Happy Thursday!

I can hardly believe it's February 1st! I apologize that it's been so long since the last "odds and ends." Looking back, the whole month of January is sort of a blur. Thank you for working so hard to support our students and each other during a really difficult time. I'm grateful each and every day to work with such amazing people!

Gretchen Andridge- ELA and IB Depts.- BA/BD and MA from EMU & Marygrove- My Educational Philosophy is two-fold: "Work hard, practice a LOT and push yourself to be creative" mixed in with a Robin Williams quote, "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

A personal goal of mine is to take long road-trips with my family, that have moments where my risk-taking side is tested. A professional goal I have is to build all of my lessons around project-based learning that is student directed.

I have three boys, ages 25, 21 and 8 and a husband who is also a teacher. I enjoy reading, hiking and being outdoors and playing games in my spare time. I'm passionate about quality treatment of animals and the environment and taking an active role in our local community.

PHS is a spirited, fun-loving, hard-working, talented and smart collective of people who fill a learning institute with purpose.

I've just finished reading 'The Book of Joy' by Gyatso, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu

1) Parent Dashboard for School Transparency: Michigan Department of Education recently released its Parent Dashboard for School Transparency. You can find the Parent Dashboard on https://www.mischooldata.org/. A blog by Bob Kefgen gives a summary of the dashboard. You can access it HERE. HERE.

2) Technology Integrationists: Rich Coughlin and Matt Smoot are technology integrationists who are available to support teaching staff in many ways, including: 

• Co-teaching in classrooms or just being there for additional support
• Modeling a specific tech tool or integrating a specific strategy 
• Assisting in lesson planning/tech integration   
• Providing drop-in support during specials/planning time, before/after school
• Any other ideas you may have

They will be at Plymouth tomorrow, February 2nd and again on Thursday, February 15th. Here is a link to their full year schedule: http://bit.ly/trackdown Please email rick.coughlin@pccsk12.com or matthew.smoot@pccsk12.com to set something up.

3) Professional Development 3/14-3/15: March 14th are 1/2 day pm district professional development days. The i3 conference is on 3/14 and the afternoon of 3/15 is PD linked to our school improvement plan. We are reviewing the input staff provided at the beginning of the year in order to plan for the afternoon on 3/15. I received positive feedback from our speaker at the 12/1 staff meeting and would like to gauge the interest level of having an extension of it during the afternoon of 3/15.  Please complete this one question form to help us with planning.

4) Printer/Copier: There are two ways to login to the new small copier: staff can either choose Username and password OR ID number.

USERNAME and PASSWORD: enter your network credentials (what you would use to log on to a district desktop computer).

ID NUMBER (aka PIN NUMBER): tap inside the ID Number field to bring up a keyboard to enter your six digit, assigned pin number. This pin number was emailed to you by technology on 1/10/18.

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To log off, click the Access button. Staff can do this even before their copying job has completed. If waiting, another staffer in turn can log in and queue up another copy job or "release" a print job.

Please memorize your specific six digit number or write it down in a safe and accessible place that you alone have access to. Do not share your pin numbers. Also, remember that the small copier is not intended for large print jobs.Those jobs should continue to be requested 24 hours in advance and run by Paula on the large copy machine.

4) Contract Approval Form: As a reminder, the only individuals in the District that are authorized to sign vendor contracts are the Superintendent and the Chief Finance and Operations Officer. Any time a contract needs to be signed (i.e., DJ, speaker, equipment, services, etc.), you must submit a contract approval form. The form is now available electronically and can be found HERE.

5) Graduation: What?!? It's only February 1st! Look for communication soon about graduation. It's great to see seniors on their graduation day. Please consider joining us on this day.

6) Reimbursement reminder: Please review the Employee Reimbursement Guidelines. You can also reference the email sent by Victoria Amore on 1/17. Highlights include: 1) a receipt log and supporting documentation must accompany deposit slips, 2) Tally sheets, 3) All checks made payable to District (PCCS), including field trips, 4) No cash/checks are to be kept in classrooms overnight, 5) No cash/checks are to be taken home by district staff, 6) All collections must be deposited (no cash can be held back for transactions), 7) shipping address must be a district address if you are getting reimbursed, 8) reimbursements must be submitted within 60 days of purchase, and not later than year end (for teachers, it’s best to submit before school is out.) Here is a Teacher’s Reference Guide to Receipts and Purchasing

7) Grant opportunity: Canton's Youth Advisory Council has close to $1,000 that they can grant out this year to projects in classrooms or school clubs that benefit the youth of Canton. Here is letter that explains more and the application. The application deadline is March 9th.