Reminders

Dear Teachers and Staff:

As you know, a new law has been passed to fund the New Jersey pension system. Although we will have to contribute an additional 1% beginning in October, it also means the state will be required to make contributions to the pensions, which had not been happening in the past. The state requires us to make pension deductions on a 10 month basis. PLEASE NOTE: Some of you have divided up your salary so that you will get more during the year and not have bigger summer paychecks. Please feel free to see me to make those arrangements.

Also please note that President Obama is increasing our Social Security payments back to 7.65% in January 2012.

Health Insurance: The new law also required increased contributions by employees to their premiums, but Elysian employees are already paying a sufficient amount to meet the new rules. We are hoping that there will be no increase in health premiums in January due to the new options being offered in the School Employees Health Benefits Plan.

Dropbox.com and Google.com Documents: Dropbox is a free storage website where you may upload and save documents. Google documents is the same. This may be an efficient way for students to maintain their documents rather than on a flash drive, which is often lost. Open Office.com is a good source of free word processing and spreadsheet software. Tutorials on all of these websites show you how to use them.

Note from our Stevens Work Study Student, Matt Witowski:
"Google Tools is an excellent replacement for computers missing Microsoft Office. It has everything that Microsoft Office has, but in a lighter form. This means that it will run a lot faster, becaus it has some features that are not needed, such as macros. When you save documents you have the option of saving them to your google account so they can be accessed and downloaded from anywhere. You can also upload any Microsoft Office documents and save them to your google account. Google Tools also allows you to edit any uploaded files. You have to have a gmail account, and it is recommended to use the Google Chrome browser. In my opinion Google Chrome should be used over any other internet browser just because it is much faster. "

Microsoft Office Equivalents:

Google docs = Microsoft Word
Google presentation = Microsoft Power Point
Google spreadsheet = Microsoft Excel

Nutshell
PROS
Faster than all Microsoft Office software
Documents stored online automatically
Documents can easily be uploaded and downloaded
No problem with documents on lost flash drives
Free!

CONS
You need a gmail account
You need internet access
Google chrome recommended
Some advanced features not available

Thanks Matt for your analysis. Gaby Khoury is also assisting us from Stevens with IT work. And Damian Pizzo is on call as our IT professional. Dont forget to fill out a form and give it to Mike if you need help. That's how the IT people get their to-do list. They are also available for computer tutorials.

Website forms: Additional forms and information for parents are now posted on the school website, www.ecsnj.org, along with other documents and forms for staff. Please send me anything you would like parents to be able to access online. And don't forget to submit class trip forms promptly so they can be posted on payschools for payment.