Wednesday, Jan. 27

Semester 2 slots on the Master:
You'll notice that I've started to put some semester 2 slots in the master (see the new "sem" column).  It will be easier to track holes in the schedule by doing it this way, so look for that in the future if you have semester changes to some classes. I will be putting aide and assistant schedules on their own tab, which will help make both lists easier to scroll.

Friday PD Events:
Missy is working on Friday's schedule. One of us will send you the link when it's completed.   We are having an active shooter and DASA training, two wonderful subjects.  There are some other events people are attending that Missy will put on the sheet.

Conference requests for next year:
From my initial look at the budget requests, I'm not seeing much in the way of conference requests. Please do this: if you think you might want to go to a conference, but you're not sure of the exact event, please give me an idea with a request.  When someone puts in for a conference that wasn't budgeted the previous spring, I need to transfer money between budget codes. This can only happen when we have a cushion in other areas. If you want to modify your budget, please stop down today.

Table of Contents
Remember that we have a table of contents file that links to all folders in the staff share folder along with the files that are used the most.

Staff share and Table of Contents 
These links are now at the top of this blog.  If you bookmark this wonderful blog, these other wonderful links will be right at your fingertips.





BOCES Newsletter January 19:
There are some good opportunities listed in this newsletter, so check it out.

BOCES Newsletter January 26

TST Tribune January '16

Wednesday, Jan. 20

Schedule Meeting Tuesday:
Jody has made a library schedule for this week (linked in title).  She's working on a more permanent solution.  The current file is in Staff Share / A-Schedules.

CDOS Materials in Staff Share:
Click on the title for materials I received from a recent meeting I attended.  There are some very good materials that help to explain the process.  This folder is inside SPED & IST in the Staff Share folder.

Test schedule:
Please check if you haven't.

Budget Stuff:
Please get your budget to me ASAP if you haven't already. Thanks.

Solar survey:
I've been interested in putting solar panels up at our house, but I'm a bit wary of the investment.  I just received this from a friend and thought a few of you might be interested:

• We are reaching out to you to gauge interest in the development of a solar farm in your area. We value your input – please visit www.surveymonkey.com/r/commsolar and answer five short questions.

Friday, Jan. 15

Please check the testing schedule
Please check to make sure that your Regents or midterm is on the list.  A teacher came to me that his test wasn't there (a midterm).  It wasn't a problem finding room, but let's all double check this to make sure we're OK.  Let Missy know if there's an issue. Thanks.

Survey Results:

There were some good comments that I'll share soon (no names), but I wanted to share what I have so far:

• Blocked -19     Straight - 11
• A-D rotation:  14     M-F rotation: 7    No preference: 9

Remember that we're already largely in a blocked schedule.  A good number of people who want to be in a straight arrangement will be able to do that if things fit. I would like to meet again next Tuesday at 2:30.  I'll send an invitation email out to the schedule committee (new members welcome). 

Any surplus books?
Please send me a list.  All surplus books have to be put on a list for Board review.

BOCES News January 12

Falcons Rock at Masterminds:
We recently joined the area Masterminds league. The events are academic game shows, similar to Jeopardy. Our first Masterminds varsity competition was a great success. Our kids won 2 out of 4 (won against Waterloo and Clyde-Savannah). We only had one junior student : Cami Vanselow and moved up 3 eighth graders -Max Stamberger, Caitlin Cornish, and Lily Foust. They did amazingly well! And our academic challenge bowl (Middle School) students won 1 match. Congrats to all who competed!

MOTIVATING AND MANAGING HARD TO REACH, UNINTERESTED AND DISRUPTIVE STUDENTS

This is a workshop with Brian Mendler. Brian is a presenter from Rochester who is very good.  If you would like some strategies to reach some of your tougher students, I would recommend looking into this.  Click on the title.  When you get there, scroll down and click on the "register now" link and you'll see a time for a presentation in Rochester. 

Monday, January 5th

Good morning, and happy new year.  I hope everyone had a nice break.  APPR responsibilities are rolling along nicely.  I'm very happy with the things I'm seeing in classrooms. I'm sure you're well aware of the changes going on at the state level.  I'll try to keep you up to date on all that.  I'm still not sure how this will affect our current system, but I'm sure we'll do as well as any other district. The changes will be for the better in my opinion.

Have a great week!

General Faculty Meeting on Tuesday:
We will meet in the lower caf at 2:30.  Some info for the whole building will be covered.  Nothing earth shattering, but it's always a good idea to get together as a whole group occasionally.  If you have any questions that I can answer for the whole group, please send them along. Thanks.

Reminders concerning the fire inspection:
Here are some reminders that I spoke about with Todd.  Please help with these. Thanks.

• Don't have any cloth hanging from a book shelf or other piece of furniture.
• Don't have doors propped open. Heaters work better with closed doors.
• No combustibles on doors.

Testing week:
I'm struggling a bit with January 29th.  We only have 2 tests that day, so I was hoping to have regular classes.  The problem is that it's a half day.  I'll figure this out in the next day or so and let you know.

John Hind schedule:
From John:
Good morning Tim,  I just wanted to touch base to let you know that I'm working to populate your tech PD calendar with days that I'll be out there this semester.  There will be a few exceptions here and there, but as a general rule I'll continue coming out on Fridays, beginning this week.  If you can pass along to your staff that I'll be out there this week, I'd appreciate it.
Here is John's schedule.  Remember that it's in the tech folder inside staff share. Please email him at jhind@tstboces.org.

Don't feel guilty!  Nice little article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jp-fugler/its-time-to-stop-the-teacher-guilt_b_8808326.html