Week of July 29, 2019

Welcome back for another incredible year at Lee.  It has been a FANTASTIC summer and we have so much to be grateful for in the 2019-2020 school year.  Our theme this year is Attitude of Gratitude and we are thankful that Lee Elementary is the best place on the planet with the most incredible and talented staff.  We have hired the most amazing additions to our school.  We look forward to meeting everyone and hope that you can join us at the Sound for a fun Trivia Night.

DID YOU KNOW:

• we have hired some new staff members?  Please welcome Shari Hamam (Purple 5), Mackenzie Fogle (Green 2) and Natalie Wade (Media Center) to our FamiLEE!  
• you can order your CISD Education Foundation t-shirts now through August 30?  They come in crew and v-neck.  You can wear this year's shirt with jeans on the first and third Tuesday of each month.  Orders taken by August 2 will be ready for pick up at Convocation.  Orders after August 3 will be delivered to Lee.  Shirts are $20 and you can order yours, here.  
• we have a NEW volunteer application in CISD system?  Please put this link in your first parent newsletter.
• campus administration will have to approve all personal leave in SmartFind this year?  You will no longer request your leave through Eduphoria (change), you will also put it in SmartFind and CK will go in and approve.  You still need to provide 10 days advance notice for personal days.

FACULTY FAVORITES

Please take a chance to fill out this Google Form that includes information about you and your favorites.  This is a tool the office, PTO, and staff uses to treat you and get to know you better.  We kindly request that you reply as soon as possible (by noon August 1) so that we can order our staff and convocation t-shirts in the correct sizes.

BITMOJI

Do you have a Bitmoji? There is a Google Chrome extension and also apps for your phone where you can create your own personalized avitar.  We are working on a school project and need a Bitmoji of each of you.  Please send one to Leigh Ann.

FACULTY WEBSITE

Our faculty website is updated and is a resource for ALL.  It is meant to be a "one stop shop" for you, so it is one you will want to bookmark.  If there is something we need to add, please email me and I will add it on there.  We also have updated items on our Schoology Course.  We have enrolled new hires, so check out your courses and let us know if it is not showing up.

KEYS AND BADGES

Each staff member should have keys to their Design Studio and Storage Room for their House. If you are in a classroom, you should also have a key to the classroom. If you are in need of these keys (or any others), please indicate that in this form or reach out to Leigh Ann. If members of your House have moved spaces, please check with them, first, to trade keys for the appropriate spaces. Specialists, please switch house keys with one another. New teachers, your badges are in! They are in your teacher mailboxes. If your badge is not in there, see Leigh Ann for a badge to access the building.

iBOOK

Want to contribute to telling the story of our school?  We are looking for creative geniuses on campus to help us with our new book that is due to Apple in August.  Please email Chantel if you would like to contribute.

FURNITURE AT LEE
We do our best to ensure that there is equitable distribution of furniture in houses. Please do not "borrow" furniture from the media center, A120, A118, or other places in the building.  Let Leigh Ann know if you have extra, or are short, and she can help you problem solve.   Here is the breakdown of furniture.  Please cross check it with what is in your house in case it got moved while cleaning this summer.  If you are a special program designer and need additional/different furniture, please fill out a furniture request form in Eduphoria Formspace.

LEADERSHIP MEETING
We look forward to seeing this year's Leadership Team on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  We will work on decision making for the 2019-2020 school year.  Stay tuned for more information to come your way.

MENTORS
Thank you to Layne who is serving as our campus Lead Mentor and to our Designers who are taking on a leadership role this year to serve as a mentor.  All 1st and 2nd year Designers in CISD are assigned a mentor.  Here are this year's partnerships.  Our hope is that you have already started talking to and supporting your mentee.

• Madison- Hannah B.
• Tabitha- Layne
• Kaitlin- Jessie
• Stormi- Priscilla
• Brooklyn- Corissa
• Hannah H.- April
• Laura- Cindy
• Meghan W.- Samira
• Nikki- Stephanie
• Natalie- Aisha K.

We will be on-boarding all new staff (Meredith, Shari H., Mackenzie, Ruby, Corinne, and L'Oreal) with our mentors and mentees on August 2. 

YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO JOIN IN #SUMMERSELFIECHALLENGE

New and returning staff, let us know what you have been up to this summer!  Tweet out with #rjlyear6 and #rjlsummerselfie.  It is fun to watch everyone's adventures and stay connected.  

SOCIAL MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY

Want to get ahead this summer?  Make sure your CISD website is updated.  Directions are on our Faculty Website here.  You are required to follow the district template and must include:

• Name
• Grade/House
• Headshot (professional, not family photos)
• Phone number
• Email address
• Schedule
• Tutoring Schedule 

If you have created your Bulb portfolio, you can link it on your website.  New hires- DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS!  Please also make sure your Twitter profile picture and name are current so that we can communicate that to parents on our CISD Lee website.  

Week of July 15, 2019

It was a fantastic week of learning in New York at Teacher's College.  I posted some of my learning reflections on Twitter while I was gone.  There are many parallels between the Reading and Writing Units of Study.  It will be exciting to get these resources when we come back for the new school year.  THANK YOU to those of you that attended the Home Grown Institute this week.  I could see on Twitter and heard from folks it was an incredible week of learning and designing.  We can't wait to see you implement what you learned in your spaces and encourage you to share your learning with your teams.

STAFFING UPDATE
We are still looking for the perfect ESL Facilitator and Media Specialist for our campus.  We conducted some interviews on Friday and will continue today.  In addition, as of last Thursday, we are looking for a new fifth grade designer.  Please help me in congratulating Courtney Sinclair as she has accepted a position as the district Administrative Intern for the next school year.  We are so proud of her for this promotion and can't wait to see her around CISD in her new role.  Welcome to L'Oreal Mitchell (469-261-6863).  She will be joining our fifth grade team and goes to Human Resources this week!


SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING CONFERENCE
You are invited to attend the first CISD Social Emotional Learning Conference on July 17 and July 18.  You can create your personalized schedule on SCHED here.  Shuttles will run from Lee to CMSW since there will be limited parking.  Also, you can order a Chick-Fil-A sandwich for lunch here.


COMPLIANCE TRAINING
I'm excited to share that you get three hours of flex time for completing your compliance training this year!  You will need to use the code below to join the 2019-2020 Compliance Course for our campus for this school year.  The content in this course is important as compliance training covers local, state and federal requirements.  Each of you (including paraprofessionals) will need to join the course in order for us to track the completion of each portion.  ALL of the content must be completed by October 3.  Most of the courses require you to view a presentation and then complete a task.  Please pay close attention to the directions for each content folder as they may differ from one another.  Feel free to get a jump start on the content now, if you like.  The code you need for our campus course is:  SQX9-VPK6-89JCT


LEARNING ABOUT YOU
Please take time to fill out this Google Form that includes information about you and your favorites.  This is a tool the office, PTO and staff uses to treat you and get to know you better.  (We will NOT share your address with PTO.)  We kindly request tat you fill this out at your earliest convenience so that we can order staff t-shirts in the correct sizes and so we can start to know more about you.


SOME FUN WITH YOUR FAMILEE?
We look forward to having folks meet up at Board and Brush on July 26!!  Thanks, Linda, for organizing the get together.  You can still register here.  We would LOVE to see you there!


RJL SUMMER SELFIE CHALLENGE
We have enjoyed seeing what everyone is up to this summer.  Keep those selfies coming the month of July.

UPCOMING LEADERSHIP MEETING

Please share topics you want discussed with your house/grade lead.