I hope you have a nice long weekend and are able to find fun and relaxing things to do in the company of those you love.
Thanks for meeting on short notice today. I wanted to say something uplifting to you, to encourage, sustain, and embolden you. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I thank you for indulging me while I tried.
At 3:00 the other morning, I kept replaying this speech in my head. It's closely akin to what it was I hoped to be able to say to you today; that's how proud I am to be a member of this company of yours. Henry V's Eve of St. Crispin's speech is one of my favorite scenes in any film ever. I hope you will watch and enjoy it and, moreover, that you will be able to see through the rousing-but-complicated Shakespearean prose, and the far-more-desperate-than-ours circumstance, to the real meaning of the words. They come close, albeit by way of an extremely overly dramatic piece of acting, to mirroring many of my own thoughts about you, and us, and all that we've been forced to endure together.
Parapros vs. classroom aides
Sounds like a rousing scenario for a no-holds-barred cage match, doesn't it.
It's not.
But I would like to take a second in today's Blue Note to remind all of you of the difference between a classroom aide and a special education paraprofessional.
Classroom aides are assigned only to our kindergarten classes through our Title 1 budget "to provide early literacy support and intervention" to all students in a given classroom. Classroom aides are assigned to teachers not specific individual students.
Paraprofessional are provided to certain individual students (or small groupings of students) based on discrete components of their Individual Education Plan. The FUSD M&O Exceptional Student Services budget pays for them. As members of a given classroom, paraprofessionals are permitted to provide both academic and/or behavioral assistance to all students. However, please note: paraprofessionals are assigned to students, not to teachers. As needs change, as IEPs are revised, as students move toward greater independence and/or move in and out of our school, paraprofessionals must be reassigned to areas where needs exist.
Classroom aides can be directed to perform any number of duties, including support tasks such as copying, collating, and recess duties based on teacher-need.
Paraprofessionals should not be directed to perform the aforementioned duties by classroom teachers, but may be asked by their special education supervisor or the school principal to attend recesses in order to provide supervision and support to the students in their charge in that setting. Needless to say, they may always render aide and social support to all students on the playground, but they should always be on duty along with another staff member (typically a classroom teacher or general aide) in order to be able to immediately carry out their primary function, which is the care of the child(ren) to whom they have been assigned.
General education classroom teachers should not ask paraprofessionals to carry out clerical work, support tasks, or any assigned duties for them.
These directives do not apply to paraprofessionals in district-wide special programs whose assigned duties and responsibilities differ greatly from paraprofessionals assigned to inclusion students in gen-ed classrooms.
Dismissal
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| It's not funny. |
Up here in the front office, we find that a dubious excuse for not being in line in the gym to be loaded on-time. Every bus is announced repeatedly well in advance of its departure. Therefore, I'd like to ask everyone to pay extra attention to ensuring that your students are quiet and ready to listen at each day's end when we begin the dismissal procedure.
Also, I'd like to point out that it's viewed as quite discourteous when your students miss the bus for the aforementioned reason and then you do not attend to them personally in order to locate (and then wait, often for a looooong time, for) parents who must be called to the school to pick them up.
PE
We will have a new sub going forward for PE classes. A vacancy position for PE at Marshall has been posted online.
Calendar
Week A
- Monday, 07 Sept
- NO SCHOOL - Labor Day
- Thursday, 10 Sept
- Connect To School Night
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