The EduGATOR!
Week of December 9, 2024
Professional Development This Week! (please read the safety part carefully)
We have a solid line up for PD on Tuesday.
GRS: Collaboration Time, New IEP Overview (GPAC), Safety PD (GPAC)
Elementary: New IEP Overview (GPAC), Safety PD (GPAC), Collaboration Time
A snack will be provided (sweets and fruit back by popular demand!) after the IEP training and before the safety training.
*A little note about the safety training--this is the safety training that is approved as the statewide safety training for first responders. All police, fire, and EMTs are being trained in a unified way of emergency response (ALERRT is the name of the training). They are intending to do some training with school staff to get everyone on the same page to align how people think about active shooters and the response required to keep as many people safe as possible (this part of the training is called CRASE). They have piloted this training in two other schools in the Boston area, but have not done a whole district and have not yet come to Western MA. From my understanding, this is not to replace the training that we already do, but to supplement and empower our staff to think about emergencies in a critical way to be able to make the best decisions for students.
We are one of the first schools in the state to receive this training, and it is a general safety training for all public workers, so at times, it may feel like it's not a fit for managing a classroom of young children.
Here is a press release on the training in general.
Because they have limited trainers, they are mostly focusing on first responders now and they hope to shift to schools fully next year or so when they have more trainers available and police, fire, and EMTs are trained. However, they sought us out to pilot their school training in Western MA. I have invited five other district superintendents and SROs to come observe, but they will be instructed to sit in the back for this part.
A full description of the professional development day can be found here.
DECEMBER Instructional Vision Challenge! (Yes, there are prizes!)
After a successful start in November, we will continue into December with inviting staff to share how YOU are implementing a part of our instructional vision.
This month's focus are the second two bullets in the instructional vision are:
- Gateway students will recognize their strengths and areas of growth to reach their potential.
- Gateway staff will believe in every student's potential.
Staff are invited to fill out a brief (2-3 sentences!) summary of how you are implementing this part of our vision. It can be specific or general, and it should clearly describe how your actions are moving this part of our instructional vision forward.
Here is the link to share!
To add to the board, click the plus sign in the bottom right corner and write in your submission. Finally, hit Publish and voila! You're done!
Staff who share how they are implementing or supporting implementation of December's focus area of the instructional vision by December 31 will be entered to win a $50 gift card to one of the following locations: Carms, Common Table, Moltenbreys, Amazon, Big Y, Dunkin or at a place of your choice that I can get a gift card with relative ease 😂
Free Asynchronous Course from DESE for Special Ed PDPs
If you are looking to renew your professional license and need special education PDPs, DESE offers a free course for educators and administrators to meet this requirement. It can be accessed by going to this website: https://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=23870
A little (9 paragraph) reminder about Gifts to Public Employees from the State Ethics Commission
With the winter holiday season upon us, the State Ethics Commission reminds state, county, and municipal employees that certain gifts may be prohibited by law. In general, public employees may not accept gifts worth $50 or more that are given because of their public position or because of an official act. There are some exceptions.
The conflict of interest law generally prohibits anyone from giving a public employee a gift worth $50 or more that is given because of the public employee’s position or in connection with an official act. Public employees are likewise prohibited from soliciting or accepting such gifts. Even if a gift is worth less than $50, a public employee would be required to file a disclosure if accepting the gift would create the reasonable impression that he or she would unduly show favor to the giver.
Most gifts to public employees from family and established friends are not prohibited because they are personal and not linked to any official act or public position. Additionally, public employees may accept unsolicited gifts such as fruit baskets, flowers, or other perishable items if they are accepted on behalf of an office or agency and shared with coworkers or the public. Gifts of alcohol, however, are generally prohibited because they are not perishable and cannot be shared with the public. A full description of exemptions to the gift restrictions is included in 930 CMR 5.08: Conflict of Interest Law Regulations and Exemptions relating to Gifts and Gratuities.
Class gifts to public school teachers are allowed within certain limits. The parents and students of a class may act together to give a gift worth up to $150 to a teacher, provided that the gift is identified as being from the class, and that the names of givers and amounts given are not identified to the teacher. A teacher may not accept any other gift from someone who has contributed to a class gift. Therefore, if an individual gift is given, the teacher must confirm that the giver did not contribute to the class gift. Individual gifts from families that did not contribute to a class gift are allowed if they are worth less than $50. Baked goods, homemade crafts, and other gifts of minimal value are not prohibited. The Commission’s Public School Teacher FAQs on the Conflict of Interest Law contains detailed information about restrictions on teacher gifts.
Restrictions on gifts and gratuities also apply to holiday parties. If a vendor or other private organization offers a public employee a complimentary invitation to a party or event, the public employee is generally prohibited from accepting the invitation if the per-person cost of the event is $50 or more. There is an exemption that allows public employees to accept such invitations if they file a disclosure with a written determination that their attendance serves a legitimate public purpose. Appointed employees must receive that determination from their appointing authority. Regulation 930 CMR 5.08(3)(b) describes the exemption and disclosure requirement in detail.
Public employees are generally not prohibited from giving gifts of substantial value to other public employees in recognition of holidays. However, the conflict of interest law places tighter restrictions on gifts from public employees to their supervisors and superiors. Gifts to supervisors and superiors that are not prohibited include gifts worth no more than $10, food shared in the office, personal hospitality, and gifts given in connection to personal hospitality. Regulation 930 CMR 5.08(8) addresses gifts among public employees.
Although public employees are generally prohibited from accepting gifts or gratuities of substantial value given because of their position, there is an exemption that allows them to accept discounts and waived membership fees in certain circumstances. If a discount is offered to all public employees, for example, it can be accepted. Likewise, if a membership fee for a professional organization is waived or discounted for all similar public employees of a particular profession, then the membership fee waiver may be accepted. Public employee discounts are addressed in Regulation 930 CMR 5.08(7).
The law also generally prohibits gifts of any value from lobbyists to certain public employees. Under the state financial disclosure law, elected state and county officials, as well as appointed state and county employees in major policymaking positions, may not solicit or accept gifts of any kind from lobbyists. Likewise, lobbyists are barred from offering or giving such gifts. Additionally, lobbyists are prohibited from giving gifts to the immediate family members of such state and county officials and employees. There are limited exemptions allowing gifts from lobbyists given solely because of family or established personal friendship contained in Regulation 930 CMR 5.09.
The Commission encourages public employees to contact its Legal Division at 617-371-9500 for free advice if they have any questions regarding how the conflict of interest law may apply to themselves.
District Data for your review
I am going to try to share some data with you each week that may be of interest to you.
With a large chunk of our professional development focused on special education, I will share some data from a new state data dashboard that hasn't been unveiled yet!
The first series of graphs and data are regarding statewide special education numbers. The second is Gateway specific. These graphs chart the change over time-from 2018-2024.
You can see in both instances, enrollment has dropped (-4.10% statewide and -9.51 in our district), but the percentage of special education students is growing (+9.41 statewide and +23.86% in our district). The Special Ed staff FTE (full time equivalency) means the percentage of how many positions increased.
Obviously the state wide scale is much larger than our district when you look at the percentages.
The hard numbers are here:
2018 statewide enrollment: 954,034 to 2024 enrollment at 914,959
2018 statewide special ed enrollment: 171,061 to 2024 sped enrollment at 187,160
2018 Gateway enrollment at 831 to 2024 enrollment at 752.
2018 Gateway sped enrollment at 176 to 2024 sped enrollment at 218.
2018 statewide staffing FTEs: 118,821 to 2024 FTEs at 129,914.
2018 statewide sped staffing FTEs: 13,945 to 2024 sped FTEs at 17,741.
2018 Gateway staffing FTEs: 134 to 2024 FTEs at 138.
2018 Gateway sped staffing FTEs: 16 to 2024 sped FTEs at 23.
Technology or Maintenance Help Desk Ticket
Both the maintenance and the technology department have shifted to an online help desk format for support. If you have a technology or maintenance need, please follow the steps below to get your problem attention from staff.
Gateway users should go to https://1to1plus.com/login/Gateway_MA and login using google, or alternatively by using your google credentials if needed (same as your email).
Once logged in, the system will ask you to choose the type of ticket you want to enter (i.e. Maintenance, Technology, or Student Chromebook). At this time, we are not allowing students to submit tickets for their own chromebooks, so please, do not share this with them as they will not be able to login. Based on the type of request you have, the system will prompt you to tell us more about the issue(s) as well as the location of the issue. Click submit at the bottom and you are finished. We will be using this system exclusively for all issues moving forward so please make the change from our previous email system. In other words, do not email technology-department@grsd.org any longer for assistance.
Almost Due! Teacher of Excellence Grinspoon Award Nomination
It is a pleasure to work in a district that has amazing educators at every level.
The Harold Grinspoon Pioneer Valley Excellence in Teaching Award is an opportunity to honor one Gateway Regional staff member for making a difference to our students. The award winner gets a number of fantastic prizes, but most importantly the public honor of being recognize for the hard work they do. Criteria is determined by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation.
Nominee must:
- Be certified by the state of Massachusetts as a teacher
- Be currently employed as a full time teacher in a PreK-12 school
- Spend the majority of their school day in direction instruction of students
- Rating at least Proficient in most recent evaluation (don't worry about checking this)
Nominees Additional Criteria:
- Utilize excellent teaching practices
- Be effective and creative
- Have a profound impact on students
- Support and positively impact other teachers' practices
- Participate in professional development
- Have evidence of going above and beyond in the classroom and school community
Please nominate a teacher who you believe meets this criteria. Nomination forms should be submitted no later than December 20, 2024. Winners will be announced in late January/early February of 2025.
Please complete this nomination form.
Past winners are not eligible to win again (even though they are amazing), and they are:
2005 Cathy Servaes, Dawne Piers-Gamble
2006 Cyndi Jensen, Sue Luppino, Bill McVeigh
2007 Ashley Brogan, Mary Jo Bender, Linda Stephens
2008 Melissa McCaul, Joyce Hanousek, Joe Hough
2009 Lane Meskevich, Heather Cabral, Diane Uliana
2010 Tim Tichacek, Elaine Zimmerman, Paul Sawyer
2011 Jen DalyLynn Gebo, Cheryl Wright
2012- Terriann Emerson, Eileen Kos, Marilyn Durken
2013 Susan Rhoads, Avery (Lavigueur) Wing, Gail Gingras
2014 Jess Rida, Sheila Green, Kristin Baker
2015Asher Rotenberg, Emily MacDonald, Steven Andrews
2016 Rodney Kleber
2017Daniel Shea
2018Denae Dostal
2019Taylor Simpson
2020Kristina Schultz
2021Rachel Millin
2022-off year
2023-Jenna Kakimoto
2024-off year
2025-TBD!
