385-646-5000
2500 South State Street South Salt Lake City UT 84115
F.A.Q.
Translate:

Granite School DistrictGranite School District logo

Granite School District > Superintendent's Office > Sup’s Vlog > Support Professionals

Support Professionals

Superintendent Snapshot – Great Support Staff

Welcome to the latest Superintendent Snapshot. To submit a question, send an email to supsblog@graniteschools.org.

 

Question – Daily Objectives

Question – The teachers at my school understand the new requirement and the necessity of having daily objectives posted on our boards so that our students stay focused on their learning. My question for the superintendent is this: Since every elementary teacher in the district is supposed to follow the district curriculum mapping with both Imagine It and Go Math!, and we are supposed to have a content and language objectives posted for both of these areas with grade-level appropriate vocabulary every day, why can’t we have grade-specific teams of educators meet and write/ figure out the objectives for each lesson and then post them on the intranet so that there is consistency in the district and so that the other 3,000 of us can just come each morning and pull them off the web and post them each day? This would prevent inconsistency with the objectives and as well as prevent the majority of us from having to reinvent the wheel each morning, adding 5 or 10 minutes to the beginning of each day that we already don’t have, and spending up to an hour of our valuable planning time each Friday figuring them out and writing them down in our plan books, just so that we can hand copy them onto our limited board space in our classroom at the beginning of each day. (Bold printed 72 font writing on an 11 x 17 piece of paper would be better, don’t you think?)

If this is something that could be considered, I would volunteer to be on this team of educators, and I’m sure many others would volunteer, too, providing we were offered lane change credit for doing it. ;0)

Response – The suggestion that we spare teachers the additional responsibility of creating their individual content objectives and provide them at the district level for all elementary teachers to use is a good one. In fact, they already exist on the district provided curriculum maps in language arts and mathematics; they are noted as “I Can. . . ” statements. Also available are generic language objectives to be adapted to fit the lesson and language needs of the students. Hope this helps!

Video – Dress standards

All,

Due to the unprecedented positive response, we are posting this dress standards video for your additional review. We have been pleasantly surprised with the positive feedback that we have received from all constituency groups, particularly our teachers. It has been overwhelming. We have had teachers call and ask us to recognize the GEA for having the courage to promote professional dress. We thank everyone for helping us “raise the bar,” in Granite School District.

Classified Fingerprinting Costs

Question – Why are classified employees expected to pay for fingerprinting and for some of us…again? I had my fingerprints taken when I was first hired…and I’m pretty sure they haven’t changed. Also I am confused as to why it is $45. I’ve worked for and work for several employers that require yearly background checks and all I simply do is fill out a form and HR submits it, and I have NEVER been charged for it. Not only is it expensive, but it is being taken out around the holidays, and people are already struggling.

Response – Utah Rule (R277-516-4) requires that all classified employees and volunteers with significant unsupervised access to students must have a regular background check. We have determined to do this on the same five-year cycle as with licensed employees.  

As you may be aware, teachers have been required to pay for their own fingerprinting costs for some time. Their cost is substantially more (currently $74) than the $45 charged to classified employees. This delivers an FBI background check to cover all 50 states,  and is the best tool to protect students.

It is unfortunate that we needed to schedule fingerprinting around the holidays but it was necessary in order to print the numbers of classified employees Granite employs. We did not have the luxury to skip November, December and January – there were simply too many employees to print. Please know that we value your work and service to children.

The HR office has two fingerprint machines and employs additional help to accommodate the expanded requirement this year for fingerprinting. They currently print from 7:00 am to 3:45pm Monday through Friday.

Thanks to the HR Department for their assistance in responding to this question.