Tours, Open House, Ipass

Hello All

Thanksgiving is over and soon it will be Christmas!  The time is flying by!

The next big thing on our agenda is the Open House!  Remember this is your night to shine!  Have you thought about a demonstration?  Have you arranged for students to be there?  The ads are in the paper, and the signs are up in stores.  It is now up to you!  

A word about tours.  Sometimes the having 5-6 groups coming through your shop can  be disruptive, and tedious.  I remember those days, but without these tours, the students won't come.  Where would we be then?  That being said,  when the tours are planned, please put your best foot forward and woo these students.  If you are going to have a student run a demonstration, please rehearse it with with them.  Make sure all is ready and make your shop shine!

Ipass.  Have you ever looked at your student's progress reports as a parent would?  What exactly does Ch. 4 pg 22 review really mean? What does an 80% in achievement mean in the vocational area?   Is it an 80% working on the siding project, setting a perm, reparing brakes, takig a Blood Pressure, preparing a salmon?  Are these assignments clear?  Does it match up with any of the standards?  

Over the course of this year, one of the our school goals is clearer, accurate and authentic reporting through ipass  for the parents and students.  During the next vocational department head meeting we will further explore authentic  and accurate reporting.

Greetings!

Hurricane Sandy is gone and we sure did take some waves across the bow, but everything seems to be ship shape at the moment!  Still hoping for far winds and following seas!  or is it far seas and following winds?  Hmm

I know that this is early but it really is never too early to begin making plans for the summer!!  Please make some time to go to "Connecting for Success" Summer Conference and Pre-Conference  It will be held this year at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School  on  June 25 - 27, 2013 because  Assabet is going to be involved in a 3 year building project and will be unavailable.

MAVA is looking for assistance with the planning of the sessions for this summer's conference.

• Volunteers to become steering committee members.  A teacher or administrator currently working and can attend a meeting once a month
• Best practices that could become sessions at the summer conference
• Suggestions for pre-conference topics - topics that lead to licenses, certifications, and or need multiple hours of training

Time to start thinking!

Just a reminder that there will be a Vocational Teacher Technical Literacy Test (VTEL) prep course for those instructors that still need to take the VTEL.  It is scheduled for 2 Thursdays;  November 8, 15  at 4:00 pm - 7 pm and one Saturday November 10, 8:30 - 2:30 pm at Tri-County.  There is still room!  Go to MAVA.us  for registration and further information  The VTEL is scheduled for November 17

How are your budgets coming?  A followup to my email on November 1 about the draft frameworks.  Do you need any new equipment or supplies to comply with new frameworks?  That should be worked onto you budget also!!  :)

Deb

Advisory Committee Meeting

Hello to All of the Vocational Instructors

Vocational Frameworks     You may remember that last spring, DESE formed new committees to review and evaluate the existing Vocational Frameworks.  DESE has just released a DRAFT of the revised frameworks.  These drafts are currently on the school website.  Go to www.ssvotech.org, click on "faculty and and staff"  scroll down and you will see  Draft CTE Curriculum Frameworks
click on that and you will see all of the VTE Frameworks for all vocational programs.  Scroll down until you find yours.  

     Please preview this draft before the meeting. During our Fall Advisory  meeting, you will be reviewing these drafts with your committee and voting whether to validate  them or not.  I will be sending each department a validation form.

Budget Reviews.
   This is just a reminder that Tom has sent the cost center information (budget info) to all departments.  Over the next couple of weeks, I would like to sit down with the department heads and review your budget with you.  Please take a particular look at your line item for office supplies.  Do you know how much you are spending for pencils and pens?  Is this something that you might be able to control?  Any suggestions?

Advisory Member List
     Update your advisory list.  Please get the email addresses so that we can communicate more efficiently with our members.  Remember to invite a parent and a student to meet with the advisers   If you have a student on Coop, or is working in the industry in some way, please invite their supervisor to come to the meeting.  The more the merrier.
     Adviser can't make to the meeting?  Can you communicate by email? video chat?  Have you set up a conference call?  If you communicate in any of theses ways, please document this in your minutes
     

Remember there is a Department Head meeting at 1pm on Oct. 24  We can talk about this in more depth then

Deb