Monday, August 21, 2017

Welcome Back!



Hello Everyone,
I hope you had a wonderful summer and are excited for a new school year!

School doesn't officially start until Tuesday, August 29th, but there are a few things you can do to get ready.
  1. Order your curriculum if you haven't done so already. 
  2. Start your semester planning. Semester plans went out on Friday. Let me know if you didn't get yours, or if you have any questions.
  3. Email, call or text me about any days and times that you can't meet, as well as preferences,  so I can work on scheduling meetings. I'm trying to get an initial meeting schedule set by Wednesday evening.
  4. Contact me with any questions or concerns.
That's about it for now. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.

New This Year

School Pathways
As most of you know, we have a new student information system this year. You will still be using Launchpad for ordering, but all other student records will be handled by School Pathways.

What does that mean for you?
  • Better access to student information
  • Online attendance records
  • Electronic MAs
Don't worry. We can walk through anything you need to know about it at our first meeting. The only thing that has to be done before school starts is to sign the electronic MA and most of you have done that already!



State Standards included in the Semester Plans
Your semester plans look a little different this year. Instead of Learning Units, the State Standards have been added to the drop down menus.

Science, SS, PE and Exploration are not that different than the Learning Units used to be, so you should be able to correlate them with your materials. The main difference is in Language Arts and Math, those are more complex. We can do them together at our first few meetings, if you like.



*Vendor Insurance*
Visions has required all of our vendors to have insurance. This is a hardship for many, and as a result we have lost many vendors.

The good news is that Visions is going to allow families to spend up to $500 of student funds on non-approved vendor classes and activities. All of the information has not been provided yet, but here is what I have been told:

  • You can now receive services from outside vendors as long as you pay out of pocket and submit a reimbursement form
  • All activities will need to follow the regular "voucher" rules. (Approved activities that are on the master agreement)
For example, if you would like to take a Karate class for PE, but the provider is not a Visions vendor, you will be able to pay out of pocket for those classes and get reimbursed up to $500 from your student account. (I'm not sure yet if that is a yearly or semester limit, or if there will be limits on how much you can spend on one vendor.)

*This is breaking news and I will provide specifics as I get them! We are supposed to get more clarification at our professional development session tomorrow.

This Week's Meeting Schedule

Next week will be the first school meetings. Please make sure to call, text or email me with days and times you can NOT meet, as well as preferences, so I can try to set up a tentative schedule on Wednesday. Thanks!

Monday 8/21
Office Day - Available for questions!

Tuesday
Ms. Bryon in Carmichael for PD

Wednesday
Office Day - Available for questions!

Thursday
Ms. Bryon in Carmichael for PD

Friday
Office Day - Available for questions!