AHS Faculty/staff news

Welcome back - I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving and had a chance for some downtime. Better late than never I'd like to welcome to Jacoby James Phillips, born on October 30! Mom, dad, and big brother Jude are super excited and all are doing well. And welcome back to Jimmy!  We are also so excited for the Moshkovitz family. Thanks for sending the pics of Horatio. We will miss you the next couple of months Mosh but know you will be enjoying all the special moments at home with Ray. Matt Banks will be serving as the long-term substitute for Mosh until he returns.  NEASC news: Thanks to Marybeth and Bill who have been working hard to pull together the work you have all done over the past two years to finalize our NEASC Decennial report. Our visit is just two weeks away. The team will be joining us virtually December 13-16. The schedule will be developed in the next couple of days and we will let you know if the team members will be virtually joining you. Thanks to all of you wh...

Happy Thanksgiving week- At the risk of sounding redundant, I am thankful for all of you. I have heard the feedback to stop being so positive and stop wishing you a restful weekend. I have tried to temper that recently and have always said those these things with the full understanding of how hard each and every one of us is working. But as we head into Thanksgiving I'm not going to stop being positive and hoping you have some rest. You have worked hard and I hope you find creative ways to celebrate and give thanks during the extra two days we have this weekend. We have so much to be grateful for as a community, we have colleagues that are caring and supportive. We have kids that want to see us. You have administrators that know how lucky we are to have you in our building each day and wish we could do more to support you. A very wise educator on our team shared at a meeting last week that it feels as if the joy in learning is gone. This sentiment was quickly agreed upon by all at ...

Good evening- I wish you all the best as we start Term 2. I know you are looking forward to meeting your new students. I continue to be grateful for you and the work you are doing with our students. It is so hard. Please don't hesitate to reach out to counselors if you feel a student is not placed correctly in your class. Administration is here for anything we can do to support you. If you saw Jim's email you know we had two new positive cases at AHS this weekend. We are lucky to work for a district that is willing to be so transparent. We also need to respect student and staff confidentiality. Please remember that I will reach out if there is a student  in your class  who was in school and tests positive. With those cases you are not considered a close contact of any student as long as you are abiding by our expectations of mask wearing and social distancing. The situation still brings anxiety for us all. I recognize that and we aim to support you in every way possible. At th...

A few updates a day late...my apologies who were waiting for Sunday night reading. :) I hope the last week of Term 1 is going well. As a reminder, the grading window will open Friday, November 13 and will close at 3pm on November 18. Picture Day: Tomorrow and Thursday are picture day. We are going to attempt to set up in the auditorium since it is not being used right now. Grynn & Barrett will make the determination when they arrive. If the space does not work they will set up in the gym. We will call small groups of students by grade and alphabetically, probably 2 letters at a time. Please remember faculty and staff should have your picture taken as well.  Faculty meeting: We are scheduled for a faculty meeting this Thursday. I will be on GoogleMeets for any questions you have from 3:40-4:00pm. Please use this form for Questions & Concerns . Use the remainder of your time to plan for Term 2.  I will also share a "What Went Well-What Should I Change-What Do I Need As...

Good afternoon- Thank you for a wonderful day of PD yesterday. It was nice to focus our conversation on equity and social/emotional health of students, knowing what the next few months might bring. I hope you found some time to practice self care yesterday or today.  As we continue to wait for results I anticipate there will be some stress among students when we return. Sentence Starters for Facilitating, Pausing, or Turning a Difficult Conversation How We Can Support Students with the Election and the Results in a Culturally Responsive Way - recent article by Henry Turner, Principal at Newton North HS Let's Talk- Teaching Tolerance - A great handbook for having difficult conversations with students. I have a couple of hard copies in my office, you can PDF a copy, and you can bookmark the digital copy. Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions, concerns, or if you need support navigating challenging conversations with students over the next few days. It's fair to sa...

8:30 am Equity training slides : Shared vocabulary padlet Allies & Co-conspirators: Breakout rooms activity AHS Exit jamboard Time: Nov 3, 2020 08:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82349931589?pwd=Z0haUGI0ZnFFNmZaRWFBbWh5MmtzUT09 Meeting ID: 823 4993 1589 Passcode: wNPRg4 10:15 am MyLife training: Here is the link for the MyLife training as well as the educator checklist that we would like everyone to have for the training.  Link for MyLife for Schools Training MyLife Educator Checklist There was an error made in some uploading of classes. This is being corrected and your lists should be accurate in the next few days. 11:45am:  NEASC work   (click this document to see NEASC information and assignments for the afternoon).  Working group updates template : Each working group will receive a GoogleMeet invitation at 11:45am. Plan to meet for 20-30 minutes to discuss the actions you took as a group and what you feel you acc...

Good evening all- Here is the schedule for our PD time on Tuesday.  November 3 Professional Development: Our PD day will consist of 3 activities. We will meet as a faculty online at 8:30am for Part 2 of our Equity training. Thank you for all of the work you have done this year to support students in this area. The current situation creates so many issues of inequity that many of you have brought forward. I hope this session helps you to continue to keep this work as a focus as you prepare for Term 2. 8:30 am Equity training: Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88497425226?pwd=UThRb1k0UWl5djhRK1pqMS85UTNYQT09 Meeting ID: 884 9742 5226 Passcode: nb93Cz 10:15 am MyLife training: Here is the link for the MyLife training as well as the educator checklist that we would like everyone to have for the training.  Link for MyLife for Schools Training MyLife Educator Checklist 11:45 am NEASC/department work Our NEASC visit is still scheduled for December 13-16. We did a lot of wor...