Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Caught Ya!
ITS CAUGHT YA TIME! We will be reading the caught yas at Wednesday morning meetings. Use the form below (this is also on the hub) to submit students using IB learner profiles!
https://forms.gle/c9p83zbJYDvWGGEXA
Friday, September 9, 2022
Weekly Update for the week of 9/5
A Fun Start!
https://www.wevideo.com/view/2783864518
Need-to-Knows
Info. Night is coming up! Save the Dates and begin sharing with parents! This will also be published in our September blog for parents.
28th: Primary 6-6:45, Intermediate 6:45-7:30
29th: K 6-6:45, Elem. 6:45-7:30
Thank you for your patience with late buses this week(both at arrival and dismissal). The district has many new drivers, and those long parent goodbyes each morning, coupled with a new driver, can make for longer routes. It will level off.
Shana and Derek have met regarding conferences. In alignment with the new teacher contract, there is greater flexibility this year. Conferences need to be held between October 11th and November 22nd. We have day conference times on November 15th and the 22nd. In addition, after school and evening times need to be made available for our families. Once you have your schedule, please share a signup with parents and communicate the schedule via email directly to Derek. Shana will discuss this further at the next union meeting.
Our copiers are working on borrowed time. There is absolutely no solution for this other than waiting patiently for the new copiers to arrive and to submit tickets for their repair when you see one down. The new copiers were due in April, however, due to supply chain issues world-wide, we are waiting. To work towards a positive, this is a great opportunity to consider a way or two that you can “go green” and shift to the 1:1 in lieu of paper (when feasible).
There is a new claim form! Click on the link, download a copy for yourself, fill it in electronically, then print and turn it in like normal to the office.If you need to fill out a claim form for anything, it is now found on the Hub as well.
The Principal’s Professional Improvement Actions:
Like all of you, I want to be my best. I’ve always valued self-reflection and goal setting, and like most years I hope to leverage this to become a better leader for you. My goals for this year are as follows:
Only check my email 4x a day. Once before school (7:45-8:30ish), once mid-morning, and mid-afternoon, once after school. Please know you can call me if there is an emergency that can’t wait for a response. Please also know that this may mean I am not as fast as normal with my response time to emails; however, this affords me the chance to be present with all of you during the day, fully noticing what is happening around me.
Increase my time focusing on gratitude. I’ve started a journal that I leave on my desk. I’m pushing myself to notice the good in each day and to write it down. I’ve started this at home, but I also want to do it professionally. Looking forward to seeing how this sharpens my focus on the good, something that I need to do intentionally or the lizard response part of my brain will focus on the fear and the negative.
Two Quick Surveys:
Joy Shop–Mrs.Coyle has asked if you, or your classroom, will be interested in making an item to sell at our joy shop. Please fill this out by next Wednesday if you are interested.
Joy Shop Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflqiAL-R_sk1aIt-3E-EztzZ4XRsQbfg8HqULf3R1_J1hVNg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Culture Survey–at the start and end of each year we will continue to do our culture survey. This will help me make actionable culture experiences for us. Please complete the survey below–your opinions matter to me.
Culture and Climate Survey:
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Opening Day, September 6, Schedule
Team,
After the district stuff, we will meet for 20 minutes as a staff in the aud. There is no set time as it always flexes based on how long the union meeting takes. I'll make an announcement.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Technology Updates
Good morning everyone. As we get ready for the
start of the 2022-2023 school year, we just wanted to share some
friendly reminders:
- HELP! If you have a technology need, please submit a
ticket through incidentIQ, logging in with your Google (ga) account
using the "Sign in with Google SSO" button on the top left. As
you can imagine, as people come back from summer, our ticket count is
growing. Please know we are working through tickets as quickly as
possible. Remember that you can login and check the progress of a ticket
you have in at any time through incidentIQ by clicking "My Tickets"
on the left-hand toolbar.
- Phishing Emails: If you see an email that appears
"fishy," don't hesitate to press the Phishing Alert button on
your email (
). This does populate a list for us to
review. - Logging Into Websites: As you begin to plan curriculum, please remember
that any website requiring you or your students to log in needs to be
reviewed for data privacy by our department. Check our Digital Tool Privacy Vetting List to
see if a site is approved or denied. If it isn't on the list, you can use
the Digital Tool Request Form in SchoolFront to request we
review it. Please keep in mind that at times we must contact a company
multiple times to attempt to get them to complete the process with us,
which sometimes takes a bit.
- Department Communications: We have started to build a repository of
communications that have gone out district wide or to large groups within
the district. Feel free to refer to that at any time using this link.
- Auto Lock on District Devices: Beginning August 1, as another layer of
cybersecurity, we implemented a 20-minute auto lock on all district
devices. This means that after 20 minutes of inactivity on your device
(mouse movement, typing, etc.), your device will go to a black screensaver
that you will need to use your password to unlock. The email communication
sent to everybody on July 28, 2022, with more information regarding this
can be viewed in our department communications folder.
- Restart Weekly! If you typically Shut Down or close your device
at the end of each use, please remember to Power - Restart once a week to
keep your device up to date!
- New Department Staff
Members: Please join us in welcoming
Karen Frear and T.J. Wright to our department! They both started with us
this summer and are great additions to our already awesome team!
- Instructional Technology
Support Specialists: Jacquie,
Jason, and Jess are excited and ready to "reset" this year in
their roles. As part of this, they will be restructuring who they support
(see below). Their focus will be on helping plan for ed tech use around
instructional objectives and standards, co-teaching and supporting
implementation, co-planning, brainstorming, etc. As part of this, they
won't have set days and times they are in a building but will instead be
arranging their schedules around the work they are doing. Keep your eyes
out for an email from them during September as everyone settles in with
more details, ideas, opportunities etc. for their work with you in the
upcoming school year!
·
o Jess - K-4
Classroom; K-6 Special Areas, Counselors; etc.
·
o Jason - K-8 Special Education, 5-6 Classroom; 7-8 All
·
o Jacquie - 9-12 All (with Special
Education support as needed from Jason)
Have a great day, and as always, don't hesitate to reach out if
you have any questions.
Kristy Shafer
Director of Technology and Data Protection Officer
Hello all,
Welcome back from the tech team! We wanted to reach out to everyone on a couple of things as you’re coming back into the district.
1. First and foremost; as soon as you can upon arrival in district, restart your machine. This will install any pending updates and get you our newest policies and software.
2. We’ve tried our best to get rooms ready but there are some that we haven’t been able to address yet. Understand we’re still making rounds but if you see a need please us know via Incident IQ.
3. If you have a Promethean board please do not move it without consulting with us first (via Incident IQ). We have a new management system that will allow more functionality and it is necessary that they remain plugged into the network (more details on this will be coming out very soon). Again, if you’d like to make a move, please submit a ticket via IncidentIQ and we’ll evaluate if it is possible.
4. We’ve had a lot of questions on charging stations. These were purchased for a different project that was halted due to the district shifting to 1:1 chromebooks for all grades. We are trying to outfit them with used chargers from grade level swaps but this process is slow.
Teacher Aides and Teacher Assistants; if you didn’t receive a device at the end of last school year, please stop into your building tech team member to have a device assigned starting on September 6th.
As always if you need help please submit a ticket via Incident IQ. Our entire team keeps track of the system and when one member is busy others are here to help!
Thanks,
Justin Radford
Help Desk Manager
Hilton Central School District
585.392.1000 x7022
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Thursday, August 11, 2022
QUEST Staff Summer Message
Team,
I hope this message finds you with an ice cream in your hand, or perhaps sitting on a beach with a book. Summer is such a gift, and a gift that you certainly deserve! Although you are starting to see the advertisements for back-to-school (who are we kidding, these start after the 4th of July!), be sure to cherish the moments in front of you this month. There is still plenty of time to sharpen the saw!
On a personal note, the Warren home has been very busy this summer! Bennett is standing (with over ambitious dreams of walking soon), and the Warren girls are working hard on their summer bucket lists. It has been great to have life slow down a bit, but man does the idea of September immediately bring the first day jitters.
Below are some essentials to get you geared up for 2022-2023.
Focus for 2022-2023
Theme: Intentional
Wondering what our improvement efforts will be this year? Take a look at the image below. You will get a hard copy of this in your mailbox as well.
Summer Day
Summer day for teaching staff is set for August 31st starting at 9:30 in the auditorium. As always, please contact Derek if you are not able to make this day.
The Ice Cream social will be that evening from 5-6:30. Parents will be allowed to pop in the building, and there will be a bus available to take our newest K students for a cruise.
You will receive an agenda as we get closer, just notice the times for now.
Need-to-know
- Welcome to QUEST to: K-Julie Blandford (for Mrs. Strecker); Brenna Healey (5-6); Jessica Pignato (PE); Jacob Farrell (health); Sayra Ford (CFY); Mindy Whelehan (Reading Center); Jessica Schuler (12:1:1); Sherri Streb (UPK); Lyza King (Counseling Secretary). We will likely also have new aides joining our building, but at this time I do not know who has been assigned to QUEST.
- School supplies have been purchased and are being organized, by teacher, on the stage. These will be ready to take back to your room by summer day! If you see Paula, give her a giant high-five. She made multiple trips to Walmart, in her own vehicle, in order to ensure we got the best prices. Rockstar status!
- At the top of the blog you will find the QUEST HUB. This is your one-stop-shop for links that are pertinent to your work. Highlighted in yellow are the links that are most helpful in getting you started this year. Check it out! As always, reach out should you feel like a link is missing or does not work for you--you'll need to be logged into Google.
- This year we will have K-4 Health. K-4 teachers will have parts of the Second Step Curriculum taught through this, so there is no need for K-4 classroom teachers to have Second Step on their schedules.
- If you are interested in running an intramural, please submit the request before the end of October.
- Tech. support is different this year: Jason Cring will be 5-6 and special education, special classes. Jessica Thompson will be joining us to support K-4! Welcome to QUEST, Jessica.
- Sayra Ford will be working with us from the CFY (Center for Youth). Welcome, Sayra.
- We are still waiting on copiers to arrive--complete supply chain issues and these were due last April. Be gentle with what we have and use the copy center for as much as possible!
- Speaking of supply chain, this summer we had interior doors to entrances taken off. These will be auto locked during emergencies, however, there are many delays with this due to supply issues. This is out of our hands, but you will notice that we have unfinished construction at entrances. They will be safe to use, but will be go without being finished for a bit.
WELCOME TO QUEST!
We are in the process of hiring a library aide, student 1:1 aides, and a new librarian, but for now, please join me in welcoming our new teammates!
Jessica Pignato, PE
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Jacob Farrell, K-4 Health
Mindy Whelehan, Reading Center TA
Sherri Streb, UPK TA
Until we see one another in late August, be well and take care of you.
With respect,
Derek
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
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