The Cornelius Chronicle

April 1, 2016

Anita Archer Gems - these really are gems!!!

• Accountability - keep your students accountable!
• “Check your partner - some of you aren’t ready!”
• Monitor students during independent and partner work by walking around
• Choral response and cloze/choral reading

Lock Down Drill Feedback

Great job on responding to the unannounced lock down drill!  When Cheryl and I walked around checking doors and listening for noise, everyone was out of sight, quiet, and safely locked in classrooms!  Congrats to the 1st grade team who responded automatically when they were out at recess and did NOT enter the building rather walked their classes to the police station and called me on my cell phone (which was on silent) to let me know where they were!  That is EXACTLY what you should do, if you are outside when a lock down happens!  You don’t enter an unsafe building!

Fire Drill Feedback

I tried to get all of our required drills taken care of at the same time, as you noticed!  You did a wonderful job getting our students out of the building safely & quickly during the fire drill and following the protocols of having your “go kit” with your green OK sign or red HELP sign & class list!  A few things we noticed during the fire drill:  several doors were left open - including one inside hall door and outside door to the same room - which would allow a ton of oxygen to get into the building and spread a fire a lot quicker.  As you are leaving the building, make sure that your classroom doors are closed (not locked!).  If you see any other doors open as you walk by with your class, please shut them.  We also noticed that our fire doors that are supposed to auto-shut didn’t auto-shut because there was a door stop in them.  The door stop was there because the magnet attached to the door had come off.  So we have put in a work order to fix that.  This is the reason we do these drills: to find glitches in the system and fix them.

Cornelius Cruisers

Our Cornelius Cruisers program will REALLY be starting this week, Tuesday 4/5 - Thursday 5/12.  Every Tuesday and Thursday at lunch recess for 2nd-4th grades and the afternoon recess for K-1, encourage your students to walk/run!  It would be fun for teachers to occasionally walk/run with their class!  Staff may “dress down” on those days in athletic gear - please no short shorts!  :) Thanks to Melissa for organizing this program again!  Thanks to Cesar for tracking laps!  Thanks to Diego for tallying laps!

The 5K is May 14th!

Don't forget to sign up for the 5K race that benefits W.L. Henry Elementary this year!  http://www.teamupforstudents.org/

SBAC Testing

We will start SBAC testing this week.  3rd grade will be testing daily for the month of April from 11 am - 12 pm.  Please do not disturb their classrooms during that time!  

Tips on Successful SBAC Testing from HC, which already started testing!

Few things to watch out for:

1) Ensure your IA staff, who will be testing, have practiced logging in to the portal.

2) If you are using chrome books, you access the portal via the apps on the bottom left hand corner of the device.  Look for "Air Secure."

3) Make sure anyone who needs printing has been entered into TIDE.  The printing actually worked the first day.

4) Get familiar with the new interface.  It's not so busy but the drop-downs look very different and can be confusing.

5) We had a few issues with had sets but these were easily remedied.  

Most of our 4th graders finished about 10 questions.  I expect them to finish more tomorrow as the log-in process will go faster. We tested for 50 minute sessions.

#4 is referring to setting up the tests in the test session:   

TAs need to make sure they don't check the name of the test type box (CAT or PT), but click on the plus sign, and go down into the tests list to reach their specific grade level.  Also, for the Performance Tasks, they need to be sure and click the box in front of their grade level, not just one of the tasks underneath it.  Students will get a mix of all those in the list, teachers can't pick whichever one they like.  

I have already entered all of our student settings into TIDE for print-on-demand, bilingual math tests, etc., so you don’t need to worry about that!

Schedule for SBAC

April 4-8 3rd Grade Reading CAT

April 11-15 3rd Grade Reading PT

April 18-22 3rd Grade Math CAT

April 25-28 3rd Grade Math PT

May 2-6 4th Grade Reading CAT

May 9-13 4th Grade Reading PT

May 16-20 4th Grade Math CAT

May 23-27 4th Grade Math PT

Cornelius Kindergarten Round Up - Tuesday, April 5th from 4-6 pm!  For all incoming kinders and their parents:  meet the teachers, get a free book bag with books, and learn how to help your child be ready for kindergarten!  Parents need to bring a copy of their child’s birth certificate, immunization records, and documentation of a vision screening!

Spring Fundraiser

Encourage your students to keep selling gourmet food items for our spring catalog sales!  Our goal will be raising money to support spring field trips!  Students who sell 15+ items will earn a limo ride to have lunch at Godfather’s Pizza!  There will also be a competition for teachers who get their students to participate!  If 8 students sell at least one item, the teacher gets a free item from the catalog!  If 14 students sell at least one item, the teacher gets 3 free items from the catalog!  If 20 students sell at least one item, the teacher gets 3 free items from the catalog AND a $100 VISA gift card!!!  Fundraiser ends 4/11 - all money and orders need to be turned in by Monday, 4/11, to be eligible for prizes!

Oregon State Spanish Spelling Bee

Our 4th grade Spanish Spelling Bee champ is Sophia Matamala-Osores from Aillon’s class!!  She has been studying for the last month to represent our school at the Oregon Spelling Bee on April 8th at the District Office!  The top winner from the state of Oregon, combined grades 4-8, gets to represent Oregon at the National Spanish Spelling Bee in Texas this summer!  Congrats to Cornelius alum, Sydney Timm, for winning the 5th grade spelling bee and representing 5th grade at TM!

American Fidelity - OEBB Dependent Eligibility Verification

To keep costs down for everyone, it is important that we verify that our dependents who are eligible to be covered are covered and those who aren’t eligible aren’t being covered.

DEPENDENTS INCLUDE:  SPOUSE, DOMESTIC PARTNER, BIRTH CHILDREN, STEP CHILDREN, ADOPTED CHILDREN AND CHILDREN FOR WHICH LEGAL GUARDIANSHIP HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED.

At OEBB’s request, American Fidelity will come to each school site and verify with each staff member (one on one) which dependents are covered between June 1-10.  I have requested June 1st as our date for Cornelius with a backup date as June 6.  I will let you know which date they give us when it is assigned.

They will offer a roving sub to provide coverage to meet with each employee.  30 minute time slots are available to meet with each person, although some might only take 5-10 minutes.  There will be 16 appointments per day with 2 American Fidelity representatives per site, multiple days per site, possibly, depending on size of site.  

Dependents will be dropped July 31st if they don’t qualify and they will be flagged in the future, so that you can’t just re-apply for them during open enrollment next fall.  You will have a last chance opportunity to meet with an American Fidelity representative in July at the District Office, if you didn’t get an opportunity at our school site.  

If you are participating in OEBB, you will receive a letter in the mail stating who are your dependents and what documentation you need.  An email went out this morning describing what documentation is needed (it is extensive).  You will need to bring this documentation to the meeting with the American Fidelity representative to show proof of your dependents.  They will not collect nor photocopy your records, so you don’t need to worry about your privacy.  You are welcome to blackout info like SSN or other sensitive info.  If you are opting out of OEBB insurance (district-provided insurance), you don’t need to worry about any of this!

Congrats to Mr. Bustamante’s class for winning the district-wide pizza party contest for the most syllabus completion on ST Math over spring break!!

Reminders:

• None!

Bus Duty: 1st & 3rd grade teachers, and the “regulars”!

Calendar:

4/4 3rd Grade SBAC Reading Testing

4/4 Wear your uniform - NOT pajamas!

4/5 4-6 pm Kinder Round Up

4/5 6-7 pm Padres en Acción - Parent Club

4/6 8 am CIT: Data Teams - Post-Assessment Data

4/6 10-11 am Smokey the Bear visit (1st grade)

4/6 10:15-11:15 Early Learning Hour (ages 3-5) in library

4/7 10-11 am SLC Field Trip to the Fire Station

4/8 8 am 1st Grade Cougar Team Meeting

4/8 10 am Oregon Spanish Spelling Bee

4/8 10-10:45 am Professional Story Teller Event at Cornelius

4/8 1-2:30 pm 3rd Grade Field Trip to Virginia Garcia

4/9 Stephanie’s Birthday!

4/10 Alex’s Birthday!

Looking ahead:

4/11 Fundraiser ends - all money and orders need to be turned in for prizes

4/11 Aillion & Wolf Field Trip to Pacific U

4/15 Tax Day!