This time of year is one of endings and beginnings. With the end of school, we are celebrating our staff with an End of Year BBQ. At the BBQ we will celebrate 5 employees as Employees of Excellence, 5 Retirees and watch videos created by our staff! We also give out raffle prizes from donations given by WEA, SEIU, and WSA. This year we contacted 3 local businesses, ACE, Woodland Saw and Cycle and NAPA, who also donated larger prizes to give out and our grand prize will be from donations given by the administrative staff. It is a wonderful time to celebrate our amazing staff and the district.
As the school year ends I begin to look at August and New Educator Training (NET). This week-long training is focused on getting our new hires familiar with our district, their individual school, and their administrator. As I did last year I will visit local businesses to see if they are able to donate gift cards or coupons to help our new hires feel welcome and to get them into the stores. The welcome baskets were a great way to start out the week. The agenda for the week is a balance of group time for trainings and sharing of information and days at the school where they will meet with their administrator. Data shows new educators often struggle with those first weeks as they work to establish classroom expectations and plan out lesson plans. This set aside time helps to alleviate some of this since they will have time to prepare and feedback from the new hires helps us to fine tune this week and the support we can give them.
This summer I will be focusing on tracking the new requirements for our paraeducators and our classified substitutes. I will also be ensuring all of our certificated teachers have current certificates before the start of school. Currently, we have hired 25 certificated employees and have a few postings still to be filled. Processing new hires and finishing hiring will be an important part of the summer schedule as well.