Friday, January 9, 2015

Staff Bulletin for the Week of January 12th

We will meet in Advisories this Wednesday. Mr. Higgins will be sending out more detailed information this week. Students will receive their schedules for semester two in advisory this week.

This Wednesday we will have a department meeting followed by a faculty meeting in the cafeteria. We will send out the times of each later this week. We will be working on beginning the NEASC follow-up process.

Bristol Eastern Events at which you can show your support:

Announcements:

Mini-grant awardees! At a reception last week, several of our staff members received grants to support their innovative and creative projects for the school. Our grantees are: Liz Burdelski for her grant Access to Success, which will provide plexi-file holders for hanging next to each grade nine door for easier access to work that students may have missed to absences; Keagan Radziwon for a document camera to build science content knowledge and science literacy; Colleen Cyr and Kelly Thibodeau to purchase audio-books for several of the texts used within the English curriculum. While not funded as a grant, Erin Wininger's proposal to provide an opportunity for students to meet with individuals working in various careers over lunch is going to sponsored by the Bristol Business Education Foundation on an on-going basis. These individuals went above and beyond in thinking about how they might be better able to reach their students and as a result brought back to Bristol Eastern great opportunities for students. BE had the most grants awarded throughout the district.

New Bathrooms! The girls' and boys' bathrooms next to room 200 are open for use beginning this week. Please let your students know that all bathrooms on the second floor will be locked with the exception of these two. Students who are in second floor classrooms should now be using only the second floor bathrooms. You can also let students know the tremendous effort it took to make these two bathrooms functioning again after 20 years of non-use and ask that they respect our desire to provide our students with a clean and safe bathroom to use. There are cameras in the hallway directly outside of the bathrooms which we'll be monitoring.

Academic Bowl:The Academic Bowl this year will be held on March 28th at Lewis Mills High School. This is the 20th anniversary of having the academic bowl. As part of the celebration, the committee is looking for individuals who may have competed in the bowl in its early years to follow up on what they are doing now. If you know of anyone, please let me know.

Reminders and Due Dates:

Student of the Month: Do not miss this opportunity to recognize those students who have demonstrated our core expectations around responsibility and respect. Please be sure to enter your nominations here for student of the month: https://docs.google.com/a/bristolk12.org/forms/d/1-i7HpozrADx3bkvDKSwqJFWqgK3IbpFKIxU7sxcYM_0/viewform

Newsletter: We're not having a monthly newsletter this year, but rather a seasonal one. If you have an item for the winter (Nov-February) newsletter, please email me by January 15.

Attendance data: If you're a special education case manager, please remember to submit your notes regarding attendance on the shared Google drive.

Meetings for teachers:

Guidance/Admin meeting: We will be discussing students with 504 plans. If you have a concern about a student with a 504 plan, please let his/her guidance counselor know.

Meetings for parents:
7:00pm Performance Arts Booster Club

ArtScience Prize Exhibition

The Boys & Girls Club and Family Center of Bristol has 30 High School students (10 BRISTOL EASTERN STUDENTS) working on Big Ideas in the

ArtScience Prize Program!

The ArtScience Prize supports young people to develop innovative art and design ideas that are both personally and societally relevant that are focused around a scientific theme!

The Bristol ArtScience Prize students are eager to share

their innovative ideas with community members, partners & friends!

JOIN US!

Ideas-in-Progress Exhibition

Wednesday, January 21st

5 - 7 pm @ The Boys & Girls Club and Family Center of Bristol

255 West Street Bristol, CT 06010

This event is open to the public.

Light fare and refreshments will be served.

Our students are:

Alex Baughman

Billy King

Carli Beveridge

Wyatt Doyon

Julia Petrus

Kacey Clemenston

Rayvaun Ross

Tamhja Coe

Vaz Khan

Casey Adams

Please consider going by the exhibition to support these students!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Your Voice in School Decisions

Want your voice heard in school decisions? Try one of these three committees.

Governance Committee: In the past, it has functioned as a place where representatives from each department as well as students and parents can voice concerns they've shared. This year, concerns ranged from dress code to the temperature of the classrooms to the location of the English book room. We've noted that some of the concerns brought forward could be more efficiently handled with direct contact between the teacher and administration or other individual (our head custodian, for example). I want to assure you that if you have concerns such as temperature of your classrooms, volume of the loudspeakers, availability of lavatories, ISS notification, you do not need to wait until a Governance meeting to share your concern. Please contact any administrator with your concerns and we'll address them. How we'd like to use our Governance Council is to plan programming and policies. At today's meeting, we're going to review our core values and expectations and then we'll discuss at least four policy/programming concerns that have brought forward, prioritizing one or two for the work of this group. Right now, the following concerns have been brought forward: .25 credit course proposal brought forward by Bristol Central for freshmen, revising the promotion policy (i.e., how students are promoted to grade 10, 11, etc.), dress code, and implementation of student ID's. In the past, some departments have shared their representative duties but given this shift to developing proposals for these programs and/or policies, we would ask that you consider if you'd like to be a part of the decision-making body that would ultimately be bringing forward ideas and proposals to our district High School Council. Please let me or my co-chair, Melanie Vetrano, know if you plan on attending today's meeting. Governance Council meets the first Thursday of every month from 2:30-3:30pm in the library.

Our Operations committee is made up of the leaders of all of the various roles within the building: administration, teachers, guidance, athletics, library, special education, secretaries, custodians, nurses, our school resource officer, our building aides. We meet the first Monday of every month at 1:00pm. At this meeting, we discuss school concerns around the operations of the building or how our building functions, primarily the functioning practices of our building. Previous agenda items include: Safety and security procedures, parking lots, study hall and lavatory practices, student records, etc. Right now, the committee is working on making on our various safety plans and sharing thoughts for a possible renovation of our school. If you're interested in being on this committee and are available during that time, please let me know.

Our PBIS Committee as you know reviews our expectations and policies relative to behaviors and discipline in the building. This committee is a great place to start if you have concerns about student behaviors in the building.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Preparing for Second Semester

Midterm Exam Schedule

Based on today's date and school closures up to this point, these are the dates for midterms and semester end:

Date	Period
~~January 16~~ January 21	A (1-2) and A (3-4)
~~January 20~~ January 22	B (1-2) and B (3-4)
~~January 21~~ January 23	A (7-8) and A (5-6) REVERSED SCHEDULE
~~January 22~~ January 26	B (7-8) and B (5-6) REVERSED SCHEDULE

When entering exam grades into PowerSchool, you must use the dates of ~~1/21 and 1/22~~ 1/23 and 1/26 in order for PowerSchool to calculate grades correctly.

Please be sure you have read and reviewed the policies and procedures as well as the midterms for your courses from the Office of Teaching and Learning prior to the start of the exam period. Please contact your department chair with any questions or concerns.

In the event of a two-hour delay during the exam schedule, we will not administer exams on that day. The exam schedule will simply move forward. Barring any additional weather issues, we will administer exams beginning on ~~Friday, January 16~~ Wednesday, January 21 based on the schedule below.

We recognize we cannot administer exams during lunch periods. As such, we reversed the meeting times of all the periods (see the schedule below). We will start with the end of the day and work backwards. In this scenario, lunch will be held during the A3/4 or B3/4 periods. You will still attend the same lunch wave you are currently assigned. After looking at the numbers, we believe our lunch waves will be relatively normal given this change.

Friday, 1/23 and Monday, 1/26

Warning bells	7:25-7:34am
Exam 7/8	7:35-9:00am
Exam 5/6	9:04-10:35am(no announcements)
Period 3/4	10:39-12:31
	First lunch-10:39-11:04
	Second lunch-11:08-11:33
	Third lunch-11:37-12:02
	Fourth lunch: 12:06-12:31
Period 1/2	12:35-2:00pm

Wednesday, 1/21 Disregard this Wednesday Reversal Schedule--no longer needed.

Warning bells	7:25-7:3
Exam 7/8	7:35-8:54
Exam 5/6	8:58-10:20 (no announcements)
Period 3/4	10:24-12:12
	First lunch-10:24-10:48
	Second lunch-10:52-11:15
	Third lunch-11:20-11:44
	Fourth lunch: 11:48-12:12
Period 1/2	12:16-1:35pm

With these changes, we are able to start the exams on January 16 and end on January 22 (again, barring any weather issues). If we lose school days on account of snow, we will simply move the dates ahead by one day. Please post and go over the exam schedule with your students. Please let them know if we have a delayed opening, we will not give exams that day. Also, please make sure students are aware of the days we are changing the period structure (~~currently 1/21 and 1/22~~ currently 1/23 and 1/26). We will use Blackboard Connect (phone calling service) to keep our students, parents, and teachers apprised of any changes to the exam schedule. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Grades for Q2, S1, and Midterm Exams

Quarter Two will end on ~~January 20th~~ January 22. Please note that in order for PowerSchool to calculate grades correctly, all grades must be entered into PowerSchool with a date no later than ~~1/20~~ 1/22, that means, you will have to enter the date of 1/22 for work graded between 1/22 and 1/23.

Semester 1 will end on ~~January 22.~~ January 26th

Eligibility for students will be based on GPA and grades as of ~~1/26~~, 1/28. Please be sure your grades are as accurate as possible to this date.

We will begin QUARTER THREE on ~~1/23/15~~ 1/27/15. Students will receive their second semester schedules in Advisory on January 14.

Please note that dates may change. Revised copies of this document will be sent via email.

Student Support Options for Semester Two

We will have three options for students to receive additional support in place of their study halls for semester two: 1) Library, 2) Tutoring Center, 3) Workroom. These are excellent opportunities for students and we're encouraging you to utilize these options by scheduling students for these possibilities.
To do so:

Go to the workroom folder in google shared: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/#folders/0Bz1wCMZOfZFlUU1vVmc4NGpGWmc
Then find the date you wish to add a student. Open that spreadsheet.
You'll find the library tab first at the bottom of the sheet, along with workroom, tutoring center, and other.
Click on the tab for the place you'd like to send the student. Type their name for that period.
Please note that you can do this at any time.

Duties:

Please review the duty roster distributed at the start of the year since some assigned duties may change with the semester change.

Scheduling

First semester classes that will be ending

Teachers who have first semester classes that are ending should be sure that they recommend their students in PowerSchool for other classes. Once the semester ends, they will not be able to make recommendations. Directions for how to enter recommendations are being sent with this document.

Scheduling process for all teachers

We will be entering recommendations for courses between February 2nd and February 13th. You can determine when would be the best time to enter recommendations. When making recommendations you should:

Review course options for the next year in your area with your classes of students.
Know that you will need the course numbers when entering the recommendations on-line. These are available on pages 26-31 in the Program of Studies, available on our webpage.
Meet individually with students to discuss the course that will be the best fit for them.
Enter your recommendations using the directions attached or using the video guide. You could enter them with the student sitting next to you OR you can conference with the student and enter the recommendation at a later time (this feature is available from home).
If you recommend a student for a course when they have not met the prerequisite, it might be helpful for you to enter a comment.
Comments should also be made for those students moving up or down a level. Please do not write that you anticipate a student will fail the course. Simply write that they do not currently meet the prerequisites for the course.
Once you enter recommendations, please be aware that parents and students can see your recommendations from home.

Video of the link about how to add recommendations.

Here is the link to the video about the Recommendation process: http://youtu.be/3QOG8tkphcg
It is also located on our O: drive here: O:\Users\Teachers\DeptShared - Teachers
Please note that you can't search YouTube for this video as it is a private video since it includes student information.

Remember that recommendations are to be completed by 2/13/2015.

Recommendations for elective courses for students no longer on your roster: I can understand why many of you would like to make a recommendation for a student whom you've had in classes prior to this year, particularly in the elective areas, and while it might seem more possible now than it might have been in the past due to the use of the digital schedule, it isn't. If you'd like to recommend a student for a course, please email the guidance counselor with that information, but know that guidance counselors can't add a recommendation for a course so students won't see the recommendation on their registration screen. HOWEVER, when counselors do meet with students to review their requests, they will share that you, as a former teacher, thought they would be successful in the course.

Recommendations for courses that require a recommendation for students no longer on your roster: This applies to AP courses. If students want to request an AP course but do not have a recommendation, when they are working with their guidance counselor, they will be directed to complete an "Override Form" and have it signed by the teacher. The counselor will then enter the request.

DEPARTMENT SPECIFIC INFORMATION

WL: If a student does not meet the prerequisites for continuing in a language, you have three options: 1) Not recommend any WL course--note that you won't be able to add a comment so students may not know why they do not have WL recommendation, 2) Recommend the same course again with a comment that the prerequisite skills are not being met so the student is being recommended to take the course over again. This is only an option for WL courses. 3) Recommend another Level 1 language.

SPED: Please be aware of and follow what was recommended in the students' annual review.

SS: Grade 11 teachers--you fall into the two categories listed above. If you want to recommend a student for an AP course but do not think the student is thinking about it, you should do two things: 1) talk to the guidance counselor, 2) try to talk with the student. Ultimately, if the student chooses not to take the AP course, it would be their prerogative. For those students who want to take an AP course and need a recommendation, they will seek you out with an override form.

Smarter Balanced

Our testing window will be April 27th-June 12th. All testing must be completed, including make-ups by June 12th. CAPT Science will be taken on March 12th.