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Category: Elementary Action Required

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Principals:

There are two issues that are causing great concern related to Transportation where we need your help.

First, there is a very serious disregard for the safety of our kids by motorists who are illegally failing to stop for our buses when the red lights are flashing and the stop arm is out. Last week we did a one day survey of stop arm violations and witnessed 61 motorists in one day passing our buses when students were loading or unloading and the red lights and stop arm were deployed. Of those 61, three were on the right (loading) side of the bus. Would you please make every effort to educate your patrons about this serious issue. We do not want our precious students injured by one of these careless motorists.

Second, we need your assistance keeping parents out of the bus loading/unloading zone at your school when buses are present. We are placing our bus drivers and buses in a dangerous situation where cars are blocking their unobstructed ingress and egress at your school. Please help us out by restricting cars from your bus pickup/drop off zones until the buses have a chance to leave.

Your support is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, comments or concerns please contact Transportation Services 801-567-8840.

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Please see revised copy of the Classified Leave Policy Overview. This will be emailed to all benefit eligible Classified employees with a Jordan School District email account.

If you have employees without regular access to a computer or who are hired throughout the year please provide them a hard copy of this policy.

If employees have any questions regarding the need to miss work, please direct them to Penny Peart, HR Generalist at (801) 567-8249.

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DATE:
October 3, 2016

TO:
Principals

FROM:
Laura Finlinson, Administrator of Curriculum and Staff Development
Clyde Mason, Director of Evaluation, Reasearch and Accountability

SUBJECT:
Certification of Educators' Having Received Educator Evaluations Training

See attached memo and evaluation sign-off form.

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USBE is assessing the quality of professional learning throughout the state based on the Utah Professional Learning Standards. All educators are invited to complete the Standards Assessment Inventory (SAI).  Administrators will be provided with access to data reports and resources that could be used in school improvement.  Please encourage your teachers to participate in the survey. You will receive more detailed information before the survey is distributed.

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DATE: 
September 30, 2016

TO:
All Elementary Principals

FROM: 
Administrators of Schools
Laura Finlinson, Administrator, Curriculum/Staff Development
Norman Emerson, Instructional Support Services/Fine Arts Consultant

SUBJECT: 
Utah Symphony Performance at Riverton High School for 4th Grade Students

Once again we are pleased to announce Utah Symphony concerts for your 4th grade students at Riverton High School. The performance dates for 4th grade at Riverton High are December 5 and 6, 2016. Your school’s date and time will be provided on a separate schedule.  Please note that there are no assigned seats.  Schools will be seated upon arrival.

Study materials for use in preparing your students will be provided by the Utah Symphony in the weeks prior to the performance.

Your secretary will need to complete a transportation request on Skyward. The number of teachers should be included in your school’s final count. When entering your busing request, please include the correct group name (e.g. Daybreak, 115 Curr). This will ensure that the Curriculum Department will cover the busing fee.

Transportation requests should be completed as soon as possible.  Due to the number of buses that need to be used for the Symphony concerts, there will be a moratorium on any other transportation requests for these dates.

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Reminder for Elementary Principals:

As the end of the month approaches, schools receiving grant funds from HB513 for Early Literacy Software Programs (Lexia, Success Maker and iReady), may want to run an Instructional Usage Report.  Reviewing this report will give you an idea of the average time students are using the program and if it falls within grant guidelines.  If it doesn't, there is time to adjust.  If it does, keep up the good work!

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The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) is taking steps to assess the quality of professional learning throughout the state based on the Utah Professional Learning Standards. Learning Forward is supporting this effort by inviting all educators to participate in the Standards Assessment Inventory (SAI), a 58-item survey that will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. Participating schools will have access to data reports and an extensive series of “Resource Briefs” that include activities and resources to address the Utah Professional Learning Standards that could be used in school improvement planning. Please encourage your teachers to participate in the SAI from October 10 – 21. All educators will receive an email once the survey is available. A FAQ sheet from Learning Forward is included as an attachment. If you have questions, please contact Shelley Nordick at shelley.nordick@jordandistrict.org or 801-567-8110.

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Please check that your teachers have completed an SLO pre-assessment. Elementary teachers have the option of using math, reading, or writing to measure student growth. All SLO assessments are available in Mastery Connect. The process for reporting SLO ratings will be similar to last year; however, teachers will not be required to turn scores into folders. Details and instructions for completing this process will be available at a later date. For now, please have teachers make sure that the pre-test score is recorded in Mastery Connect. Thank you for your efforts to support this process. If you have questions, please contact Shelley Nordick at shelley.nordick@jordandistrict.orgor 801-567-8110.

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Constitution Day commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787.  Each school is required to, in some way, commemorate Constitution Day each year.
 
Secondary History Dept chairs have been emailed resources that may help teachers. For resources and ideas, principals and elementary teachers, please go to socialstudies.jordandistrict.org/resources/

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JSD Administrators and Administrative Assistants:

You will soon receive an email link to the Emergency Procedures and Contact Information 2016-17 manual (aka The Red Book).  Please take a moment to open it up and verify that your contact information is correct before we send it for printing.  If a correction is needed, please contact Peggy at ext.88753 or peggy.margetts@jordandistrict.org by end-of-day Friday, September 2nd.

You will receive your hard copy as soon as they are back from the printer.

Many thanks from the JSD Safety Team,
Paul Bergera, Auxiliary Services Staff Assistant
Lance Everill, Facility Operations Manager
Ron Boshard, Risk Management Coordinator
Peggy Margetts, Administrative Assistant

Published on

DATE:
August 31, 2016

TO:
Principals

FROM:
Administrators of Schools
Laura Finlinson, Administrator of Curriculum and Staff Development
Clyde Mason, Director of Evaluation, Research and Accountability

SUBJECT:
An Upcoming Skylert Message:  2016 SAGE Individual Student Reports – Available in My Family Access

On September 7, 2016, the Communications Department will be sending out the following Skylert Message:

“Parents, if your student participated in 2016 SAGE assessments, her/his 2016 SAGE Individual Student Reports are available online within “My Family Access” under the “Report Card / Academic Progress” tab. Please contact your student’s school if you have questions about accessing or understanding your student’s 2016 SAGE Individual Student Reports.”        

Please be prepared to respond to parent questions regarding access to, and understanding of, the 2016 SAGE Individual Student Reports.

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Please remind your 17-hour Literacy Assistants we will hold a beginning of year information meeting on Thursday, September 1 at 9:00 a.m. in PDC 102. If they came to the meeting in August, they do not need to attend this one unless they want to be a part of the conversation with other assistants. The agenda will be the same.

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Administrator Home and Hospital Forums

Home & Hospital has moved to the ASB (Auxiliary Service Building) on Redwood Road. Mary Ann Erdmann is the Home and Hospital administrator. Her office is located by the ISC, ASB South Entrance, near Purchasing.  Schools will continue to receive support and service for their home and hospital students.

Each site is asked to send an administrative representative to attend one of the following mandatory meetings to receive important information regarding home and hospital.

  • Monday, August 29th @ 1:00 p.m.
  • Tuesday, August 30th @ 9:00 a.m.
  • Wednesday, August 31st @ 1:00 p.m.
  • Thursday, September 1st @ 9:00 a.m.

All forums will be held in the Presentation Room C-100 (former Board Room) at the ASB and will last only one hour.

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DATE:     
August 4, 2016

TO: 
All School Principals and School Head Financial Secretaries

FROM:   
John Larsen, Business Administrator
Heather Ellingson, Director of Accounting, Budgets and Audits
Daniel Ellis, Accountant/Internal Auditor

SUBJECT: 
Unclaimed Property

 “The Utah Unclaimed Property Act (Section 67-67-4a) requires that a holder report to the State Treasurer property which is presumed to be “abandoned” or “unclaimed” after the stated dormancy period.”

For school purposes, unclaimed property is defined as property (checks, book refunds, lunch refunds, or other unclaimed balances, but not current school lunch balances) that is due to a payee but have never been cashed or collected and that are dormant for a period of one year as of June 30, 2016.  Checks written BEFORE July 1, 2015 AND not cashed by June 30, 2016 are considered unclaimed property.

Every effort should be made to contact the student or payee and ensure that they receive payment that is due to them.  If you cannot locate a student or payee, then the money must be sent to the State.  It is preferable to void an old check and reissue a new one than to send the money to the State.  Schools may not simply “write off” a check and add the money back into school accounts just because it was never cashed.  Nor may a school take uncollected refunds and add the money back into school accounts.  It is illegal.  If an outstanding check should legitimately be voided, then documentation must be made as to why the check was voided.  Otherwise, the State will consider a voided check without documentation to be unclaimed property.

Attached is a reporting form that must be completed and sent to Dan Ellis by September 30, 2016 along with a school check written to Jordan School District for the amount of reported unclaimed property.  If you have no unclaimed property, report $0.00.

All individual items that are under $50 per item may be combined and reported in one lump sum.  For example, if you have 10 checks and/or unclaimed book refunds individually each for less than $50, then you may have one line item on the report for the total of those items.  You should put “aggregate” in the column requesting the owner’s name, the total aggregated in the column of amount due owner, and MS99 in the property code column.  You do not need to report each item less than $50 individually.

Checks issued prior to July 1, 2015 that are currently outstanding should be voided in Skyward.  You will need to write a check to Jordan School District charging the account(s) that were charged with the original check.

Please call Dan Ellis at (801)567-8389 with any questions.

Published on

DATE:
July 1, 2016

TO:    
Principals
Head/Financial Secretaries
Special Education Teachers (Resource and Cluster)
Speech-Language Pathologists

FROM:   
Laura Finlinson, Administrator of Curric./Staff Development & Special Programs
Lisa Robinson, Director of Special Education
Julie Brown, Program Specialist

SUBJECT:  
Special Education Budget Allocations 2016-17

See attached memo and budget guidelines.

 

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Principals:

In an effort to increase participation in School Community Councils the Jordan School Board School Community Council committee has created a flyer and poster to provide information to those interested in learning more about School Community Councils. The flyers are to be distributed at your Back-To-School Night and other activities at the beginning of the school year.

The poster, in both English and Spanish, is attached to this JAM. Please post in prominent locations in your school.  

You will receive your school specific flyer and instructions of how to distribute it to your patrons through email.

Published on

DATE:
July 18, 2016

TO: 
Principals
All Special Educators and Service Providers

FROM:  
Laura Finlinson, Administrator of Curric./Staff Development & Special Programs
Lisa Robinson, Director of Special Education
Julie Brown, Program Specialist

SUBJECT:  
SCRAM for 2016-17 School Year

See attached memo for guidelines and multiple deadlines.