Welcome Back!

Welcome back to a new school year! Yes, it’s the special bonus that teachers all around the world have. The opportunity to start a new year in August. With the new year comes the stressors and joys of starting up, the beauty of creating connections with students and colleagues, and the inspiration of setting goals for the coming year. As we go through these next 2 weeks, my hope is that we will feel connected, build relationships, and find joy in the work that we are doing.

With that in mind, please welcome our new colleagues. Most are here in Vietnam now (in and out of quarantine) but we do have a few still in the US (those are noted below):

• Julianne Athon – EAL, Team 7
• Cintia Bastos – Librarian, Team 8
• Sean Boyes – PE, Team 8
• Kevin Brodeur – ELA, Team 7 (in Arizona)
• Matthew Francis – Science, Team 8
• Bev Giacobbe – Social Studies, Team 7  (in Colorado)
• Deborah Jones – PE, Team 7
• Leif Larson – Choir (MS/HS Music) (in Colorado)
• Thomas Lupton – Math, Sci, Elective, Team 7
• Ellen Mussleman – Social Studies, Team 6
• Sonia Ortiz – Spanish, Team 7
• Jacob West – Math/Sci, Team 7
• Adele Van De Venter – Drama

In order to prioritize time spent connecting as well as meeting your needs, I have shifted some divisional time to team / department time. This means that this blog is even more important for sharing information. As you read through the information below, please note any actions that are required (like bookmarking certain things), and any questions that emerge (please email or chat at me right away).

Weeks Ahead: Aug. 2-13

Here is what’s up these next 2 weeks:

Monday, Aug. 2
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda

Tuesday, Aug. 3
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda
*Happy Birthday Ted Barnwell!

Wednesday, Aug. 4
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda

Thursday, Aug. 5
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda

Friday, Aug. 6
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda

Monday, Aug. 9
Full Faculty Inservice Agenda

Tuesday, Aug. 10
Orientation Day
8-9 Remote Student Orientation Meeting w/Students and Parents
9:30-11 New Student Tech Sessions
11:30-12 Welcome to New Parents Meeting
1-2:45 Orientation for All MS Students
3-4:00 Start 1:1 mtgs with Advisees
6:45-7:15 MS Welcome for Parents

Wednesday, Aug. 11
8-8:30 MS Assembly
8:45-9:30 A Block
9:45-10:30 B Block
10:45-3:00 1:1 mtgs with Advisees

Thursday, Aug. 12
8-8:30 Advisory
8:45-9:30 C Block
9:45-10:30 D Block
10:45-11:30 E Block
1-3:00 1:1 mtgs with Advisees

Friday, Aug. 13
*Happy Birthday Clayton Filter!
8-8:30 Advisory
8:45-9:30 F Block
9:45-10:30 G Block
10:45-11:30 H Block
1-3:00 1:1 mtgs with Advisees

Upcoming (on the radar):

• Aug. 26: Curriculum Night
• Sept. 2, 3: Vietnamese National Day, No School
• Sept. 17: MS Movie Night

Full Faculty Inservice:  This week is a blend of all school, divisional, grade level team, and department work. As we go through the week, I want to reassure all of you that we know personal needs (like shopping) will likely need to take priority during typical work hours. We will be recording the all school and divisional sessions and linking them on the agenda doc.

In order to support teaching and learning, the vast majority of “all school” time has been dedicated to Virtual Teaching and Learning. Huge thanks to Daniel Mendes and Thomas Galvez for creating this training series. It will be a relevant, practical look at best practices. You will also see a session on Positive Psychology presented by David Bott from the Positive Education Institute. The focus of this session is on practical solutions for building relationships with students virtually. You should leave both of these sessions with applicable strategies that you can implement in the first weeks of school.

The divisional focus during inservice will be on building connections as colleagues and gearing up for the start of the year. We will stay focused on immediate issues and practical, relevant information/applications to support both teachers and students.

When time is allocated to departments, the goal is for teachers who teach the same courses to have time to collaborate and plan. This time is not meant for vertical alignment or other larger curriculum issues. Those can wait until school is up and running.

When time is allocated for grade level teams, the focus will be on ensuring a smooth delivery of Orientation and Dragon Days lessons as well as discussing and planning for relationship building experiences with students. Some of these activities might need a bit of coordinating so that students don’t experience the same thing in every class.

In preparation for inservice, you should have completed the Schoology modules. If you did this back in the spring, you might want to take a quick look again to refresh yourself. The session on Schoology will focus on the grade book connections (between Schoology, PowerSchool, and PowerTeacher) and other set up needs.

1:1 Check In with Molly: I will be scheduling a 1:1 meeting with all MS faculty and staff. My goal is to complete those in the first two weeks of us being back. This is a time for me to connect with each member of the middle school division, hear what is on your mind, and understand your current goals. I will be booking these times – so please be looking for them on your calendar and in your email. If the time does not work for you, please let me know, and I’ll find another.

Orientation Day and Advisory 1:1 Meetings:  We are making a commitment to have a 1:1 meeting between every student and their homeroom teacher or advisor in the first week of school. You will see that the schedule for the first 3 days of school has been altered to allow time for that. A template structure for those meetings will be provided to support teachers in having successful 1:1 meetings.

Last year, we had each advisor create a video introduction to be shared with the advisees’ parents. Here is the folder that contains last year’s videos. Please prepare this again (due by Monday, Aug. 9). I am currently exploring how to use FlipGrid to create a more interactive experience between teachers and parents. You can prepare your video ahead of time while we get the FlipGrid details sorted. Please upload your video to this folder: 21-22 Advisor Videos (Orientation)

Here is a visual of the schedule for the first days of school. The full doc is here MS and HS: Week 1 Schedule … note this is a working document where we are defining the content in different parts of the orientation program.

Dragon Days: Dragon Days is an essential part of the start of the year for middle school. It ensures a successful transition and orientation to the structures, processes, skills, and routines of middle school. The sequence of these lessons will be reviewed to ensure they make sense for virtual school. We will also look to add any key components that might be relevant in virtual school but are not already included in the Dragon Days scope and sequence. The scope and sequence as well as the lessons through Aug. 20 will be provided to you by Friday, Aug. 6 so that they can be discussed at the grade level team meetings.

Remote Student Program: We are identifying students who will not be able to attend school synchronously (right now it appears that there are about 6-8 of them). These students are classified as Remote Students. We will be supporting these students with a remote support coordinator. This coordinator will work with teachers to streamline communication and support those students in their learning. Further details of this will be provided next week. This new position should alleviate some of the pressures we experienced last year supporting out of time zone students.

Tech Support and Instructional Tech Coach: Starting the school year virtually creates an even greater dependence on our tech team. In order to provide the best support possible, please keep the following in mind:

• Technical Issue: All technical issues must go through the helpdesk:
  • Sound isn’t working?
  • Screen won’t share?
  • Camera isn’t functioning?
  • Fan sounds like an airliner taking off?
  • Can’t log into Schoology or other school product?
  • Students aren’t appearing correctly in Schoology?
  • Material from PSLearning isn’t showing up in Schoology?
  • These are all issues for the helpdesk; expected response time is within 2 hrs
  • If you have an urgent issue (must be resolved immediate), please call or text David Perkin (+84 77 518 9332) or Khiem (+84 90 699 4787)
• Pedagogical Issue: Issues related to teaching and learning will be supported by the Instructional Coach for Technology, Daniel Mendes.
  • How do I use a particular tool?
  • Can we add a particular web-based service or app?
  • What is a tool that could help me accomplish XXX?
  • How can I use Hapara (or other school system) more effectively?
  • How do I achieve XXX in the virtual setting?
  • How can I assess XXX in the virtual setting?
  • Please note that Daniel will be working adjusted hrs in order to support his young children / family needs. He will be available after 10am. He will not be available in any way (directly or indirectly) from 7:30-10am. If you have urgent pedagogy needs during that time, please contact me.

Small Adjustment to VS Daily Schedule: In order to give more flexibility to schedule Dragon Days and advisory, both the MS and HS have adjusted the last block to run from 1:45-3:00. This allows for a 30 minute block from 1-1:30 to be used as we see fit. For the first few weeks, we will be using this time for Dragon Days (which is the umbrella term for our orientation, transition, and advisory program in the first weeks of school).

Assessment Focus: In keeping with our focus on assessment, we will be administering the Star360 reading and math assessments at the start of the year. This will be done in ELA and math classes. As a division, we will analyze this data and determine general as well as individual student needs. Silver lining: we administered the reading virtually at the end of last year … so we are now the model for the rest of the school 🙂

Keeping Organized: Working virtually means we need to spend even more time on communication and ensuring things stay organized. One thing to check is to make sure that you are viewing the following Google Calendars. Events are only located on 1 calendar … this is based on who the target audience is. So if it’s something that parents/students need to know, its on that calendar (even though it also applies to faculty as well). This is so that when changes are made, the changes only need to be made on 1 calendar (this reduces the possibility of miscommunication). If you need assistance in turning these on, check out this article on the Link. So please ensure the following calendars are always visible on your personal calendar:

• MS Day Calendar
• MS Faculty Calendar
• MS Parent/Student Calendar
• AS Faculty Calendar
• AS Parent/Student Calendar
• Professional Development