A New Year, A New Year of Blogging

Note to readers - This is the most strictly factual, boringest blog post I have ever written.  Proceed at your own risk.

Ms. Price - Announcement that she will not be scheduling any faculty meetings, instead we will use our PD time for faculty meeting business including anyone who says they need to make an announcement.

Communities In Schools will be starting their work with seventh graders this week. This is one of the few times that they will be pulling students out of class.  They are also looking for one math teacher and one English teacher to hire as tutors to work with the program after school.

Vote for SSC, CEAC, and ELAC members today.

Ms. Price - Suggestion that people who have signed up for committees like PD and technology and whatnot should meet breifly at the conclusion of the PD to decide when they will meet.

Nurse Clare - Clare expresses that she is very excited to be back at the school.  She explains that she tries to make the office a very homey place where kids can get breakfast, call home or whatever they need.  Vision and hearing test will be done through the science class and Clare will make an effort to see each eighth grader individually for scoliosis, height and weight as well as vision.  Need seventh grade science teachers to give dates to Clare so she can schedule Planned Parenthood.  Notify the nurse's office when you have a field trip so can send medication.  If you call the nurse to come to your room to help a kid, send the name of the student so medication can be brought if needed.  October 10 is the deadline for students to have the pertussis vaccine.  After that, students without the vaccine will not be allowed to attend school.

Bloodborne Pathogens - Best practice, cover-up. Use universal precautions, have a barrier between you and any fluids.  Always protect yourself, you never know what someone might have.  Clare demonstrates the correct way to remove gloves.  Call the custodian to clean up any body fluid messes.  Sharps must be disposed of in a sharps container.  Body fluid contaminated materials must go in a red bag.  Urine and feces are not subject to that rule, for some reason.  Make sure that students who are having a seizure, make sure that the student is laying on his side, but don't do anything else.  Just keep the student safe.  Send kids who are having an allergic reaction to the nurse's office ASAP to avoid a call to 911.

Ms. Price - We have a new teacher for seventh and eighth grade math.  She is a pool teacher, but while she is here, we will use her.

Meghan Schooler - Showing us MyData. Quick poll of the staff on how they confident they feel.  Lots of people are having trouble logging in, the computers are slow.

Pause for UTLA announcements - West Area meeting at Emerson at 3:45 tomorrow.  Thursday will be a lunch UTLA meeting in 122 to go over West Area meeting. Mr. Hastings thanks the staff for all they did.  UTLA talking points - opposition to two charter takeovers, 800 classified staff layoffs this month, surplus from last year should be used to keep certificated staff (according to state law) and lower norms.  We will be doing a new class count to check our numbers.  Use Tuesdays numbers and get it to Noriko by the end of the day.  Currently negotiating furlough days, health care benefits, and public school choice.

Marie - Update to CELDT from last week.  You can find out all about them in My Data.

Back to Meghan - MyData is still very slow and not loading, so we have to learn by listening but without doing, mostly.  There is a pink handout so you can try it out at home if you are interested.  Meghan is being Sheila Berman on the center screen, so you are welcome to watch/ listen or work ahead on your own, though I am unclear what we are working on.

Pause for Mr. Oakes to talk about today's discipline talks.

Noriko - If we want to use PD time for SBM committees, then everyone has to be on a committee so go see the person who heads the committee you want to be on.

Committees met and that was it for the day!