September 10, 2020 RCSD Educator Blog

Message from Jamey Schrey

At the heart of my core values is my commitment to children and the disparities in education that I have seen within my 29-year career. I remember a question in my RCSD interview, and it was what was my non-negotiable as a leader? My answer: As a leader, I expect that educators will act, with every child, as if that child can learn and achieve at the highest level, even if the educator does not believe it. I have found that when children are provided with cognitively challenging opportunities, provided with support and educators to guide them, they rise to the occasion. I have also found that educators take pride in these moments and should celebrate the success of not only the achievement of children but the value they have added to both children as well as our future generations.

I myself have many things to learn and am trying to continue to grow to improve our system. I thank you for the work that you do each day, and especially in an environment that poses new and daunting challenges to jobs.

The article and a video mentioned below have provided me with new learnings and useful reminders this week.
This is Equity 7-minute video
Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions- Cult of Pedagogy

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Elementary Progress Reports

Middle School- We will have your update on progress reports next week.

Elementary Teachers:

A reminder, Elementary Progress Reports need to go home by September 25th.

 

There are two minimum expectations from the District when it comes to Progress Reports 1st Trimester:

1. Any student that might receive a Limited on any domain on the Trimester 1 Report Card receives communication regarding progress from their teacher during progress report time.  This includes both academic domains, and the academic behavior and college readiness standards.  

2. PLCs are on the same page in regards to what information they send home and when they send that home.

Teachers are allowed to send additional information or send information to all students if they choose, but that is a PLC decision.

Teachers can communicate using the District form, or you may use your own form of communication. If you are going to communicate using something different than the District provided form, you must let your administrator know.

 

Below is a document that has different progress report options.  There are two types of files, PDF or Google doc.  

RCSD Elementary Progress Report Master Document

Here are instructions on if you would like to use the Google Doc:

• Google Doc Progress Report Tutorial- Video

Here are instructions on how to use the fillable PDFs:

• If you are using a Macbook, please click here for step-by-step instructions, open the progress report in Adobe Acrobat from your computer, and not within a web browser like Google Chrome. 

• If you are using a Chromebook, click here for step-by-step instructions. You will want to first install the DocHub extension if you have not already done so.

• Video showing how to download the progress report.  Please skip the first 10 seconds that describe how to get the PDF in PowerSchool since now you can access all PDFs on the document above.

Here are options on how to get Progress Reports sent home.  You do not have to do it this way, these are just options:

• Emailing Progress Reports (Google Doc) in Otus- Video 

• Emailing Progress Reports (PDF) in Otus- Video

• PDFs or Google Docs can also be sent in an email through your rcsdk8.org account. 

If you have questions about the communication you should send out or who should receive a progress report, please talk to your principal.

If you need technology help, please submit a support request through SchoolDude with any questions or issues. Or, feel free to call the Technology Helpdesk at (916) 771-1645 or internally at extension 50140, and we'll be happy to assist you.

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Otus

ELA and Math Domains Renamed in Otus

Previously the standards were named MATH.1 or ELA.1.  After teacher feedback, we updated them to be more descriptive and include the abbreviation, not a number, please see below for examples.  A reminder that you need to use the Custom standards in Otus, go to Math or Language Arts, and select the Domain.  You can use state standards if you want to label more, but the Domain is what will pull on the report card.  

Elementary Examples:

Middle School Examples:

Creating and Grading Assessments in Otus- Elementary

If you are creating/assigning assessments to classes, it is important that you are assigning assessments to the correct class. The class they assign to matters. The Otus report card organizes standards by class. This will not matter much for Formative grades, but will matter for Summative since that is what will pull on the report card. 

If staff assign an assessment/standards to the wrong class in Otus, you must unassign the assessment and reassign/grade to the appropriate class for reporting purposes. We know Elementary might be using Homeroom for lessons and class board announcements. If you want standards data to be organized by each subject area class on the report card, teachers must assign the assessments to the appropriate subject area class, not homeroom.  We will have a lot more information regarding grading in the upcoming weeks, well before reports cards after the end of 1st Trimester.

Insufficient Evidence- Middle School Only

We know there has been feedback from our middle school teachers to have IE as an option in Otus.  We are working on a solution and hope to have an update by early next week.  We will email all middle school teachers more information once we have it.

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Monday PD

Every Monday the Educational Services Team will be providing optional Professional Development.  All PD will be recorded.  You can find the Zoom link, presentation guides, and recordings after the PD is done on the document below.  

Monday PD Document

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Other

Zoom
A reminder that if your students are saying they cannot get into Zoom, please have them go to zoom.us, and log in.  Here are instructions that were sent to all parents.  Please feel free to send to your families if they need a reminder.

EduTyping
A reminder that as part of the Roseville City School District Digital Literacy plan, all students in grades 1-4 were given access this school year to a typing program called EduTyping.  Edutyping was kind enough to give the program to all 5th-8th grade students in our District for free from now until August 2021.  Please see the below guides for how students log in and how teachers can log in to see progress.  For middle school teachers, there is no expectation you have students use this but it is a nice option for students to improve their typing skills. 
EduTyping- Student Log In
EduTyping- Teacher Log In