AHS Faculty/staff news

Good evening! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Friday I had the pleasure of watching a few of our students record their graduation speeches for WACA-TV.  I am thinking of them all and hoping they know how impressed we all are with them. It has also been a difficult few days watching the news and worrying about how many of our students are experiencing the current situation. I hope you will all join me in letting our students of color know we are here for them and are a voice for them. We will have a faculty check-in at noon on Tuesday, June 2nd. Looking forward to seeing you then! A reminder that students can not come to the building for anything., unless it is arranged by me. Please do not direct them to come to the office for anything. Class of 2020 Graduation parade: Sunday, June 7 at 11am The parade route to celebrate the class is posted below. They will leave AHS at 11am. Teachers should plan to be at AHS by 11:30 at the latest. We anticipate it will take them about 30 ...

Good afternoon all! I hope you are well. Today would have been the last day of classes for seniors. While many of them are excited for the news I just shared with them, I feel for the kids that can't participate. I think I mentioned this at faculty meeting but please use next week to encourage students to hand in any missing work and wrap things up. Likewise, as you plan out the next few weeks please use the week of June 15 in the same manner. Don't give new assignments that week as we will have a lot to figure out in terms of grading/credit/transcripts and will want to support you in closing out the year. Term 3 is currently set to close on June 16. Term 4 is set as June 17-18. There is some behind the scenes work that needs to be done to make sure the process goes smoothly. Stay tuned. I am moving our Faculty Check-in to Thursday, May 28. We will be at the building returning student belongings on Tuesday and will be doing that set up in the morning. Many thanks to those of yo...

Looking forward to connecting with you if you are available tomorrow (Tuesday). Topic: Faculty check-in's Time: May 19, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/188287480?pwd=c1BlemFVcytCSEVBRllKV1FvaDJXdz09 Meeting ID: 188 287 480 Password: 932647 If you are in cleaning your rooms please don't worry about missing anything.

 Good afternoon- It was so nice to see many of you in person this week. I am missing the connection with all of you so much. If you signed up for times next week but have finished you can remove yourself from the list. Please make sure to leave your sign-out sheet and book cards in the blue recycle bin on the table in the lobby. Any folders, books, materials that were left in the lobby for the enrichment period should be returned to your rooms. If you would like to share a short message with seniors wishing them luck please have them to me by Friday, May 22nd. I am anxiously awaiting the Governor's guidance on graduations. He will be sharing that on Monday. At this time faculty can not be present when the students actually receive their diplomas on June 1-3. We do hope to have a plan for faculty to be present for the parade on June 7. I know that the volume of email has been overwhelming to keep up with. My inbox has never looked the way it does and I have missed things.  I am...

Good afternoon all- It was wonderful to see some of you today. It certainly showed how important in-person interaction is! Thank you for working so hard during this time of remote learning to get your classrooms ready for the summer clean. I have attached the High School Guidance issued by the Commissioner last Friday here. I think the language around graduating seniors is important: "Our goal is for Massachusetts high school graduates to demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to successfully complete entry-level, credit-bearing college courses; participate in certificate or workplace training programs; enter economically viable career pathways; and engage as active and responsible citizens in our democracy." I think this is a good starting point when thinking about seniors who may be in danger of not earning credit.  It s wise to think about seniors in terms of "were they on track to successfully complete your course?" before this happened. If you...

Happy Friday all! I hope you had as wonderful as a Teacher Appreciation Week as possible in this time. You are all very appreciated!  And a very happy Mother's Day to all of you who are positive mother figures to children, especially this year. You were all cc'd on the letter to seniors but I wanted to share it here as well. My hope is the faculty can be a part of the graduation parade on June 7, 2020 by lining the drive of Ashland High School for the parade. I shared with the seniors today that 77% of respondents listed having faculty and staff as a part of their celebration as important (4-5 on the scale). Letter to the Class of 2020 re: Graduation plans Here are some reminders from the email sent by Barbara Durand regarding clean-out:  End of year check out 2020 form Each teacher may sign up for a maximum of four (4) sessions.  If you think you will need more than the four slots, please email Barbara Durand and me to let us know.     I f you are not on the li...

Here is this week's Student Wellness Survey . Please record any student you have not had any contact with after trying to reach the student and their family. Please use this form even if you have communicated your concern to a counselor or Dean. A Thank You from the PTO Thanks for all that you do! I will share guidelines/checklist for classroom clean-up tomorrow. 

Good evening all! I hope you had a great Wednesday. Because of the building access schedule for next week I will be canceling faculty and class meetings.   By now, I assume you have all read through the plan provided for the clean out. This plan was devised collaboratively with the AEA and Central Office staff to ensure the safety and well-being of all staff members. Thank you for your understanding and flexibility.  This plan is currently intended for staff t with an assigned space that needs to be cleaned/closed up in preparation for the summer cleaning. I recognize that other staff often play a role in this process but the current slots are for staff that have a classroom or office space assigned to them. ESP's who want to get into the building to pick up personal items should plan to be in the building no longer than 10-15 minutes. You can come in during any of the slots to simply grab belongings. Please do not plan to come in when the teachers you work with will...

Good evening all- I hope you enjoyed the weekend. The beautiful weather certain helped to lift spirits in my house. Jut wanted to let you know I will have limited availability tomorrow during the day but will respond to emails as quickly as I can. The senior class meeting will be held on Friday this week. See you all on Tuesday at noon for our Faculty Check-in.

As we continue to work through this process and learn from each other, I updated the Student Wellness Survey to make student and parent contact attempts as a required field on the form. Those attempts should be outside of sending the assignment in Google Classroom (i.e.- individualized). We do recognize people's comfort level in using personal phones to contact students and parents as well as the use of technology to hide your number. If you feel like email communication is your preferred method to reach a family, that is completely okay. I just ask that you are directly reaching out to the student and parent before putting their name on the sheet.  After getting feedback this morning I have again adjusted the settings on the parent attempts so that you can move forward on the form. Hopefully that helps. Many of you may have reached a parent after one email or call and received information that they need support to get their student engaged. The form lists three attempts ...