Friday, February 12, 2021
Dear RSU 71 Students, Families, Staff, School Board, and Community Partners,
This Friday's message includes an update on the COVID-19 pandemic and news about some goings-on in our school system.
Pandemic Update - Waldo County is still designated as green in today's color-coded Health Advisory System. So we will remain in the green mode K-8, while our high school will stay in the yellow/hybrid mode. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been a total of twelve confirmed cases in individuals associated with RSU 71 schools, ten students and two staff members.
- Symptomatic Students - A reminder to families that if children go home symptomatic, they need to quarantine and be tested. Our school nurses are a talented team of professionals, highly knowledgeable sources of information and support. They keep up with all the latest developments and update me in our weekly Friday meetings. All nurses carefully keep information about symptomatic and confirmed positive cases entirely confidential. For the sake of community safety, please do carefully listen to instructions from our school nurses, and please do share test results with them.
- Travel During the February Break - If you plan to travel out of Maine during February vacation, please be safe, and follow the CDC guidelines for mask-wearing, social distancing, and hand washing. Everyone in the family will need to have a COVID test upon returning to Maine and quarantine until negative test results are obtained. Staff and students who travel internationally will not be able to come back to school for seven days, even after a negative test. Again, we thank you in advance for keeping yourself and your community safe.
- Transportation on Buses - Families were very supportive last summer when I asked parents who were able and willing to consider transporting their children to and from school or walking or bicycling to school with them, as a way to keep our numbers of students on buses down and allow for social distancing. Many families were able to help us and continue to do so, and we continue to be grateful. As we successfully weather this storm of COVID-19, more and more students have been returning to school in person and using bus transportation. So I ask again. If families whose students are currently on the buses could find a way to get children to school another way safely, please let your school principal know.
- Next Year - We hope to begin the new 2021 - 2022 school year at the end of August and in GREEN, with in-person instruction at all levels K-12. This will, of course, depend on the vaccination rate and transmission of the coronavirus. Stay tuned!
One-Year Strategic Plan - At our last meeting of the RSU 71 Board of Directors, a One-Year Strategic Plan was approved. Schools are working with their Leadership Teams to develop action plans for each of the two or three initiatives in the four goals areas.
Improve Measurable Student Achievement. By December 2021, RSU 71 will create a "culture of data literacy," and teams will engage in cyclical data collection and analysis. Each CPT (Collaborative Planning Team) will articulate student performance outcomes and data used to track student growth and achievement over time. We will consider at least three dimensions of student achievement, including student work (products and performances), academic achievement, and character (habits for success and 21st-century learning expectations). Teams not involved with classroom instruction will look at different data sets, such as student health measures, bus safety and behavior, social and emotional markers, the cleanliness of buildings and grounds, and so forth. See Guiding Principles.
Deepen Community Partnerships. By December of 2021, RSU 71 will build stronger community alliances and seek new community partnerships to strengthen student and staff opportunities.
Focus on the Health and Well-Being of Staff and Students. By December of 2021, RSU 71 will create a district-wide and school-by-school plan to promote student and staff well-being: physical, social, and emotional, as measured by staff and student feedback.
Continue to Implement Highly Effective Classroom Instruction in Classrooms. By December of 2021, all school leadership teams will implement the widespread use of four research-based instructional practices and measure their use through learning walks and classroom observations of all classrooms:
High-Quality Learning Targets
Checking for Understanding During Daily Lessons
Using Data with Students
Models, Critiques, and Descriptive Feedback
Here is a link that visually shows the effect sizes of teaching strategies that raise student achievement, aiming for an effect size of .5 or higher to be in the zone of desired effects. The higher the effect size, the higher the likelihood of significant student growth and achievement:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dfVPCalcglSI67toxP6ynG7ZLifLzo3zWEaGkpQb8sU/edit
Long-Range Planning - Fall of 2021 - This fall, we hope to launch a longer-term planning process. We hope to do so in person with all interested staff, students, families, selectpersons, councils, and community partners. If we are able, we'll kick-off this work in early fall in a sizeable in-person gathering of representative stakeholders and good food. We will then prepare sessions in smaller groups of staff members, parent groups, and community forums.
Professional Development - All RSU 71 staff family members are engaged in training and professional development as members of collaborative teams. This work has included, among other things, attention to:
Math Instruction and Student Achievement
NWEA Data Analysis (to inform instruction and promote accelerated student growth)
Instructional Technology
High-Leverage Instructional Strategies (effect sizes of .5 and greater)
Response to Intervention, Remediation, and Catch-Up Growth
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Review and Revision of ELA, Visual and Theater Arts, and Unified Arts Curriculum
Belfast Area High School Library - The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association, has named Belfast Area High School as a recipient of its 2021 Great Books Giveaway. Each of the three selected schools will receive a share of more than $20,000 worth of books, audiobooks, and other materials donated to YALSA from publishers and producers in 2020. The materials will be delivered to BAHS in March and shared with the other libraries in the district. Thanks to BAHS Library-Media Specialist Lindsay Bailey for going above and beyond in her grant-writing!
BAHS Goes to the Snow Bowl and Opens Spirit Shop - Skiing and snow-boarding have been hugely popular. We have had 45 students and staff participating for free on Thursdays, and the Snow Bowl can hardly handle the crowd. It is very joyous, with brave students trying something new and expert skiers supporting their friends.
Check out the new BAHS Spirit Shop, which is up and running 24/7 and helps support our student-athletes: https://sideline.bsnsports.com/schools/maine/belfast/belfast-area-high-school.
We are Playing Chess! - We are playing chess through chess.com. The middle school team participates in the Maine Middle-Level online Chess Tournament with ELP teachers Jacquie Gage and Jean Lawliss. Best wishes to Players and Teams!! These are the results after 3 weeks of matches:
Belfast Green: 1 win (Bonny Eagle) 1 draw/tie (Boothbay) 1 loss (Camden/Rockport)
THMS Lions: 1 loss (Brunswick) 2 wins (Glenburn Blue and Boothbay)
The tournament will run for 3 more weeks.
Teams Involved:
That's it for this week. This message will be Robo-emailed to all families and posted on the district website and my blog. As always, please feel free to be in touch with administrators, nurses, and me with questions, feedback, and ideas.
With warm wishes to everyone for a wonderful and well-deserved February vacation and continued observation of all safety protocols during this period of the pandemic,
