Monday, September 27th

Hi Everyone! Happy Monday. Here are some updates for the week.

As we move forward and hopefully away from The Pandemic, you might notice that as a district Bend-La Pine is placing more emphasis on Social-Emotional Learning for both adults and our students in Kindergarten through 12th Grade. SEL helps our students in many ways, from coping to setting goals and building confidence. It helps us, as adults, build stronger teams though the development of interpersonal skills and relationships. As an online program, this renewed emphasis on skills other than curriculum might seem like more of a challenge since we don’t see our students face to face frequently, if at all. (Unless you are an OSSM…and even then you’ve got rotating schedules!)

SEL is also a challenge for our staff with so many people working remotely so much of the time! That said, I know we can do more together when we understand the people who are part of our teams, including their strengths, challenges and a bit more about what gets each of us excited each day. Thank you for making our Wednesday connection times a priority.

As we bring a focus on SEL into our interactions with students, I’m challenging each of you to consider the first “signature” practice of SEL when planning your student contact time (I’ll share 2 and 3 in the upcoming weeks):

SEL Practice #1: Welcoming/Inclusion Activities: These are rituals or routine openings that establish safety and predictability and also support contribution by all voices. They allow connection and create a sense of belonging. Here are links to some resources where you could harvest some fun ideas for welcoming questions to use in class meetings, advisory, study skills, or at the start of a class period.

https://www.sanfordharmony.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/fixed-SEC16_4553_LOWER-ELEMENTARY_Quick-Connection-CARDs_FINAL.pdf

https://www.sanfordharmony.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/fixed-SEC16_4554_UPPER-SCHOOL_Quick-Connection-CARD-ART_FINAL.pdf

General News: It is Education Foundation Grant season! Applications are due on or before Friday, October 15th at 5 PM. You can find information on the process and the application in the linked files.

For our North Star Based Staff: NSE has designated this as safety week. Here is a link to a document listing the drills they have planned and expectations for each one. As Kevin emphasied in an earlier email, it is important to go through these protocols in our minds (and practice when we are on site) so we are prepared should there ever be a situation when you are at a building.

Also for our staff at North Star, here is a link to our Wednesday SIW Schedule. Our certified staff is expected to participate in District “Educator Network” days (bright blue on the calendar), more information on those is to come. We will let you know each week how we will be using our Staff Meeting/PD (green) days. Teacher Prep Wednesdays (red) are yours and we will do our best to avoid planning any meetings for those days.

Here’s our meeting schedule for the week:

Wednesday, September 29th:

• Elementary Team Meeting at 9:30, D Wing Commons
• Secondary Team Meeting at 10:30, D Wing Commons
• Elementary Students will be coming to North Star for DIBLES testing on Wednesday afternoon, no there will NOT be a whole-staff meeting that day.

Thursday, September 30th

• Payday! Make sure to check your paystubs for accuracy on Employee Online
• Parent Coffee @ 8:30 AM, virtually in Kevin’s room.

That’s it. Have a great week! Please take a minute or two to share something that made you smile recently in the comments. Here’s mine: We’re in the middle of a landscaping project and I’ve been trying to purchase some rocks. The problem is, we need “small” ones (maximum of 800 lbs) and those are the first to sell at Empire Stone when they get rocks delivered. Long story short…After many tries, on a whim I decided to stop on my way to NSE this morning and managed to score 3 palates of these beauties!