The Week Ahead

Advisory Slides Link

Monday, Oct 19

• Kids on campus 8:00 am - 3 pm with Andrea (until 12:30 pm), Molly and Alexis in the Library. Please see the list of students below. Clare to cover 11:45 am - 12:15pm.
• Shelli and Nate out at ForeFront training (here for advisory)
• Internet Safety Presentation by Seattle Police 2:20 pm via Teams
• All students and faculty to be present. 

Tuesday, Oct 20

• Kids on campus 8:00 am - 3 pm with Andrea (until 12:30 pm), Molly and Alexis in the Library. Devon to cover 11:45 am - 12:15 pm.
• Character Strong #5
• MS Leadership Team 2:30 pm 

Wednesday,  Oct 21

• Kids on campus 8:00 am - 12:30 pm with Andrea, Molly & Alexis in the Library. Ruth to cover 11:45 am - 12:15 pm.
• Kyle out for part of the day. Molly and Alexis covering 
• Alex out until 10:00- 10:45 am 
• Grade Level Team Meetings  - 
• Grade 6 - 2:00-2:30 pm 
• Grade 7 - 2:30-3:00 pm 
• Grade 8 - 3:00-3:30 pm 
• The announcement will come around 3pm if we are returning to campus Monday, October 26. 
• Parent Education Series online: Dr. Lauren Ashbaugh 

Thursday, Oct 22

• Kids on campus 8:00 am - 3 pm with Andrea (until 12:30 pm), Molly and Alexis in the Library. Ruth (Clare normally) to cover 11:45 am - 12:15pm.
• James Kissler (future Grade 8 Teaching Assistant) on campus for training (more details to come)
• MS Preview online 10:30 - 12:00 pm (Student Council and Clare)
• Character Strong #5 OR Advisory Challenge if no school on Friday 
• MS Faculty Meeting 2:30-3:30 pm 
• POTENTIAL TOWN HALL if we are returning to campus

Friday, Oct 23 - IF NOT RETURNING TO CAMPUS ON MONDAY, OCT 26

• Kids on campus 8:00 am - 3 pm with Andrea (until 12:30 pm), Molly and Alexis in the Library. Ruth to cover 11:45 am - 12:15pm.
• James Kissler (future Grade 8 Teaching Assistant) on campus for training (more details to come).
• Advisory Challenge in PM advisory 

Friday, Oct 23 - IF WE ARE RETURNING TO CAMPUS ON MONDAY, OCT 26

• No students on campus. All classes canceled. 
• MS Faculty on campus to set up. 
• Grade 8 Teaching Assistant on campus for orientation.
• 8:00 am MS Faculty meeting via Teams (link will be sent)
• 1:00 pm Grade 8 Team Meeting (to debrief new Grade 8 Teaching Assistant)

Action Items

• New: 
• Sunshine Notes: Please attempt to send 2 sunshine notes each day this week. Please review the list of Sunshine & PC recipients but remember that this data is not automatically updated once a note is sent. 
• Subject Goals: As we discussed at the MS Faculty Meeting, we are moving away from written subject narratives (welcome to 20 hours of your life back!) and are instead asking for daily sunshine notes. To help us still guide the necessary progress our students need to make, we are asking that in your subject collaboration times, you start to brainstorm a bank of goals that are applicable across all three grades in our subject. These may be heavily focused on ATLs (here are the top ten ATLs for each subject we listed last year and our top ten ATLs for us as MS that we used for recognition awards). But they may also be focused on other areas. With our new focus on Responsibility and Formative grades, it would be very helpful to have some goals that are centered around formative assessment if they are specific to your subject too. Responsibility goals seem more universal, and so Shelli has already brainstormed goals (feel free to add) that are associated with Responsibility goals and could cover any subject. There are a lot of ideas and goals but don't worry about having too many at this time, we can go through and prioritize later. This will be divergent thinking in action! We really want to get started on these goals ASAP so that we can collaborate on the language, format, etc., well in time for the end of the semester. Please share the document you start of your subject goals with Shelli and me and we are happy to join subject meetings if you need our support. 
• Parent Conference, October 30: Please check which families have responded to your conference email and have signed up for a slot. By next Thursday, please reach out again if you have not heard back from any families to schedule a time. Here is an overview of the directions and talking points we discussed at the MS Faculty Meeting.
• Continuing: 
• Who's on campus? If you need to find someone, here is a link to the results of the Google Survey I asked folks to complete by Monday morning. Here is the link to the survey and here are the results of MS Faculty Teaching Locations.  
• MYP Teacher Qualifications Survey: Please complete the survey that Angelica mentioned in the faculty meeting. 
• MYP Summatives: Here is the link to the folder for you to submit your examples. Please contact Angelica if you have any questions regarding these.  
• Summative Assessments: As you start to assign your first summatives, we want to be able to give families a heads up about what is approaching. One way we have decided to do this is through the Grade Level Blogs. You will find a new tab on the Grade Level Meeting Doc called Units and Assessment. Please add your summatives here so that the Team Leaders can add this information to the blogs. Please see Will's Science example in there already.
• Grade Level Teaching Assistants & IAP kids: Molly and Alexis will be in as of Monday to support all our IAP students. We will also be extending the time our IAP students can be on campus Mon-Tues and Thurs-Fri until 3pm. This will start this Tuesday and this additional time on campus will be supported by Molly and Alexis, not Andrea. If you know you need to meet with an IAP student during Office Hours, please copy Molly and Alexis on the emails, so they can help support our kids to make sure they keep their appointments with you. 

Changes to the Week Ahead, Updates, & Reminders

• Students on Campus this week: 
• Grade 6 - John Saul, Augi, Ben, Glorian, Nora, Ireland, and Laila
• Grade 7 - Joanne, Reagan, Bella, and Lydia B
• Grade 8 - Audri, Copper, Alison S, Raya, Mia S, Jaewon, Sydney R
• James Kissler (Grade 8 Teaching Assistant) will be in on Thursday and Friday for training in the Library. More information to come. 
• Internet Safety Presentation: This has been rearranged from the spring and will be similar to previous years in regards to the scope of material. Please follow up with a conversation with your classes in advisory about their thoughts and any additional work we may need to do. 
• Pumpkin Carving: You may have seen in the Flash about this fun event planned for the week of October 26. If we don't return fully, we plan on inviting students back by grade level on separate afternoons to carve pumpkins in their small advisory groups. More information to come regarding this in the MS Faculty Meeting this week. 
• Curriculum Night on myAW: Please take a look at the Curriculum Night tab on the Resource Board. The videos (Spanish will be added next week) and the overviews are already added. 

Technology Help

• Opening tabs automatically in Chrome - Thank you Kyle for creating this video to help kids. 
• Teams reminders
• A short video reminder of how to mute students directly through the chat or through settings.
• To stop the use of GIFS, stickers and memes, please follow these directions:
• For each of your teams, click on the three dots 
• Then, click MANAGE TEAM
• Then, select SETTINGS
• Then, in FUN STUFF, de-check the boxes that allow for GIFS, stickers, memes, and custom memes
• How to Set Up Break-Out Rooms in Teams Video This is a great short video to watch to help you with 
• How-To Technology Resources This is the Google document that has links to how-to written guides about Teams, Google Classroom, Microsoft Office, etc. 
• Having a tech issue or need support from Erik or Eric? Please don't email, but submit and helpdesk ticket at helpdesk.aw.org. Please pick Online Academic Continuity Plan as the request type (it's the first choice on the list).

Sandra's PD Corner 

Mid-October. WHAT!? This has been simultaneously the longest and shortest year. Amirite?

Tomorrow is the first day of the 9-day Navratri Hindu Festival. Happy Navratri to those who celebrate! For more October dates, please see here! 

Reminders:

• PD Opportunities tab:
• I want to highlight a series of sessions beginning 10/20 and ending 1/26, sponsored by the Mental Health Technology Transfer Network on the Interconnected Systems Framework. Topics include racial violence, mental health, trauma, BIPOC educator well-being and more.  Sessions are free and will be recorded if you can’t participate live.

• Community Life:

• Do check out the General, Community and All School Fun channels in the Faculty and Staff Team on Teams! 
• This week's QOTW: If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be? I can't decide... so many places I'd like to see!!
• Can't WAIT for Jean Young's pandemic version of Didactic Demon/Pumpkin Pixies? If you are haven't signed up yet - she's picking names on Monday 10/19!! Shoot her an email!!
• And lastly, here is the link for the "comment box." Reminder that this is for if there's anything else you need in terms of COVID support in the classroom, COVID testing questions, concerns about things you see, etc. - whether you just want to let us know or want someone to follow up with you.

Absent Students

• Follow this link for Anticipated Absent Students

Kudos!

• To the Math, Humanities, and Spanish team for producing their subject overview videos for Curriculum Night. The additional hard work did not go unnoticed and I appreciate your effort in clearly communicating the three-year goals of your subjects. 
• To our new folks - Amanda, Dimpy, Scott, Ana, Nate, and Heidi. You all continue to impress me (and other teachers) on your ability to jump in and find your feet so quickly. Thank you for this massive effort and the sincere and thoughtful questions you ask. It is hard to tell that you are the newbies any more!

The Month Ahead

• Please see the MS Calendar for now.