Welcome back to school! The PTA is excited for another great year. We asked Principal Slater to give us his perspective on the new school year.
What are you most proud of last year (your first year at Rooftop) that you accomplished?
Last year, we worked very hard to focus on social, emotional, and behavioral supports for our students. We worked to leverage district resources, we provided staff members with professional development focused on trauma-informed practices and Positive Discipline. We also opened our Wellness Center on the Burnett campus and staffed it with our social worker, Amber Wolfe, and extended the support for students beyond the regular school day by partnering with CASA Mental Health & Wellness Counselor, Lily Cardasis. We are excited to be adding an additional .5 social worker to support the students at the Mayeda campus and plan to open a Wellness Center there this year as well.
Can you tell us a little about the Stanford d.school workshop you attended over the summer? And who did you go with?
This summer I attended “Introduction to Design Thinking” at the Stanford D.School along with our art coordinator, Cheryl Ball, and our new 6-8 art teacher, Megan McMahon. The workshop gave us an opportunity to build our design thinking skills, connect with like-minded educators, and become part of the K12 Lab Network. Participation in this workshop also helped us to meet our goal of extending and building our collaborative partnerships.
How will what you and the rest of the team learned there be incorporated into Rooftop?Many forward-thinking organizations are using the design thinking process as a way to innovate. The process involves these steps: Understand, observe, define, ideate, prototype and test. Over the course of this year, we’ll be educating the community about the process and applying it to work. One of the areas that its application will be evident will be in our STEAM programming (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics). Additionally, we’ll be engaging with the SFUSD Innovation Lab (iLab). The goal of the iLab is to harness the awesome innovative ideas of SFUSD staff to propel the district forward and shape the future of education in SFUSD.
We have a few new teachers this year, can you tell us a little about them and what grades they will be teaching?We are excited to welcome several new members of the Rooftop Team (a few of which may be familiar faces!):
Brittany Immesoete, Pre-K. Brittany will be filling in for Carolyn Taylor who is on maternity leave until December. Brittany comes to us from Hayward where she worked as a special education teacher in an autism classroom.
Elizabeth Sylva, 2nd Grade. Elizabeth will be filling in this year for Kelly Louis who is on sabbatical. Elizabeth comes to us with previous 2nd grade experience from Our Lady of the Visitacion School.
Lucy Hamilburg, 5th Grade. Lucy is filling in this year for Jenny Kennedy who is on sabbatical. Lucy did her student teacher here at Rooftop in 5th grade with Sue Mocklin, and was one of our RSP teachers last year.
William Scheflo, 6-8 PE. William joins us from Lodi Unified School District. In addition to being a personal trainer, William developed and led the Restorative Justice work at his previous middle school.
Megan McMahon, 6-8 Art. Megan joins us from Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 School where she created and established an art program for a culturally diverse middle school. Megan integrated art into school culture at BVHM by collaborating in cross-curricular projects with math, social studies, Science and Language Arts.
David Brody, 7-8 Science. David has 20 years of experience teaching middle Science. He’s led a cohort of 20 teachers as Science Department Chair and serves on the SFUSD Next Generation Science Standards implementation team.
Carlo Delgadillo, 7 LA/SS. Carlo worked with Patty Ryan and Angie Kastner this past year in the USF reading specialist program. Carlo also has experience implementing diversity/social justice training. In addition to his Master of Arts in Teaching Reading, Carlo also holds a Master of Arts in Education, Equity and Social Justice.
Anca Cunningham, K-3 RSP. In addition to her Master Degrees in Education and Special Education, Anca is also a Registered Dietitian. She is a lecturer at SFSU and has been published in SuperKids Nutrition magazine.
Lauren Holden, K-3 RSP. Lauren has been an RSP teacher in SFUSD for the past two years and brings experience as both a general education and special day class teacher.
Christian McMurray, Athletic Director. Christian is a Rooftop parent and coach who will be leading us to a winning season in every sport! He was instrumental in bringing girls’ volleyball to Rooftop this year!
How are you and the rest of the staff preparing for the upcoming school year?In addition to getting some well-deserved rest and relaxation, many of our staff members have engaged in professional development this summer. Some of their learning includes math and literacy professional development, mindfulness/yoga training, and project based learning (PBL). At our Administrative Institute, Tiffany and I attended workshops focused on providing interventions for students, innovation, closing the achievement gap, and meaningful collaboration.
We’ll be coming together as a whole team for a staff retreat at the beginning of August. Our agenda for that week includes Positive Discipline training, math and literacy training, yoga/mindfulness workshop and collaborative planning.
What are your top three goals for this upcoming school year?There is a lot of important work to be done this year. We’ll be continuing with Common Core implementation, going deeper with our STEAM programming, cultivating external partnerships, and exploring project based learning (PBL).
All of that work requires a lot time. With the demands we currently place on teachers, it’s hard to ask for more. So, what we plan do this year is leverage our resources so that teachers have more time to learn and plan together during the school day. Meaningful collaboration through inquiry and the development of teacher-leaders is critical to our success.
We’ll also go deeper this year in exploring the ways in which we support our students’ social, emotional, and behavioral development. We’re continuing our work with Positive Discipline and we welcome Playworks to team to enhance our recess experience for students. We’ll be adding an additional part-time social worker to the Mayeda campus and opening a Wellness Center there.
And, most importantly, we’ll continue to focus on issues of equity. At our Administrative Institute, we were challenged to “Dare to interrupt systemic oppression...See it. Say it. Do it.” As we continue our equity work here at Rooftop, we challenge our whole school community to do the same.
