5/27/19

Student evaluation forms for Child Study

If you have any outstanding student evaluation forms, please make sure you complete them ASAP and return them to the appropriate CST counselor.  We are in the process of evaluating placements for next year, so all information needs to be submitted ASAP for review.  

Summer Assignments
All summer assignments need to be created and loaded into the folders I created.  Each grade level needs to load one.  Try to use one document and link any resources (pdfs of the text or audio files) on that document to make it as easy as possible for us to eventually load on our website (you can use the English I assignment as a template).  There are to be NO questions to complete, busy work, etc. for the summer reading assignments.  Resources such as graphic organizers and online text and audio versions of the text are fine, but there is to be nothing assigned for a grade over the summer.   AP Lit, Lang and Honors are the exceptions but I would also try to limit the assignments to reading, annotating and prep work instead of formal papers.  

Please upload the assignments into the folders by the end of the week.  Please coordinate with your grade level team to make sure someone will get this done.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/13uLLACTK84Zb11y9nf2vaTQ5p7pTTbiN


Honors Meetings 

• Honors meetings need to be scheduled ASAP.  
• Please submit a facilities request online and email me the dates and times of your meetings (using cafe 2 during periods 8 & 9 is best if possible).  
• If you need coverage, please enter it into the coverage request email and copy me on it.   
• All honors teachers for each grade level need to participate in the planning and coordination of the meetings. 
• If you are issuing books to the students, please request them ASAP from Dave and Anthony.  
• One person from the team should email me so that I can send you an enrollment roster - you can make an attendance sheet from that roster and create a book sign-out sheet (if you are issuing books).  

Final Exams & Final Grades

• All Final exams on Canvas should be loaded into the Supervisors page by Friday of this week. 
• During final exams, no student is to be sent to guidance, other teachers, the Technology Office, or to the General Office to pay for obligations. 
• Bathroom passes may be issued one at a time to students during the exam time, if necessary. 
• Please refer to the timelines below for the grade reporting and examination dates for the remainder of the school year. 
• Review each grade carefully to be sure that all students have received grades in R3 and verify that the grades are correct – both alpha and numeric.  

Date	Event	Time	Location	Notes
June 11-14	Senior Final Exams	All Day		Final Exams Schedule
June 13	Senior Awards	7:00 pm	Auditorium
June 17	Senior Class Picnic		Baseball Field	The schedule is posted below
June 18	Last of Classes for Seniors Senior Class Laptop Collection All Final Grades Due for Seniors	All Day	PCTI
June 18	Senior Athletic Awards	6:30 pm	Auditorium
June 19 - 21	Underclassmen Final Exams	All Day		Final Exams Schedule Course Failure Notice
June 20	Closing Faculty Meeting	1:30 pm	Auditorium
June 21	Commencement Ceremony	6:00 pm	PCTI
June 24	Final Day for Teachers, Counselors Graduation Rain Date

Senior Final Exams

June 11

Part 1 periods 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 

June 12

Part 2 periods 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 

June 13

Part 1 periods 1, 3, 5, 6 

June 14

Part 2 periods 1, 3, 5, 6

Underclassmen Final Exams

June 19

#1 – English/ESL (8:15 am to 10:00 am) 

#2 – History/Grade 10 World Language (10:10 am to 12:10 pm) 

Dismissal: 

Students - 12:15 pm

Faculty - 3:06 pm

June 20

#1 – Math (8:15 am to 10:00 am) 

#2 – Science (10:10 am to 12:10 pm) 

Dismissal:

Students - 12:15 pm

Faculty - 3:06 pm

June 21

#1 Elective/BSI/Grade 9 & 11 World Language (8:15 am to 10:00 am) 

#2 CTE (10:10 am to 12:10 pm)

Dismissal:

Students - 12:15 pm

Faculty - 12:25 pm

Seniors Laptop Collection

On June 18 all seniors will be handing in their laptops. Seniors will report to the F MEDIA Center as follows:

• Last Name ​ A through D​ from​ 8:15 AM until 9:15 AM
• Last Name ​ E through H​ from ​ 9:30 AM until 10:30 AM
• Last Name​ I through L​ from ​ 10:45 AM until 11:45 AM
• Last Name ​ M through Q​ from ​ 12:15 PM until 1:15 PM
• Last Name ​ R through Z​ from ​ 1:30 PM until 2:45 PM

Acknowledging Summary Evaluations

• As per the TEACHNJ Act (6A:10-2.4), “The teaching staff member and the preparer of the annual written performance report shall sign the report within five working days of the review.”  
• Your acknowledgment of the Summary Evaluation must be completed by June 24 at 3:15 pm.  After June 24th, all summary evaluations will be finalized with or without acknowledgment.  

Student Obligations

Textbooks and Novels

• All academic textbook collections should be completed as of June 19.  
• Please return all academic textbooks to their appropriate storage locations.  
• All academic textbook obligations (replacement cost of text, fines assessed for damages, etc.) must be entered into PowerSchool by June 24.  For seniors, all entries must be made by June 18.  

Each teacher must utilize the PowerSchool Obligation recording system when issuing an obligation:

• Log on to Power Teacher.
• Select the backpack for the appropriate class.
• Select the student whom you wish to enter an obligation.
• Select the “Obligation” option from the “Select screens” box.
• Select “Add” and complete the necessary fields.
• Select submit at the bottom of the page in order to record the obligation.
• To select another student, click the student’s first name. This will bring you directly to that student’s obligation page.

The cost of the textbook, novel, or PE lock must be included in order to enter and validate the student’s obligation. Please see your supervisor for your textbook. Novel, or PE lock price list.  

Student IDs

• Seniors will be handing in their IDs on June 19.
• All grade 9-11 students will hand in their IDs on June 21 after taking the CTE final exam.  
• The envelopes provided must be handed into the Discipline Office by 3:06 pm on June

5/20/19

MANDATORY DEPARTMENT MEETING 

TUESDAY 5/21/19 - FX Lecture Hall

We will review new (and not so new) Final Exam procedures for Canvas and Google Classroom, Summer Reading Assignments and Student Failures (I will email you the trimester grade calculator)...

Writing Workshop - Wednesday

Some of you will be attending a writing workshop session on Wednesday.  There will be a session from 9 -11 and one from 12:30 - 2:30.  I am pulling as many people as I can (from all grade levels) who have "off" periods during these times due to a shortage of coverage options.  I will email you your time slots individually.  The teachers that attend will turn-key the information to the rest of the department at a department meeting or via PLC groups... 

Art Show - The PCTI Art Show is Wednesday - come out and see the work of our talented artists!

End of the Year Info

Follow the link 

https://sites.google.com/site/pctiprofessionalportal/end-of-year-information?pli=1

Mini-Grants

Proposals for Ed Foundation Mini-Grants must be submitted by May 24, 2019

Honors Meetings

Please schedule your honors meetings as soon as possible. I would look to book the meetings in the first week of June so that we don't interfere with final exam reviews... Check the facilities schedule for options and book the date by sending the facility request to Billy Vacca.  Email me the meeting date and time so I can arrange for coverages if needed and send out passes to the students.   Your summer assignments should be posted on a "summer" Google Classroom page - Canvas pages may not be ready because the students may not be scheduled in time before your meetings.  The assignments will also be posted on the website, but you should have another vehicle for them to view the assignments. 

Canvas Final Exams 

For those of you who will be using Canvas for Final Exams:

• One person per course will enter the test into the Supervisor page.
• We will label them with the course name, year and course number.
• The settings will be checked and when the test is approved, it can be copied to individual teacher pages right from the supervisor's page.
• I will be sending out directions with screenshots -  Yesenia in technology is preparing this for us.  In the meantime, if your test is ready, you can enter into to supervisor page.  There are modules set up for each grade level.  
• After importing the exam into this class, it will appear in "quizzes." 
• Then in the appropriate module, just hit the + button and follow prompts to add the document.  
• Yessenia is creating "How to Import" directions - this can also be done via the Commons.

Here are the course numbers for all of our courses - please include the course number in your exam title when you load it. 

Example:  2019 Eng I Final Exam 0011

• English I Gen Ed          0011
• English I Honors          0022
• English II Gen Ed         0021
• English II Honors         0022
• English II Concepts      0033
• English III Gen Ed        0031
• English III Honors        0032
• English III Concepts     0033
• English IV Gen Ed         0041
• AP Lit                               0042
• English IV Honors         0043
• English IV Concepts      0044
• AP Lang                            0521
• English I Resource         0501
• English II Resource        0502
• English III Resource       0503
• English IV Resource       0504

• English I Learning Disabled    0561
• English II Learning Disabled   0562
• English III Learning Disabled  0563
• English IV Learning Disabled   0564

• English I SN      0521
• English II SN    0522
• English III SN   0523
• English IV SN   0524

• Creative Writing                       0114
• Public Speaking                        0152
• College Learning Strategies   0407
• Journalism                                0447

*If you are using Google Classroom, you will proceed the way you have done in the past - just make sure all of your settings are correct and all information/directions are posted and clear. Make sure that if you are asking students to submit essays to turnitin.com that those directions are posted.  If you are using images or pictures for any reason, please make sure they are viewable when you load your test.  We don't really have Google Tech Staff in the Control room that day, so make sure your test is solid.  

We will have time to discuss this in further detail at the department meeting on Tuesday, so if you are not sure about the process, hold off until then.  At the meeting, we will need to make sure one person per course will upload each test so coordinate that with your grade level teams prior to the meeting. 

CANVAS IMPORT INSTRUCTIONS TO LOAD TESTS INTO THE SUPERVISOR PAGE:

Yesenia Collazo sent us the instructions: please see below.

Click on Settings (towards the left)

“Import Course Content” (on the right)

Content Type: Copy a Canvas Course

Search for the course you want to extract the exam from

*IMPORTANT* in the Content option: PLEASE choose “Select Specific Content”

Import

Once this is done, you will have to select the quiz by clicking on the blue “Select

Content” button

A list of the content in your class will appear please click on the Final Exam and

click “Select Content”

Taking Attendance for Class Coverages

Below are the instructions on how to take attendance when you’re covering a colleague’s class:

Go to the special substitute link: https://ps.pcti.tec.nj.us/subs

You cannot be logged into your Teacher account at the same time so sign out first!

OR

Open an “Incognito” (private) window and sign into the subs account using that window.

• Select Passaic County Technical Institute
• Select the teacher you’re covering for
• The password is the numerical day followed by Bulldog with a capital B
• So that means today’s sub password is: 16Bulldog
• Tomorrow’s sub password will be 17Bulldog
• Take attendance as normal

FANTASTIC THINGS

5/13/19

Department meeting - May 21st (Mandatory)

Doc Logs are due on May 17th.  Dr. Parent will finalize them at 8am on the 18th so please submit before then. 

Science Testing Days - May 22 & 23


National English Honor Society

Dr. Parent has asked us to find an honor society for ELA.  I am assuming that this will be a stipend position like the rest of them are.   I found one - the website is   http://www.nehs.us/about/index.shtml

Let me know if you are interested in investigating this and getting it started...  Ultimately, a proposal will need to be prepared and submitted for approval.  The proposal will need to include what the criteria will be for student members - the info is on the website...  We will also have to initially petition for a local chapter.  There may be other organizations out there to consider, so let me know if you would like to pursue this.  


Final Exams 

We will discuss specific plans for Canvas and Google Classroom at our department meeting on the 21st.

Exams - Gen Info

• All final exams are to be submitted to supervisor by for review and by Canvas Admins to the Supervisor’s Canvas Course.
• Only 1 exam upload for each course (i.e. English 1, English 2, English 3.)
• One teacher should create an exam for each course - they must submit the exam to the Supervisor’s Canvas course to have settings checked before sharing with other teachers
• Once Exam Settings are checked by Canvas Admins teachers should import the exam into their course for their students.

For Teachers

• Once the exam is imported to Canvas, do not change any settings
• If there is an error or problem, Inform your immediate supervisor that settings need to be changed and re-import the test with the correct settings
• Do not select one question at a time or lock questions after answering 
• Publish all files/folders for images to be used on the exam 
• Ensure class and the final exam is published
• Do not use videos for a final exam
• External links will not work with lockdown browser
• Provide makeup schedule to students before exams begin. Make-up final exams are June 24 from 8:30 am until 2:30 pm
• Elective course final exams need to stay open during school hours on all testing days
• Teachers of students with double math/science will be identified and told to keep the exam open during school hours all 3 days.

During Exam Testing Dates:

• Teachers should not be changing settings while students are in the final exam session
• Changing the time while the final exam is in session will not reflect in the Lockdown Browser
• Students cannot call the help desk
• Students cannot come down to the help desk
• Teachers cannot come down to the help desk
• The latest possible start time for the second final exam is 10:45 am.
• Please allow students additional time to take the exam if they started late due to technology issues.

Dr. Notes
Over the next few weeks, if you are out sick on a Friday or a Monday and can get a doctor's note, I suggest you do so.  Scan the note and keep a digital copy.  Bring the hard copy down to the HR department and give it to Maddie Toro and tell her to put it in your medical file.  I do not need a copy of the note. 

4/29/19

Thank you all for your patience and cooperation during NJSLA testing!  It's over!!!!

Reminders


Final Exams
I have confirmation from Dr. Parent that we can use either Canvas or Google Classroom for the final exams.  If you are not proficient in using the new test-lock feature on Google Classroom, we have a few staff members who can assist.  

Please make sure all Exams for this year are loaded into our shared Google Team Folders by May 15th.  

Ashley White has offered to help us with training for Google Lock Mode.  Please contact her to arrange a time to meet.  

Document Logs
Dr. Parent has just confirmed the date for Doc Log submission - May 17th. 


PLC Certificates

Stop by my office and pick up your PLC hour certificates.  They are on my desk.  I will leave the door open during the day in case I am not in my office.  I will not hunt you down, so please come pick them up. 


PD Hours in MyLearningPlan

I will review this at our next meeting, however in the meantime...

When you go into "My Portfolio" in MyLearningPlan, you can see your PD hours calculated and listed for the past few years.  Some items are automatically stored - an example of this are things like the PD videos that you watch and complete the corresponding quizzes for. They dump in once you complete it.  

If you have certificates for workshops, you can enter them into your doc log as artifacts, but it will not pull those hours you may have received from the activity and store them in "My Portfolio."  In order to have them show in "My Portfolio," you would need to enter them into "Historical PD Record" and upload the document there.  You can do both if you want to use a certificate as an artifact in the doc log, but if you want the hours to show in the list, you have to enter them into "Historical PD Record."

I will explain this in more detail at the meeting...

ED FOUNDATION MINI-GRANTS

All PCTI educators are invited to submit proposals for “innovative ideas and practices” to enhance the classroom experience for PCTI students. The Education Foundation will award grants ranging from $250 - $1,000 to PCTI educators to assist them in developing their proposals and achieving their goals for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year.  In the past, we have received grants for Museum trips, literature/poetry festivals, author visits, etc...

Guidelines: 
• Proposals must be submitted by May 24, 2019, to the Superintendent’s office, and addressed to the attention of Mr. Albert Alexander, President of the PCTI Education Foundation. 
• Proposals must include: teacher’s name, course name, description of the proposal, amount requested, goals and expected outcomes to be achieved. 
• Please complete the attached mini-grant expense form and send with your proposal. 
• Proposals should not exceed two pages. 


No purchases other than the items requested in your grant proposal will be funded through the grant.  Grant award money cannot be combined with funds in program’s budget. 

For more details, see the email from Sandy Woods dated Tuesday, April 30th.

* If you need a sample of how to format your grant request, let me know and I will send you one that I was successful with. 



Department Supply Duty

I would like to add another person to our supply duty for next year.  If you are interested, email me. 


SENIOR OBLIGATIONS

On Friday morning (4/26) the following email will be sent to the attached list of seniors who have an outstanding obligation to the district.  There is nothing for you to do on your end other than to reiterate that we are no longer accepting cash, checks, or money orders for obligations.  

This same process will be used for all underclassmen, too.  The goal is to have nearly every family on K12 Payment for lunch payments, district obligations, and other future uses.

Be advised – I automatically remove locks, ID, and library fines from the obligations list.  I am not holding a diploma hostage for $4.00 or $5.00.

Dear <<First Name>>,

According to school records, you have one or more outstanding obligations due to the district.  As you are aware, all obligations must be paid in full prior to graduation on June 21.  Any graduating senior with outstanding obligations will not receive their diploma on graduation night.

In order to pay your obligation(s) follow these steps:

1.      Go to K12 Payment Center

2.      If you or your parent(s) do not have an account set up, you or your parent(s) must create an account

3.      Your obligation fee and what the fee is for will be visible

4.      Pay your obligation via credit card or debit card

5.      Retain the email receipt that is sent to you

Be informed that we will not be accepting any cash, check, or money order transactions for obligations due.  All obligations must be paid via K12 Payment Center.