Sunday, March 28, 2021

First week of school in QTR 4!!

So many of us predicted 1 year of no "brick and mortar".  So many unknowns 1 year ago.  So many more answers now than we have ever had in this year of consistent inconsistencies.  I recognize the true toll this unprecedented year has taken on each one of us.  Amidst the numerous challenges and puzzles to solve, I am incredibly impressed with our transition to in-person mitigation strategies in action!  I am unspeakably inspired by your ability to learn, grow, adapt, and execute "concurrent teaching".  This model of instruction is temporary, yet your commitment to your craft has been ongoing throughout this 2020-21 school year!  It is a true testament to the education profession.  Parents KNOW the value of a highly qualified teacher!  Parents KNOW the challenges of partnering in education.  Parents KNOW that you never gave up on their student.  Students will NEVER forget YOU when they reflect on pandemic that changed the world in 2020.  Again, I am unspeakably inspired by all you have been able to accomplish as an educator!  

Please help us all see what is happening behind the scenes! 
Thank you, Bianca Fahy. You have worked overtime to help with so much this week! Cannot express enough appreciation for you. You rock! ~A. Shaw


Attendance 

After several district level meetings and discussions about a consistent marking of students once we return to in-person learning, the following guidelines are provided:

1) In Synergy there are now three (3) options for marking attendance (previously there was only the absent or tardy column).

i. ZM – zoom

ii. A – absent

iii. T – tardy


2) Though there are three columns, there are actually four options:

i. ZM – mark this for the students who are attending remotely

ii. A – mark this for the students who are absent

iii. T – mark this for the students who are tardy

iv. No Mark – this is for the students who are attending in-person

If you have any questions on attendance or please see  Christina. Thank you!

Wellness Committee Blog

Padlet updates

STAFF: https://padlet.com/jolynnevoorhees/5k9o0mbrrjwncvx 

STUDENT: https://padlet.com/jolynnevoorhees/ujzpbum12yj60ij6 


Snack Updates
Because of current USDA waivers and the cooperation of  FACTS teams, we will be able to offer healthy snacks to our students for FREE. FUSD will roll this out beginning 3/29/2021 at all elementary schools.  These snacks will meet USDA guideline for healthy snacks. We will have to have a roster sheet given to the food service staff each day indicating who has received it!  This is EXCITING!

Cafeteria Updates
Due to contact tracing efforts and Marshalls continued efforts to err on the side of caution and conservatism, it is important that we now provide a seating chart for lunches.  I know we are already by seated by class but I feel we need to have this documentation since students are eating with their masks off at 4 ft. apart.  We will assist this week in creating our cafeteria seating charts.  I appreciate your cooperation and this communication to students.  Classical music will play softly in the cafeteria.  I hope your students can draw their attention to nutrition and the calm music.  Finally, we will continue to remind students to "Mask up before you stand up". 
Lunch Count: Please put in your lunch count daily so the cafeteria makes enough food for our students.


Dismissal Procedures
Thank you all for your cooperation with a new dismissal format. With the limited number of students on the bus, we can properly socially distance ourselves in the gym as we did last year with grade-level supervision.  This means each grade-level will have to assist with 1 or 2 weeks of bus duty.  Social distancing will be enforced for all!  
I hope clarifying the following expectations will assist us all finishing our day as safely as we begin our day.  This also means that you will not have students until 3:45pm buying you more time for prep! 
Please share the following with your students:
1) Students must be dismissed by the teacher during grade level times, not the bell.  Please know that we need to be prepared and prompt during dismissal for our cohort hallway control. 
2) Students will walk directly to their designated area (gym bus line, FACTS, front entry for parent pick-up).  No bathroom stops or detours unless given permission by teacher. 
3) When in gym bus line, NO FOOD or DRINK allowed.  Social Distance 3 feet or more between students.  Keep all belongings packed up.
4) When loading a bus, all students must remain in a single-file line 3 feet apart (markings are outside to assist). We will load buses one at a time.  
5) We will begin loading at 3:25pm.  That gives them only 5 min. to get to the gym and line up. Again, no bathroom stops.  There is NO reason to miss a bus.  No time to lag.
6) Remember, you are the last impression of their time at Marshall.  Take a moment to wish them a good evening or ask about their day!  It goes a long way!!

Bus Duty Schedule
Two teachers in the gym, one teacher in the halls monitoring social distancing. 

Thank you!

Week of March 29th - 2nd Grade
Week of April 5th - 3rd Grade
Week of April 12th - 4th Grade
Week of April 19th - 5th Grade 
Week of April 26th - Special Area Teachers
Week of May 3- Kinder
Week of May 10 - 1st Grade
Week of May 17 - Resource Teachers
Week of May 24th - 3rd Grade
Week of May 31st - 2nd Grade

Schedule Updates

THE HUB has been updated with all of the Finals drafts.  Please note Friday lunch changes.  They are also linked here for your convenience. 

Final Master Schedule 

Final Lunch Duty Schedule

Playground Schedule for 3/29.  We placed signs out there to assist on Monday.  Please make sure ONE teacher from each grade level is on duty out in your section each morning at 8:20am when students are sent out there.  Thank you.  









Great news!

Marshall is very proud to announce that Ina Cocking (5th grade with Mrs. Krause) was chosen as the African Diaspora Advisory Council's Black History Month Essay Winner!  Please see the short video at the link below!  We are proud of all of our participants!   

 

COVID-19 Messages to Staff & Families

For now, you will only learn of a positive individual at Marshall if you fall into 1 of 2 categories: Direct or Indirect contact for exposure.  If you do not receive a message, that is because you are not considered to be exposed.  I am pushing the district for a 3rd message to go out to school communities (staff and families) explaining why they did not receive notification to avoid confusion.  I will keep you posted. 

Direct Contact:  Close contact with confirmed positive COVID-19 individual: close contact is less than 6 feet apart for greater than 15 minutes total in a 24 hour period with or without a mask. 

Indirect Contact:  Secondary possible exposure to a possible COVID-19 individual. 

With our older students, please talk with them about the definition of direct contact.  Their behavior out on the playground for what can be 20 min in a day could play in to a friend being quarantined.  Social Distancing while outside is important! 


THE VOICE UPDATE BY ANDREA SHAW


Covid 19:  If you teach and have a child in FUSD and your child's class has an exposure and needs to quarantine, do you also need to quarantine. No. You are an indirect exposure, your child is the direct exposure. If you need to take time off to stay home with your child you may use FFLA time (if this leave extension is approved by the board at the next meeting). If this leave is approved there will be 80 hours to use for Covid related absences. After that, or if not approved, you will need to use your sick/personal days. If you do not have or run out of sick or personal days and need to stay home with a quarantined child you will have to take unpaid leave. 

Teacher Kids:  Are teacher kids allowed in the building? This is a site by site decision. For safety reasons I know Janelle has decided that Marshall TK's cannot be in our classrooms to keep our cohorts as pure as possible. They must sit outside our doors in the hall if they are with us, masked and following all safety protocols. 

Bus:  Many of you know they are working on getting kids on buses. The issue is that students need to be pre registered to ride the bus. Parents need to call to pre register their kids. I personally did not know this, so this is helpful information to have and share with any parent who may be reaching out.

Contracts:  From what was said they are trying to get next years contracts in front of the board at the April 13th Board Meeting. 

Marshall Proud!: I want to personally add that there was a lot of talk about the different safety measures and protocols and schedules put in place at the different sites at this meeting. We have all had varying opinions about school reopening, but no matter how we feel we couldn't stop it. After listening to what is and isn't happening at some of the other schools I am super impressed with the plans that Marshall has put into place. I now know that these plans were thought out with safety of students and staff to the extent possible when we are open in a pandemic. They were thought out with protecting our morning time, and getting kids outside as much as we can. They were thought out with making specials happen, and protecting cohorts. They were thought out with lunches taking place safely, and prevention measures in place.  Thank you Janelle, and everyone who helped put together back to school plans. We are better off in our reopening plans and procedures because of purposeful planning! 

Coming Up

2nd grade bus duty

RTI BEGINS 

Monday, March 29
~Smooth sailing.  Snacks will be delivered.

Tuesday, March 30
~1:30pm Fire-drill!  Please prepare all emergency procedures with your students prior to the drill.  Please note that the siren in the new bathroom is VERY LOUD!  

~5:30pm Governing Board Mtg

Wednesday, March 31
~Last day of March, wow!

Thursday, April 1
~Welcome, April!

Friday, April 2
~1:30-2:00pm Staff Mtg via zoom for a few updates.



THE FINALE!
AZM2 testing schedule:
Monday, April 12th Third-Fifth grade writing
Tuesday, April 20th Third-Fifth grade ELA 1 & 2
Wednesday April 21st, Third-Fifth grade math 1 & 2
Thursday April 22nd, Fifth grade Science 
April 23 - No School Spring Holiday (9mo only)
April 30 - Final CAST PD 1:30-3:30pm
May 11 - Gov. Board Mtg
May 21 - Apple Classroom PD 1:30-3:00pm
May 25- Gov. Board Mtg
May 27 - Elem Early Release for grade book
May 31 - No School Memorial Day
June 3 - Last day with Students
June 4 - Last day with Teachers
Final reminder of FUSD calendar changes:
 April 26th and April 27th- ADE denied the district's request to waive these dates as instructional days due to Covid-19.  Mark them on your calendar as instruction days.
May 6th and May 7th - We had two snow days on Jan 25 & 26.  This means we will have regular instruction days scheduled to make them up.


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Sunday, March 21, 2021

Final Quarter, Final Push!

 Final quarter, final push of 2020/2021! 

Together, we rise.  Together, we finish strong!


Last year, I did not get to welcome you all back from Spring Break.  In fact, it wasn't until July 28, 2020 that the blog was resumed.  There is so much to process during this past year.  I took much time to reflect during spring break.  I am incredibly proud of us!  We never stopped working for our students.  We never stopped planning for their return to school.  We never gave up hope.  We continued to persevere.  We continued to support our students and each other to the best of our abilities.  We grew, tremendously.  We were more than enough.  We did this.  We all did this.  Now here we are, 1 year later, in our final quarter.  It will still be filled with assessments, final project completions, and seeing our students really achieve the greatness we are pushing hard for!  It will just take a little time to adjust to our new normal of the concurrent model, six lunches, and new Covid-19 mitigation strategies enforced throughout the constant changes in CDC guidelines.  This is our final push in preparing all of our students for their next grade level, and for some, our last chance in preparing them for middle school success!  Your students will never forget the teacher they had during the 2020/21 world-wide pandemic!  And I will never forget what you accomplished.  I am honored to work alongside you!
While I spent much of my spring break reflecting on all we have accomplished (wow, have we been busy), I spent most of my spring break resting and relaxing in preparation for the energy this final quarter will require.  I hope you too are rested and ready for our final push, together!



Wellness Committee Blog

March 22, 2021 

We hope everyone had as smooth of a transition as they could last week. Thank you for all of your effort and time that you give to our students! We hope that you were able to invest in yourself over this break and gain some rest. 

WELLNESS RESOURCES: 

Padlet updates for March 22nd

  1. **We have had a high number of student input on our Student Wellness Wall! Thank you for encouraging our students to participate, it has shown a heartwarming sense of community among our students. 

***PLEASE CONTINUE TO ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO ADD TO THE WALL AS RETURN TO SCHOOL, WE HAVE ADDED A COLUMN THAT ALLOWS THEM TO WRITE THEIR FEELINGS ON RETURNING OR STAYING HOME. 





SHOUT OUTS  (<--click) 
Please help us all see what is happening behind the scenes! 

Thank you: Mrs. Bianca Fahy for your coordination of Marshall's Scholastic Book Fair!

Food Service Updates
Grab and Go Meals 
Grab and Go meal pick up service will transition to buses that will be parked outside of the 10 elementary schools. The buses will be parked there from 9-10am every Monday and Thursday.  They will pass breakfast, lunch and supper for multiple days. On Monday they will pass out meals for Monday-Wednesday and on Thursday they will pass out meals for Thursday-Sunday. They will be continuing with the other current bus pick up locations (expect the 4th street location) with the new times listed on their website. 

Breakfast/Lunch
Breakfast and Lunch are FREE to all children 18 years or younger. FUSD will continue to run the SFSP (Summer Food Service Program) for the remainder of this school year. This mean that students do not need to have ID’s and we will not be using our POS (Point of Service) machines during meal service. 

Snacks
Because of current USDA waivers and the cooperation of  FACTS teams, we will be able to offer healthy snacks to our students for FREE. FUSD will roll this out beginning 3/29/2021 at all elementary schools.  These snacks will meet USDA guideline for healthy snacks. We will have to have a roster sheet given to the food service staff each day indicating who has received it!  This is EXCITING!

Supper
FUSD has currently been handing out suppers to over 80% of the families that pick-up breakfast and lunch for their students and would like to continue to offer this service. FUSD's current proposed method would be to have carts with supper available for students to grab as they exit the building. They would like to begin the supper program on 4/5/2021 at the very latest. 

Weekend Meals
Weekend meals will only be available on the buses in front of the elementary schools on Thursday at the designated times.

I want to share what I learned in a webinar and ask you too to relect.
Read through each statement below and give yourself a ranking from 1-5.
1-'Hardly ever' to 5-'Crushing it!'
Rank each of the 5 Daily Commitments. Then, any that you ranked a 1, 2 or 3...write those down and post them somewhere.  Make the decision today to get the 1, 2 or 3 up to a 4, 5 in the next few weeks. Just set the intention that you will pay more attention to those that weren't up to a 4 or 5.
We are life long learners and are determined to bring the best of us to our work, every day, because that is what our Marshall students deserve from us. 

1. Commit every day to deepen a relationship with at least one student. That means making a conscious decision to smile, take an interest, do a favor, give a compliment, inquire about what a person likes, wants or feels.

2. Commit every day to make it easy for your students to connect with you by smiling often, having open body language, positive non-threatening facial expressions and tone of voice, initiating contact, greeting them as they come into your room, etc.

3. Commit every day to take responsibility for your successes and failures. That means avoid blaming state policy, the principal, the parents, the student, the home life of students, etc.

4. Commit every day to revisit and remind yourself of your philosophies for life and for education. Why do you believe what you believe? Are your philosophies and actions aligned?

5. Commit every day to read something positive and to speak something positive. What we read influences our thoughts. What we speak influences our actions and those of others.

As Peggy Milan says: 'We never touch another so lightly that we do not leave a trace.'

Thank you all for your input and problem solving mindset!  

Mitigation Plans for reference

FUSD District Playbook 

District Safely Forward Plan 

FUSD COVID-19 Mitigation Plan Revised 2/16/2021 
FUSD's Return to In-Person Webinar

Marshall's Return to In-Person School Plan for families

Marshall's Return to In-Person School Plan-Detailed for staff

Handwashing Video for students
Proper mask wearing Video for students

Coming Up

No RTI this week as we have all cleared our schedules as much as possible to be available to support each other.  Please contact the front office so we can coordinate any assistance you may need during this awesome week of transition! 

Monday, March 22
~Welcome back to our In-Person Learners!  We can't wait!!!  4th quarter strong!

Tuesday, March 23
~Reach out to the front office staff with your needs!

Wednesday, March 24
~New Refrigerator installed in teacher lounge/work room!
~9:30am-11:30am Reasor in Elementary Admin

Thursday, March 25
~How can we improve concurrent teaching?  

Friday, March 26
~Optional FBA/BIP (Functional Behavior Assessment & Behavior Improvement Plan)  training from 1-3pm in the Science Lab (this was scheduled prior to duty-free lunch schedule).  All paraprofessionals invited too.  Wish to know more as a Gen Ed teacher?  Please contact Denise Hauer for more into.  



March 30 - Gov. Board Mtg
AZM2 testing schedule:
Monday, April 12th Third-Fifth grade writing
Tuesday, April 20th Third-Fifth grade ELA 1 & 2
Wednesday April 21st, Third-Fifth grade math 1 & 2
Thursday April 22nd, Fifth grade Science 
April 23 - No School Spring Holiday (9mo only)
April 30 - Final CAST PD 1:30-3:30pm
May 11 - Gov. Board Mtg
May 21 - Apple Classroom PD 1:30-3:00pm
May 25- Gov. Board Mtg
May 27 - Elem Early Release for grade book
May 31 - No School Memorial Day
June 3 - Last day with Students
June 4 - Last day with Teachers
Reminder of FUSD calendar changes
 April 26th and April 27th- ADE denied the district's request to waive these dates as instructional days due to Covid-19.  Mark them on your calendar as instruction days.
May 6th and May 7th - We had two snow days on Jan 25 & 26.  This means we will have regular instruction days scheduled to make them up.


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