Nuts & Bolts

Thank you all for your participation during Monday and Tuesday staff meetings last week. Thank you to Kacee for organizing and presenting on Monday and Nicoletta for organizing and presenting on Tuesday. Thank you Junior High teachers for an excellent Information Night last week. The parents and student in attendance seemed impressed and excited at what our Junior High has to offer.

Thank you all for your attention, engagement, and willingness to speak your truth at Friday's professional learning. I appreciate that everyone seemed to be present with open hearts and open minds. Again, I would like to thank our staff members who do not normally work on Friday for their participation. Again, thank you to our special education staff members who attended another training before our professional learning. Thank you all for your beautiful comments on my stack of sticky notes. I am so happy to be at MMA, doing excellent and important work with each of you.

I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend. We did our normal Sunday ski and then had an extra day to take a hike and actually get ourselves (and the house) together for the week. I wish you a happy and productive short week!

Apparently, I was not accurate last week when I thought the playground installation would be completed by Tuesday. Students can play on the north playground today! Thank you all for being flexible with construction and the new playground installation.

Thank you all!!

As promised, I have included materials below that I utilized Friday during professional learning for your convenience and future use. The Amazing Race clues are just written into text boxes that fit over a template I downloaded from this lady on Pinterest. Her site is https://www.momof6.com. She had Amazing Race printables, Would You Rather Questions, and Truth or Dare.

In the interest of building security, the doors to the school will be locked when the front office staff leaves at 4pm. I have been surprised/ambushed several times by parents after hours and I'm sure you all have had similar experiences. Unfortunately, we are living in crazy times, which is what necessitated the re-design of our entrance. The security points do not work unless the doors are secure and someone is buzzing (and signing) in people. This cannot happen after 4pm when our front office staff leaves.

If you are hosting an event after school, you will be responsible for arranging and signing in visitors. Please work with the front office staff so we have a record of what is happening after school whenever students, parents, or anyone is invited to our school.

All visitors need to sign in at the office and get visitor identification. If you see someone you do not recognize without a visitor sticker on, please stop them and ask how you can help.

If you are hosting any event outside of the normal school day, you need to submit a Field Trip Request form to Melanie for approval. This form can be accessed on the teacher drive. Questions can be directed to Melanie.

Mark your calendars for this year's Chili Cookout. It's scheduled for 31st. Please see cookout organizers Amity or Kirsten for more information and/or if you class would like to contribute or participate. This fundraiser, like all our fundraisers, benefit our entire student body. We will share more details as they become available.

We are scheduled to have a lockdown drill this week on January 18th. During a lockdown, the following procedures should be followed until the all clear signal sounds:

• all students need to be in a classroom
• lights off
  
• doors closed and locked (remove magnetic strip)
  
• cover the door window
  
• students should be out of view
  
• everyone needs to be completely silent
  

As stated after our last drill, the time for this drill will not be announced. Please consult with the front office staff if you have questions.

If you arrive to school after the hours stated on your employee agreement, you need to sign-in at the office immediately upon arriving to school. This is for both accountability and safety reasons. If we have an emergency evacuation, we need to know if you're still in the building or not.

If you need to be absent for any reason, you need to fill in a time-off request form, which are available in the workroom. Before you return this form to my mailbox, please completely fill out the form and have your sub arranged and written on the form. Special education staff needs to have Dana initial the form before submitting it to my box. This form should be submitted at least 10 days before your absence. If you have an urgent reason to be absent (like a doctor's appointment) where 10 days notice is not possible, please submit the form asap. If you have to be absent for an emergency - please arrange your sub and email Rene, April, and Kacee (if you're on Jr High team) asap. If you need to leave school early for any reason, you need to sign out in the office.

Please contact April if you have questions or concerns. Thank you for your cooperation and attention to this matter.

In order to not overwhelm Ms. Andrea and to keep our students accountable and in class as much as possible, there is now an official procedure for when students request to see our counselor.

If a student requests to see Ms. Andrea immediately, please use your classroom phone to call Ms. Andrea at x1123 first to see if she is available at that moment. If she is not available, she will provide a time when the student may visit.

Junior High students visiting Ms. Andrea will sign in and out on a special sheet in the front office. This will begin on Monday, January 15th at the beginning of the new semester.

As always, if you have a child discussing or writing about self-harm, they should be immediately referred to Ms. Andrea as this is an emergency situation. If Ms. Andrea is not available, the child needs to see Kacee or myself. This needs to happen before the end of the day and as soon as possible.

There are counselor referral forms in the workroom for all other non-emergency social-emotional concerns you may have for your students. Please fill these forms in completely with as much detail as possible as this saves everyone time and effort.

Please honor Ms. Andrea's time, schedule, and work responsibilities by not stopping her in the hall for detailed conversations about students or other situations. We are very happy to have Ms. Andrea on our staff and do not want to overburden her.

It's official. The Board approved this calendar last week at their meeting. Thank you, April, for doing all the logistical work to get this calendar completed. Thank you, Advisory Committee, for your feedback during the process. Next year's calendar is very similar to this year except we will have half days for professional learning on Mondays, instead of Fridays. This is so our entire staff can be present for these opportunities.

We are having an assembly on Wednesday, January 31st in the gym regarding internet safety. The schedule is as follows:

• Lower El 8:45 am – 9:15 am
  
• Upper El 9:20 am – 10:05 am
  
• JH 10:10 am – 10:55 am
  

Per teacher licensing requirements and best practice, Kacee and I will be performing formal observations during the month of January. These observations will be reviewed with you and used to complete your yearly formal evaluation. In most cases, both administrators will be present for the observation to support my increasing understanding of Montessori practice.

Intent to return forms were emailed to all of our current students last week. Please remind parents how awesome we are and encourage parents to return these forms by January 19th.

Please talk up and encourage our current families and other families you may meet in your life or travels that MMA is the place to be, especially for junior high.

If a student or anyone in our building displays extraordinary kindness, grace, or courtesy - please direct them to come to the office to be recognized with a snowflake on our board.

Be aware that there are several tours are scheduled in the next few weeks. Prospective family tours are scheduled on Thursdays in the next few months. There is no preparation required on your part; this is just a heads up that additional individuals will be in the building and possibly cycling through your room.

1/16 PLC Mtgs - EC, JH, LE

1/17 PLC Mtgs - UE

1/18 PLC Mtg - Special Ed

1/18 Lockdown Drill

Email: rbaker@mariamontessoriacademy.org
Website: https://www.mariamontessoriacademy.org
Phone: 801-827-0150
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MMAofUT/
Twitter: @ReneBaker27