August 28, 2020

This year we celebrated Rakhi at Yasmeen's new apartment in Sacramento. Here is a picture of Maya tying one on for Dylan. Rakhi is the simple but beautiful thread tying around the wrist of a brother, conveying lots of love and emotions. Sisters wholeheartedly tie Rakhi on the wrist of their brothers and pray to divine for bestowing him prosperity, health with serenity. Brothers who deeply and truly understand the deep message of Rakhi, pledge to keep their sisters safe from all evil circumstances of their life and promise to stand by her in every up and down moments of life. The brothers usually give their sister's gifts. Rakhi festival also has a social significance because it underlines the notion that everybody should live in harmonious coexistence with each other. For those of you who remember my nephew who I called Chunky Monkey when he was a baby. Well, that is him sitting behind Dylan. Can't really call him that anymore, not so chunky! 

Are. You. Ready? 

Wow! And just like that: School. Here it is. A whole different type of school. One we have never experienced or taught.

Are You Ready?

For 180 days of awesomeness, fun, and laughter.

Are You Ready?

For ALL kids to be included, loved, cared for and noticed.

Are You Ready?

To be visible (virtually), honest, intentional and kind.

Are You Ready?

To make a difference. For. Every. Child. No. Matter. What.

Are You Ready?

For failure, re-learning, unlearning and growth?

Are You Ready?

To connect with peers, admin, friends and family.

Are You Ready?

To Show Up. Every Day.

Are You Ready?

To reflect every day so that kids run back to the screen not away from the screen?

Are You Ready?

To be all in, no excuses, every child, end of story?

Tell me.

Are. You. Ready?

I am.

Back to School Night

VIRTUAL Back to School Night September 1:

It will start with a message from the Principal. Some teachers will be sending a pre- recorded video to families and then host live Q &A for two sessions 6:20 and 6:55. Some teachers are hosting live sessions for two sessions 6:20 and 6:55.

 

Schedule

6:00-6:15 Principal message- video recording

6:20-6:50 Session 1

6:55-7:25  Session 2

Please drop off your donations to my office for Jessica Crawford’s family or you can Venmo me at @Jas-BainsWright and I can put it towards a gift card. Every little bit helps. 

The Sub Process in distance learning

A teacher should record their absence in Absence Management & notify site administration of his/her absence.

Each administrator should be added to every classroom so that he/she can support the substitute in getting online to teach the class(es). 

The teacher should be able to still push out the asynchronous activities, but the substitute would need to cover the synchronous times. 

Site admin and/or teacher should also communicate to students and parents that there would be no office hours that day.

We can use subs that we have used in the past. 

 

TAKE A DEEP BREATH BEFORE YOU READ THE BELOW. DON'T STRESS OUT. WE DO HAVE SOME TIME BEFORE GIVING THE TEST. 

The MAP Test Administration window for all students opens: Testing can be done while students are at home using a link. You will have to take time to train yourself. Please watch the videos. At SV we will be testing from 9/8- 9/11. Here is the spreadsheet link to let us know when you will be testing CLICK HERE 

·  ELEMENTARY students: Monday, August 31st - September 11th   

There are a few changes to the testing process from previous years so please read the following information carefully. Here is the Step-By-Step Guide on how to set up test sessions, student directions, and video support resources. I am including some of those videos below for your convenience.

UPDATES and REMINDERS:

·  MAP testing will need to occur during your synchronous instruction time.  All students will be logged into your class Google Meet. You will give them the link to the test, the session name, and the password and they will be able to start their test while keeping the Google Meet open. 

·  There is a new testing location for students that will allow them to test remotely. Once you have set up their test, students will go to https://test.mapnwea.org/ to enter the session name and password you give them.  These steps are outlined in the guide. 

·  Students will have ONE opportunity to test in Reading and mathematics. They will not be able to retest. It is critical that you proctor and monitor the students closely so that you can be sure students gave their best effort so that accurate data is measured on where students are in their learning. In addition, the system will prompt the proctor letting them know if a student is "rapid guessing". This will be done by having students in a Google Meet, with their mic muted, in one window and your MAP testing session open in a different window.

·  Students who rapid guess will result in their test ending and be coded with ***7 on the report as invalid and they have another chance to test during your make-up testing sessions.

·  Equity for All - Accessibility & Accommodations - Removing Barriers - Be sure to look at the available supports. Here is the link to see what is available in MAP

·  To turn on Text-To-Speech - Simply turn the Chromebook on and click on "Ctrl Alt Z and this will turn on the ChromeVox spoken feedback feature. Then open the MAP APP and the screen content will be read aloud.

Here are the test names for each assessment by grade level.

PLEASE BE SURE TO SELECT THE CORRECT NAME FOR YOUR GRADE LEVEL WHEN SETTING UP YOUR TEST SESSIONS. This will ensure that students do not have the ability to select the incorrect test. 

 Grades 1 & 2 - 

Growth: Reading K-2 CA 2010

Growth: Math K-2 CA 2010

**reminder - Grade 2 take these tests and not the Growth 2-5 tests ***

 Grades 3-5  

Growth: Reading 2-5 CA 2010 V2

Growth: Math 2-5 CA 2010

 Grades 6-8

Growth: Reading 6+ CA 2010 V2

Growth: Math 6+ CA 2010

Here are several videos that support teachers as they administer the Fall MAP Growth test remotely. More information can be found in the Step-byStep Guide. This series of short videos are designed to help you gain a solid foundation of knowledge on how to conduct remote testing with MAP Growth.

 

·  Remote Testing - Explained and Demonstrated for Teacher and Student (Vimeo link - 5:09min)

·  Remote Testing - Explained and Demonstrated for Teacher and Student using iPad (Vimeo link - 5:58min)

·  Remote Testing - Common Challenges and Situations During Testing (Vimeo link - 5:32min)

·  Remote Testing - Student Rapidly Guesses During MAP Test (Vimeo link - 1:42min)

·  Screen resolution fix for Chromebooks - (Vimeo link - 1:24min)

·  Screen resolution fix for Windows - (Vimeo link - 1:28min)

 

Share this information with families:

If students were issued a district chromebook (grades 1^st-8^th) and do not need it because they have one at home we would be more than happy to have it back so we can reuse them with students if their devices need repair. Initially we thought that every student HAD to have a district issued chromebook for MAP testing and we were just informed that it can now be accessed from a website and students do not need a district issued device. If a student would like to return their chromebook with the charging cord please just have them come and drop it off in the crate outside of the front office.

Observable Fish Moments at SV:

I have really appreciated how everyone has volunteered their own time (BEING there) to either help out a new staff member or someone who needed extra help . Staff members are really CHOOSING their attitude when there is so much to learn at a rapid pace. Keep smiling :) YOU are MAKING someone’s day just by offering a helping hand or just by listening. You make me proud!! Love this school and everyone (virtually) in it!! 

August 23, 2020

First day of school for Maya and Dylan on August 17th. Maya is now a freshman and Dylan is going into junior high as a 7th graders. I love how they both don't have shoes on! Haha. Who needs shoes during distance learning?!! I am starting my 10th year at Suisun Valley and Chris is starting his 7th year at VHS. 

Expectations vs. Standards (Good Enough to Repeat)

Expectations should not be confused with standards.  Standards are levels of achievement.  Teachers who practice positive expectations will help their students reach high standards.  It takes just as much energy to achieve positive results as it does to achieve negative results.  So why waste your energy to fail when the same amount of energy can help you and your students achieve.

Key idea:  Expectations of students will greatly influence their achievement in school and in life.

There is absolutely no research correlation between success and family background, race, national origin, financial status, or even educational accomplishments.  There is but one correlation with success, and that it ATTITUDE!

Humans have a success instinct.  They want success. They strive for success. 

Knowing what you can or cannot achieve is called expectation.  An expectation is what you believe will or will not happen.

Classic Research on Expectations

Robert Rosenthal in the 1960’s fed erroneous information to a group of South San Francisco elementary teachers.  In the spring of the preceding year, the students at a school were pretested.  The researches and administrators told the teachers they were special teachers who were to be part of a special experiment.  They were told, “Based on a pretest, we have identified 20 percent of your students who are special.  They will be ‘spurters’ or ‘bloomers’ and are a designated group of students of whom greater intellectual growth is expected.  The names were really selected at random.  The teachers were told to not tell the students or the parents.  “Thus we expect and know that you will do extremely well with these special students.”  Eight months later all students were tests again.  The results showed a significant gain in intellectual growth for the 20 percent who were designated as special.  The teachers were quite surprised to learn that neither the teachers nor the students were “special.”  The expectations, however, made all the difference.

Students tend to learn as little or as much as their teachers expect.  Teachers who set and communicate high expectations to all their students obtain greater academic performance from those students than teachers who set low expectations. This is important when talking about our students from one grade level to another. Be positive!! 

(Taken from The First Days of School:  How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong

Here’s to high expectations for all students and ourselves!As a No Excuses School we have committed to teaching our VIRTUAL expectations for the first 10 days of school. 

Cal/OSHA General Checklist for Schools and School-Based Programs

ENSURE TEACHER AND STAFF SAFETY

• Ensure staff maintain physical distancing from each other.

• Ensure that all staff use face coverings in accordance with CDPH guidelines and Cal OSHA standards.

• Conduct all staff meetings, professional development training and education, and other activities involving staff with physical distancing measures in place, or virtually, where physical distancing is a challenge.

• Minimize the use of and congregation of adults in staff rooms, break rooms, and other settings.

• Per guidance from Solano Public Health, persons should practice physical distancing, wear face mask and practice good hygiene.

• Implement procedures for daily symptom monitoring for staff. FSUSD will implement a self screening tool for students and staff. The COVID Self Screening Tool will be posted at the entrance of every campus.

The Bargaining Unit teams from the Fairfield-Suisun Unified Teachers Association and the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District reached an agreement with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. To view the joint letters on negotiations, click here.

 Dear Solano County Educators and School Administrators,

As the school year begins in a way far different than it ever has before, we at the Solano Resource Conservation District are here to let you know that we are still committed to providing environmental education opportunities for your students. Our goal is to support the social-emotional learning process of children and use scientific concepts as the foundation for mathematical and language arts learning, even in a virtual format. We have been collaborating with organizations and agencies across the nation to identify best practices and resources to achieve this goal, and now we need your input to help customize our local efforts.

 

Please complete our brief 2020 virtual learning survey, available at the link below, by August 31. You may also reply to this email and schedule a time to discuss the survey in more detail or respond to the questions over the phone. Your time is greatly appreciated and we look forward to supporting you this school year.

Survey Link: https://forms.gle/DCbCHu7W3HBk1Q3HA

 

Sincerely,
The Solano Resource Conservation District Watershed Education Program

August 7, 2020

Dear Dragon Staff,

This will be a year to remember. I know all of us are learning at an exponential speed. I have never watched so many how to videos. I am so impressed with so many staff members who are attending hours and hours of PD so that you can bring LIVE teaching to your students. 

You are an amazing staff and I feel fortunate to be able to work with you. I am excited about our new year, our new teachers, staff and just being back!!   

On Monday morning August 17th we will have our first staff meeting from 8:30-12:00pm virtually J. I WOULD LIKE ALL STAFF TO ATTEND FOR THE FIRST 30 minutes. If you are a new teacher on campus you will meet with me virtually at 1:00pm on August 17th. The meeting will last about an hour. 

I would like to extend a warm welcome to some new staff members on our site Chloe Tagawa (RSP), Vanessa Campos (7th/8th)), Kelsey Jones (8th), Nicole Ginocchio (5th), and Miura Lograsso (1st). If you see them on campus please introduce yourself (6 feet away and wearing a mask) and help them in any way that you can.

The 2020/2021 school year promises to be a year of growth in learning new ways of teaching. We will continue to work on our Ag/Tech focus for the upcoming school year. We will also continue to support our efforts of being an NEU school.  I know that through our continued hard work, we will see our students grow academically and socially.

Teacher work days are August 17th  and August 18th, and the students will be LIVE virtually on August 19th .   

We now have approval for materials to be distributed to all students. This means we will be able to have students pick up textbooks, workbooks, supplies, whiteboards, technology, agendas, etc. Click HERE to fill out worksheet on when your grade level would like to distribute materials. Keep in mind that we are still waiting on some curriculum and technology to arrive on campus so make sure we have everything you need before you sign up. You also might want to go to a local grocery store and see if they will donate bags. We do have clear plastic bags if you need, but they are pretty flimsy. As for school supplies, the link to your supply list on the website is here. We went to place our order from Office Depot yesterday and they are out of many items like scissors and crayons. Some items they are very limited in. I know many of you have these supplies in your classroom. Please send home supplies that you already have in your room. Please let Kristin know what supplies you HAVE in your classroom that we can send home with students if they need them. We will be sending home agendas with our materials distribution so students will be using them 3rd-8th grade. You can send home whiteboards and markers if you have those in your room. Remember any supply they will need to help with the instruction at home, those are the ones you should be giving to students. So if you are doing guided reading groups, you will want to send those home so the students have those books in front of them. We have their reading levels from last year so we can create groups from there. We did renew our AR subscription so please encourage your students to read. 

You will have access to your class lists in Aeries on Thursday. Parents will have access and see their teacher in Aeries on Monday. You can see data regarding your students using the academic conference spreadsheets we created last year. So if I am teaching 5th grade this year I can go to the fourth grade tab and see data about each student that was at Suisun Valley last year. 

Monday, August 17, 2020        8:30-12:00                      Staff Meeting-  virtual

                                                    1:00-2:00                       Orientation for new staff on site- virtual

                                                    12:00-3:00                     Teacher Work Day 

Tuesday, August 18, 2020         8:00-3:00                       Teacher Work Day 

Wednesday, August 19, 2020  First day of school :)

Best Regards,

Jas Bains Wright

Below is some updated info from the CDE regarding distance learning.

What is considered “live interaction?”

11. Education Code Section 43503 requires that distance learning include “daily live interaction.” Daily live interaction is two-way communication between a certificated employee and student each instructional day, at the actual time of occurrence. Daily live interaction is required for every student with both a certificated employee and their student peers. In particular English learners, and students with special needs benefit from daily oral language development opportunities.

    Examples of daily live interaction include in-person and virtual communication or interactions, including but not limited to synchronous online instruction (per statute) and phone calls where both parties communicate at the time of occurrence. One-way communication, including voicemails, emails, or print materials, is not considered a live interaction.

    Pursuant to Education Code Section 43503(b)(6), if daily live interaction is not feasible as part of regular instruction, the governing board or body of the LEA shall develop, with parent and stakeholder input, an alternative plan for frequent live interaction that provides a comparable level of service and school connectedness.

What is the difference between daily live interaction and daily participation?

12. The purpose of daily live interaction, which occurs with teachers and students, is to provide instruction, monitor progress, and maintain school/social connectedness. The intent of daily live interaction is to ensure each student has live contact at least once each instructional day with a certificated employee, and ideally live contact with peers, even if live contact is not possible as part of daily instruction.

    Daily participation is used to track attendance and ensure daily engagement by all students in learning activities. However, documenting daily participation may be met through daily live interaction with a teacher or virtual assignments. Daily participation may also be documented through participation in online activities, completion of regular assignments, and contacts between employees of the LEA, including those other than teachers, and pupils or parents or guardians.

Is the requirement for daily live interaction met if the interaction is only between an individual student and a teacher?

13. No. All students are required to receive daily live interaction with both a certificated employee and their peers for the purpose of instruction, progress monitoring and school connectedness. Teachers may meet individually with students but this alone does not meet the requirements for daily live interaction. The minimum standard should be the same for all students regardless of which school or program the student participates in within the LEA. Every effort should be taken to determine the amount of interaction that is needed for students to progress academically and remain engaged in learning and connected to the school community.

Please welcome our new teachers:

Hello, Suisun Valley Dragons! My name is Nicole Ginocchio, your new 5th grade teacher. I'm a Bay Area native, and I've spent the last eleven years teaching in Oakland and American Canyon. I am very excited to continue my educational journey with all of you! I have two cuties keeping me busy at home, Aidan (4) and Adeline (2). In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, reading, hiking, and crafting.  This is going to be a year to remember, and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone in person!

" Hola! Im Vanessa Campos. I come from a Hipanic immigrant family and the first to graduate from college. I speak Spanish, English, and of course, Spanglish! I'm a plant mom who enjoys painting, gardening, reading, and exploring out in nature. I went to San Francisco State University (Go Gators!) where I received a Bachelor in Art history. I'm currently enrolled at Reach Institute for School Leadership where I'll receive my teaching credential upon completion. I was previously teaching 7th grade history at Richmond Charter Academy.  This will be my second year teaching and I'm looking forward to the challenge of remote teaching during these weird times. My goal for this year is to strive to inspire students to make the most of our current situation and put their best effort forward."