May 9 Update

Happy Friday, McKinley!

And, Happy Educator Appreciation Week!  I hope you felt the small gestures of appreciation and care this week.  You are truly an amazing group of people!  

Happy Mother's Day to all those in the building celebrating!  Thank you for being a mom at home, as well as caring for our learners here at school!  You are appreciated!  

Classroom Connection Day:

Next year, we will be doing "Classroom Connection Days" (formerly Before School Interviews).  The main reason for this change is to move this time to more of a conversation between the family, student, and the teacher.  We will not be doing the BAS assessment anymore.  There will be more information provided, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in case you started to see "Classroom Connection Day" being used.  More to come!  

End of Year - 2 reminders:

As we wrap up the year, please remember that the end of the year can be fun, as well as stressful (for students, as well as staff).   This stress can come from the unknown of summer break (having enough food, not seeing my trusted adults, etc) as well as the changes in schedules and consistency.    In thinking about this, I'm asking staff to do two things.  

1. Stick to your schedule, as much as possible.  We are still teaching and running a normal schedule up until the end of the year.  This provides that predictable environment for all.  

2. Do not have countdowns in your room.  This is a visual reminder for some (some are happy, but some have stress because of this).  If you have "21 days left", this sends two messages - we are only hear to "do the time" and after those days, I may not have the consistency and trusted adults in my daily life.

Perspective Matters:

As we close up on these last weeks of school, please remember that your perspective matters.  What view are you choosing each day?  

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Have a great weekend - and hope you mom's are taken care of this weekend!

-Justin

May 2 Update

Happy Friday, McKinley!

Lots of random, yet important, updates!  

Lunchroom Super Heroes:

A huge thank you to our Food and Nutrition Services team for all they do to keep each of our learners fed so they can do their best work.  Thank you to Jill, Stacy, Carol, and Sarah - we are so thankful for you.  Happy Nutrition Services Week!  

Educator Appreciation Week

Next week is the week to honor ALL of you! 

Track Meet - Tuesday:

Linked is the schedule for Tuesday's track meet.  Please take a moment to look at it (please note - all grades may be impacted, even if you aren't at the track meet).  It's suppose to be a beautiful day weather-wise for our track meet!  

Family Scavenger Hunt:

The below paragarph was shared with families yesterday.

Saturday, May 24 is National Scavenger Hunt Day! And, McKinley is joining in!

Below is an RSVP to request a family scavenger hunt kit. The kit, which contains everything you need to do a scavenger hunt at home, will be sent home with your oldest child on Friday, May 23. Your family can join in on the fun the next day to participate in a scavenger hunt!

If you are interested and plan to do the scavenger hunt, please RSVP below by Friday, May 9. Please only complete if you are planning to do this. One kit per family. Your family will do the scavenger hunt at home on your own timeline.

If you have questions, please reach out to our Main Office at 507.444.8200.

https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSdJASh7Wfb.../viewform...

Fastbridge Schedule & Plan:

Please take a minute to read below:  

Reminders for Fastbridge benchmark assessments:

• If, for any reason, you feel a student's score is invalid, please contact the building principal and coach to discuss whether the test needs to be re-administered. Our district coordinator monitors if a test is taken more than once to ensure the validity of district-wide results. Teachers should not be deleting scores and re-administering assessments.

•  Refrain from pre-teaching or practicing specific test items or passages.

Thank you for your help in maintaining the validity of our testing practices.

Click here to see the schedule and plan for Fastbridge testing

End of Year Dates/Stations:

End of Year Stations - Friday, June 6 (please sign up to lead a station)

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend - summer is coming!

-Justin

April 25 Update

Happy Friday, McKinley! 

Just a reminder - purchasing deadline is next Wednesday, April 30.  Please do not wait until the last day to enter something in.  

Educator Appreciation Week:

May 5-9 is a week to honor all of you educators (teachers, paraprofessionals, EA's, etc. are all educators!).  Below is our plan to honor you!  

Staffing Update/Sections:

Thank you for your flexibility with the staffing process this year.  Below is what our tentative sections will be (I say tentative because there could be a small chance we have to add or reduce if we lost a large amount of kids - rare, but could happen) - 

Kindergarten - 3 sections (Hugs, Brown, Schlauderaff)

1st Grade - 4 sections (Simon, Gonzalez, Larson, Bricko)

2nd Grade - 3 sections (Gadient, Seath, Wilke)

3rd Grade - 4 sections (Furniss, Seifert, Valentine, Thurnau)

4th Grade - 4 sections (Gilligan, Tepp, Baumann, Tolle)

5th Grade - 3 sections (Oppegard, Staloch, Rypka)

Special Education - Herbst, Schlueter, Biegert, Matt Williams, and a new .5 FTE teacher

PE - Smith, Melcher, Mark Clauson (.2) 

I am sad to share that we have three staff who will be moving to other buildings next year.  Melinda Clugston will be moving to Kindergarten at Washington and Chelsea Grambo will be teaching 1st grade at Wilson.  Additionally, Zach Waletich will be full-time at Washington next year.  We will greatly miss all three of these amazing educators and know they will do great things in their new roles!  

If I did not list a team or department, it means there was no changes. 

Friday Grill Out in May:

An annual tradition is our Friday Grill Out!  If you/your team brings the meat, I will have it grilled and ready for you at your lunch time.  Please sign up for a date and time on the linked sheet.   

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Have a great weekend! 

- Justin

April 17 Update

Happy "Friday"!

This week's update is a little heavy, but very necessary.  Please take the time to read each item.  

Educator Appreciation Week:

May 5-9 is Educator Apprecation Week!  At McKinley, each of you play an important role as an educator and should be honored.  Below is our plan to celebrate each of YOU!  More to come!  

Students, Technology, and the Anxious Generation (Guest Blogger - Amanda Andrews)

"The diffusion of digital technology into children's lives has been like smoke pouring into our homes. We all see that something strange is happening, but we don't understand it. We fear that the smoke is having bad effects on our children, but when we look around, nobody is doing much about it."

The student support team has been doing a deep dive into Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation. The book is filled with powerful data and thought-provoking information on the negative mental effects of social media and technology on our students. What can we as educators and parents do to help? Haidt provides some clarity:

1. No smartphones before high school. Parents should delay children's entry into round-the-clock internet access by giving only basic phones (phones with limited apps and no internet browser) before ninth grade (roughly age 14).

2. No social media before 16. Let kids get through the most vulnerable period of brain development before connecting them to a firehose of social comparison and algorithmically chosen influencers.

3. Phone-free schools. In all schools from elementary through high school, students should store their phones, smartwatches, and any other personal devices that can send or receive texts in phone lockers or locked pouches during the school day. That is the only way to free up their attention for each other and for their teachers.

4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That's the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.

"The two big mistakes we've made: overprotecting children in the real world (where they need to learn from vast amounts of direct experience) and under-protecting them online (where they are particularly vulnerable during puberty)."

6 Tips to Make Difficult Phone Calls Home More Manageable

Making a hard call home can be hard.  We often want to resort to "I'll send a message".  When it's a repeated behavior or a severe situation, it's better we pick up the phone and make that personalized connection.  Linked is an article on some ways to make this call easier.  

Although the article is short, here are the "cliff notes" -

In this Edutopia article, former teacher and PD specialist Liz Capone has these suggestions when calling home about a disciplinary incident:

• Start with reassurance. When a parent or guardian sees a call coming from school, their first thought is that the child was hurt. Capone suggests saying right up front that the child is safe. This heads off the parent’s worst-case fears and communicates that the educator is approaching the conversation “from a point of care.”

• Use nouns and verbs, not adjectives. Adjectives (disrespectful, disruptive) tend to be subjective and can be inflammatory, while nouns and verbs (Ava was watching videos on her phone during class) convey objective information and make it less likely that the conversation will go south.

• Don’t ask the parent to “talk to” the student. Saying that implies that the parent hasn’t already talked to their child about appropriate behavior in school, which comes across as judging their parenting. “It is a given that a parent or guardian would speak to their child about a major incident involving them at school,” says Capone. “Your only job is to let them know this happened.”

• Stay focused on the incident. This is not the time for a general behavioral assessment, questions about what’s going on at home, on possible consequences for the infraction (like not going on a field trip). For a parent learning about an incident for the first time, it’s best to stick to the facts and keep the call short.

• Try to add one positive note about the student. “Reference a prior example of when the student did make a better choice,” says Capone, “so the parent or guardian knows this is not the be-all and end-all on how you view their child” – perhaps saying that what happened is out of character for this child.

• End the call with a thank you. One possible approach: I thought you would want to know this as soon as possible, and I really appreciate your taking my call – which may very well be followed by, No, thank you for calling!

Toot Your Horn:

Don't forget to find those moments of positive glimmers!  And, when you do, don't forget to share it through the Toot Your Horn Form!  

Staffing - SAC:

I am sad to share that Maureen, SAC Supervisor, has resigned as the Site Supervisor.  Maureen is going to work for the City of Owatonna.  Maureen has been one of the best to work with!  Maureen will finish the year as for morning SAC, but will be done on May 2 for afternoon SAC.  Please join me in thanking Maureen and wishing her well!  

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Have a great long weekend!  And, Happy Easter to those who are celebrating!  

-Justin

April 11 Update

Happy Friday!

A short update this week...

MCAs - 

Just a reminder - MCA's start next week.  Please be aware of this as you move throughout the building - we have grades testing at different times.   Also, as Denise shared, the library is closed during these times.  

Track Meet Schedule - May 6:

Linked is our schedule for the Track Meet for 3-5th grade.  Please note - both lunch and PE times are different for all grades.  

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Have a GREAT weekend!

-Justin

March 27 Update

Happy "Friday"!  Happy Spring Break!

Furniture:  

Just a friendly reminder  - please take care of any items (from Bob Olson's email) before you leave for break!  If you have questions, please let me know.  

April 10 - Tornado Drill:

Please mark on your calendars that the statewide tornado drill is Thursday, April 10 at 1:45pm.  Please check the virtual office for the tornado map so you are aware of your safe spots.  

Staffing Update:

An update on Special Education for next year.  Matt Williams will be joining us next year s a K-5 Special Education teacher.  Matt is an Owatonna graduate, as well as a graduate of UMD with a degree in elementary and special education.  Matt is currently an intern in 761 at Lincoln and Wilson Schools.  Please join me in welcoming Matt to our team!  

We will be finalizing sections and other staffing after break - I will share with you when I know.   

Building Weekly Newsletter:

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Reminder - Monday, April 7 is a Connection Day! 

Have a great weekend!

-Justin

March 21 Update

Happy Friday!

Another great week at McKinley! 

How to Overcome Learned Helplessness:

One of the things we need to continue to focus on is creating rigorous opportunities where our students participate in deep thinking, learning, and productive struggle.  One of the strategies to help support students' learning is to avoid learned helplessness (in all aspects of a students' day).   Please take 2 minutes to read the linked article:  https://www.k12dive.com/news/helping-students-overcome-learned-helplessness-special-education/742588/

Check in on Vocabulary:

One of our big rocks this month has been around vocabulary.  At the end of our Staff Power Hour, we did a Call to Action around vocabulary.  How is that going?  What shifts have you made?   Dont' forget to check in with your accoutability partner before spring break.  

Personal Appliances & Furniture - coming soon:

Coming soon, you will receive an email from Bob Olson regarding items (in your classroom and work spaces) that are from home.  This includes fridges, lamps, microwaves, chairs, etc.  Because of safety codes and energy use, these items need to be taken home.  If a student were to get hurt on furniture (not purchased from the District), you could be responsible as the item is your personal item.  And, appliances are increasing our energy use.  More is coming - however, take some time to start removing these items before spring break.  If you have questions, I'm happy to connect.  

Building Weekly Newsletter:

Click here to access the building weekly newsletter

Have a great weekend! - Justin