Thursday Memo - August 27, 2020

Words from Grace

Food for thought:

So, the question is not: Do you love all children? The question is: Will you fight for justice for Black and Brown children? And how will you fight? I argue that you must fight with the creativity, imagination, urgency, boldness, ingenuity, and rebellious spirit of abolitionists to advocate for an education system where all Black and Brown children are thriving. I call this abolitionist teaching. To love all children, we must struggle together to create the schools we are taught to believe are impossible: Schools built on justice, love, joy, and anti-racism. - Bettina Love, Ed Week

Family Survey - Let's do this! 💪 💪 💪:

In order to plan effectively, schools need to know whether families are choosing remote or hybrid options and whether students need transportation. The district goal to reach all families is Friday, 08/28/20. Central has been on a campaign to reach out, and we have reached over 25,000 families so far. I know many of you have already begun, but we need your help to reach 100% of families. Here are the links below with information on how to conduct outreach (also available in Post #1):

• How to access a list of students who have completed the form
• How to access the unique link for a student
• How to fill out the form on behalf of a student
• How to get an access code for a student who is not on your completion list
• How to access student responses in Aspen

Please see our region's progress below by school:

Now, see how we are doing compared to other regions (Feeling competitive - we need to be in the all dark green category, please and thank you! 🤣 ):

A few reminders about A/B/C groups:

• You cannot yet inform families which group A/B they are in, and you cannot move students between groups even if there are no transportation restrictions. You must maintain space in the A/B groups in case students decide to return to hybrid at a later time.
• If you have issues that need to be addressed, fill out this form, contact your PandA team member, or email us at projections@bostonpublicschools.org.
• Please wait on identification of group C to start on October 1. For now, let's assume a hybrid start and then add the other two days if social distancing is possible. Keep in mind that not all families of students in group C will opt into in-person schooling.

The remainder of this blog post contains information all leaders will receive today as part of the Thursday Memo.

Important Dates

September 7 – Labor Day

September 8 – Teachers and Paras report

September 16 – School Committee Meeting @ 5pm

September 21 – 1^st day of school – Grades 1 – 12

September 23 – Start date for grades PreK - K 

Office of the Superintendent

Election Day – September 1^st

Tuesday, September 1st is election day in the City of Boston. As you know, many of our school buildings are used as polling places. Xavier will be sending a letter to school leaders today as we always do in previous elections.

Polling Locations for September 1^st can be found here.  The letter to School Leaders with polling sites can be found here.

Division of Academics

Professional learning opportunities for Early Childhood grades can be found here. - Jason Sachs

Division of Accountability

Talent and Leadership Development

In collaboration with the Division of Finance, the Office of Talent and Leadership Development is excited to offer two differentiated sessions (beginner and intermediate) related to school budgets on September 3, 2020 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am. Session details and registration can be found here. Contact Monica Hall, mhall4@bostonpublicschools.org, with any questions.


Transformation School Leaders
The most recent guidance from DESE is that any updates to transformation school plans are due Sept 30th. To support these efforts the Office of School Transformation is meeting with department leads during the next two weeks to review and revise the universal expectations. We plan to have any updates/changes by the week of Sept 7th for your review.  -Kelly Hung

Reopening Planning
Panorama Student Success: In the upcoming weeks, we look forward to supporting school leaders and staff in learning more about Panorama Student Success. This document provides an overview of the purpose and district expectations (draft):

MTSS & Panorama Expectations Draft 8.25.20

This Google site provides an array of resources for asynchronous learning:

BPS Panorama Student Success Help Site

More info to come next week about synchronous PD & Training

Division of Student Family and Community Advancement

The Office of Student, Family and Community Advancement asks that all schools with a Family Liaison work with the Family Liaison to schedule family learning sessions on how to use the e-learning tools and platform that will be used by your school. The Family Liaisons have been trained and are prepared to run sessions. The sessions provided by OSFCA will prioritize families from schools that do not have a Family Liaison. -Monica Roberts

Division of Human Capital

Here is the slide deck from OHC's school leader meeting on 8.21.20

Payroll and Employee Services

All schools should be running the following BPS Timekeeper's queries to ensure the appropriate staff are reporting to the school. Please review these queries with your school secretary.

BPS Payroll Employee Review - Run after 8/29/20 to insure all employees are accurately assigned to the correct school/dept. See link to timekeeper queries below.

• Notified OHC of any employees who are showing on report who have resigned or retired
• Email resignation letters to Deborah Pullen at pullen@bostonpublicschools.org
• Email Deb Pullen with the name and ID# to check on any Intents to Retire
• If an employee is transferring to another BPS school or dept, contact your staffing team to look into the position change

Absence reports

• School Secretaries should be running the Unapproved and Approved absence queries weekly
• Reviewing unapproved absences with school leaders and both reports against sign in sheets from 9/1/20 to 6/30/21.
• Links to the training on how to run BPS Unapproved Absences and BPS Approved Absences Link to the training on How to Access Timekeeper Queries

Division of Finance

To respond to school's urgent and rapidly changing needs this fall, we will be hosting regular strategic working sessions for school leaders and schedulers to start envisioning strong remote and hybrid schedules. These sessions will run almost daily until the start of school, and school leaders and schedulers can attend as many sessions as they find helpful. These will evolve over time as more information becomes available, but I will always focus on collaborative work time so ideas can be shared and problem solved. For more information click here.

Note: These sessions are distinct from Aspen scheduling and will focus on the strategic decisions that need to be made before committing the schedule into Aspen.

Division of Operations

Operations Questionnaire

• Thank you to all who have completed the Operations Questionnaire. Responses are being reviewed by department leadership and once reviewed by department leads with Sam and Teresa the appropriate operational team member will reach back out to you with the next steps. Further direction will be provided on this during this week's operational school leader call.

Early Childhood Classroom DESE Update

• DESE released updated guidance that does allow classroom rugs to remain in classrooms. The guidance does outline soft furnishings need to be removed from classroom space. The Department of Early Childhood is drafting guidance on materials to remove that will be shared with leaders. The Facilities Team will outline the process for packing and moving these materials on the weekly School Leader Operations Call.

Medical Waiting Area

• It is highly recommended that building leaders identify existing rooms that can be utilized as Medical Waiting Areas. We cannot perform heavy construction (i.e. new stud wall partitions; doors; plumbing for sinks; lighting; fire alarm and/or electrical) to create rooms within existing spaces. We also must be cognizant of what is allowable by the Massachusetts State Building Code with regard to egress and fire separation in existing hallways or rooms.

Post #1 Phasing In, Carter School, Resource Links, and Tasks

We successfully launched the year through an antiracist lens. We have a calendar to start remotely and students will phase into the hybrid model before Thanksgiving.  You have access to your A/B groups and survey results. Planning has begun in earnest with this concrete information. I've inserted the phase in dates below for our reference.

There is a lot to think about - I chunked time through the end of September to frame the work that needs to get done between now and then before we welcome back our high needs students into the hybrid model. It's easy to get overwhelmed; take small steps, one day at a time!

August 24 - September 4 2 weeks Prepare	September 8-18 2 weeks/9 days Professional Learning	September 21-September 30 2 weeks/9 days
Reopening/Ops Plan	Wk 1: Remote PD	Launch remote instruction (ALL)
Prepare for PD (more information to come)	Wk 2: Report to site 9/14 PD + prepare classrooms	Establish strong relationships and routines
Match family selections with teams of staff	Family Connect/Tech Check	Prepare to welcome students with high needs

Featuring Carter School

I met with Principal Mark O'Connor, Nurse Sharon, and Day Manager Mike DiAngelis last week to walk through the building since it is likely students whose families choose hybrid will start October 1st. It's remarkable to me how Mark uses the UDL lens for everything when planning. For example, he knows some of his students will not be able to wear a mask - thus, the school will plan ahead with that in mind - not wait until there is a problem. We looked at how to keep students socially distanced in the classroom, at entrances/exits and discussed traffic patterns to minimize contact. Carter students have underlying health conditions that could literally mean life or death if exposed to the virus (or any illness for that matter), so protocols will need to be developed and  followed carefully as many students require hands-on support. Mark is monitoring family responses and staff will need to think more broadly about teaming to share the remote and in-person responsibilities. On top of all this, Mark has been working 24/7 with architects, city and district facilities teams to complete the visioning of, and first phase, of the new Carter building, which is going before the School Building Committee for approval on Thursday. The new Carter will be a state of the art facility, the first of its kind in the country. #BPSProud #BostonStrong2020

Links to Resources

• BPS 20-21 Adjusted Assessment Calendar (Based on Sept 21 start)
• BPS 20-21 Professional Learning Template (Make a copy - template aligned to assessment cycles)
• Communicating with Families Toolkit (from Parabola Project)
• Learning Heroes Family Engagement Resources including the Parent Teacher Planning Tool (English, Spanish)
• How to Prepare and Care for Your Classroom Checklists
• EL Flex Curriculum for 20-21 (Access to Digital Expeditionary Learning Resources)
  
• School Leader Meetings Information (Optional Meetings Notes/Information)
  
• Partnership Fund Guide (Need to repurpose funds? Search for "Waiver" in doc to learn how.)

• Translated Reopening Plan

• ALI Resources (Decks)

• BPS School Leader Communication Hub (Under construction - one stop shop for information)

Access Family Survey Information

The team has produced a number of guides on how you can access information about your students:

• How to access a list of students who have completed the form
• How to access the unique link for a student
• How to fill out the form on behalf of a student
• How to get an access code for a student who is not on your completion list
• How to access student responses in Aspen

We will work collectively as a district to contact every family to document their selection. We have set August 28 as the deadline for submitting the form so that we can complete all preparation work. For families who do not reply, students will be assigned into the hybrid model and to school bus transportation if eligible.

Families with questions about the form can contact reopening@bostonpublicschools.org or the Transportation Hotline at 617-635-9520.

School Safety Plan Submission and Contact Information

This is a friendly reminder that your safety plans are due for submission by August 26, 2020. Your plans are in the following folders by school from last year: Grace's 19-20 Region, Welch's 19-20 Region, or Driscoll's 19-20 Region. If you need your plans shared with you please reach out to Rick Deraney, Director of Safety Services, at rderaney@bostonpublicschools.org or 617-212-2397. Please save your plans in this Safety Plans Folder for Region 6. Please submit your plans in a timely manner to allow for proper review and support by Director Deraney. All plans need to be reviewed by Safety Services prior to the DESE district submission deadline of September 1, 2020.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
When you are completing your plan please DO NOT COPY AND MAKE THE CHANGES. Make all changes in the original document using "suggesting mode" so Rick can see changes in the file. Please make sure you update section 4 student enrollment. After all your updates are complete, change the school year in the title section from SY19/20 to SY20/21 and put in this new Safety Plans Folder.

Reopening Plan Information (from M. Riddel)

First draft due Friday, August 28th. It's okay that some of the information is incomplete. You and your teams can continue to refine it through September.

Each school has a personalized version of the template, which can be found in the Shared Google Drive folder called *Shared School Reopening Plans SY20-21. Your school copy is where you should enter all responses and where your School Superintendent and central office teammates will be reviewing your responses. You can see all school plans, but only have permission to edit your school’s. Any input that you have already provided via the Facilities Questionnaire/Tracker is pre-populated into the relevant fields of your school’s reopening plan. You can find more information about the spreadsheet and the process here.

Backpack Distribution

Pick up backpacks through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 pm at the John McCormack Middle School, located at 315 Mount Vernon Street in Dorchester backpacks allocated from Cradles to Crayons are available for pick up. 

Please enter the driveway on the OPPOSITE side of the school from the food pick up site, pull in, do a U turn and stop at the bottom of the handicap ramp. Please do not enter the building, as we have volunteers inside, someone will ask you your school name and wheel out your backpacks to you. 

The list for allocation is available here. Allocations of 100 or less should be able to fit into an empty sedan. Allocations of 200 or less should fit into an empty SUV and minivan. These guidelines are from Cradles to Crayons.

We ask everyone to sign up for a pick up time on this spreadsheet. Lisa Harvey from the office of OSFCA is on site, but will have limited ability to connect.