**Please check the Meeting Schedules (in the sidebar) and the calendar at the bottom for information regarding this week's meetings and events. Laptops are not required unless requested. Thank you for leaving them in your classrooms.
***Please bookmark the Mindset link so you can access it easily.
September
25th All Assessment Data due Uploaded to the Data Dashboard
~from the ES BBE
~shared by Krista
I came across this poem through one of my leadership groups. It is timely and relevant so, I felt it worth sharing with you.
~by John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, Time takes on the strain until it breaks; Then all the unattended stress falls in On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim. Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit. Gravity begins falling inside you, Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out. And you are marooned on unsure ground. Something within you has closed down; And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time. The desire that drove you has relinquished. There is nothing else to do now but rest And patiently learn to receive the self You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken And sadness take over like listless weather. The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit. Learn to linger around someone of ease Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself, Having learned a new respect for your heart And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
~Krista Zavits
As we continue to adapt to our changing environment, we must remember to give ourselves time. Time to process, time to adjust, time to ask questions, time to seek support, and time to step away and take care of our own personal well-being. This is a time when we need to lean on one another, support one another, and take care of one another. Our new reality will continue to change. Remember, we are all in this together and together we will survive and come out better than we ever were.
Weekly Overviews Replace Monthly Newsletter
We have confirmed the decision to move away from monthly newsletter while we are providing Weekly Overviews. Beginning Monday, October 5th, we will embed our Weekly Overviews in Weebly. The Weebly pages are set up so you are welcome to start this coming Monday, September 28th if your team is ready. Each Grade Level will have a page on their grade level site titled Weekly Overview. It is located in the same place the Newsletter page was located.
Instructional Leads will send a composer email to the grade level Weekly Overviews to all families by 8:30 am on Mondays using the following template as a guide:
Dear Parents,
We continue to look for ways to bridge the home-school connection while parents are off-campus. To help provide a window into your child's learning at school and support students who are required to stay home, we will share a Weekly Overview of the learning experience in Grade [__]. Included within the weekly learning overview, you will find the day and time for two weekly zoom opportunities and learning tasks for students who are unable to join us on campus due to illness or school requirements. Further information regarding assignments may also be provided to students off-campus to support their learning from home until they are able to return to school.
Encore teachers need to add their information to the Weekly Overview no later than 10 am on Fridays so that Instructional leads can embed the Weekly Overview into Weebly. This will allow us to continue to bridge the home and school connection and eliminate the need for the Monthly newsletter. We wanted to make sure you received this information before you started to work on the newsletter.
Backpacks for Forest Walks and Devices
We have purchased backpacks for all students (Gr. 1-5). Multiage and Kindy already have their backpacks. These backpacks will serve three purposes.
1. Classes can use the backpacks to take supplies (water bottles, snacks, learning materials) into the forest.
2. The backpacks can be used for EOTC trips to carry water bottles, lunches and learning materials.
3. The backpacks will also be used to send resources (iPad, headphones, and charging chords and other school supplies) home with students when learning is required at a distance.
The backpacks have arrived and are being labelled by room and IPad number. We are delivering them to grade levels as the labeling is completed. Please assign students the backpack that aligns with their iPad. Multiage and Kindy backpacks will also need to be labelled.
Student Contact Tracing
As communicated by Brett in Monday's Faculty Webinars, our next step to ensure the safety and security of all members of our community while providing optimal learning is to implement regular contact documentation. This will allow us to continue to engage in some crossover learning activities and allow us to maintain our current schedule.
Across the school (MA-12) our goal will be to document 15 minute+ interactions that are closer than two meters. In the elementary school, this means we need to capture as best as possible outdoor interactions and cluster groupings across classes. The purpose is to provide a more comprehensive picture as decisions are made about who to isolate when cases are identified. We recognize this will take time at first and appreciate your support and understanding.
Outdoor Interactions Across Classes
Erika and Krista have created this spreadsheet to document student interactions ( outside of your class) during morning, snack, and lunch recess. Directions for completing the document are found at the top of each grade level page. Teachers and assistants are asked to record who students recall playing with on this spreadsheet following the break or as soon as you have the students in your classroom again. If your children have encore classes for the remainder of the day, please work with the encore teachers to record the information on this spreadsheet before the children forget. We recognize the system is not perfect and will require time. However, it is a necessary step that will provide a better indication of student contacts allowing more informed decisions to be made about class closure. If you have questions or need clarifications, please see Krista.
Cross Class/Grade Clusters
In addition, teachers and assistants (core and encore) are asked to keep track of grade level clusters for activities including but not limited to math groups, book clubs, and co-teaching to ensure this information is readily available if needed.
Personal Contact Tracing
Teachers and Assistants are also encouraged to keep track of individuals you come in contact with during the day for longer than 15 minutes+ that are not part of your regular, core colleague group at school. This will also help us in the event we are making decisions as to who may have to be isolated and/or tested if we identify a case in the community.
~from the Associate Principal
A request was made to consider zoning children by grade level at recess time. This would narrow down contacts outside of the grade level. You can access the Zoning Plan here. To make the zoning work, we need to use both Playground A and B in the morning, as well as restructure the zones throughout the day. We are not at the stage of implementing this yet. However, we would appreciate your feedback about the Zoning Plan and what your thoughts are about implementation. Please complete this short survey by end of day Monday, September 28th. Thank you.
~From the Service Learning Coordinator (Piroska Nagy)
One of the most cherished traditions at AISB is our annual Walk the Wish event, which takes place every year in the Fall. Walk the Wish is an all-school event designed to support a Hungarian organization called Csodalámpa, an NGO similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation in the United States, whose mission is to grant wishes to children who are facing life-threatening illnesses.
This year, our Walk the Wish event will be unlike any other! Due to the current challenges we are facing as a community, holding our traditional community walk in the forest will simply not be possible. However, as we are still committed to supporting Csodalámpa and its mission, we will be having a Walk the Wish Week from October 2 to 11. In the ES, students will be asking family and friends to sponsor minutes spent on a physical activity, instead of kilometers. Students can record the amount of time they spent walking the dog, riding their bicycle, or taking a walk in the forest with their family. I would also like to ask Teachers to encourage students in participating by helping them count, add up and record the minutes they spent doing in-school activities, such as going on a forest walk, performing a PE activity such as jumping rope, or walking around the track field during recess.
Celebrating what we do for Walk the Wish as a community is a big part of the event. This is why we would also like to encourage you to take a picture of you and your students (GDPR permitting of course) participating in a Walk the Wish activity - according to our GDPR permissions of course - and put it in this folder so we can add it to a whole school Walk the Wish Slide Show, and to the yearbook.
Next week, we will be handing out the sponsorship forms. Watch the BBE on October 5th for specific information about the Wish children. We will also be asking one of the BBE roving reporters to check in with teachers and assistants about how they are supporting Walk the Wish Week this year. Thanks you, in advance, for supporting this worthy cause.
~from the DTL
This Tuesday afternoon we will have our first Curriculum & Encore/Student Support Conversations. Within your grade level team, please determine who will attend each Curriculum Conversation (Literacy, Mathematics, or Unit of Study) and set aside time at an SLC this week to share your learnings from these conversations with your team. Curriculum Leads (AC, KR, CM, and JG) will also ensure the minutes are recorded for future access. The links to the agendas are below.
Mathematics (Ashlee's room): Critical Area and Module Overview + Online Resources to support Hybrid and Distance Learning
Literacy (Karen's room): Reading workshop structures and routines. Please bring examples of journals, etc. that you are using in class.
Unit of Study (Corinne's room): Planning and Carrying out an Investigation. Please bring 1 example of student work showing how they planned and carried out an investigation in response to a presentation of a phenomenon. It could be a photo, a completed graphic organizer or work in a book/paper/document.
Encore teachers will meet with the EAL Team (EAL Agenda) in Piroska's room to better understand our students needs and how best to support them as language learners.