 3, BCDA
1:30-3:00 Admin Mtg (Molly attends)
3:15-4:30 MS Leadership Team Mtg (agenda)

Tuesday, Feb. 2
Day 4, FGHE
*Happy Birthday Erin Johnson!
9:20-10:30 G Block G8 Drama Showcase (see Lisa S’s email)
3:30-4:30 Positive Education with David Bott (for new faculty members but all welcome)

Wednesday, Feb. 3
Day 5, CDAB
3:15-4:30 All School Meeting (Child Safety and Code of Conduct) via Zoom

Thursday, Feb. 4
Day 6, GHEF

Friday, Feb. 5
Day 7, DABC (special schedule see below)

Upcoming (on the radar)

• Feb. 8-16 – Tet Holiday
  • Feb. 12 Tet
• Feb. 18 – Rising G6, 7, 8 Parent Information Night
• Feb. 18 – Course Selection with current G6 and 7s
• Feb. 27-28 – Vietnam Tech Conference
• Mar. 9 – Early Dismissal PD SSIS In House Institute

Tet Activities and Friday’s Schedule: There are some fun things planned for this week to celebrate Tet (detailed Tet plan)! Please note that we added back in the Amazing Race activity on Friday. I apologize for the late notice of this schedule change. Key components for the week include:

• Monday-Friday: daily morning announcements related to Tet
• Thursday: Advisory lesson to create Tet wishes. These will be used in the Amazing Tet Race on Friday. All members of your advisory need to make at least 1 envelop for the Race plans to work.
• Friday – Special schedule to support Tet activity and assembly: We will be doing the Amazing Tet Race from 1-2:30. The day will end with a virtual Tet Assembly that will feature a performance from all divisions. We have a wonderful group of G6 students who volunteered to learn a new Vietnamese dance and will be performing in the virtual assembly via recording.

Please ensure that you show your first block the morning announcements each day this week. This is essential to a successful activity of Friday.  

• 8-8:55 Block 1
• 9-9:55 Block 2
• 10-10:50 Block 3
• 10:55-11:45 Block 4
• 11:45-12:10 Lunch/Recess
• 12:15-12:30 DEAR
• 12:30-12:55 Lunch/Recess
• 1-2:30 Tet Activities in Advisory
• 2:30-3:00 Virtual Tet Assembly

Traveling:  Travel Questionnaire: If you travel outside of HCMC (even on a weekend trip), you are required to fill this in. Thanks!

Peer Observations: The most common request coming from the Tripod reflection meetings is the desire to observe colleagues. This is an excellent way to learn from each other, from the collective experiences and talents of our team. Sometimes the work of the day gets in the way of our intention to observe our peers. One things I’ve reminded many is that even a visit of 10-15 minutes is valuable. You don’t have to give up an entire block to observe others. I’ll be helping support anyone wanting to do this! While some people might not mind drop ins, others appreciate a heads up that you’ll be visiting. So please just make a quick request to those that you want to stop in and see.

Meeting with Students and the Office: In order for the office staff to perform the duties associated with our positions, there are times when we need to pull students from class. Sometimes we can wait until convenient. Other times we do not have that flexibility (either due to the circumstances or due to our own schedules). We can sometimes use recess, DEAR, Dragon Time or advisory … but many times that just isn’t enough time. We do try to balance when we pull our frequent fliers. However, if you see to have the same student pulled frequently from your class, please alert the office.

Rejoined Association for Middle Level Education: We re-up-ed our membership in AMLE. I was going to post log in information on the blog – but realized that would violate the terms of membership 🙂 so check the email … Some of the resources you can access include:

• Access to current and back issues of AMLE Magazine
• Access to current and back issues of Middle School Journal
• Access to current and back issues of The Clearing House
• Access to current and back issues of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice
• Access to back issues of Middle Ground magazine
• AMLE Newsletter
• Access to all live and recorded AMLE Webinars on hot topics in middle level education
• Access to Leadership Roundtables, an open forum for sharing ideas and best practices
• Discounted conference and event registrations
• Access to comment on all articles at www.amle.org

Travel Questionnaire: If you travel outside of HCMC (even on a weekend trip), you are required to fill this in. Thanks!

Repeat Post – Fixing Contact for MS Office email: To contact Thao, please continue to use the msoffice@ssis.edu.vn email address. In order to have that email feature Thao’s name and picture and not Hang’s, you will need to adjust your contact. Please see the following instructions:

From ContactsSearch and find msoffice@ssis.edu.vn
You should see contact for Hang Vu.  Open this contact.

Click edit (pencil)

Click the x next to the Obsolete email address msoffice@ssis.edu.vn
Save the contact.