Contents
New Items
Kansas Transition to Teaching Grant – for All Administrators
Aesop – Leave Type Updates – for All Administrators
Previous Items
State Assessment Training – Identify Building Test Coordinator – for All Principals
Special Education Special Day – for Principals
What’s Going On In Your School? Tell Us! – for All Staff
Update – Administrator Leave Balances in Aesop – for All Administrators
Importance of Attendance: Taking Advantage of Family Advocacy Days – for All Administrators
New Items
Kansas Transition to Training Grant
From Shelly Beech
Administrators,
Please share the information below with any individual you feel may be a good candidate for the KTTT grant opportunity. Thanks
Kansas State University’s new Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)–an intensive, one-year, online degree specifically designed for people who have already earned a bachelor???s degree but want to pursue elementary teaching???allows school districts to ???grow their own teachers.??? Field experiences are arranged in an accredited school near the student???LIKE YOURS. In addition to earning their MAT, students are recommended for K-6 teaching license upon successful completion of the program.
The Kansas Board of Regents will fund 30 Kansas Transitions to Teaching Fellowships ($6,000.00???roughly 1/3 of the total tuition and fees) for admitted students from western Kansas (KBOE Area 5), KCK, Wichita, and Topeka. The fellowships will be applied to tuition/fees for Kansas State University’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program (MAT).
The MAT was recently featured on Action News 41 in Kansas City: http://www.kshb.com/news/state/kansas/new-k-state-program-to-help-fill-need-for-elementary-school-teachers
The director of the MAT, Dr. Tom Vontz, will host an online interactive information session on Thursday, February 2. Interested students can go to: https://ksu.zoom.us/j/761809169. Zoom may be downloaded to any device at ZOOM.
Please forward this email to staff, parents, and/or others in your service area that might be interested in this opportunity such as long-term subs without certification, paras with undergraduate degrees, or parents interested in becoming elementary teachers.
Application deadline is APRIL 1, 2017. Priority deadline for KTTT Fellowships is MARCH 1, 2017.
If you want more information you may call 785-532-5724, email (rboggs@ksu.edu), or visit our website http://global.k-state.edu/education/mateaching/ .
Flyer PDF
Aesop – Leave Type Updates
From Amy Jo Troyer
We???ve received some great feedback from our administrators regarding the various leave requests they are seeing in Aesop and have identified some areas of improvement. Please accept this as notice that we have adjusted the following leave types for the following reasons:
Personal Leave ??? a ???reason??? is required to submit the leave. The purpose for this is to prevent Personal Leave requests from being automatically denied solely based on date submitted if there is relevant information to share with HR about the request. The reason may be as simple as ???personal leave??? or may be as detailed as the employee chooses to make it.
Bereavement Leave ??? the name of the deceased and relationship to the employee is required to submit the leave. Bereavement Leave may only be approved for the death of an immediate family member. From Board policy, ???Immediate Family??? is defined as the employee???s: spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles. ???Immediate Family??? also includes the parents, grandparents, grandchildren and siblings of employee???s spouse.
Professional Leave ??? the name of the Professional Development event is now required to submit the leave. This ensures that approvals are being managed appropriately and employees cannot select this leave by mistake without being prompted to enter more information.
Previous Items
State Assessment Training – Identify Building Test Coordinator
From David Rand
Training for this year’s state assessment will be provided to secondary schools on February 7th and elementary schools on February 21st. Schools will receive further details about these meetings from the Executive Directors. Each school will need to identify a building test coordinator prior to the day of training that will also need to attend. Detailed information and documentation that will be reviewed in these trainings for the state assessment will be sent to schools by Friday, February 3rd. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much!!!!!
Special Education Special Day
From Michelle Colvin
As a reminder, Special Education Special Day is Wednesday, February 1. All special education staff will participate in professional learning provided by Special Education Administrators and Special Education Teacher Leaders on that day.
High School Special Education Teachers, OTs, PTs, MTs, Adaptive PE Teachers, Teachers of the Visually Impaired, and the Audiologist will attend PL at South Branch Library at 3104 Strong Avenue from 1:00 to 3:00.
Middle School Special Education Teachers, Bridges, New Directions, and KVC Teachers, Secondary SLPs, Secondary School Psychs, and Secondary Teachers of the Gifted will attend PL in Rooms 132 and 133 at Central Office from 1:30 to 3:30.
Special Education Teachers at Early Elementary Schools, Elementary School Psychologists, Elementary Gifted Teachers, and Elementary SLPs will attend PL in the East Wing on 3rd floor of Central Office from 2:00 to 4:00.
Special Education Teachers at Late Elementary Schools will attend PL in Room 131 at Central Office from 2:30 to 4:30.
Early Childhood Teachers will attend PL at KCK ECC from 1:30 to 3:30.
All Special Education Paras will receive PL at Eisenhower Middle School Gym and Cafeteria during their regular two-hour PL time (some time between 1:00 and 4:30 depending upon the para???s schedule).
Please contact Michelle Colvin at michelle.colvin@kckps.org or 627-2614 if you have any questions.
What’s Going On In Your School? Tell Us!
From Grace Elmore
Do you have something interesting and fun going on in your school? Share it with your KCKPS community.
Please send story ideas to Grace Elmore, Communications Specialist, for a chance to be featured in an upcoming edition of Staff eNotebook, or on Facebook or Twitter.
Update – Administrator Leave Balances in Aesop
From Amy Jo Troyer
Administrators –
The information in the notice yesterday was to advise you of the email message that would be going out to all staff. Please be aware that, as an employee, you may also access your regular employee account with your phone number to review your balances as the message shared. However, if you would like to use your ADMINISTRATOR account and avoid toggling between that and your end user account where the balances are maintained, you can do so with a few clicks! We’ve detailed those steps for you in the attached PDF so you have a clear direction going forward on how to see the information you need. Please reach out to your respective HR Advisor should you have any questions.
Thanks!
HR Leadership Team
Importance of Attendance: Taking Advantage of Family Advocacy Days
From Rosie Rodriguez
Parent-Teacher conferences offer an excellent opportunity to talk with parents about the importance of their child’s attendance. Use this time to recognize improved, good or excellent attendance as well as communicate concern about poor attendance. Many parents are unaware of the impact that chronic absence can have– particularly in the early grades. And even when parents do understand the importance of regular attendance, they can easily lose track of the number of days their child has missed.
Provide and update to parents on their child’s attendance to date.
Take a moment to congratulate them on good or improved attendance.
Provide parents with a school calendar. This can be an effective visual reminder of the number of days missed and the fact that absences add up.
Updating parents on absences is a great way to helping them track their child’s attendance and to start developing good attendance habits.