Rineyville Elementary NTI PLAN

Rineyville Elementary has the following plan in the event we have to use for NTI.  Please review the entire plan and be prepared in the event it needs to be utilized. 

**Special Notes:

NTI Weather Related:  If we cancel school due to weather, teachers will do lessons from home unless told differently.  Those who cannot do their work from home, will work with HR to determine next steps.

NTI Illness Related:  Staff will come into the workplace as directed in earlier guidance.

WIFI Hotspots:  We do have WIFI hotspots in our front parking lot by the office for families to use.

Communication

Learning Management System

Parent/Student Portal

Growing Classroom Community Virtually and Supporting Students’ Emotional Needs and Counselor’s

Instructional Expectations

Special Education

KSI

Lesson Plan Templates

Grading and Feedback

Attendance versus Participation

Teacher Work Hours

Staffing

Teacher absences

Training for All Staff on the NEW NTI

Access to devices

Communication

School level - How will your school communicate with families during NTI and how often?

Teacher level - How will teachers communicate with families during NTI and how often? ONE digital tool should be used by all teachers.

Learning Management System (LMS)

The whole school should use ONE learning management system to assign work to students, unless elementary chooses to use a portfolio type system like SeeSaw, Classtag, Dojo.

Parent/Student Portal

We will use the EXACT same portal system as last year for families and upload lesson plans weekly. We have these POC for that right now. Please edit if needed. We want to keep the sites looking uniform, so please do not change colors, but add resources as you see fit. Last year some schools wanted to release on different days and times, so please list your planned day and time to publish the next weeks links below.

Growing Classroom Community Virtually and Supporting Students’ Emotional Needs

Teachers are encouraged to continue to foster classroom community through classroom meetings, read alouds and tailored instruction. During class meetings, teachers should continue to encourage social engagement between students. Opportunities for student engagement are built into classroom activities to encourage interaction among students. Additionally, schools can work to collaborate within the school community to provide authentic experiences for students. If we start school in NTI “Getting to Know Me” type activities are encouraged.

Counselors will continue to offer classroom guidance lessons through Sanford Harmony and supplemental resources. Counselors will work with classroom teachers to schedule times. Teachers should also feel free to reach out to their counselors and involve them in class activities when appropriate. In addition, counselors will continue to offer counseling services to students individually and in small groups. Counselors will reach out to students who may seem disconnected or are not engaging, or if other concerns about their emotional well-being are reported. As teachers, if you have concerns about a student, please reach out to your counselor or the newly hired district wide mental health counselor.

Instructional Expectations

Instruction - not review - is the focus during the NEW NTI. The shift online requires an instructional shift as outlined in the NTI training slides linked here. The expectations below will also be listed on the Teacher Portal along with training for technology tools. Lesson plan templates will be given out at the school level and not by the district although they are similar.

            For 6th-12th grade students will attend classes online daily on their regular school schedule. Teachers are encouraged to use strategies from The NEW NTI slides along with the direct instruction recommendations below and to chunk their direct instruction.

• Teachers will do live video with students on a daily basis. If a child is UNABLE to attend live Meets they can be recorded when done live and posted for students to watch later.
  • Minimum 3 times a day (in whole or small group) per child for self-contained teachers (teacher sees 1 set of students all day). Whole and small group as teachers use them in in-person school is still acceptable and encouraged for elementary.
    • Example: Molly might see her 1st grade teacher in a whole group Meet at 8:30am for social emotional/morning meeting time, then at 10:00am for reading with writing and social studies embedded, and then at 1:00pm for a small group in math. 
  • Departmentalized teachers (like middle school and high school teachers who teach one subject) should be offering direct instruction live or recorded (synchronous or asynchronous) to each course daily.
    • Example: Mr. Gomez who teaches 6th grade ELA will give direct instruction to his classes based on their in person schedule, so he will give that instruction 5 times a day based on the 2020-21 schedule. He will not lecture for the entire class period, however he should be available, and he can ask a small group of students to stay and work with him. Break out sessions with small groups are much more engaging and rigorous for students.
• Special area classes in EL and MS should provide students with a choice of engaging, no screen activities.
• Summative assessments should be made primarily of open ended tasks, collaborative/cooperative projects, or project based learning experiences commensurate with the normal time frame of the class.
• Formative assessments should be short.
• Ensure that total minutes per class each day, for instruction or student work, does not exceed a normal school day.

Please be detailed in how you will support teachers in meeting these instructional expectations.

Administrators will need to be present in online classes just as they are in buildings. That might be them being added as co-teachers in Google Classrooms, or attending Google Meets, or whatever makes sense for your school.  Below list your plan for how you will divide up the work of admin.

Special Education

• Instructional expectations for Special Education should follow the guidance given for general education students in terms of content priorities, recommended direct instruction time, and frequency of virtual face to face instruction.
• The Special Education department created a Frequently Asked Questions document related to NTI in the Spring of 2020.  This document will continue to be updated as new questions arise. 
• Special Education teachers should document all services provided to students using the HCS NTI services documentation 20-21 form.  Examples of completed forms are included in the FAQ document above.
• Special education teachers should follow their in person schedule or revise the schedule to match the general education teacher’s NTI schedule.  Service minutes should match the IEP, understanding that all of the minutes are not direct instruction.  For example, 30 minutes of resource may equal: 10-15 minutes of direct instruction, 10 minutes of independent practice, and a 10 minute check in to check work and reteach as necessary.
• Roles and responsibilities for Special Education teachers as well as the students are indicated in the chart below.  Frequency of service is per service area (i.e. co-teach math, reading, and writing would be 3 times each day).

Special Education Considerations

KSI (Kentucky System of Intervention)

 KSI will need to continue during NTI for those students.  Students actively identified in KSI will begin interventions the first week of school.  The district’s KSI expectations will remain the same during NTI. Please schedule a time that does not interfere with core instruction.  During this time two data points per week should be collected for progress monitoring. The KSI letter is sent to parents at the initial start of KSI and any time there is a change in tiers. Remember that Tier 2 and Tier 3 must look different with the amount of time given and/or type of intervention.

Please give at least 6 weeks of core instruction (TIer 1) before placing a student in KSI. Continue to use the universal screener (MAP) along with student work evidence to identify students. To begin the KSI process you will need to contact the counselor for the vision screening and the homeschool speech pathologist for the hearing screening (if this is possible). Please make sure you have followed the KSI checklist before contacting school psychologist about a possible referral. 

Contact your schools’ administration staff to conduct fidelity checks when needed (one per tier, per area, yearly).  If a student in KSI transfers schools, please send the updated folder to the new school as soon as possible. If you have any questions or need further KSI support please contact Stacy Brawner. 

Lesson Plan Templates

Templates are for teachers to plan but MORE IMPORTANTLY they were a very successful tool for parents when supporting students in NTI. These need to be uniform across your school and as much as possible across the district, but schools can also make changes needed to make them fit their specific needs.

            Teachers need to stick as close as possible to their regular school day schedule. This will give the consistency that our staff and families said they lacked in the last NTI.

Elementary Template           Examples   

Grading and Feedback

Grades will be given and will count during Fall 2020 NTI. However, we did learn from last year that feedback was more beneficial to parents and students than number or letter grades. Consider using rubrics, standards based grading, or other methods of grading to support your families. Also, feedback can be given on student work without assigning a grade, so as not to put more work on teachers. Teachers could be planning and giving feedback more than they are giving direct instruction during NTI.

Attendance versus Participation

On any day students are not coming in the building (NTI, OLA, A/B schedule off day) we will track participation, not attendance. You will use the daily participation requirements for all non-traditional instruction, including full NTI days and for any day a student is participating remotely. A student is said to have participated for the day if they do one of the following:

1. One-on-one video communication or phone calls between teacher and student (or teacher

and parent with smaller children or students with special needs)

 2. Group video communication or phone calls between the teacher and a whole class or

between a teacher and smaller groups of students within a class

3. Student time logged into a learning management software system completing

assignments

Teacher Work Hours

We learned during Spring NTI that teachers felt the need to work outside of the set school day because students were working outside of the traditional school day. Also, families were often working and could only ask questions and provide support to students after school hours. This was exhausting to many of our teachers. There are several options to solve this problem, but setting teacher work hours equal to that of a normal school day is hugely important to the health and wellness of your staff. Here are some ideas you can use to help your staff decide how to set work hours and office hours for parents.

• If you choose to communicate with families outside of posted school or office hours, you are giving the impression you are on call 24-7.
• The following work hours and office hours

• Elementary - 

NTI - 8:00-2:00  Teacher will then have office hours (4 hours a week after 6:00 pm)

Example:

6:00-7:00  M - T - W - Th

OR

7:00:8:00 M - T - W - Th

Teachers are contracted to work a 7 hour day with 6 hours of instruction a day. With this schedule they will work 5 less hours a week, and do 4 of them at night for office hours. Teacher planning and lunch will be taken during the day as scheduled. This will allow for students to get a lunch time during the day as well.

Modified Block Schedule

Staffing

Many staff members outside of certified homeroom teachers expressed a desire to be more active during NTI. For example, many assistants felt “useless” because they had no role in their school’s NTI process. Additionally, no one had time to train or direct instructional assistants during the rush of Spring NTI. Please think through who in your building can be working with students, how they can help, and what training they will need below. Elementary and Middle schools with special area teachers, keep in mind they are giving students a choice of activities and this planning will take very little time out of their week. They should be used to work on instructing students in the Core subjects for the remainder of their time.

Teacher absences

Teachers are reporting to the buildings for long term NTI. If a teacher can not report to work, they should enter the appropriate absence in AESOP and check that no sub is needed. They will need to have review activities for their class(es) for that day. Schools can require digital sub plans or handle these absences  similar to how they would handle it during in-person instruction. Please enter your plan for short term teacher absences and plans below.

Training for All Staff on the NEW NTI

The information in this document needs to be communicated to staff prior to the 2020-21 school year. They are invited to read this PLAN but it should not be the sole means of communication to them about instruction. Below you will form a plan to train staff during a remaining PL day in August.

Access to devices

When we begin NTI devices should be loaned out to students from the home schools.  For every chromebook loaned out, school staff need to fill out this form.  The form will let the Technology Department know which schools need replacement chromebooks, & how many, once they come in.  Schools will add the new chromebooks to their stock, while the older chromebooks are loaned out.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfeQfSiGPgcGyJ8bdMKFkbRvFOuOE-rEbIL8f3Y8xNV--HXcw/viewform?usp=sf_link or bit.ly/OLAloan.

Parents will need to sign this document (print & sign) in order to take home a device:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YejAWD8kKTTuaRvr8g8KLl0OrO_Sv4qHk2Bd9bAz4wM/copy