Staff Bulletin for the Week of September 26

Professional Time

This Wednesday will be planned by our curriculum supervisors from the Office of Teaching and Learning.  You can expect to receive an email from them at the beginning of the week.

BE Events for Staff and Students

Notes:  Admin/Guidance will focus on Counselor Watch students.

The School Leadership Team will be Friday, 9/30.

Home Varsity Athletic Events

Food for thought

We're sharing some of our professional practices, readings, and thoughts on BE Brightspots and would love to see more!  Please consider joining.  That said, trying to tweet thoughts about professional practice can be challenging with a character limit.    

I was listening to a podcast this week about "Renegade Leadership" .  Sounds scary, I know.  The podcast was about engaging our digitally-native learners.  What I found most interesting about what I listened to was the "Renegade CODE", an acronym to help us think about what our current students find most engaging:  C-Collaboration, O-Ownership, D-Digital Connectivity, and E-Experiential learning.  I'd love to hear how you're using these elements and the impact it has on students!  Email or post your comment to our page!

News, Notes, Reminders

Social Networks:  It has come to the attention of Dr. Brisson that many of the social network authorization forms were not filed within the district technology office.  Therefore, they are asking that teachers who are currently using social media sites for classes, clubs, activities, or athletics, will need to fill out this form.  When completed, please forward it to dianeskelsky@ci.bristol.ct.us   When filling out the form, please be sure to initial the bottom box.  Please feel free to put down my name for authorization.  Please complete the form and send to Diane as soon as possible.  I'm aware of twitter pages for BE athletics, Girls' soccer, the class of 2017, and cross-country.  Forms will need to be completed for these pages and any social network accounts that have been created.  You can review the social media policy in our BEHS--Shared Google Drive Policies and Practices folder.

Fobs are here:  The fobs are here and ready for you to use.  Please pick up your fob from Sandi Marseglia.

Mini-grants:  A GREAT OPPORTUNITY.  Please consider completing an application for a mini-grant this year.  These mini-grants offer a unique opportunity for teachers to try out their creative ideas.  The 45 minutes spent writing the application will be worth it when students are reaping the benefits for the entire school year.

Rachel's Challenge.  Rachel's Challenge provides extensive resources for teachers as part of their program.   I have CDs of Rachel's writings, the "Values" clips introduced in the presentation (and more), a music CD, and a pretty powerful CD of poetry written by Rachel or others about her.  Please let me know if you're interested in using any of them.

PD Opportunity.  Our connection with ECMC, a group that works closely with AVID to help support our first-generation college-bound students, shared with an opportunity for adult learning called "Persist:  A Comprehensive Guide for Student Success in Higher Education" designed to share strategies used at the college level to help students persist though their freshmen year.

Sock Drive:  Mrs. Burdelski's AVID class will be collecting new socks to benefit the homeless in our own community.  Boxes are located in various classrooms throughout the building.

Book and Game Donations:  BE and Beyond is collecting gently used books and games for the Boys and Girls Club center at Cambridge Park.  They'll be collecting items through to the end of the month.

BE at the Big E!  Remember Ted Keleher?  He sent me a few photos of BE at the Big E and wanted me to say hello!

Evaluation Documents for Goal-setting:  Without Bloomboard, the district has moved to distributing the evaluation forms on Google.  I've revised the two forms slightly to help teachers know how to manage that within Google.  If you're uncomfortable using Google, you can download the forms, complete them, and submit them as Word attachments to an email.  The forms are located in our BEHS--Shared folder under Evaluation Information and Forms.

         SLO Setting document

         PPO Setting document

You can begin to fill these forms out based on your department discussions.  You'll need to share or email both of these with your supervising administrator prior to your conference.