Overlook Staff Summer News & Notes

Hey, hey, Overlook Fam!

We hope this message finds you enjoying the middle of summer and finding moments to relax and recharge. As we approached the halfway mark of our break, we wanted to touch base with each of you.

First and foremost, we want to express our gratitude for your hard work and dedication throughout the past school year. Your commitment to our students' growth and well-being is truly commendable, and we are continually impressed by your passion and professionalism.

While summer provides a valuable opportunity for rest and rejuvenation, we know many of you are also using this time for professional development, curriculum planning, and preparing for the upcoming school year. Your efforts in these areas are crucial to our ongoing success as a team.

As we look ahead to the new school year, we encourage you to continue to take advantage of this time to recharge, but also to reflect on your achievements and consider any goals or improvements you would like to pursue for the coming academic year.

If there are any resources or support you need as you prepare for the new school year, please do not hesitate to reach out. Your input and ideas are invaluable as we strive to create the best possible learning environment for our students.

Thank you once again for your continued dedication and hard work. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and we look forward to reconnecting with you all soon.

Please see the following sections for information on various topics about this upcoming year.😊

Warm regards,

Kris and Lori

Welcome our new faculty and celebrate changes in positions!

Katrina Bunting is taking over the Computer Science/Digital Literacy enrichment classes.

Jessica Gauthier is our new special education teacher for grades 7 & 8.

Jennifer Hodson is our new 7th Navy science teacher.

Julia LeBlanc is our new 7th Navy ELA teacher.

Jon Pack is our new Engineering enrichment teacher.

Connor Slattery will now be serving as our new 8th Purple ELA teacher.

Jackie White will now be serving as our new 6th Green math teacher.

Peter Vautier has transferred from Oakomont's OASIS program to work as the special educator with our Achieve Program.

*Our brand new teachers are in the midst of filling in their little profiles in my New Crew Faces Doc. I will send it out separately once it is completed to put a face to a name/position!

Staff Meetings will be held the second Tuesday of each month. Please plan to stay from 2-3:30pm for your planning purposes. We don’t anticipate staying that late each time but if we run a little over we don’t want people packing up and leaving.

August 19-20 - New Teacher Orientation

August 19 - Welcome Back Night 4-6pm (not required but highly encouraged to welcome our new and returning students)

August 21-23 - All staff return for opening day and professional development. *On August 21st there will be a staff luncheon provided by the ever-so-awesome OMS PTO!

August 27 - 6th Grade Parent Orientation Night 6-7:30pm

September 4 - 7th and 8th Grade Parent Orientation 6-7:30pm

November 21 & 26 - Parent Conference Nights 5-8pm (All teachers, counselors, specialists)

*This year we can use the January PD day for invite-only conferences, instead of a contractual night! In turn, we have assigned you the following nights in lieu of a night in January.

Date TBD in May - Fifth Grade Parent Night 6-8:30pm (Required staff: Enrichment Teachers, 8th Grade Counselor, 6th Grade Teachers, respective special educators)

2nd to Last Day of School (date moves with snow days) 6-8:30pm (Required staff: 7th and 8th teachers to attend promotion night & dance. However, we strongly encourage all staff to attend at least the 1 hr ceremony to celebrate our students- it was awesome to see everyone there this past year!)

*Nurse - DC Trip Parent Info Night in Spring and 3 other dates to be determined for nurse-specific related activities (information forthcoming from Ally Law).

Look For Expectations

ALL AWRSD EDUCATORS WILL....

• Use adopted HQIM (High Quality Instructional Materials) with fidelity

• Post agenda (Elem-daily schedule) (OMS & OAK by class/period)

• Communicate the learning target/objectives for the lesson orally and visually in student-friendly terms and keep the objective posted for the entirety of the activity

• Check for understanding (formative assessment) frequently and adjust the lesson as needed by referring to the posted objectives

**All classrooms and office spaces must have clear door windows free of any coverings**

We will be starting each faculty meeting with a note of appreciation and recognition this year! More to come on this! Stay tuned!

If you haven’t done so already, we are still collecting for Madeline’s retirement send-off gift. If you haven’t heard, Madeline fell pretty hard while stripping a floor right after school got out and broke her wrist. Not a fun way to end it here. She is doing better now but what a stinky way to start your long-awaited retirement!

You can drop cash off in the office or Venmo Kris @krissybogo (last 4 digits of my phone are 9424).

If you haven’t read my summer newsletter to parents, I highly recommend the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

It is so compelling and telling! You want to know why kids are the way they are these last few years? Spoiler Alert: It ain’t all from COVID.

Haidt outlines the causal reasoning behind kids' behavior and slowed development from our technology and changes in parenting. He doesn’t just dump all this and end the book, he makes recommendations for schools, parents, and the government.

If anyone would like to earn PDPs and join me in a book study, I will order you a book on me! Just email me (Kris Bogosh) if interested in getting a copy for yourself to join the book study by August 15th. If you don’t have the capacity to join the book study, I still HIGHLY recommend this book to EVERY parent and educator.

-Kris

Well, we are increasingly becoming in a better place with the scheduling. Whoo hoo! Was it easy? Heck no! Was it tedious? You better believe it. Is it better? Absolutely! Is it perfect? What schedule ever is? (Did the Tech Overlord even have trouble getting Rediker to do what we want? Umm, that's a yes.)

The schedule we have (like most schedules) requires much thinking and planning, more than you anticipate especially when it is is in its first couple years of adoption. We have learned from our mistakes the last couple years and will continue to learn as we move forward.

F Blocks

As of today, we have thoughtfully and to the best of our ability scheduled F Blocks with the following conditions:

Every student (*who doesn’t require special services and who doesn’t have Band AND Chorus or Band/Chorus AND Spanish I) has the following on an F1 or F2 day:

2 additional second enrichments

1 Connections, Character, Community class

We took data from last year’s assessment in iReady and created rosters for intervention blocks on F1/F2 days for math for quarter 1 and quarter 2 (these may be adjusted for Quarter 2 as needed but we scheduled them anyway (easier to schedule and remove then add at a later time).

E Blocks

E blocks (Enrichment Blocks) are mixed teams but students will likely be in a cohort together. We had some trouble scheduling these and still are not completed at this moment but we are well on our way.

Art A and Art B Enrichment classes (Lauren and Larry's sections) are in separate semesters. We have made one big class of PE/Health&Wellness Part I and Part II. All students will have Part I before having Part II! This should solve many problems we had on various fronts! Yippee!

6th grade is a very BIG class-- around 220! It is a bubble class and no other classes in the next few years even come close right now. So we will all have to grin and bear those numbers. That being said, most class sizes hover around 25-28 for grade 6. Please make sure that if you teach a 6th grade class that you check your rosters and numbers of chairs in your classroom on August 21st when you return (or sooner) and let us know by the day’s end if you are in need of more chairs/desks/seating.

Special Shout Out to Jackie White who helped us tremendously to get our head around some of the F block and E block rotation dilemmas! We appreciate you!!!

The building is currently open from 7-2pm each day. (Don't show up at 1:59 and expect to stay!)Tim, Jim, and Rich are still working on the floors. Please call if you want to work in your classroom to make sure it is available.

Please pop in for a visit if you got nothing going on! We'd love to hear what you're up to this summer!