This is the first time I have ever used the same post for staff and families ever. But it's just what I wanted to say. I hope you had a restful weekend!
Dear Waggoner Students, Staff, and Families,
Thank you so much for being amazing. This past year we have faced many challenges together and I know that this four-day weekend was much needed and welcomed by all. I am so thankful for each and every one of you - you are the reason our Waggoner community is so special. I appreciate your perseverance and dedication through all of the obstacles. A year ago, I don't think anyone knew how this would all unfold and yet here we are still standing, together. Know that you are seen and appreciated- this is not easy. I hope that during these four days that you were able to catch your breath, rest, and find some time to do things that you love with your favorite people. And know that right now that YOU are most important and I hope you are all taking care of you.
I am so grateful to spend my days leading and serving in Winters, alongside you all. Sending you the biggest virtual hug!
Consider this a love letter from me to all of you.
With love,
-Jennifer
***I will be in Winters every day this week. Small cohorts start tomorrow 2/16. Thanks to Carrie, Connie, and Matt for tag teaming!
February 17 1:30-2:00 - reopening presentation & DO Q & A in my zoom room
I just wasn't sure what image to put at the top of this post, but I do love you and ... well, cats love sleep! I also wanted to say thank you for a fun 100th day and Global School Play day! Trustee Trott gave a shout out at the board meeting to our school for the day of play, so even if it wasn't the same, please know you made an impact! The 100th day was also awesome-- knowing that this might feel like the millionth day of school this year. Thank you for planning such a fun day for our students. The fun will continue this week with getting ready for Valentines Day and I am looking forward to the lunch with the principal scavenger hunts T-Th this week. See the times below. I will post the zoom links for the principal lunches tomorrow for all. The Valentine Fun doc for the week is here: Click here! Feel free to add it wherever works for you.
Also, I apologize for the change in schedule Wednesday the 17th-- I had shared that there would be no meeting. The superintendent requested time to meet with each staff, and this coming Wednesday was already planned and full. I am super excited for EduProtocols!
On the 17th, we will meet briefly from 1:30-2 for her presentation. Classified staff- this is optional and you are welcome to join. Then, that day the rest of the time teachers can use for room prep if you choose. I will also leave the 24th open for teachers to prepare rooms for hybrid.
I do not like to backtrack on communication, and also want you to be up to date when info changes. In the meantime, although numbers are improving, it seems highly unlikely at this time that we would be open on the 22nd. Should we move to red tier soon, we will provide staff and families sufficient time to make arrangements. Things literally change daily right now- I will continue to communicate and be transparent with what I know. For now, I am choosing to breathe, and relax. Having said that, I think aiming for having rooms ready the week of the 19th-24th will prepare us well to open, to know what we need, and then we wait. Thank you for your flexibility during this time.
Learners and Leaders!
Hip hip hooray for our Waggoner staff who continue to learn and lead! This past Saturday, Kristie led an awesome Area 3 Writing Project Super Saturday highlighting voice and choice for writing with digital tools! And our whole DBE team participated in a day of learning at the International Multilingual Education Virtual Professional Development Conference hosted by Loyola Marymount. We can't wait to hear all about these experiences!
Valentines Week Fun- Lunch Party with the Principal!
K/TK: Tuesday 2/9 from 11-11:30
1st grade: Wednesday 2/10 from 12:10-12:40 2nd grade: Thursday from 12:10-12:40
February 3, 2021 is Global School Play Day- the sixth year! This is normally a day kids and staff love as kids engage in unstructured play all day. This is definitely a challenge but no pandemic will get in the way of play at Waggoner! This year, although the official play day is Wednesday the 3rd, we'll be reimagining it as more of week to celebrate play and I encourage you to find ways to play with your students all week whenever you can. A similar message will go out in the family blog here as well. Wednesdays at Waggoner are more offline anyways for WIN, assessment, and support, so I encourage you have fun, play, and even unplug that day. You certainly don't need to feel like you have to stay online all day watching them play. I've created a bingo type board (it's in the blog, too) with activities for families, and you may want to brainstorm some ideas with our students, too! Here is a list of Distance Learning play ideas started by the creators of Global School Play Day! I made this copy so you can add more ideas. This list was brainstormed by students. You can do as much or as little as you like, just find some time for play this week and celebrate it with your kids :) Thanks!
And here is a slide deck of virtual games you and your students can play on Zoom! It will force a copy. (It says Fun Friday on the first slide- feel free to make it your own! You can also create breakout rooms where kids can play with similar items or games (board games, blocks, dolls, art etc).
February 4, 2015, was the first annual Global School Play Day for students in schools around the world. In year one, over 65,000 students participated! Over 177,000 students took part in 2016. In 2017, over 283,000 kids celebrated Global School Play Day. In 2018, over 385,000 students from 58 nations participated. In 2019, just the 5th year of the event, 535,690 from 72 nations played. In 2020, 563,283 students from 75 Nations. Can we reach 1,000,000 students in 2021? We think so!
In his TEDx lecture, Peter Gray clearly argues the case that today's kids do not grow up playing and this has negatively impacted them in many ways. It's time we return the gift of play to this generation.
2/1 K/TK applications available for 2021-22! Eeek!
2/3 No Professional Learning / Staff Meeting-- In honor of Global School Play Day enjoy this mental health opportunity to play and enjoy some unstructured time for you!
2/3 Global School Play Day!
2/4 WJUSD Board Meeting
2/5 Grade Level
2/6 DBE virtual conference
2/10 3:00-4:00 SAVE THE DATE EduProtocols with Jon Corippo is coming to Waggoner! This will be on Zoom :)
2/12 and 2/15 No School - Presidents Weekend
*Virtual Valentines Fun with the Principal coming soon! I'll be doing a Zoom scavenger hunt by grade level :) I still need to finalize the schedule. And I will make the Bitmoji to add your pics!*
Being real, some things we AND kids love best about elementary school are the special days... Halloween and Valentines Day are just a few! I think this year we have tried to make the best with drive by witches waves and more. Having said that, I was talking to a teacher the other day and she said that these special days that we can't really experience fully are really getting sad as we approach almost a year of distance learning. Sometimes it feels like we've lost that loving feeling, doesn't it?
Me, too! And we have more days like this coming up that we usually love! Global School Play Day is February 3rd. Valentines week is just around the corner too! I know it's a lot to keep gearing up for special days that don't always feel special. And you already have a lot on your plate. For these upcoming days I will plan some things that are either low/no prep or I will do a fun principal something for us school-wide. I know these are days we all love and kids remember, but I also acknowledge it's not the same!
I was inspired by a conversation with Clara about Zoom choice time, and then on Instagram I saw some of my former teachers doing Fun Friday play times, and different game breakout rooms. I have some fun ideas to share at Wednesday's meeting. This might be just the ticket for Global School Play Day, or Play Hour...
Here are few pics, the first is TK, and the second kinder-- at different schools. So hang in there! I know it's hard to find the joy some days. Thank you for all you do. I hope you had a restful weekend!
The quote project featuring the words of Dr. King inspired me so much! I found myself getting emotional just hearing the voices of our students and staff share his voice. And it also served as a reminder to me that this work is our forever work that can sometimes feel like it's limited to one day or one month. This quote is one that really sticks with me for many reasons, and I appreciate that we can have hard conversations and I feel grateful that if there is something bothering you, you tell me. Keep doing this! And especially when it comes to equity for students and staff. Please hold me accountable for this work. Tell me how I can do better. And please share any ideas for making our school and community better. We are so lucky to have the future in our hands! Thank you for all that you do to love our students and each other. Cheeck out the Flipgrid now!
On a little different topic, I saw this video (it's just over 2 minutes) in one of my masters classes last week and it reminds me why I am glad we don't have committees and that when we do meet as a staff, or as teachers, all are invited to share ideas and ask questions. As principal, I don't have all the answers - nah, any answers some times! But together we are brilliant and all of your ideas are what makes Waggoner the incredible place it is.
Steve Jobs: "If you wanna hire great people and have them stay working for you, you have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to be run by ideas not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win, otherwise good people don't stay."
Thanks for walking alongside me as we make many decisions!
Each year, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King's life and work with a national holiday near his January 15th birthday. Every year I am struck by his words. As a teacher I always taught my students about him each year, and how they might make a difference, and, and I know you do, too. My students wrote about their dreams. We listened to the book Martin's Big Words. Kids are always inspiring with their dreams, their love, and their wishes for peace. Even little kids get it! And yet I also felt that the day came and went until the next year. We all have dreams. We all wish for peace. But how do we get there? How can we live out his work every day of the year? How can we create a world that is too great for hate?
What can I do? I am just one person.
What can we do? How can we make a difference?
We have an incredible opportunity as educators as we spend our days with the children who will lead our world in the future. We have an opportunity to impact each other and our community. We can make a difference. I would love to hear your ideas for how we can really move forward with this work. We can't do everything but we can do something.
This week, Christina and Justine created a powerful words project for students, staff, and families to learn a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and record themselves saying it on Flipgrid. We are going to work on adding quotes in Spanish and Kristen will be recording directions in Spanish also. And throughout this week our Waggoner voices will speak together in honor of Dr. King. I am so thankful to Christina and Justine for this suggestion and opportunity, and can't wait to hear you, our kids, and families sharing inspiring quotes with the world. I will be sharing this project out in this week's family blog. Below are the quotes and the Flipgrid. More quotes will be added. And if you have another one you love, let us know! Together we are a powerful force! And if you have other ideas for how we can make a difference together, please share! We can do small things together in a great way.
Dates & Details
*This week I will be in Winters M/W/F and working from home T/Th.*
1/13 Professional Learning/DBE & EO Data chats and SIPPS planning 1:30 Agenda link
1/15 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday
1/18 No school in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
This morning as I was getting ready for work I looked outside to see a beautiful rainbow! Did you see it too? I loved seeing that this morning and am taking it as a good sign for this new year! With that, I selected this rainbow welcome mat to usher in 2021. I hope your first day back has been wonderful.
As we welcome this new year, tiptoeing in softly, we will also tiptoe back into our literacy focus and three year plan. It feels like this year has been all safety and distance learning planning and not much else... as it should be. However, now that we are going to continue in distance learning for the time being we'll be revisiting writing and phonics starting this week. Of course, in the midst of a pandemic we won't be able to (nor should we) tackle everything in our three year plan. We will find one or two things we can move forward with between now and May knowing that returning to in person eventually will still pop up from time to time.
Something we haven't done in awhile is write together! This week we will get a chance to do this! You don't need to bring anything, but you can be thinking about your hopes for this coming year. We will do some different activities to generate ideas and then you get to choose what you will create.
Dates & Details
1/6 Professional Learning/Staff Meeting 1:30 Agenda link
1/13 Professional Learning/DBE & EO Data chats and SIPPS planning
