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):
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 DaySeptember 8 – Teachers and Paras report
September 16 – School Committee Meeting @ 5pm
September 21 – 1st day of school – Grades 1 – 12
September 23 – Start date for grades PreK - K
Office of the Superintendent
Election Day – September 1st
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 1st 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
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:
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 ServicesAll 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
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
- 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment